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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, March 5, 1991  10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Topic:  Operating Systems
Forum Leader:  Dave Sugar  (AFL Dyfet)


Z Factor   help help please
ShanoJ     What's up, Z
AFL Dyfet  GA Z...
Z Factor   what is the complete syntax for random access text file writing in
           prodos 8???
Z Factor   including parameters?
AFL Dyfet  Do you mean from Basic or the MLI?
AFA Gary J Yes, under what language?
Z Factor   basic, but it doesn't really make a diff because prodos is by
           itself
Z Factor   (i suppose i could use RWTS tho)
Z Factor   is it WRITE FILENAME,Rr,Ff or WRITE FILENAME,Rr,Bb???????
AFL Dyfet  You need an open first :)
Z Factor   (fields or bytes)
Z Factor   :)
AFL Dyfet  As in OPEN FILENAME,Rreclen
AFA Gary J That's the whole key.
Z Factor   yes but if inside the record there are fields, can i access them
           separately?
Z Factor   or do i have to use bytes?
AFL Dyfet  And then you can do READ FILENAME,Rrec# and WRITE FILE,Rrec#. 
           Applesoft does
AFL Dyfet  not use fielded file buffers like some basics's do :)....You can
           only read the
AFL Dyfet  record as a line.....the B parameter is for byte offset, which you
           can use
AFL Dyfet  in place of record number to move around the file....
Z Factor   but there are fields inside!
Z Factor   there is another parameter, what is it???
ShanoJ     non OS ?
Z Factor   but can i use the B parameter inside the Record?
Z Factor   as in READ FILE,Rrecord,Bbyteoffset?
AFL Dyfet  It's been a long time since I've played with Basic.System :)
WinkieJim  David, there is a F parameter....
WinkieJim  the F param let's you count the number of carriage returns... 0 is
           the
WinkieJim  start of the record, 1 is the first CR, 2 the 2nd...
Dave Lyons (You could do a READ filename,Rr and then do a series of INPUTs,
           but you'd always have to read
Dave Lyons the sub-fields sequentially starting with the first one, inside
           each record.)
Z Factor   listen to jim. there is a field parameter i'm sure of it...
AFL Dyfet  The F parameter is to skip lines in a (really text normally)
           file...
Z Factor   but can it be used to skip fields within the record using
           CR's???
Z Factor   (i know this is a long question but it's very important)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I do not recall for certain, but I believe ,F is relative to
           the current
WinkieJim  Z left...
AFL Dyfet  Oh well....
AFL Dyfet  This is going to be one of those nights :)
ShanoJ     Winkie can go before me... Mine's kinda unrelated... :)
AFL Dyfet  GA Winkie...it seems we are at you again :)
WinkieJim  Mine's not even close to that last question...:)
WinkieJim  Ok, I've installed a Heartbeat task and it's being called with no
           problem...
WinkieJim  With it just trying to find a key combination it works fine, but
           when I
WinkieJim  stuck in a _GetName call to see what program's running it will
           bomb after
WinkieJim  being called 3-5 times...
WinkieJim  I made sure that the system isn't busy by checking the busy
           flag...
WinkieJim  Any ideas?
Coach101   Testing....
AFL Dyfet  You called _GetName from within your HeartBeat ISR, though?
WinkieJim  David, right
AFL Dyfet  GA Jonah...
ShanoJ     Isn't there ANOTHER flag that says when GSOS is busy? And, if I
           remember 
ShanoJ     correctly, a whole other queue for tasks like that (ie. interrupt
           type tasks
ShanoJ     that call GSOS)....
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave :)
Dave Lyons The OS -has- a busy flag of its own, but it also increments
Dave Lyons the system busy flag during a call, so there should be no problem
           there.
Dave Lyons Even if you called GS/OS while it was busy, all that would happen
           is you get back error $0007,
Dave Lyons which means "GS/OS is busy."  It doesn't do any harm (unlike
           calling P8 while it's busy).
Dave Lyons I suspect something is going wrong--maybe unrelated to the call,
           or maybe something's wrong with your
Dave Lyons parameter block.  Are you *providing* a pointer for the result
           string?  If you expect it to fill in
Dave Lyons the pointer for you, you'll be trashing memory--it uses the one
           you provide.
WinkieJim  Well, the same exact code without the _GetName call functions
           fine...
WinkieJim  putting the )GetName call in crashes after 3-5 times
Dave Lyons And the call returns with no error?
WinkieJim  Dave, no I'm giving it a nice 36 byte buffer to stick the name
           into
WinkieJim  Yup, no error
Dave Lyons Well, beats me...send some code.  ga
WinkieJim  Is there any good text on writting interupt tasks?
AFL Dyfet  I guess we had better move to Jonah's question then :)
ShanoJ     Okay... I just wanna know if anyone here has seen/heard of the SDE
           Shell from
ShanoJ     SEA software... It's supposedly a massively cool replacement for
           APW. Comments?
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt...
Matt DTS   I've seen/heard of it.  If you're the guy who wrote it, it's
           perfect for you.  It doesn't function the
Matt DTS   same way as the ORCA shell does, which isn't necessarily bad, but
           Apple disagrees with some of the
Matt DTS   author's practices (i.e., getting new user IDs for every file he
           edits, not purging or disposing of
Matt DTS   files in memory when you quit the editor), but it does have some
           nifty menu-script driven capabilities
Matt DTS   and an assembler the author swears is the cats pajamas.  End of
           opinion.  GA.
ShanoJ     Anyone else? :)
AFL Dyfet  I guess not, Jonah...only heard about it myself...
ShanoJ     Okey doke, I'll be quiet then... :)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Sting, you have the floor now...go ahead...
StingRay63 A GS/OS question.  Does anyone think it will become a multitasking
           os in
StingRay63 the future?
AFL Marty  GA Dave
Dave Lyons GS/OS is unlikely to ever be pre-emptively multitasking, which is
           probably what you're
Dave Lyons asking; but as I understand it, neither is Unix(tm)!  Just because
           you can't yank control
Dave Lyons away from an OS call doesn't mean you can't do -cooperative-
           multitasking (whether partly
Dave Lyons interrupt driven or not).
JWankerl   (Yah, the Leapfrog program demonstrates that bit)
Dave Lyons Many parts of the toolbox already support multitasking to a cool
           enough degree, but then
Dave Lyons again other parts don't.  It's hard to predict.  ga
AFL Dyfet  Bumped :(...What Dave points out is very true...I have written a
           simple
AFL Dyfet  scheduler without a single pre-emtive interrupt :)....
AFL Scott  (Is there such a thing as post-emptive? :))
WinkieJim  Scott it's called a crash :) 
AFA Gary J :)
StingRay63 Just asking because am presently on a //e and would like to
           upgrade in the
StingRay63 near future.  Thanks for the info.  ga
AFL Dyfet  Okay, go ahead Winkie...
WinkieJim  Okay, assume the memory manager, misc tools and QD have been
           started up...
WinkieJim  Would starting up the event manger with a different memory ID be
           ok?
WinkieJim  Or do the toolsets like to use the same memID that is given to
           them?
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt...
Matt DTS   Different as in a different auxiliary ID, or different as in a
           totally new user ID?
WinkieJim  totaly new ID
Matt DTS   In reality, the tools currently don't care too much, but they
           might in the future.  It's also not
Matt DTS   a nice thing to do (trying to fool the system).  Why do you want
           to do it?
WinkieJim  I need to use the event manager from a interupt rouine and am
           trying to start i
WinkieJim  it up if it's not active...
Dave Lyons Eh?  What can you do with the Event Manager from inside an
           interrupt?
AFL Scott  (become recursive:))
Dave Lyons (Or what do you -think- you can do? :-)
AFL Dyfet  :)
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons (And what interrupt?)
WinkieJim  heartbeat task...
WinkieJim  as to what I want to do....
WinkieJim  ...don't think I want to go into that...it's probably won't
           work...just wondering
WinkieJim  what the event manager would recact to being started and
           shutdown within a
WinkieJim  heartbeat task
Dave Lyons Okay, then for the record
Dave Lyons I'll just point out that using the EM entirely from inside an
           interrupt routine wouldn't be very
Dave Lyons helpful, since no key-down or mouse-down events would occur (they
           get posted during interrupts),
Dave Lyons and the tick count would not advance.  Oh, and the mouse location
           would not change.  ga
AFL Dyfet  Other than that...:)...An eventless event loop :)
WinkieJim  hmmm, ok, I think that answers my questions...
Dave Lyons But,
Dave Lyons if you want to -start- and -stop- it from a hearbeat, I suppose
           you could--although it seems
Dave Lyons like you'll mostly just confuse the foreground application
           big-time.  In that case, I'd recomment
Dave Lyons you post a GS/OS SIGNAL to do the startup/shutdown, rather than
           actually doing them from inside the
Dave Lyons heartbeat task.  ga again
WinkieJim  GS/OS Signal?
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Signals are described in one of the GS/OS reference
           books...probably the Driver reference, as MD will
Dave Lyons probably confirm.  You can call the SIGNAL service to post one;
           it's somewhat like calling SchAddTask
Dave Lyons to make the Scheduler dispatch to your task later, only it doesn't
           depend on the Busy flag being
Dave Lyons nonzero, and it's a much zanier dispatching mechanism.
WinkieJim  Did you guys add a feature without telling me! :)
Dave Lyons (The GS/OS Driver Reference is an APDA thang.)
Matt DTS   Coach101 can give you more information on it, but the
           documentation reference is indeed GS/OS Device
Matt DTS   Driver Reference.  It's a System Service call, so you can't make
           it from a high-level language without
Matt DTS   glue.
ShanoJ     (see, told you that existed... :)
Dave Lyons Oh, and interrupts are generally enabled when a signal gets
           dispatched; this is not necessary
Dave Lyons true for SchAddTask tasks.  ga
Dave Lyons (Or without imbedded assembly code.)
Dave Lyons (BTW, you can make OS calls from a signal,
Dave Lyons and EMStartUp might just need to do that, when loading the key
           translation resource.)  done
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I guess Parik can have the floor now :)...GA Parik...
AFA Parik  does anyone have the # for Kfest reservations handy?
JWankerl   something 6502
WinkieJim  913-469-6502
WinkieJim  I like that phone number! :)
AFA Parik  thanks, done
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J That was quick.
AFL Dyfet  Okay, does anyone else have a question for tonight?
WinkieJim  That didn't even make matt or Dave sweat...let's get another tough
           one
AFL Dyfet  Ga Wankerl...
JWankerl   How come my fmdEditMenu call isn't working properly?
Matt DTS   Because you're not holding your tongue properly.
Dave Lyons What's it doing?
ShanoJ     :)
AFA Gary J :)
Matt DTS   Because your edit menu items don't have the standard menu item
           numbers.
Dave Lyons (250..254)
Matt DTS   Because ... yeah, what _is_ it doing?
JWankerl   Well... it does its stuff when a NDA is front - so my menu items
           *are*
JWankerl   numbered correctly.
JWankerl   But when something with a LineEdit or TextEdit control in it is
           front,
JWankerl   the edit things are all dimmed.
Dave Lyons Is there some text selected?  Is there anything text on the
           clipboard?
Dave Lyons If not, they will be dimmed.
JWankerl   I think there is something in the clipboard - didn't think to
           select
JWankerl   something, though.  :-)
Matt DTS   Note that FMD will not enable edit items if there is no target
           control, either.
Dave Lyons Well, no selection explains everything but Paste; if there was no
           text on the clipboard that
Dave Lyons explains Paste too (or if the target Text Edit control was
           read-only).  Yeah, or if you have no
Dave Lyons target control at all.
Matt DTS   Quoting from the manual you should have picked up at KansasFest:
Matt DTS   "If the current target control is a LineEdit control, fmdEditMenu
           enables cut, copy and clear if
Matt DTS   any text is selected.  Paste is also enabled if a text scrap
           longer than zero bytes exists."
JWankerl   Okay.  And one more FMD question -- is there a way I can change
           the cursor to
JWankerl   an I-beam in my main event loop (not using the fakeModalDialog
           call) by
JWankerl   using the FMD tools?
Matt DTS   "If [target is editable TE control], fmdEditMenu enables cut, copy
           and clear, and Paste if a >0 
Matt DTS   text scrap exists."  (For read-only TE records, cut paste and
           clear are disabled.)
JWankerl   (automatically when it passes over a TE or LE control, that is)
Dave Lyons Isn't there a fmdSetIBeam call?
Dave Lyons One of them thangs does it.
JWankerl   Yah, there's a call, but I want to change it only if it's over a
           TE or LE
JWankerl   control.
Matt DTS   Sure - use...
Matt DTS   ...fmdGetIBeamAdr.  This gives you the address of FMD's IBeam
           cursor so you can do stuff with it, 
Matt DTS   although, I don't know why you don't just use fmdIBeamCursor
           instead of SetCursor(fmdGetIBeamAdr).
Dave Lyons Okay, so call fmdFindCursorCtl to see what control you're over,
           and check the control's procID field
Dave Lyons to see what kind of control it is.
JWankerl   It'd be nice if FMD did that for me since it has to do it itself
           anyhow.
Matt DTS   Joe - it does!  
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt...
Dave Lyons Matt, he means for windows other than modal dialogs.
Matt DTS   As long as you have bit 3 of the flags word set, FMD automatically
           does that over LE and TE controls.
Matt DTS   Oh...you want FMD to work for non modal-dialog windows?  Yeah,
           you'll have to do that yourself.
Matt DTS   FMD wasn't supposed to be the "complete user-interface-in-a-box
           tool", just a step in the
Matt DTS   right direction.  GA.
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Coach, go ahead....
JWankerl   I'm done -- for now.
Coach101   What is FMD?
ShanoJ     Fake Modal Dialog.
Coach101   Thanks....
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Gary, Ga...
AFA Gary J Is there anything that could cause an ACE $1D08 error other than
           the obvious
AFA Gary J source and destination areas overlapping in memory?  If not, is
           there any
AFA Gary J outside occurance that could cause the overlap to occur (such as
           low memory, or
AFA Gary J just a bogged down system :)
AFA Gary J GA
AFA Gary J (I've seen this happen, out of the blue, on a program that has
           been working
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
AFA Gary J for months.... ) GA
Dave Lyons Gary, weren't you having this same problem last year? :)  If it's
           reproducable, I'd like to
Dave Lyons see it.
AFA Gary J :)  
AFA Gary J The trouble is, it only occurs on very strange circumstances -
           while I'm in the
AFA Gary J ORCA shell, and after I've
           run/assembled/linked/run/assembled/linked for many
AFA Gary J times.
JWankerl   Well that's the problem right there - the ORCA shell!
AFA Gary J It could be, but that's what I'm wondering.
Dave Lyons Well, can you modify your program so that on getting the error it
           displays the source and
Dave Lyons destination parameters, along with the addresses & handle sizes of
           the handles?
AFA Gary J Yes, that was going to be my next plan, since it has me real
           curious.
AFA Gary J The trouble is, I have to catch it in the act.  I spent 30
           mintutes prior to
WinkieJim  I always get curious when my programs crash too...
AFA Gary J this conference this evening trying to get it to do it again (so
           I could take
AFA Gary J a good look with Nifty List), but I couldn't get it to do it.  Oh
           well.  I may
AFA Gary J be doing something wrong something wrong, I'll just look harder
           :)  GA
AFL Dyfet  GA Coach...
Coach101   Gary, do you ever have problems with other programs, tools,
           compilers after a whole bunch
Dave Lyons :), :)
Coach101   of edit, compile, link, execute iterations in ORCA?
AFA Gary J Well, sometimes Coach, but I'm not sure if I can attribute it to
           ORCA in every
AFA Gary J case.
Coach101   To attempt to exonerate ORCA (or blame your program) you could
           change the program to an S16 and 
Coach101   repetively execute it from another launcher to see if the same
           problem ever appears.  ga
AFA Gary J Well, it IS an S16 program, but it returns to ORCA each time
           (with most shell
AFA Gary J info intact)
AFL Dyfet  Prizm I'd be more quick to judge harshly than ORCA shell...you
           could use
AFL Dyfet  Nifty to see if anything strange is happening with avail memory
           between each
AFL Dyfet  Orca invokation, Gary :)...
AFA Gary J Ok, thanks.  I'll see what I can figure out.

James S WI Where can I get DUPLICATE or any utility to copy a resource onto a
           regular file
AFL Dyfet  (James, you can try APDA for the APW tools update...I do not know
           of a pub.
AFL Dyfet  domain 'duplicate)...
AFL Dyfet  (though it would not be hard to write one :)
Matt DTS   Bryan Pietrzak's COPY command copies files with resource forks. 
           Part of ZakPak, should be online
Matt DTS   here somewhere.
AFA Parik  (email BRYAN ZAK for info on ZakPak.)
ShanoJ     I'm gunna upload ZakPak as soon as I get a minute...
AFA Gary J (Great, Jonah! )
ShanoJ     (Even have it all packed, ready to go... :)
WinkieJim  Just checked... There's a program called ResLin that does resource
           moving and
WinkieJim  copying...
ShanoJ     LLRE Is better, Winkie... :)
James S WI Do they work from the ORCA shell?
WinkieJim  Well I use GeneSys mostly myself..
ShanoJ     They're both dekstop applications....
James S WI I mean are ther exe or s16?
James S WI That answers it.
WinkieJim  ResLin is sys16

AFL Dyfet  Okay, Jim...go ahead, you have the floor...
DYA Jim1   Ok; I think I found a little bug in SF.  When the open button is
           dimmed, in
DYA Jim1   a getfile dialog box, OA-down arrow still works and enables and
           flashes the
DYA Jim1   open button.  It doesn't cause any damage; just a cosmetic thing..
            anyone
DYA Jim1   else see this?
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Yup, I did. :-)  Don't be surprised if that eventually doesn't
           happen any more.  As I recall,
Dave Lyons the button is left enabled after that little trick, but you're
           right, it's just cosmetic.
Dave Lyons (BTW, please *do* report stuff like that (to me, for example)--we
           can't have found them all)
DYA Jim1   Ok..  thanks Dave.. GA
AFL Dyfet  Okay, go ahead Wankerl...
JWankerl   That reminded me of a quirk I just found with SF - when you click
           on the
JWankerl   Volumes button when you're in some directory that's not the root
           and then
JWankerl   you click on the 'Select Volume:' string above the list (or
           whatever it's
JWankerl   titled) you will be taken back one directory from where you
           clicked on the
JWankerl   Volumes button.
Dave Lyons Really??  Hmmm, hadn't heard of that one.  (scribble....)
JWankerl   Actually it's kinda neat if you didn't want to hit the Volumes
           button.  :-)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, do we have any more questions for tonight?
Dave Lyons (Besides that one?)
AFL Dyfet  That was a question, alright :)
ShanoJ     Okay, I'll take a shot... :)
AFA Gary J Both of them.
Dave Lyons ("Sir; may I ask a question?"  "Data, I think you just did."  "Yes
           sir.  Then, may I ask another
Dave Lyons after this one?")
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  Data follows ADV protocol :)
ShanoJ     First: What would people like to see in the way of new programming
           utilities?
ShanoJ     Next: What would people like to see in the way of new NiftyList
           modules (I'm
ShanoJ     kinda getting into them... :)
JWankerl   I'd like to see a NL module that does GSBug Templates.  :-)
Coach101   A post associated source level debugger....
AFL Dyfet  :)
Dave Lyons How 'bout one that will tell me what next week's Apple stock price
           will be?  That would be cool....
JWankerl   Nifty List -- programmer aid and stock broker.
ShanoJ     Would that be a shell utility or a NiftyList module, Dave? :)
Coach101   Geez Dave, they just lowered your option point for you last summer
           :)  
AFL Dyfet  Or one that picks winning Lotto numbers :)
AFA Gary J I'd like to see one that would identify bit flags (i.e. event
           flags, etc.)
Matt DTS   (We don't give Dave options.  That requires him to actually decide
           something.)  <ducking>
AFA Gary J or something like that.  
AFL Dyfet  Hmmm...
Dave Lyons (Yes Matt, you make a nice duck.)
ShanoJ     I thought a cool idea would be something like Templates, but for
           FILES. It'd
ShanoJ     load in a file and label all of the parts for you. Particularly
           useful if
ShanoJ     you're trying to make files for some other program (say AWGS). You
           have your
ShanoJ     program save them, then the module load 'em up, so you can make
           sure that 
ShanoJ     everything got into the proper position...
ShanoJ     Then again, I also thought that a MiniAssembler module for
           NiftyList would be
ShanoJ     nice, so what do I know... :)
Matt DTS   Of course, you'll have to make it modular enough so that others
           can add their own file descriptions.
Coach101   Thats a neat idea Jonah!
ShanoJ     Of course, Matt. That's the whole idea (notice the reference to
           Templates).
JWankerl   Of course it's work for both data forks and resource forks.  ;-)
JWankerl   (Reference noted - one brownie point awarded)
ShanoJ     So, I take it from the overwhelming response that the GS is a
           mature computer
ShanoJ     and needs no more utilities?
AFA Gary J Ha! :)  (I think every programmer in the world is constantly
           asking himself the
AFA Gary J quesion, "What is the utility that everyone needs?" :)
Matt DTS   Jonah, people think of utilities that are needed when they can't
           get something done, not while sitting
Matt DTS   in a conference (unless there's a recent frustration memory).
ShanoJ     Or that because you're all programers yourselves, you wanna keep
           your ideas
ShanoJ     to yourselves... :)
Dave Lyons (Jonah, maybe they're saying it needs more menu-driven utilties
           and fewer weird-command-line
Dave Lyons syntax utilities....)
ShanoJ     I didn't say it had to be command line... Desktop utilites count,
           too.
Dave Lyons (Oh, I thought the question was still "What Nifty List modules do
           people want?"  Sorry....)
AFA Gary J Are you gonna write my Integer Math calculator CDA?  If not, I'll
           write it :)
AFA Gary J (I just want to use it)
Coach101   Though there is always room for another utility, I do think that
           the IIgs native development
Coach101   environment is fairly mature.
Coach101   Now, the hot area may be "development" utilities for developing
           HyperCardIIgs stacks...
Coach101   Much bigger marketplace I suspect :)
ShanoJ     Oh, has anyone gotten Prizm to work under 5.0.anything?
JWankerl   I didn't use Prizm 10 minutes after I got it.  I really dunno.
ShanoJ     Ya, me either... The other day I wanted to play with it a bit (did
           you know
ShanoJ     it does window PANES?!) but it wouldn't boot any more... :(
JWankerl   window panes?  Ain't that a new technote somewheres?
AFA Gary J :)
ShanoJ     Naw, that's "Aren't windows a Pane?"
AFA Gary J Yeah, that's it.  
ShanoJ     BTW, Dave, could you explain Mr. Tangent and Of Course I Trust
           You, I'm Just
ShanoJ     Checking?
JWankerl   (and also explain Dave "Eh?" Lyons ;-)
ShanoJ     Or do I have to send EMail to Mike Opitz for that, too? :)
Dave Lyons Sure,
Dave Lyons anyone spending significant time near me while I'm supposed to be
           getting work done finds that I
Dave Lyons frequently go off on tangents.  All of them, if possible.
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons ("Whoa!  Now I see why it's crashing, it's doing a BlockMove by 5
           bytes across all the softswitches;
Dave Lyons Gee, I wonder exactly what effect that has & why...." :)
Dave Lyons And I would make a good diplomat when it comes to arms control or
           something:  Trust and verify.
Dave Lyons I have to actually try it out or look it up (or preferably both)
           before I believe it (anything
Dave Lyons relating to the GS, that is).
Dave Lyons "Mr. Tangent" is on my business cards.
Matt DTS   (He's been known to irritate people by listening to their
           explanations and trying it in Nifty List...
Matt DTS   ...even though they just told him how it works.)
Dave Lyons And even though they weren't quite right half the time.
JWankerl   You shoulda seen him track down a bug in Transfusion at Kansas
           last summer...
AFA Gary J :)
JWankerl   out of the blue "Oh, you didn't do a setport"   
JWankerl   From god knows where inside the toolbox - code that didn't mean a
           thing he
JWankerl   exclaims this.
ShanoJ     That's why he works for Apple and we don't, Joe... :)
Dave Lyons (Elementary, my dear JW...as soon as it crashed -inside
           quickdraw-, that was an easy guess. :)
Dave Lyons I can do better than that, I found a bug at lunch just talking
           about a guy's code...he didn't realize
Dave Lyons a handle had to be unlocked and non-fixed when grown with
           SetHandleSize to be sure it will work.
Dave Lyons (Didn't even know there was a bug.... :)
Dave Lyons (Gee, I've bored everyone to death again. :(
A2Evanglst Dave Lyons, The "Black Flag" of Apple Computer... Kills Bugs Dead
           ;)
JWankerl   So... anyone know any good IIGS references for AppleTalk *besides*
           the 
JWankerl   Inside Appletalk and AppleShare PRogrammer's Guide for the Apple
           II?
Matt DTS   Joe:  No, that pretty much covers it all.  What more do you
           need?
Nuzz       Is the special price on CD drives still in effect?
Matt DTS   Nuzz:  Call the hotline and ask.
Dave Lyons (Yeah, call...I believe there's an ongoing special price for new
           partners and associates, but beyond
Dave Lyons that I don't know.)

JWankerl   I need something that tells me what to do!!!!!!!
JWankerl   Both those books are cryptic.
Matt DTS   They're not network primers.  You might want "AppleTalk Network
           System Overview" for a technical
Matt DTS   introduction to the network.  Developer University also has an
           introductory AppleTalk class.
Dave Lyons ("It was hard to implement; it should be hard to use!"  <--joke
           :)
ShanoJ     That's why there aren't any OTHER references, Joe... :)
Dave Lyons (BTW, this might make a good DTS sample some year:  real live
           working examples of all the calls.)
JWankerl   Exactly.  Go thru each protocol and give examples of what to do.
JWankerl   Examples are really what I need.
Dave Lyons (Along with comments saying when & why you'd want to use each
           call.)
Matt DTS   Would you like French Fries with that?
JWankerl   Yes, but not too much salt - it's bad for the heart.
Matt DTS   (Dave is the same one who, every time I report a bug, says "fix
           it" but thinks DTS exclusively gets
Matt DTS   to write all the sample code.)
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons I didn't say DTS had to write it; I said it would make a good DTS
           sample.  Anybody you can get to
Dave Lyons make time to do it, go for it.
Matt DTS   You volunteering?  :)
Dave Lyons (I am not volunteering at this time.)

AFA Gary J Well, I'm gonna go and see if I can get my program to crash :)
ShanoJ     Gary...
AFA Gary J Yes, Jonah?
ShanoJ     The idea of programming is to NOT make your programs crash....
           :)
AFA Gary J :)
JWankerl   Unless, of course, you're writing GSBug or something.
ShanoJ     That might be what's slowing you down here....
AFA Gary J Yes, but I've had a particular bad time with the ORCA shell. 
           It's the problems
AFA Gary J that have "gone-away" that I used to have that worry me the most
           :)
AFA Gary J All the problems have only occured (as far as I know... I do have
           a few beta
AFA Gary J versions of my program sprinkled around) under the ORCA shell,
           during 
AFA Gary J development.
ShanoJ     Well, then as long as you don't distribute the source you don't
           have to worry
ShanoJ     about it... :)
AFA Gary J :)
JWankerl   Don't write for GS+, then.
Nuzz       What does GS+ pay for programs?
JWankerl   Nuzz:  Depends on the program - no less than $50, I believe. 
           That's a low
JWankerl   bottom end, though.
AFA Gary J Somehow, the most annoying problem (of having to COLD re-boot in
           order to
AFA Gary J re-edit ANY source file after running my program) has gone
           away.
AFA Gary J (The problem with the "Invalid Text Data")
ShanoJ     Have you ever used MAX/Edit? Their choice of stealing a system
           toolset was 
ShanoJ     REALLY stupid, because you have to boot with a system disk that
           has that 
ShanoJ     toolset on it in order to get into the editor... :( For people
           writing things
ShanoJ     like Twilight that have boot parts that sometimes don't work,
           meaning that you
ShanoJ     have to boot from floppies instead of the HD, that can be REALLY
           annoying. :(
JWankerl   Man, it only takes 3 lines of code to use a user toolset and
           install it.  :-(
Matt DTS   The author of MAX/Edit felt his stolen system toolset was "too
           ingrained in the design" to change,
Matt DTS   whatever that means.
AFA Gary J I've never tried that, Jonah.  I actually like the ORCA editor
           well enough. 
AFA Gary J I'd just like it better if it could (1) edit more than one file
           at a time - and
AFA Gary J (2) edit files larger than 64K.
ShanoJ     Gary: Try MAX/Edit--except for a few little flaws, it's GREAT. I
           couldn't 
ShanoJ     believe how wonderful it was until I tried it!
ShanoJ     Matt: here's one time when I'm completely on your side: a system
           toolset theft
ShanoJ     was a BAD idea. :(
Matt DTS   I use EdIt-16, now shipping from SSSi (got mine today). 
           Completely modifiable, up to 9 files
Matt DTS   open at any time. EXE or S16, uses command line or message
           parameters, every command is configurable.
ShanoJ     Uggh... I have EdIt-16, but I didn't like it to much. I think
           MAX/Edit is a 
ShanoJ     LOT better... (In fact, I installed EdIt-16 on MAX/Edit as a
           Min/Shell
ShanoJ     utility... :)
Matt DTS   Only flaw is that it has 64K file limits.  <sigh>
Matt DTS   Jonah:  "uggh" is not useful in software review discussions.
ShanoJ     I think that SSSi should have done a little more work on
           EdIt-16... One thing
ShanoJ     that I really don't like is that you have to refer to language
           types by auxType
ShanoJ     rather than by name. _I_ sure never remember the auxTypes... :(
JWankerl   LINKER is 265... I think.
Matt DTS   Jonah:  A good point, but building in a table of auxtypes requires
           an update to add new ones.
ShanoJ     Matt: MAX/Edit uses FTD files.... :)
AFA Gary J As to the 64k file limit, I could live with that (I don't think
           source files
AFA Gary J should be bigger than that), BUT, there's always the one time
           when you need to
AFA Gary J break down a large file that you've created/obtained from
           someplace else that
AFA Gary J makes it all worthwhile.
ShanoJ     Gary: Macgen can only handle 64K files, so you're right that
           that's not too
ShanoJ     useful.... :)
JWankerl   Macgen - "Scanning opy can't be opened" or something like that.
Matt DTS   MAX/Edit has a good interface in many cases, but for me the design
           flaws are not worth messing up
Matt DTS   my system for.
Matt DTS   I don't want to crash in some other program because it used up all
           the user IDs and wouldn't purge
Matt DTS   memory when not in the editor.
ShanoJ     Well, I think the preservation of workspaces around editor uses
           AND the built
ShanoJ     in shell can't be beat!
ShanoJ     Then again, I EXPECT my system to crash regularly (and I'm not
           disappointed...)
ShanoJ     so I guess we come at it from different angles... :)
Matt DTS   Well, to each his own.  You probably use unreliable screen
           dimmers, too.
ShanoJ     Ya, that I do... In fact, I WRITE them and force them on others,
           too... :)
ShanoJ     And, truth be told, I DO do it all just to make Matt's life a
           living hell... :)
AFA Gary J :)