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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
October 24, 1989 10:00 pm eastern time
Topic: Beginner's Night
Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
Coach101 Kind of an interesting collection of people for "Beginners Night"
:)
A2GS Any II Technical subscribers out there?
AFA Parik yeah. have you got vol 2 yet?
AFA Parik i wasn't able to contact Randy nor Brian. :( I want issue #2
:)
A2GS Nope...was just going to say that it started shipping last week.
AFL Dyfet Well, we can adjust to the crowd, coach :)
A2GS Waiting for mine...Desperately!!!
AFA Parik great!
Coach101 II Technical ?
AFA Parik II-Tech is a great mag btw. Best info I've seen.
A2GS Any idea what's in this issue?
AFA Parik I know they continue their GS graphics discussion, some AppleTalk
stuff
AFA Parik Its a magazine put out by Randy Hyde (Lisa) and Brian Fitzgerald
(HAL Labs).
A2GS Anything specific?
AFA Parik Its got pure techie info, assembly mainly, and is a bi-monthly
mag. Its real
AFA Parik good, I'll post subscription info in misc
A2GS I thought it was quarterly, parik?
AFA Parik whatever
A2GS :)
AFA Parik has anyone hear written Gs/OS drivers for the SSC?
A2GS Got some articles, I'm going to submit...
AFL Dyfet Parik: Do you mean a
AFL Dyfet 'true' GS/OS device driver, or simply interface code for a GS/OS
application
AFL Dyfet that uses the SSC?
Coach101 SSC or SCC?
AFA Parik ssc. Not SCC
AFA Parik I'm not sure Dave. I guess a interface.
AFA Parik anything to talk to the SSC without firmware. :)
AFL Dyfet Hello there Dave!! I take it things have recovered a bit at
Apple!!??
AFA Parik (the modem port works great with texttools... not a lot of luck
with GS/OS so
AFA Parik far)
AFL Dyfet Okay, Parik, I take it you want something that doesn't genorate
65k unclaimed
AFL Dyfet interrupts as well :)
Coach101 :)
Dave Lyons Howdy! Yup, most of Apple is about back to business as usual
(except we
Dave Lyons have refugees from another building moving into our floor).
AFA Gary J Hi Dave.
Coach101 Evening Dave...
AFL Dyfet One of my weekly rags (free trade publications foisted upon me)
suggested that
AFL Dyfet the R&D group at Apple lost their building...
AFA Parik Did you feel the earthquake that just struck half hour ago Dave?
AFA Parik 4.4 on the scale
AFA Gary J Still quaking, huh? Wow.
Coach101 Yep..... Up/Down... pause..... horizontal motion....
Dave Lyons "The R&D group" isn't a very descriptive term, but there is at
leas
Dave Lyons er...least one uninhabitable building at the moment, and the
people have been
Dave Lyons redistributed to other buildings (including mine).
AFL Dyfet True, since there are many R&D groups, but that's the way the
weekly rag pu
AFL Dyfet t it :)
Ted38 I remember Jim Merritt mentioning they had to move out of his
building
Coach101 What was the vintage of the damaged building... Was it
structural damage
Coach101 or the likes of water/plaster damage?
Dave Lyons Yup, Jim was in that building...there was water damage and some
structural
Dave Lyons damage, too.
Dave Lyons It's pretty old, but it was reinforced in the late 70s, I think.
Ted38 How long will it take to fix--do they know yet?
AFL Dyfet I heard they had a whole floor flooded...ah well, at least nobody
was hurt.
Dave Lyons I don't know.
AFA Gary J Are they even going to fix it, or is it totaled?
Dave Lyons I think they're going to fix it.
DwightW1 fix what?
Coach101 Dave, every tried NiftyList ~w on a NewWindow2 (rez) window?
AFA Gary J One of the Apple buildings
GEMs Daddy "Help with getting started in the event of an earthquake" :-)
AFL Dyfet What brought you here? We've been sidetracked by the quake, but
tonight here
AFL Dyfet is (or was :) 'beginners night' :)
Dave Lyons Coach, I've got it working better in a version I (unfortunately)
haven't
Dave Lyons cleaned up enough to release yet. Window titles can be handles
now, and they
Dave Lyons are for created from resources.
AFL Dyfet Okay, I think we can get started here now :)...Good evening and
welcome to
AFL Dyfet 'Beginner's" night at the Apple II Development Forum :)...Tonight
we will be
AZWOODY Thank you both. I know so little that I will not expose my
ignorance at least u
AFL Dyfet paying special attention to helping those new to programming. We
will be using
AZWOODY until I get my software.
AFL Dyfet PROTOCOL starting NOW, which means if you wish to ask a question,
simply enter
AFL Dyfet a '?' on a line by itself, and if you wish to comment on what is
currently
AFL Dyfet neing discussed, simply enter a '!' on a line by itself. The
floor is now open
AFL Dyfet for those who may have questions :).
AFL Dyfet Okay, Doctor Why, you have the floor now, go ahead...
Doctor Why When starting to learn GS tools, is there a recommended order of
toolsets?
Doctor Why I mean, should one learn Memory Manager before all others?
AFL Dyfet GA A2GS.
A2GS My personnal preferrance was to study the Memory Manager first and
then go on
A2GS to QD...and from there to other things like PDM's, etc...
A2GS GA
AFL Dyfet Memory Manager is an essiatial starting point in my opinion, too
:)...QD would
AFL Dyfet be a good place to go after that since you can then have some
'fun' doing
AFL Dyfet interesting things with it :)...GA Dave.
Dave Lyons Basically, you can learn them in any order you want, and for some
of them you
Dave Lyons will find you need to learn other stuff before you can make much
sense out of
Dave Lyons it. Memory Mgr and QuickDraw II are excellent places to start,
since many
Dave Lyons other toolsets build on them. A few others stand alone (like SANE
and the
Dave Lyons Misc Tools, and Integer Math). ga
Doctor Why Thanks! GA
AFL Dyfet GA Coach!
Coach101 I can not remember the formal title of the publication from Apple,
but
Coach101 the book goes through the tools in a rather straightforward
manner
Coach101 explaining them and what they do in the context of the HodgePodge
program.
Coach101 You might find the book to be a good instructional workbook...
ga
Doctor Why Programmer's Introduction to the Apple IIGS. I believe.
Coach101 Thats it....
AFL Dyfet Okay, GA Scott!
AFL Scott The Lichty Eyes, Book is good too. (Done)
AFA Gary J ^^ Book is called "Programming the Apple IIGS in Assembly
Language"
AFL Dyfet Does anyone else have a book to recommend?
Doctor Why Got that one also. Great book!
AFL Dyfet GA Marty, but please return the floor when you are done :)
AFL Marty Apple IIGS Technical Reference is very good also...
AFL Marty written by some guy named Fischer :)
AFL Marty ga
AFL Dyfet Good choice Marty! That was the first book I got, actually
:)...In fact, I
DwightW1 i liked Programming the Apple IIgs in C and assembly lanu
DwightW1 guage
DwightW1 by Mark Andrews
AFL Dyfet was using it today to answer a question for somebody :).
AFL Marty Actually, it was the first one I got also.
AFL Dyfet GA Gary!
AFA Gary J As far as the order of learning the toolsets goes, you might get
a copy of
AFA Gary J the IIGS Tech Note #12, "Tool Set Interdependencies", to give you
some ideas
AFA Gary J on what relies on what. A knowledge of an underlying toolset
isn't always
AFA Gary J necessary (sometimes the operation is transparent), but it may
help.
AFA Gary J GA
AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe our next question is from Windrider...GA
Windrider.
Windrider5 one of the great things about the Dev.forum for a beginner is the
Let's Discuss
Windrider5 section. The advice from people like dave lysons and coach has
certainly
Windrider5 help me. However, it is also very difficult to go back through
old discussion
Windrider5 Would it be possible to compile these discussion into a single
folder?
AFL Dyfet You may as well take that one, Gary :)
AFA Gary J (I can take the blame for some of this not being done yet!) One
of the things
AFA Gary J that we are trying to do is archive the older messages and make
them avaialble
AFA Gary J in the software libraries for download. The discussion area I've
been trying
AFA Gary J to tackle lateley is the Operating systems folder. But we only
intend to do
AFA Gary J this to older folders, as there is usually a lot of activity in
the newer ones
AFA Gary J and would be hard to keep up with. GA
Windrider5 That would be great! Thank you
AFA Gary J (BTW - some of them are available now... older ones
AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe our next question is from Jeff Davies..GA JD :)
AFA Gary J from the Miscellaneous Discussion area from a few months ago)
GA
AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe our next question is from Dwight. GA Dwight :)
DwightW1 someone give me a loaddown on the 'instrument' data used to make
sound?
DwightW1 i do not understand it at ALLLL!
AFL Dyfet You mean on how to model an instrument for the sound tool? GA
A2...
A2GS You for using the Note Synthesizer?
DwightW1 yes....
A2GS You=You mean
DwightW1 yes
A2GS GA for now...looking it up.
AFL Dyfet Okay, GA Die Mac...
Die Mac Dwight, I'd recommend waiting for the new sound tools which will
be arriving in
DwightW1 example, do you have to figure out the time intervals for the
segments?
Die Mac December. A PROGRAM will be included that will allow you to
digitize instrum
Die Mac ents, and a library of instruments will be included! wow! Right
now its a
Die Mac very complex beastie that has to be manually coded, it specifies
the envelope
Die Mac for the sound which is how long each segment takes to play
Die Mac ga
Die Mac (the program also lets you sequence thru MIDI and play through
note seq! yah)
AFL Dyfet Any other comments?
DwightW1 will look for that program in December. Thanks! ga :)
AFL Marty Excellent!
AFL Marty ::air guitar::
JSchober <snicker>
AFA Gary J :)
Die Mac Imagine - get a cheapo keyboard and turn your GS into a music
studio.
AFL Dyfet That will make a nice christmas present :)
AFL Dyfet GA A2 :)
A2GS Don't have a lot of resources on the subj. at hand, but if you
don't want to
A2GS wait till Dec. (although, I would) I would recommend getting the
book...
A2GS "Exploring the Apple IIGS" which has a chapter dedicated to sound
and discusses
A2GS the Note Synthesizer and offers some sample code. GA
A2GS BTW the book written by Gary Little
AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe our next question is from Ted38! GA Ted :)
Ted38 Any advice for making the jump to assembly language from BASIC?
DwightW1 will do and thanks.
Ted38 I got the IIc and Prodos tech manuals, and understand some of
them, but not a
Ted38 whole lot.
AFL Dyfet Hmmm...GA A2!
A2GS Would recommend Compute's Apple IIGS Machine Language for
Beginners, by Roger
A2GS er...Roger Wagner....clearly describes how to make the transition,
step by step
AFL Dyfet The Merlin Assembler would also be a good place to start, as it's
a MUCH
A2GS GA
AFL Dyfet simpler environment to work with than APW :).
AFL Dyfet GA Gary!
AFA Gary J Also, your stepping from BASIC to assembly doesn't have to be a
big "jump".
AFA Gary J I consider assembly a natural addition to fill the limitations of
AppleSoft
AFA Gary J BASIC. There is much to be learned from studying the "peeks and
pokes" of
AFA Gary J BASIC programs you may already have, and then program some of your
own routines
AFA Gary J that you can "CALL" from BASIC. You don't have to write a whole
bunch of
AFA Gary J code to test something out that way. GA
AFA Gary J the = then
AFL Dyfet Yes, one can put together short simple routines in the monitor and
then call
AFL Dyfet them from Basic and learn a LOT that way :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet (then=them :)..Okay, any further comments?
AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe our next question is from A2 :)...GA A2 :)
A2GS Yes, Dyfet, you were right the first time (then=then)
AFA Gary J :)
A2GS Anyone have the slightest idea on how to change the insert cursor
(blinking
A2GS inverse "I") into the solid inverse cursor, aside from going into
the parms.s
A2GS file and changing it that way, under Merlin 16+...never had
problems changing
A2GS the cursor under regular Merlin 16. GA
AFL Dyfet The old Merlin also did not default to 'insert' mode :)
A2GS Have lost several IQ point while programming and having the mind
altering "I"
AFL Dyfet I think the person to ask might be Glenn himself :).
A2GS blinking hypnotically in front of me. :)
A2GS point=points
AFA Gary J That "I" is for self-centered programming.
Coach101 :0
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet The most fundimental statement in ANY AI programming language,
actually :)
A2GS whatever :) (how do you change it, under Merlin 16+?)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet Well, I don't think you can, other then switching out of insert
mode :)
AFL Dyfet Okay, do we have any other questions or comments for tonight?
Mac Hater the bug of "save as" if you run a p8 program before gs/os still
exists in
Mac Hater 5.02 :(
Mac Hater (before = after gs/os loads up)
A2GS what bug?
Mac Hater It won't save the file.
Mac Hater I just realized it happened today after I ran CII+ and then DPII
Mac Hater It'll work fine if I don't run any P8 programs.
AFL Dyfet GA Dave...
A2GS first you run the p8 program and then you back into gs/os?
Dave Lyons That problem is still one my "this is very strange--investigate
it" list (which
Dave Lyons is not terribly short, unfortunately). ga
AFA Gary J I guess Apple is trying to get us to stay away from P8 programs
:)
AFL Scott That's a version control feature in my book!:)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet No, it keeps users and beta testers alert :)
DwightW1 good night and thanks for the info :)
AFL Scott Maybe... the world does need more lerts, tho!:)
AFL Scott (did I just say that?)
AFL Marty gmta :)
AFA Gary J It must not be too obvious to fix, or I would think it would have
been fixed in
AFA Gary J 5.02
A2GS Yeah, but Beat testing an OS has got to be the most difficult
thing, next to
A2GS writing the OS itself!
A2GS beat=beta
Ted38 What's a version control feature?
AFA Gary J beat sounds better :)
A2GS :)
AFA Gary J more accurate, anyway :)
AFL Scott A bug, Ted. Sorry for the confusion.