America Online APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG Tuesday, October 9, 1990 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Topic: Debugging and Testing Software Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet) AFL Dyfet Good evening and welcome to the Apple II Development AFL Dyfet Forum. Tonight we will be discussing software testing (not that anyone's AFL Dyfet software ever has bugs...only features)...We will not be using protocol just AFL Dyfet yet....so whomever wishes to start, feel free to grab the floor :) AFL Dyfet Dave, Matt, out of curiosity, what quality control methods does Apple use for AFL Dyfet new software? Dave Lyons Well, basically we have "testers" and a Dave Lyons "Bug Reporting Center" where they (or whoever) file Dave Lyons bugs. When an engineer claims a bug is fixed, the Dave Lyons tester gets to verify that it's fixed, and bugs are later "regressed" to make sure they're Dave Lyons really still fixed (in case somebody built the final disk with the wrong version of a Dave Lyons source file, or whatever--stuff like that can definitely happen!). AFA Parik (like setting the beta bit on a system software version? ;) ShanoJ Anyone know what's up with the Scheduler? It just flat out don't seem to work ShanoJ on some peoples computers. :( AFL Marty <-- some people (I think) ShanoJ Ya, Marty, you classify as some people. For more than one reason. :) AFL Marty Thanks, I think. Dave Lyons Jonah, if the Scheduler doesn't work it's because somebody INCBUSYed more than they DECBUSYed. I Dave Lyons bet if they strip out their DAs & stuff it's fixed. Oh, Draft mode printing on 5.0.2 and earlier Dave Lyons calls SetGrafProcs, which INCBUSYs once too many--does that help? ShanoJ Uh uh, Dave. I check the busy flag, and it's set to 0. I call SchAddTask, and ShanoJ get a result flag of TRUE, but the task is never called. Dave Lyons Jonah, the only other thing I can think of is that the "scheduler is busy" flag got set when a Dave Lyons scheduled task was dispatched but never returned (i.e., you crash in a scheduled task). In that Dave Lyons case on ROM 1 only the scheduler doesn't work again until you power off or do a self-test. ShanoJ Ya, I've thought about that but my tester turns on the computer and trys my ShanoJ test program IMMEDIATELY. That means that it is HIGHLY unlikely that it's the ShanoJ bug in the Scheduler task flag. Dave Lyons Okay, one more thing: You're calling the scheduler WHILE the busy flag is 0? In that case, the task Dave Lyons should be executed only after somebody calls INCBUSY and then DECBUSY. SchAddTask never Dave Lyons dispatches the task immediately, so if the BUSY flag is 0 you don't normally want to Dave Lyons call SchAddTask. ShanoJ Okay, so I've got it backwards? I should only call SchAddTask if the busy flag ShanoJ is SET? Ahh, that might be what's messing me up! Thanks, I'll give that a try ShanoJ (and if it doesn't work... :) Dave Lyons Right--if E100FF is 0, the system *isn't* busy, so you don't have to use the scheduler. ShanoJ On a related note, is there any way to recover from a tool break in GSBug? AFA Parik 'r' ShanoJ Well, actually, I've only set tool breaks on SchAddTask, and the GS just ShanoJ crahses and sits there. Dave Lyons What version? ShanoJ v1.5 Dave Lyons Should work fine. UNLESS your stack was in $01xx. (In that case you can improve Dave Lyons the behavior by setting $01/0100 to $80--this will make interrupts not trash your page-1 stack while Dave Lyons you're in GSBug. ShanoJ And one more thing: if, from an interrupt, I need to call the Scheduler, what ShanoJ do I do? I'm not supposed to hog the interrupt, but if the busy flag is clear ShanoJ I'm supposed to just go do my thing.... ShanoJ What's at $01/0100? Dave Lyons Good question. What's "your thing"? ShanoJ Guess. It's blanking in Twilight, of course! :) Dave Lyons $01/0100 is the position of the $01xx stack whenever the stack pointer *isn't* in page 1. More Dave Lyons specifically, it's the main-memory page 1 stack, and $01/0101 is the auxiliary-memory page-1 stack Dave Lyons (period) ShanoJ Is there any way to shadow $002000 into $012000? AFA Parik yes AFA Parik readrm=0,writeram=1 in $e0c068 AFA Gary J Hmmmm.. What do you need to do that for?? AFA Parik (don't do it under gs/os) AFA Gary J ($002000 into $012000?) ShanoJ I wanna do a weird scroll, and I need to do some strange shadowing. ShanoJ Ya, I knew that, Parik. Then again, I'm not particularly fond of my HD, so I ShanoJ might just do it anyway.... :) AFA Gary J Weird, strange... hmmmm. Sounds like an interesting program :) AFL Dyfet Okay, does anyone have any questions related to tonight's topic?? ShanoJ What exactly is tonights topic? AFA Gary J You've been touching on in already, Jonah :) AFL Marty (debugging, Jonah) ShanoJ Oh ya, I knew that. :) Just wait till I get going... :) AFA Parik is gs/os vol 3 shippin' yet? AFA Parik er, i mean the addison-wesley one WinkieJim Parik, Toolbox Vol 3 is. AFA Gary J GS/OS Reference, he means :) AFA Parik GS/OS Reference:The Book. The Zen of GS/OS . Whatever its called. WinkieJim GS/OS re f(only vol) is too WinkieJim <---have both final versions AFA Gary J BOTH final versions? Of GS/OS Reference? AFA Parik GS/OS and you. How to live in a MSDos world with GS/OS. Sex, lies, and GS/OS. WinkieJim of GS/OS Reference and Toolbox Vol 3 ShanoJ Anyone know what might be screwing up the menu bar in View 3200? I'm 99% sure ShanoJ I'm not BLATANTLY stepping on any memory... AFA Gary J Have you used Big Brother to check it? AFA Gary J :) ShanoJ No, that I haven't. Good idea! WinkieJim Does it only get messed up when you don't select something? ShanoJ It only gets trashed after you view a 3200 color picture... WinkieJim Shano, make sure you keep the menu titles in no-purgable and non-movable memory ShanoJ Yup, they're in the body of my program (no resources for this one yet) so if ShanoJ THEY get purged, I'm in DEEP trouble. :) WinkieJim Oh...I love purging the code I'm executing code in :) :) AFL Dyfet Self relocating executing code...core wars lives! :) WinkieJim Ok, anyone have any idea how a non-registered developer can get a AuxType WinkieJim reserved for himself? ShanoJ Can't you just send one of those forms to DTS? ShanoJ Oh, and Matt and Dave, should I register Twilight's file type? WinkieJim Dumb Question #1: What form? ShanoJ That is, the blanker file type? ShanoJ There's one in the ADV library that you fill out and they assign you a file and ShanoJ auxType, if you say please a lot and bribe them. :) AFA Gary J There's a form, and accompaning instructions available for AFA Gary J download in the ADV software library. AFA Parik (when you d/l the filetype tech notes, a form is included. look in adv/from AFA Parik apple/filetype notes) AFA Gary J (3 people, same basic answer :) WinkieJim Ah, will do...(I get the printed versions from APDA) Dave Lyons What's "Twilight's file type"? ShanoJ Well, I've been using $B4, $5457. (TW). AFL Dyfet I think your wild use of filetyples will be civilized by Apple yet :) AFL Marty (You mean "Twilight module filetype" don't you?) Matt DTS You can NOT use $B4! That's previously assigned as run-time libraries! ShanoJ Ya, I meant module file type, Marty. Twilight itself is a CDEV, of course, so ShanoJ it has the $C7 filetype. WinkieJim <---needs a $BC filetype and using $0000 until I get an official AuxType. WinkieJim <----nice programmer :) AFL Marty Okay... wasn't sure. Dave Lyons Ack!? Don't be making up filetypes. Yes, you should send in a form and be assigned a Dave Lyons filetype/auxtype combination. ShanoJ Ya, well modules ARE runtime libraries, kinda. Anyway, the system loader won'y ShanoJ load them unless theyre int the $Bx range somewhere, so it HAD to be one of ShanoJ those reserved types.... Matt DTS Jonah: You're making this up. You didn't even ask for help before doing this. Matt DTS Did you even *look* at the file type notes to see about file type $BC, which is available for just Matt DTS such purposes? If you put one of those files in the Libraries directory, the Loader could do very bad Matt DTS things to people's applications. Dave Lyons (Actually, you can get the loader to load anything--just load it into RAM first and use Dave Lyons InitialLoad2 on it. Or make it a Code Resource and let the CodeResConverter do the above for you Dave Lyons automatically.) Matt DTS It's very depressing to spend years telling people not to steal file types just to have it happen Matt DTS every other week, from people who seem to be paying attention. <--depressed ShanoJ Ya, well that's about a zillion extra things to do, and eveyone knows how lazy ShanoJ I am. :) ShanoJ Matt, I DID ask for help, just not on that. :) Matt DTS [I'm not impressed.] WinkieJim Do I get a prize for not stealing a fyletype? :) ShanoJ Hey, Matt, it's not that bad. I'm sorry. AFA Parik you get to buy lunch for dts ShanoJ Would it make it up to you if I got Marty to lend you some of his pigs? ShanoJ (sorry, couldn't resist that ONE little joke... :) AFA Gary J Matt, Dave - Did you see Winkie's question about if you need to be a registered AFA Gary J developer in order to request a file type? (I can't recall what the AFA Gary J request form stipulates ) Matt DTS You do not have to be a Partner or Associate - nowhere on the form does it say that you do. AFA Gary J Ok. (I thought not) Matt DTS Jim: You're also free to use auxtype $0000 in file type $BC, even if you ship it that way. Just be Matt DTS prepared that other people may be using it as well. AFL Dyfet The point is not to step on other peoples filetypes...before Apple started AFL Dyfet tracking filetype use, it was a REAL MESS out there...I know :) WinkieJim Well that's the problem, I don't want to load the wrong kind of file and WinkieJim blow up the world in the process :) ShanoJ Ya, but that's a real problem. If I use $BC,$0000 and someone else uses ShanoJ $BC,$0000, I'm in deep do-do. AFL Dyfet And if you chose a type that matches something used in future system software, AFL Dyfet all the worse... Matt DTS So did you bother to take the form conveniently provided online and *ask* for a unique auxtype? Matt DTS Nooooo..... AFA Gary J :) WinkieJim I can inmagine loading a NifytyList module into SuperInfo and destrying the WinkieJim world as I know it :) Matt DTS About half the system is held together by developer cooperation, gang, and that means *all* of you, Matt DTS not just the big guys. PLEASE pay attention before you send programs to several thousand people. AFA Gary J (I KNEW this would raise Matt's ire :) ShanoJ No, you're right, I didn't. I _DID_ download it, though, but it got lossed. :( WinkieJim <---follows the rules....most of the time ;) ShanoJ Ya, I follow a hell of a lot of rules, but I'm also REALLY lazy... ShanoJ I'm sorry Matt. Tell you what: I'm working on Twilight v2.0 right now. I'll ShanoJ send in the file type form, get a new filetype, change all of Twilight's code ShanoJ to the new one AND include a converter from the old to the new file types in ShanoJ the final archive, AND I'll put a note in the docs saying what a naughty boy I ShanoJ was and reminding everyone not to do what I did. Would that make things a ShanoJ little better? AFL Dyfet Lazyness on filetype hurts more than just you, Jonah... Matt DTS So be lazy when you're not sending stuff to a few thousand people. <-- SERIOUSLY unimpressed AFL Scott How long does it take to get a filetype assigned? I don't want to use BIN as the filetype for raw AFL Scott images. AFL Scott And DTS is closed right now, and I'm shipping at the end of the month. Matt DTS It normally takes about a day, but DTS is currently closed until October 19th so it may be until then. Matt DTS I'll warn you right off that I'm resistant to allocating any new graphic image auxtypes -- all we Matt DTS need at this point is another graphic file format for other programs to deal with. AFL Scott Matt, these are raw images, previously undefined. I want to make the format well known to everyone AFL Scott not just the people who buy the board. AFL Dyfet Ah... Matt DTS In other words, a fourth or fifth "standard" that everyone should be expected to revise their programs Matt DTS to follow. I really have trouble believing that one of the existing graphics formats can't suit Matt DTS nearly everyone's needs, especially since Apple Preferred is user-extendable. ShanoJ Matt, we're talking about a format that's COMPLETELY unlike all other GS ShanoJ formats, particularly in the way that it can store ALL of the colors. AFL Scott No, not at all. Tell me one that deals with raw data and NOT pixelmaps and I'll do it. ShanoJ It's HIGHLY unlikely that any existing paint program will even TRY to load the ShanoJ damn things, but it would be VERY nice for people to be able to get ahold of ShanoJ the format specs so they can include support in programs like SHRConvert, ShanoJ Convert 3200, The Graphic Exchange, etc. Matt DTS I tend to think of pixel maps as raw pixel data. What do you mean? Dave Lyons Yeah, what's Raw Data? ShanoJ Raw data= 3 32K chunks of 0-$F. AFL Scott I mean a raw, unformatted, un-quantized, picture that can contain up to 4096 colors. WinkieJim Data that hasn't been cooked ShanoJ No implicit color map or pixel map. AFL Scott What Jonah said. AFA Gary J What Winkie said :) Matt DTS In other words, a pixel map at 12 bits per pixel. AFL Scott Yes. AFL Scott But in three 32k planes. Matt DTS Do you see my point about publishing yet another graphic format, though? AFL Scott I see it and I agree with it. I just don't see how AFL Scott it can fit into Apple Preferred without you still having to write a FTN to show that the main segment AFL Scott is void. Dave Lyons Can you use TIFF, Scott? Matt DTS Who says you have to have a MAIN block? Matt DTS (Dave: We don't have an auxtype assigned for TIFF, so it may not help.) AFL Scott TIFF would be Ideal, however, under the circumstances, it's really too late to add the AFL Scott all color TIFF files (or those that I can find the spec on) and I'm not up to the coding right now. Matt DTS I personally prefer to think you could store a GS-type pixel map in a regular Apple-preferred file Matt DTS and add a SCOTT block (or something :) that contains all the rest of your stuff. If the user tries AFL Scott code for TIFF processing. Additionally, that opens up another can of worms implying TIFF support for Matt DTS to load an APF file that doesn't contain the SCOTT block, you tell them and just display the picture. Dave Lyons (Matt: We should define an auxtype for TIFF.) AFL Scott Ok... I'll see if I can do it that way, Matt. I guess I misunderstood APF format, then. Oh... As AFL Scott far as a TIFF auxtype goes.. it's a horribly convoluted format that's really a mess. Just my AFL Scott opinion. Matt DTS (If someone requests it, I will - I don't normally make up auxtypes for stuff no one has said they Matt DTS want>) WinkieJim Why not? :) Make $77 the StuffNoOneWants filetype. AFA Gary J Winkie :) ShanoJ Anyone know how to make the DOC interrupt at 50Hz? I wish Parik were here... ShanoJ Gee, Matt, could you create a TIFF file format for the GS so Convert 3200 can ShanoJ identify them? Matt DTS Not that you would know, Jonah, but there's a form you fill out to request auxtypes. ShanoJ Also, I hope I don't have to go through the third degree to get a file/aux typy ShanoJ for Twilight... :( ShanoJ Matt, not to be rude, but you know, you make this REAL easy on a person... :( Matt DTS You make it really easy on me by shipping around 10,000 bogus run-time libraries to the world because Matt DTS you're "too lazy" to fill out a simple form. I don't mean to be rude (No, really, I don't! Those Matt DTS of you who've been here for a while may not believe that, though :) but I really lose patience quickly Matt DTS when people treat things like this as unimportant. ShanoJ Hey, Matt, there isn't anything I can do about that now. I've offered to fix it in ShanoJ the next release, which involves recoding signifigant parts of the program, and ShanoJ I'm even willing to write a converter so that people won't be stranded using ShanoJ the old Twilight modules. If that's not good enough for you, there aint much ShanoJ more I can do... AFL Dyfet I think a good start, Jonah, is the fill out the form... ShanoJ Hey, that's DONE. I found one in my binder while I was sitting here and its all ShanoJ typed out and ready to go... It'll be in the mail tomorrow. WinkieJim Then we won 't have to send out the FileType death squad out... Nuzz Just curious, why is DTS closed until the 19th ? AFL Dyfet Long memory Nuzz :) WinkieJim Two week columbus day closing :) :) Matt DTS Nearly everyone is working on Sample Code and other projects that we can't do while keeping up the Matt DTS current Email load. All Apple Partners were sent an AppleLink explaining it. Matt DTS (All partners with AppleLink accounts, Andy. :) AFL Dyfet :) Paladin100 There are 10,000 Apple users left? I thought Apple converted everyone to Macs! AFA Gary J :) ShanoJ So, no takers on the 50Hz interrupts? Shucks. :( Not my day, huh? :) AFA Gary J Conversion is an individual thing, Paladin. Apple can't do it for you :) Paladin100 But they're trying! ShanoJ No, I swaer, my GS was turning into a Mac when I wasn't looking. Then I turned ShanoJ back and it was back to normal, but if I'd been gone for an hour or so.... :) ShanoJ Ya, as long as the squad can come out tonight so I won't have to do my English ShanoJ paper.... :) ShrinkIt I like that idea... "The Filetype Death Squad"... hmmm what possibilities... Tamira :> AFL Marty You been putting Mac disks in it again Jonah? Tamira must be one of those pesky Mac cloning viruses :> AFA Gary J Debugging type question: Dave, what's in the future for Nifty List? Dave Lyons The future for Nifty List? Probably 3.1, 3.2.... What do you mean? AFA Gary J Heheh... No, I mean, are you actually going to be able to IMPROVE what you've AFA Gary J done so far? It seems to be very complete. Any new features in the works? WinkieJim There's always room for inpovement... Dave Lyons There's always room for improvement... Dave Lyons :) WinkieJim (my spelling could stand improvement :) AFA Gary J :) Dave Lyons Geez, it doesn't even have command-line history yet! Dave Lyons And Big Brother is only half done. AFA Gary J True. But I consider Big Brother as a module improvement. Dave Lyons And the \find command doesn't have wildcard bytes! Dave Lyons And there's no NDA interface to NL! Dave Lyons And no NL command scripts, and no redirection to disk. AFA Gary J NDA interface? Interesting :) Dave Lyons And no OS calls from the command line. WinkieJim Dave, don't worry about a NDA NiftyList...I've got that covered :) Dave Lyons And you have to enter strings into "scratch" memory and type their addresses, instead of typing Dave Lyons them inside a tool-call expression. Dave Lyons LOTS of stuff to do.... AFA Gary J You are full of ideas. :) Sounds fantastic! Matt DTS (Don't forget about no NL-provided notify proc) Dave Lyons Eh? Dave Lyons Oh, okay...there will be an \addnp command Dave Lyons in 3.1 that lets you see what things are being sent to GS/OS Notify Procs. Matt DTS (And a waning when the stack is in page one and tool calls could toast you.) AFA Gary J :) Dave Lyons (Yeah, everybody will be relieved when that feature shows up.) ( <-- sarcasm ) ShanoJ Okay, what's everyone's favorite debugging aid? AFA Gary J GSBug/Nifty List combo. ShanoJ Ya, me to. (GSBug/NiftyList). I think GSBug is God's gift to GS Assembly WinkieJim <---favorite debugging The thing crashes on me durring the tool call WinkieJim err two thoughts in one there :) ShanoJ programmers, and Nifty List is God's gift to ALL GS programmers. :) ShanoJ And ORCA/Diss has quickly become one of my favorites, too.... :) Matt DTS That's funny - I know several people who would swear that *they're* God's gift to GS programming. AFA Gary J Matt :) ShanoJ Hell, I've sworn that, but they made me stop over in the DC. And I can't use ShanoJ 'Well...' as a subject, either. :) WinkieJim Anyone know if there's a problem with NEwControl2 loading a rTextForLETextBox2 WinkieJim resource for a Static Text Control? Dave Lyons WJ, what sort of a problem? I don't know of one. Dave Lyons Do you have all the descriptor and flag bits set to indicate what's a resource and what isn't? WinkieJim Yup, the Call takes a pointer to a Static Text Control Template and the WinkieJim template points to the resource. ShanoJ 'Points to the resource'? ShanoJ You mean it has the resource's ID? WinkieJim Well...gives the Resource ID Dave Lyons What's the moreFlags value in the template? WinkieJim $1002 WinkieJim wait a sec.....hmmmm WinkieJim $1002 is what it should be :) my binary number has an extra zero in it so it's WinkieJim $2002....god I hate it when it's such a simple thing. :/ ShanoJ Is there any hope of the runtime version of GSBug being updated to handle ShanoJ the _StartTools call properly, or can't you guys talk about that? Matt DTS "runtime version"? There's a source-level version? AFA Gary J I thought "application" version is being dumped. ShanoJ I mean the stand-alone version. AFA Gary J (The NON-Init version) Matt DTS It is most likely at this point that the non-INIT version of GSBug will go away with the next release. ShanoJ Oh, that's too bad. It had it's uses, particularly for startup code. I hate ShanoJ having to put a brk 00 and recompile to debug the startup. Also, there's NO ShanoJ hope of the INIT version not returning GSBug's MemID when _MMStartUp is called ShanoJ from within it, huh? Dave Lyons Jonah, can't you set a tool break on TLStartUp instead of recompiling with a BRK? Dave Lyons Yes, there's hope that the next version will return the right MemID for things like MMStartUp. ShanoJ Hmm, hadn't thought of that, Dave. Will it work? I haven't had much luck with ShanoJ tool breaks on SchAddTask.... AFA Gary J Can you give us any info on approximately WHEN the update of GSBug will be out? AFA Gary J (I know you hate that kind of question! :) Matt DTS The 1.5b9 and 1.5b10 versions (KansasFest and beyond) are on Developer CD, Volume V Matt DTS ("Night of the Living Disc") which is being pressed as we speak. Matt DTS (give or take two corrupted text files. :( ) ShanoJ Matt, who thinks up the titles for the CD's? And, how much have they had to ShanoJ drink when they do it? :) AFA Gary J Ahh. Neat. Matt DTS The Developer CD's are named by various people within Apple - it's kind of like a contest. Matt DTS It so happens that "Night of the Living Disc" was thought of by me. ShanoJ Ya, it sound's like your kind of stuff. :) I must say that I'm glad you write ShanoJ tech notes. They'd be INCREDIBLY boring without your humor! :) ShanoJ Now, if you had just written my history textbook... :) AFA Gary J A perfect name for an October release, I might add :) Matt DTS I thought so. :) ShanoJ Matt, Dave, how are NDA's called (ie. what calls them)? Would it be legal for ShanoJ me to try to show a 3200 color picture from an NDA? ShrinkIt yeah, just put up a modal dialog asking what to do, then show the 3200 pic and ShrinkIt return... simple... Dave Lyons Well, OpenNDA calls an NDA's Open routine. You're allowed to be "modal" at that time Dave Lyons and return much later (returning NIL for your window pointer). ShanoJ So it would be okay for me to hog all of the interrupts? Also, is it okay for ShanoJ an NDA to call RefreshDesktop? ShanoJ (Oh, putting aside the AppleTalk issue, for the moment...) Dave Lyons It might be easier (than calling RefreshDesktop) to open a full-screen window (after doing a Dave Lyons HideMenuBar). That way when you close the window the system knows to refresh the desktop, and if Dave Lyons some strange application is updating any of its windows at interrupt time (carefully!), then the Dave Lyons visRgns for its windows will indicate that they aren't visible, so you don't have to worry about Dave Lyons it. Interrupts are still necessary, not only for AppleTalk but for typing, if you're reading Dave Lyons keypresses through the event manager. Be very careful about disabling interrupt sources that Dave Lyons aren't yours. ShanoJ Okay, Parik suggested just grabbing 32K and storing the screen there, and then ShanoJ blasting it back when I was done. This is a no-no, right? ShanoJ Hmm... What's the rule about disabling interrupts? I was hoping that I could ShanoJ shut them all down as long as I promised to start them back up again. Is it ShanoJ not quite that easy? Dave Lyons It's always better to assume as little as possible, but for a 3200-color display program you may have Dave Lyons to assume a lot. You can save the screen without assuming its size or location (open a fresh port Dave Lyons and examine the locInfo structure). Or you can use RefreshDesktop--nothing wrong with that. Matt DTS "Don't do it unless absolutely necessary, and then only for very short periods of time." ShanoJ Hmm... Well, how do I judge 'absolute necessity'? For instance it's absolutely ShanoJ required to do it to show 3200 color pictures. Is that a good enough justifi- ShanoJ cation? ShanoJ Or, should I include a message in the NDA that says 'this NDA does naughty ShanoJ stuff, use it at your own risk' and let the user decide if that's enough ShanoJ justification? (then again, with my programs I should probably do that anyway:) Dave Lyons If you disable certain ADB interrupts, the keyboard and/or mouse will *not* work with certain Dave Lyons "universal access" utilities, even if you're reading the keyboard/mouse softswitches directly. ShanoJ Well, with all the interrupts I disable for View 3200 I still seem to be able ShanoJ to read the mouse register (forgotten the address at the moment) and $E0C000. ShanoJ That indicates that I'm not shutting TOO much down, right? ShanoJ And finally, anyone know what's with the VOC? I've heard that none of the ShanoJ existing 3200 color displayers work with it.... :( Dave Lyons No, I said *with certain universal access utilities*. Send me a copy of your app and I can Dave Lyons try it out. ShanoJ Oh, and is there any way to tell what Hz the display is running at, and is ShanoJ it legal to CHANGE this behind the user's back, and then change it back when ShanoJ I'm done? Dave Lyons The Video Overlay Card has its own scanline counters--they aren't Dave Lyons synchronized with the GS's. APDA has the "Video Overlay Card Developer Notes" or something, Dave Lyons which you might want to get. Matt DTS It is definitely not legal to change from 60 Hz to 50 Hz. Dave Lyons If you change the scan rate of the monitor, you're going to make the display toasty, or at least Dave Lyons bouncy. ShanoJ I take it that means 'no'? Dave Lyons If somebody has their display scanning at 50Hz, it's probably because they're in a European country Dave Lyons using a PAL display--they need it set that way to get a picture. Matt DTS I think "definitely not" means "no", yes. ShanoJ Ya, that's my problem. My code won't work for Europeans, and I get lots of ShanoJ nasty notes saying 'how could you release a program that doesn't even work (and ShanoJ they're NOT talking about Twilight) and it turns out they're running at 50Hz ShanoJ which is screwing things up... Matt DTS Switching it to 60 Hz isn't going to help - they run at 50 Hz for a reason. ShanoJ Well, they say that if they set it to 60Hz in the control panel it fixes ShanoJ things.... AFL Scott It's an interesting problem... how to code for international compatibility. Matt DTS Yeah, your program runs but other things (like some timing for peripherals) might not. ShanoJ Haven't the slightest idea how that works, though.... ShanoJ Ya, Scott. FOr Australia you have to do everything upside down. The disks ShanoJ John MacLean send me go in the wrong way up.... :) AFA Gary J And disks spin in the opposite direction, too :) Dave Lyons Actually, I don't know exactly how the scanline counters work for PAL. When I revised the Dave Lyons technical note on VBL, I left it a little wishy-washy on the PAL stuff because I had no Dave Lyons PAL equipment to play with. ShanoJ Gee, Dave, you mean Apple doen't sponsor trips to Europe for tech note ShanoJ research? Jeez.... :) ShanoJ Any last minute advice for what I should do on the 50Hz ShanoJ Apples? Matt DTS Write alternate timing code for 50 Hz machines, maybe. Dave Lyons Yeah, get one of your users to tell you what you have to do to make it work for 50Hz! ShanoJ Heh, make that 50 Hz MONITORS. And I thought 2.5 Mhz was slow... :) AFA Gary J (Heck, I'll try a 50 mhz machine :) ShanoJ Dave, do you know if the VERTCNT register is incremented the same on the 50 and ShanoJ 60 Hz mahines? ShanoJ That's ALL I'm reading for the 3200 color pics, so SOMETHING about it must be ShanoJ screwey... :( Dave Lyons VERTCNT is $C02E, right? (Sorry, I think in hex.) I believe it's similar but slightly different, Dave Lyons since there are a different number of scan lines (not in the useful display area, obviously). The Dave Lyons 0..199 super-hires lines probably -don't- have the same numbers, though! Dave Lyons You might try some experimentation--On all the machines I've tried, you *can* set your GS to ShanoJ Ya, somewehere around there. Lesse....... yup, $C02E. AFL Dyfet Hmm...interesting thought... Dave Lyons 50Hz and still get a readable (though slightly flickery) display. ShanoJ Hmm, mine completely flips out. The whole thing jumps up and down and looks ShanoJ most awful. :( AFL Dyfet You need 50hz AC power :) ShanoJ Also, I'm not sure that would tell me what I need to know... ShanoJ Right, I'll just plug the GS into my friendly local 50Hz Alternating Cat, and AFA Gary J Yes, the AC power would make the difference. ShanoJ away I'll go! :) AFL Dyfet The monitor is still synced for 60hz... AFL Dyfet I just bet it freaks out :) Dave Lyons Jonah, do you have RGB? ShanoJ Ya, I've got the standard GS RGB monitor (not the fancy Mac one). Dave Lyons Did you try adjusting the vertical-position/roll control? ShanoJ Ya, didn't help much. I couldn't get a stable picture.... Dave Lyons Bummer... ShanoJ Ya. I'll try again, though. Maybe the new position of the moon will help ShanoJ things.... ShanoJ :)