💾 Archived View for spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › apple › ADC › adv.881227 captured on 2023-06-16 at 21:08:54.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
AppleLink
APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
December 27, 1988 10:00 pm Eastern
Topic: Apple II Operating Systems
Forum Leader: James Luther (AFL Jim)
AFL Jim Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum. I hope you're have a
AFL Jim season! Tonight, the beginning topic of discussion is Apple II
Operating System
AFL Jim s
AFL Jim ^ a hanging s
AFA Gary J :)
Uhura Lonely little s
ScottG25 I got a turbo mouse, a desk, and a radio controlled car..
AFL Jim ANyone have any questions to start the discussion off?
Uhura B-P
Uhura How do you write an FST (in 25 words or less) B-)
THE GIBBER You don't ;)
Dave Lyons You don't--and if you do, it takes more than 25 words
AFL Jim Ask Apple politely, Uhura
THE GIBBER Just a few more....David....
Dave Lyons I can to it in 6 words: "Apple, PLEASE write a _____ FST."
ScottG25 LOL!!
SteveDodd Yes, like AppleWorks GS or DIcED if you click on a file it auto
load the prog +
THE GIBBER LOL.... How bout this one...... When is the volume 2 of the GSOS
reference
AFL Jim What FST (File System Translators) for GS/OS is everyone waiting
for?
THE GIBBER going to be avaliable?????
SteveDodd plus the file. Does the OS support this ? if so how ?
Uhura DOS 3.2 :)
THE GIBBER HFS
AFA Gary J Right, Uhura... :)
DennisDoms MS-DOS
Dave Lyons Santa, I want FSTs for HFS, MFS, DOS 3.3, Pascal.
AFL Jim OK, Steve first...
Dave Lyons Steve D, the MessageCenter is the mechanism that supports passing
the pathnames
ScottG25 HFS... Hmmm. I almost said MFS... only I didn't...never
mind...:)
AFA Gary J Q = Steve
Dave Lyons of programs to Open and Print; message type #1 is defined & used
by the Finder
AFA Gary J Q = Steve (Dave)
Dave Lyons and by any applications that choose to support it, including AWGS,
DIcEd, and
Dave Lyons probably lots of others. (DIcEd won't actually print, but it'll
tell you that
Dave Lyons it can't. Printing is done by selecting icons in the Finder and
choosing
Dave Lyons Print from the File menu.)
Dave Lyons (ga!)
Dave Lyons [Oh--I believe MessageCenter -is- described in the final
Addison/Wesley tbox
Dave Lyons ref, vol II, under the tool locator chapter.]
AFL Jim John, you're question is next. Volume II of the GS/OS manual is
still being
AFL Jim revised to get it to APDA beta level.
ScottG25 ?
AFL Jim We should see it sometime very soon.
AFA Gary J Q = Scott
AFL Jim Scott, a question (GA)
ScottG25 I was just going to ask if anyone has seen the manual, but
realized that if you
ScottG25 have you couldn't say anything about it... sorry. :(
AFL Jim It looks much like Volume 1 on the outside ;)
DwightW1 ?
ScottG25 Paper, eh?
AFA Gary J Q = Dwight
AFL Jim GA Dwight
THE GIBBER ?
AFA Gary J Q = Dwight, GIBBER
DwightW1 my question is very basic......
DwightW1 how do you get gs/os up and operating from a hard disk drive?
Dave Lyons Use the Installer!
Dave Lyons (It's on the 2nd disk you get.) The trick is that if you have a
SCSI drive,
Dave Lyons first you need to boot up a copy of GS/OS that has the right
driver installed,
Dave Lyons which means you need to use the Installer to install that driver
on a 3.5"
Dave Lyons copy of the system disk, reboot with that, and then use the
Installer again,
Dave Lyons now that the system sees your hard drive.
Dave Lyons (did that help?)
AFA Gary J Q = Dwight (Dave), GIBBER
AFL Jim Dave, that's only needed if you're going to use Apple's SCSI card.
GS/OS builds
HdRockCafe (evening)
AFL Jim a generic driver that should work with most other hard drives.
DwightW1 ....plenty....i must hav missed this in the instructions
AFL Jim (like the Chinook I'm using).
Dave Lyons Right--I should have said "Apple SCSI card" above, not SCSI drive.
You'll need
Dave Lyons the above trickiness only in cases where you need a special driver
to get
AFL Jim Dwight, check out the paperback manual, "Apple IIGS System Tools"
that comes
Dave Lyons GS/OS to recognize your drive.
HdRockCafe ?
AFA Gary J Q = Dwight, GIBBER, HdRockCafe
AFL Jim with GS/OS from your dealer. It has step-by-step instructions for
Installer.
HdRockCafe Ok
DwightW1 will do...thanks!
AFL Jim John, you have the next question. GA
THE GIBBER How bout updates to the toolbox manuals for GSOS... And A GSOS
specific APW?
THE GIBBER any Ideas?
AFL Jim !
AFA Gary J Q = GIBBER (Jim), HdRockCafe
AFL Jim There is an update to the toolbox manuals available from APDA.
SteveDodd ?
AFL Jim I'm sure Mike Westerfield is working on a GS/OS update to ORCA
(same as APW).
DwightW1 ...except that it is not available...
AFA Gary J Q = GIBBER (Jim), HdRockCafe, Steve
THE GIBBER I must have overlooked that one in my Apdalog ;)
THE GIBBER thanks ga
AFL Jim It was when I ordered it, Dwight.
AFL Jim HdRockCafe, you have the next question.
HdRockCafe I am very frustrated, I have been trying to use the Apple
operating system disk
ScottG25 Funny, I got mine from them!
DwightW1 i want it also, talked with apda..
AFA Gary J Q = HdRock, Steve
DwightW1 said it is in print
Coach101 ?
AFA Gary J Q = HdRock, Steve, Coach
HdRockCafe and I need some help, can anyone suggest where I can get some
tutors?
HdRockCafe or a good beginners book
Dave Lyons !
HdRockCafe ga
AFL Jim Which operating system ProDOS or GS/OS?
HdRockCafe Well any of them, I just don't know how the operate
AFA Gary J Q = HdRock (Jim, Dave), Steve, Coach
HdRockCafe I would like to beable to do some simple tasks using the operating
systems
Dave Lyons Do you have the "Apple IIgs system disk users guide" or
whatever?
Scapino Can you be more.....specific?
AFA Gary J From a programmers standpoint, or just with existing
applications?
HdRockCafe Yes, I am the IIGS system disk guide, I would like to work with
existing
HdRockCafe applications
HdRockCafe opps I have
Dave Lyons :)
AFL Jim Do you want to program with the operating system or just use the
Finder?
AFA Gary J Q = HdRock, Steve, Coach
HdRockCafe Jim, I don't even know this Difference :)
HdRockCafe Don't LAUGH
HdRockCafe :)
AFL Jim Well... the manuals that come with the system are the only thing
I've see that
AFL Jim tell you how to use the applications supplied by Apple (the
Finder, Installer,
AFL Jim etc). If you want to start programming with Apple's operating
systems, there
AFL Jim are several good books published by both Apple (through
Addison-Wesley) and by
AFL Jim others. For using the operating system from BASIC, you might want
to get
AFL Jim "ProDOS Inside and Out" byt Dennis Doms and Tom Wieshaar. It
explains the
AFL Jim commands and gives lots of programming examples.
AFL Jim Gary Little should have a new book out sometime in the next couple
of months on
AFA Gary J Q = HdRock, Steve, Coach
AFL Jim programming with ProDOS and GS/OS. It is a total rewrite of his
older book,
AFL Jim "Apple ProDOS: Advanced Features for Programmers"
HdRockCafe Thanks for the informations, next time I will try to be more
specific w/?. :)
AFL Jim Dave, do you have anything to add?
Dave Lyons Nope, you dun good :)
AFL Jim OK, Steve. GA with your question.
SteveDodd I have the toolbox vol ii open, could you give me a brief:) view
of how to pass
AFA Gary J Q = Steve, Coach
AFA Parik ?
SteveDodd parameters with the "MessageCenter" ie
action,type,messageHandle?
AFA Gary J Q = Steve, Coach, Parik
AFL Jim GA Dave, you've worked with this more than I have.
SteveDodd and what are the different ranges for these types! :)
SteveDodd I have orca/pascal
Dave Lyons Ok, just a sec here....
Dave Lyons There are 3 things you can do: post a message, get a message, and
delete a
AFL Jim chapter 24, Dave
AFL Jim :)
SteveDodd page 24-14
Dave Lyons message. The first parameter is 1, 2, or 3 to specify add, get,
delete,
Dave Lyons respectively.
Dave Lyons For all of these things, you need a message id number from 1 to
$ffff, and the
Dave Lyons only currently-defined type is 1, which is used for passing a list
of pathnames
Dave Lyons to applications from Finder-like things. (Types 2 and 3 are also
used by the
Dave Lyons Finder, but they are not documented & are subject to change.)
Now, to post a
Dave Lyons message you need to have your data in a memory block that has been
allocated
Dave Lyons thru the memory manager, so you have a handle to it. You pass the
handle as
Dave Lyons the 3rd parameter to MessageCenter (the msg id was the second
parameter). The
Dave Lyons memory block with your message starts with 4 reserved bytes (room
for 1 pointer
Dave Lyons ) and a 2-byte copy of the message ID (an "integer" in a
high-level language);
AFA Gary J Q = Steve, Coach, Parik
Dave Lyons then you can have as many bytes of actual data as you want (well,
up to 64K,
Dave Lyons I think). In Pascal, you would declare something like TYPE
MessageRec = RECORD
Dave Lyons Next: longint; MessType: integer; MessData: [whatever] END; TYPE
MessagePtr =
Dave Lyons ^MessageRec. For getting a message, you just need a handle to
any memory
Dave Lyons block, possibly even a zero-byte-long memory block, and the
MessageCenter
AFA Gary J Q = Steve (Dave), Coach, Parik
Dave Lyons resizes your handle's block to whatever size is needed & copies
the message
Dave Lyons into it. Questions?
AFL Jim !
AFA Gary J GA Jim
AFL Jim So, an application should make a call to MessageCenter with a
getmessage call
SteveDodd Thanks! great, next how easy is it to write GS/OS installer
scripts ?
AFA Parik !
AFL Jim before doing anything else to see if it should load or print a
file. Right,
AFL Jim Dave?
Dave Lyons Right--you mean like asking the user what file to open? Yes, it
should check
Dave Lyons the MessageCenter first.
AFA Gary J Q = Steve (Dave, Jim, Parik), Coach, Parik
AFL Jim Sounds easy.
Dave Lyons Steve, installer scrips should be pretty easy to write--there is a
document
Dave Lyons someplace describing the format; I don't know if it was just sent
to
Dave Lyons certified developers or what. Anybody remember?
AFA Parik Yup
AFA Parik the APDA version should have it also
ScottG25 It's in the release notes, no?
AFL Jim It comes with the "Apple IIGS System Disk 4.0" from APDA.
AFA Parik not the boxed edition Scott.
ScottG25 Ok, thanks!
SteveDodd Thanks, it's great to get such a good answer, If anyone wants to
buy TML pascal
SteveDodd let me know after forum Ive got orca, ga
AFL Jim OK, Coach. Your turn to ask a question. GA
AFA Gary J Q = Coach, Parik
THE GIBBER ?
Coach101 I may have missed it in the previous conversation, but...
AFA Gary J Q = Coach, Parik, John
Coach101 How the heck do you train finder to know what application
Coach101 to invoke for a given document? ga
Dave Lyons ! (!!!!!)
AFL Jim GA Dave
Dave Lyons Well, the _manual_ says the Finder will figure it out by itself if
you double-
Dave Lyons click on a document of a certain type, get the complaint that it
doesn't know
Dave Lyons what to run for that kind of document, and then launch the right
applicatin
Dave Lyons yourself next; but I believe this has not been implemented. (Yell
if you know
AFA Gary J Q = Coach (Dave), Parik, John
AFA Parik !
Dave Lyons differently!) SO--what you do is use an ICON EDITOR like my DIcEd
(Desktop
Dave Lyons Icon Editor, avail in AUT libraries, Shareware for $15), or Paul
Elseth's
Dave Lyons IconEd, also Shareware for $15 and available in the same place.
You create
THE GIBBER (blatent plug)
Dave Lyons an icon matching a particular filetype and/or auxiliary type
and/or filename
AFL Jim (hehehe)
AFA Gary J hehe
SteveDodd !
Dave Lyons pattern, and you fill in "application pathname" = the name of the
progam
Dave Lyons the Finder should run when you Open or Print that kind of
document. ga
AFA Gary J Q = Coach (Dave, Parik, Steve), Parik, John
AFL Jim Parik, a comment? GA
THE GIBBER !
AFA Parik Is that what the AppleWorks GS 2nd installer does?
Coach101 Thanks.... It does not appear to be implemented in the
Coach101 "for sale" GsOs. Thanks for the info.....
AFA Gary J Q = Coach (Parik, Steve, John), Parik, John
Dave Lyons Parik, dunno but can check. Just installed AWGS today, and I did
it myself
Dave Lyons before I realized they provided installer scripts! :)
ScottG25 !
AFA Parik :-) dave
AFA Parik (Real programmers don't use scripts? :)
AFL Jim Steve, do you have a comment?
AFA Gary J Q = Coach (Steve, John, Scott), Parik, John
Coach101 Scripts are for "slotless" computers!
SteveDodd yes, scripts are very powerful !! the are used by many
programmers!
AFL Jim OK John, GA with your comment.
THE GIBBER If you fill out the application launch the application will
launch; however
THE GIBBER correct me if I am wrong... It will run the application, but won't
open the
Dave Lyons (Real Programmers would rather know exactly what files have been
copied where,
Dave Lyons so they do it from their favorite command shell....)
THE GIBBER file. You have the application running but the file isn't
loaded.... at least
THE GIBBER that is what has happened when I have tried that route ga :)
AFL Jim John, that is correct unless the application supports the
MessageCenter calls
AFL Jim we were discussing earlier.
AFL Jim Scott, your comment... GA
SteveDodd They can be used for debugging purposes, and burning in systems I
know Apollo
SteveDodd Computer uses them!
ScottG25 Geez you guys are good, you both got my comment in two swoops!!:)
GA
AFA Gary J Q = Coach, Parik, John
Dave Lyons !
AFL Jim Dave, GA
SteveDodd I agree the scripts should let you know what is being copied ! if
not I think
SteveDodd that they are poorly written!!!
Dave Lyons BTW, BASIC.LAUNCHER is another application that recognizes the
MessageCenter;
Dave Lyons it passes the first pathname along to BASIC.SYSTEM's startup
buffer (the old
Coach101 Let me know what was copied and deleted in a file or
Dave Lyons convention for ProDOS 8 SYS files). I think it does this even if
you choose
Coach101 hardcopy. I sure like to know who changed waht!
Dave Lyons Print after selecting a BASIC program, actually :) It still just
runs it. ga
AFA Gary J Q = Coach, Parik, John
AFL Jim Parik, your turn to question. GA
AFA Parik Can anyone tell me how to turn off the cursor in the Orca & APW
shells? I
AFA Parik wrote a utility for Orca that uses the GS/OS disk access calls,
and when its
AFA Parik the users turn to change the filetype, you use the arrow keys to
change it.
AFA Parik Well, the cursor gets in the way and it looks sort of ugly, I
moved the cursor
AFL Jim !
AFA Parik out a little but its still blemished. :)
AFA Gary J Q = Parik (Jim), John
AFA Parik (I've tried $E0C000, _Readchar, and $E0C00F)
AFL Jim Print a ASCII $05, Parik.
AFA Parik Aha. Thanks!
AFL Jim (or $85)
AFL Jim $06 or $86 is cursor on.
Dave Lyons BTW, at leat one manual has the $05 and $06 (ctrl-e and ctrl-f)
BACKWARDS, so
AFL Jim $05 or $85 is cursor off.
Dave Lyons try it the other way if it doesn't work. The Firmware manual, I
think.
AFL Jim I always find it fastest in Gary Little's "Exploring..." book.
AFA Parik Ok, will do. Thanks
AFA Gary J Q = John
AFL Jim John, you have the last official question. GA
THE GIBBER This is totally off track..... I haven't published anything I
have programmed
AFL Jim (what track? :)
AFA Gary J :)
THE GIBBER now that I am getting serious about it I am in the process of
becoming
THE GIBBER Certified with Apple.... However I am running into problems
......Like the
THE GIBBER business plan....What do they want on that.... I am getting
conflicting
THE GIBBER opinoins on that subject....some say to make it a formal document
and others
THE GIBBER say to make it very informal..... Can someone give a poor
programmer some
THE GIBBER advise on this matter?
THE GIBBER ga
AFL Jim Hmmm... that's a good question that I'm not sure what to tell you
on. I know
AFA Gary J Q = John
AFL Jim people that are certified on shareware and that doens't take very
much of a
AFL Jim formal business plan. I think the general idea is to prove to
Apple that you're
AFL Jim serious about marketing a product for Apple computers. Once you've
done that,
AFL Jim they'll be ready to help.
THE GIBBER It is just that I am getting conflicting statements on that
part.... I
Dave Lyons !
AFL Jim ga Dave
Dave Lyons Yes, if you're _already_ distributing a product, you _don't_ need
a business
DwightW1 IN talking about certification...i've been told apple is
only....
Dave Lyons plan. You might want to describe your product as "private
direct-mail sales
Dave Lyons from home" or something rather than "Shareware" (but who knows,
maybe that's
Dave Lyons Nth-hand info, where N is too large.... :)
THE GIBBER Have a 50 hour week and I use most of the rest of the time on the
computer so
AFA Parik Try putting your goals, expenditures, and any profits you hope to
have. They
AFA Parik will return the form if you do not have enough information, and
ask you to send
AFA Parik it back.
THE GIBBER not much time left for other stuff
DwightW1 interested in Mac programmers,....is this true?
AFL Jim Not true Dwight.
DwightW1 ...thank the lord!
THE GIBBER The last time I was on the phone with developer services (to get
the
AFA Gary J Q = John
THE GIBBER application) They asked me what the main thrust of the development
was and I
THE GIBBER said Apple //gs and they really pleased.....They said that they
were looking
THE GIBBER for more //gs development.
THE GIBBER ga
AFL Jim Apple has been advertising for both Apple II and Mac Engineers
lately and I
AFL Jim know several Apple II programmers that have been hired there
recently.
AFL Jim They are interested both inside and outside the company.
AFA Parik (I hear whole staffs of online employees have been employed :-)
AFL Jim for something called AppleLink I think, Parik.
THE GIBBER LOL
Coach101 ?
AFL Jim GA Caoch
AFL Jim Coach (oops)
AFA Parik I thought it was McDonalds...:)
ScottG25 LOL, Parik!!
THE GIBBER I am in a den of Certified Developers ahhhhhghhghghgh!!!!!!!! ;)
Coach101 Dumb one again.... AUT libraries? Translation please
DwightW1 ...at least it sounds good for the //gs programmer
AFA Gary J That's MAC Donalds, Parik
AFA Parik hehe
AFL Jim AppleLink Apple II Utilities Forum Libraries.
AFL Jim = AUT
SteveDodd ?
Coach101 Thanks....
Dave Lyons Coach, that means you can hit Apple-K, AUT, return, and then
choose Software
Dave Lyons Libraries to get there.
AFL Jim Use the keyword AUT to get there fast.
AFL Jim GA Steve
SteveDodd Do you know if apple is working on improving APW C?
AFL Jim No word, Steve.
THE GIBBER I had a friend that was programming a "Database, Learning, and
Telecom" program
THE GIBBER He was going to call it "Mac DLT" ;)
AFA Parik haha
AFL Jim I'd like to thank you all for coming to this conference tonight.
Stick around
AFL Jim and chat as long as you want.
Coach101 re: APW C: They still have not found that sysCall != SysCall
AFA Gary J He'd probably have trademark problems with that one, John! :)
DwightW1 dave, jim i want to thank you for the info received..really
appreciate it
SteveDodd ditto
THE GIBBER NO..............;)
AFL Jim Coach, C is case sensitive.
Dave Lyons Dwight, you're welcome.
AFL Jim Dwight, anytime!
AFA Parik Thanks for the cursor info. :)
THE GIBBER Dave.....The info you gave was as good as goal..... A regular
fountian of info
SteveDodd I just find that APW C is just to slow !
Dave Lyons (You too, Steve, if that ditto was referring to Dwight's thanx.)
Coach101 I know that.... Look at CINCLUDES/GSOS.H in the latest APDA
Coach101 release. It does not know it!
AFL Jim Anyone want the address for Developer Services (to ask about
certification
AFL Jim info)?
DwightW1 well...good night....will tell you how i come out with gs/os on my
hard drive
Dave Lyons Yes, Jim, and the GSOS.H does have the problem Coach is talking
about!
AFA Parik Night Dwight!
THE GIBBER <--------Waiting on Transwarp GS before tackling C compiling :)
Coach101 Why not
ScottG25 Gibber... Good reason!!:)
AFA Gary J Goodnight, Dwight
SteveDodd I am spoiled, I program on a sequent computer at school the C
implementation is
SteveDodd much better!
DwightW1 oh...decided to stick around for that address
THE GIBBER Should be out in January...... if those guys at AE didn't give my
dealership
AFL Jim Developer Programs, Apple Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani, MS-51W,
Cupertino, CA
AFL Jim 95014
THE GIBBER the wrong information
DwightW1 telephone #?
AFA Parik I can imagine it now, The Transwarp GS and the new set of
technotes on my
AFA Parik door in January at the same time...:-)
THE GIBBER Goodnight.....folks.... I have to get off the net now.....
:Parik
AFA Parik Night Jon!
AFL Jim Phone number is... (408) 974-4897