Text content (OCR)
2-Central
TT
A journal and exchange of Apple II discoveries
formerly
Open-Apple
2
July 1990
Vol.6, No.6
ISSN 0885-4017
newstand price: $2.50
photocopy charge per page: $0.15
Picture this
At the 1989 World Science Fiction Convention, there was a panel
entitled “TheWatchmen;-best other form of ’87”. For those not famil-
iar with the leading edge of science fiction and fantasy, Watchmen
was a landmark “graphic novel”; a combination of the best of comic
book art and novella-style writing. The graphic novel has been consid-
ered a “new form"; the literary content exceeds the depth of a comic
book, but it’s not strictly a literary work because the illustrations are
integral to the form.
There had been several graphic novels before Watchmen and it
wasn’t the first to cause controversy (a Batman graphic novel, The
Dark Knight, had previously been nominated for one of science fic-
tion’s coveted Hugo awards in a non-fiction category because it didn’t
fit any of the existing literary criteria!) As presented Watchmen was
such a departure from our current definitions of “literature”; the text
alone would qualify as a novel in size and scope, but the graphic con-
tent is crucial to the presentation of the text. Demonstrated brilliance
in the execution of an idea makes the idea itself valuable; Watchmen
is interesting both as a work of science fiction and as an example of a
new form of communication.
In the computer arena, the buzzword is “multimedia”. Multime-
dia combines various visual and sonic elements to communicate an
idea. Instead of just a book or a videotape or a compact disc or a
computer program, some or all of those elements are combined to
create a work that is something more than the sum of its parts.
(Watchmen might, using this terminology, be called a “multimedia
novel”.)
Like most new technologies, there has been a lot of hype
surrounding multimedia; we've heard suggestions that it is the salva-
tion for our educational woes and that it is the ultimate end-user tech-
nology. Like any technology, successful application of multimedia
techniques will tell more about its true value than the sales emphasis
that is placed upon it. There may also be a lot of inconsequential
uses.
So far, the elements for computer-based hypermedia have been a
controlling program to mix the various computer-generated graphics,
sound, and text elements, and peripherals to augment the computer's
features, such as video monitor systems (for display elements), CD-
ROM (as a source of computer data, sound, and, images), sound sys-
tems (from simple speakers to stereo systems to synthesizers), and so
on. Specialized computer applications like Apple's HyperCard have
appeared to make the job of creating a hypermedia symphony easier
for the “average” user, who is not familiar with a programming lan-
guage in the classic sense.
Videotape players can also be controlled by a computer using an
interface called the VidClip (APDA sells a “VidClip Videotape Control
Toolkit for the Apple IIgs Developer’, part number TO36OLL/A, for
$79). But shuttling along a videotape to find the sequence you want is
slow; this is one reason computers don’t generally use tape for data
storage. Instead, they use the now-familiar disk drive.
But video is definitely an emphasized part of multimedia. If you
want to use a video segment in a multimedia production, what can
you do? The answer is you use an interactive video disc; the surviving
technology in that realm is Pioneer's LaserDisc.
Laser video disc players have been with us for years. The early
models, among them the Pioneer VP-1000, retailed for about the
price of their VCR contemporaries. Laser disc software was rare in
those days, as it is for any start-up technology, but some videophiles
bought players for the advantages they had over the videotape
recorders of that time: high-fidelity stereo sound, sharper video repro-
duction, and the comparatively low cost of laser discs. For example,
the cost of West Side Story on laser disc at that time was approxi-
mately half as much as the video tape release.
The perceived disadvantage of the laser disc player was that it was
a “read only medium”; VCRs allowed taping other video sources for
playback later, including broadcast television. VCRs heavily outsold
video disc players and after the demand for pre-recorded tapes rose
enough to offset start-up costs, the price of tapes began to fall drasti-
cally. Stereo VCR’s began to appear, eventually incorporating high-
fidelity sound. Meanwhile, there were quality control problems in the
manufacture of laser discs, and their availability was limited. VCRs
crowded laser disc players into the dark corners of the homes of
hard-core video enthusiasts. Laser disc players survived on the basis
of this “videophile” market, and due to one other advantage: video
discs could be accessed interactively at very high speed, which made
them useful in training and education. The adaptation of laser discs to
interactive training probably sustained the medium when the con-
sumer market couldn't.
The laser disc playback mechanism rotates the disc at a top speed
of 1800 RPM. The sequences of images are recorded in one of two
speed-related formats: CAV (constant angular velocity) where each
image occupies the same number of degrees along a laser disc
“track” (the disc is rotated at constant speed), and CLV (constant lin-
ear velocity) where the image occupies the same linear distance along
a track and the disk speed is slowed as the playback beam reaches
the outer tracks of the disk (laser players play from the inner portion
of the disc outward). More images will fit on the side of a disc in the
CLV mode (about twice as many), so the maximum playback time per
side of a CAV disk is about 30 minutes while the maximum playback
time of a CLV disc is 60 minutes. A disk can have two sides, so the
maximum total real-time video information that can be stored on a
disk is | hour (CAV) or 2 hours (CLV).
a=
SO POORLY POGUNENTED IS THE SOFTWARE THAT ROY IS FETA TESTING,
TWAT HE FAILS TO NOTICE. THAT THE GAME RULES TO"TWISTER’ HAVE
ACCIDENTALLY BEEN INCLUVED, _ |
6.42 A2-Central
CLV is obviously used when the duration of playback per disc is an
issue. But CAV’s organization of one image per track facilitates several
types of frame-by-frame effects, including still frame, variable speed
playback (in forward or reverse), frame by frame search, and so on.
CAV laser discs can store up to 54000 frames per side; assuming
you can place 1000 characters of written information in each frame,
you can store the equivalent of several (over 300, figuring 70,000
words per book and an average of 5 letters per word) books on that
single disk.
All laser disc players were designed with the ability to detect a
“table of contents” area on the disc which can contain an index of
available “chapters” on the disc. By pressing a few keys on the player
(or a remote control), you can search for a specific chapter or frame
on the disc. This made possible interactive video, commanded with a
relatively simple pushbutton control. So in addition to the normal
“real-time video” capability, laser disc players allowed the production
of interactive games, video encyclopedias, and so on, where you used
the chapter and frame search features to navigate the disc’s contents.
Arcade fans may remember the game Dragon’s Lair, where a laser
disc player was integrated into the game console, and a player's com-
mands via the game console caused the corresponding section of
video to be played. The effect was that the video sequence played
reflected the actions of the arcade player, giving a spectacular real-
time feeling to the game. Another application is an interactive display
such as a shopping mall directory that can accept keypad commands
to display the description and location of a specific store.
The natural extension of these ideas is to use a more intelli-
gent remote control: a computer. Pioneer, Sony, and other compa-
nies sell “industrial” laser disc players which can either use their own
internal circuitry to accept programmed playback (the players include
text generators to allow displaying comments overlaid on the video
image), or that can be interfaced to a an external controller or com-
puter. The combination of laser disc player and programmable con-
troller allows the laser disc to become the audiovisual amanuensis of
the computer for business or educational presentations. The key
problem, as for CD-ROM, is to get the disc for your specific presenta-
tion produced, if such a disc does not exist. There are currently sever-
al “interactive” discs in production, from general interest discs such
as the KnowledgeDisc to special interest volumes such as the NASA
Discovery discs. A few of the publishers are Optical Data Corporation
(30 Technology Drive, Box 4919, Warren, N. J. 07060, 800-524-2481
and 201-668-0022), Videodiscovery (P.O. Box 85878, Seattle, Wash.
98145, 80054V-DISC, and the Voyager Company (1351 Pacific Coast
Highway, Santa Monica, Calif. 90401, 213-451-1383).
In addition to producing a line of special interest volumes, some
with associated HyperCard stacks to automate their investigation, Voy-
ager has a line of high-quality reproductions of popular films known
as the Criterion Collection. Criterion movies cater to videophiles by
reproducing the movie in a format as close to the theatrical release as
possible, including the use of wide-screen formats. (Using the wide-
screen format presents the film as a “strip” across the center of a
standard TV screen, with empty bands above and below the image.
This “letterboxing” technique has met with some resistance among
mass-market consumers of videotapes, but many videophiles feel it is
the only acceptable way to present a wide-screen movie on home
video.) In addition, the Criterion disks often are produced in the CAV
mode, and may include a commentary soundtrack (in addition to the
movie soundtrack), additional scenes not appearing in the final “cut”
of the movie for theatrical release, historical and background informa-
tion on the movies, and so on. These extras come at a price; the com-
mercial mass-market release of West Side Story on laser disc is
$39.98. The Criterion CLV release (two discs) is $59.95, the CAV
release (with extra material) is a stiff $124.95. These are products for
connoisseurs.
Currently, there are several Apple Il compatible products that sup-
port developing “mediaware” that uses video discs. For the 128K
Apple Ile and llc there is version 2.6 of Tutor-Tech, which supports
interfacing to several of the industrial video disc players (Pioneer
models LD-700, CLD-909, LD-V2000, LD-V4000, LD-V4200, LD-V8000
and their Hitachi, Magnavox, Mitsubishi, and Sony counterparts) and
Scholastic’s HyperScreen (reviewed elsewhere in this issue) which
supports the LD-4200. For the IIgs, there is of course HyperStudio,
which includes an XCMD (external command) for the Pioneer 4200
Vol. 6, No. 6
command set. Both systems can also incorporate use of the Apple
Video Overlay Card for combining video disc and computer video on
a single monitor.
Bringing it home. There is an exiting new class of laser disc play-
ers out that makes playing with interactive video more of a home hob-
byist occupation than something for videophiles only. The representa-
tive current Pioneer models are the CLD-1070 ($495), CLD-2070
($795) and the CLD-3070 ($1195); these players can play compact
discs as well as video discs.
These players have a “Control” interface that is used to integrate
the player into a home stereo/video system using a single “master”
remote control. By replacing that remote control with a computer
interface that acts like the remote control, you can have the computer
control an entire video and audio orchestra, with an interactive video
disc player at the center. All you need is the device to make the
stereo/video system think the computer is the remote control.
Visual Database Systems manufactures such a device: the SIA III
Serial Interface Adapter. Visual Database Systems is primarily a devel-
opment house and is not prepared to do end user support for the
consumer market. Instead, they generally sell the SIA III to companies
like Voyager with the expectation that the company they supply will
create and support a product for the consumer market using the
device. Voyager sells the interface with Macintosh software as The
Box ($149.95) to allow their Criterion HyperCard stacks to be used
with various consumer-level players, but does not have equivalent IIgs
software. Our interest, then, was seeing if we could create tools to
allow using the SIA III with an Apple II.
Before we talk about the interface itself, you should realize that the
consumer-level players are not as sophisticated as the industrial play-
ers in terms of their innate interactive abilities, but the computer can
provide most of that functionality. You also give up some of the
frame-access speed of the high-end industrial players that are sold
specifically for interactive use. But with the newer consumer players,
you gain other features that make them more justifiable for stand-
alone purchases.
Let’s look at the $500 Pioneer CLD-1070, which includes the play-
er, stereo and video connecting cables, and cordless remote control.
This player can access all current laser media formats except the data
portions of CD-ROM. This includes the 3 inch “CD single” (audio), 5”
CD (audio), 5 inch CD-video (up to a five minute video track with up
to an additional 20 minutes of CD audio only), and 8 and 12 inch
video disc formats. Current industrial players can only access the
video disc formats.
Video discs can contain digitally recorded audio tracks in addition
to the standard “analog” tracks, and these are reproduced via the
same type of circuitry used in CD players (thus the player acts as a CD
player with remote control). You can selectively listen to either the
stereo analog or (if available) digital soundtrack, or to either the left
or right channel of either. This means you can have two individual
stereo channels (digital or analog) of audio information, and either or
both of those channels can be split into two separate monophonic
tracks.
As mentioned earlier, video discs can also be encoded with a
“table of contents” to allow defining the start of “chapters” on the
disc. Using the analogy of chapters in a book, each of the video disc
chapters consists of a range of frames (correlating to the pages of a
book). Chapters are available, if the table of contents exists, on either
CAV or CLV disks, but only on CAV disks are the individual frames
accessible via indexing. On CLV discs, you can elect to search for a
chapter and the player will attempt to locate it and play it. On CAV
disks, the player will locate the chapter and return to the mode it was
in (play, pause, still frame display, etc.) when the search was request-
ed. Or the index may contain an indication to have the player stop on
the leading frame of the chapter (to allow a manual “frame advance”).
All of these functions are supported on the $500 player, and can
be accessed from the remote control. In addition, the player supports
some simple programmability functions, such as selecting only specif-
ic chapters to play, the order in which to play them, and repetition of
all or a portion of the disc. More expensive players add features, of
course; for example, the CLD-3070 adds a “jog” ability which allows
July 1990
still-frame displays on CLV discs. Some players have a “marker” fea-
ture which allows simulating the ability to play a segment of a disc.
The SIA Ill takes ASCII data from a computer's serial port and
generates a pulse stream that can be fed into an “SR” (for “System
Remote”) control port. If you’re not familiar with the concept, the SR
ports on some component systems allow “daisy chaining” the system
together so that a single master remote control can control all of the
components in the system. The SIA III accepts single character ASCII
character equivalents for some commands (such as “P” for “Play”).
Those that don’t have a single character equivalent can be sent as a
hexadecimal byte by prefixing the byte’s two-digit ASCII representa-
tion with a “/"; for example, “/IE” sends a hexadecimal 1E (decimal
equivalent 30) byte to the SIA III.
The SR mechanism uses a prefix code to select the “listening”
device; you send this code to tell a device that it is supposed to
respond to the codes that follow. The device will continue to accept
command codes until a new prefix other than its own is received,
when the newly specified device (if it exists on the chain) should start
responding. These prefix codes are manufacturer and device specific
to prevent interactions between the devices individual remote con-
trols; for example, you don’t want your JVC videocassette remote to
turn on your Pioneer LaserDisc player when you're trying to view a
tape. When integrated into an SR system, the “master” remote control
(associated with the system controlling device that all other devices
are connected through, such as a control amplifier) includes the abili-
ty to send a command to switch among the devices on the chain so
the individual remote controls can be boxed up and stored (in fact,
using the SR connection disables the remote control for any devices
other than the system controller). The SIA Ill includes a “decoding”
ability that can be accessed by making a special cable so that you can
attempt to read and display the codes for other SR remote controls
(most of our older non-SR remotes didn’t even register).
Using the SIA III on the Apple Il is absurdly easy, once you figure
out that it requires data to be sent with the high-order bit clear. You
can communicate with the SIA III with a terminal program (we used
Talk is Cheap). Since the SIA III has its own small internal buffer, you
can even send commands to the interface with an Applesoft program.
Our main loop to gather the ASCII command from the keyboard and
send it to the device looks like this:
1000 REM —- Issue STA connands —-
1005 D$ = CARS (4)
1007 GosuB 10000
1010 TEXT ; HOME
1020 VIAB 23: HTAB 1: CALL
1030 INPUT “Conmand?: ";A$
1035 IF LEFTS (A$,1) = °.” THEN GOTO 1090
1040 PRINT D§;"PRE2”
1050 PRINT CHR$ (1) ;"12B0D0P”: REM 4800baud, @NL
1060 IF LEN (AS) THEN GOSUB 2000: REM send connand
1070 PRINT D§;"PR#0": REM back to screen
1080 GOTO 1020: REM loop until “quit”
1090 HOME
1100 END
Line 1050 sets the serial port to the requirements for the SIA Ill:
4800 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, and one stop bit. Line 1007 calls a
subroutine to install a machine language routine that strips the high
bit off an ASCII character before sending it to the output device; we
need this because Applesoft sets the high bit when PRINTing charac-
ters:
10000 REM --- Install ML routine ---
10010 FOR EYE = 768 10 774; READ THUMB: POKE EYE, THUMB: NEXT EYE
10030 DATA 169, 0, 32, 237, 253, 24, 96
10098 RETURN
The subroutine used in line 2000 sends the command string to the
SIA III via the serial port one character at a time through the machine
language routine:
2000 REM — send A$ by char --
2010 FOR I= 170 LEN (AS)
2020 : POKE 769, ASC ( MID$ (A$,1,1))
2030 : CALL 768
~ 868
A2-Central 6.43
2040 : NEXT I
2050 RETURN
It is possible to use the SIA II] with present Apple II multimedia
software. HyperStudio supports the issuance of the codes through
external commands (XCMDS) that can be written and incorporated
into stacks; HyperStudio 2.1 includes a sample XCMD for sending
commands to the serial port that can be suitably modified. Tutor-Tech
allows sending ASCII sequences to a serial device, but we haven't
have any luck (yet) with HyperScreen, which appears locked into the
LD-4200 commands (the program may expect a return status which
the SIA III can't supply). We've also got a (very rough) Ilgs NDA run-
ning that functions as a remote control using GS/OS device calls to
the serial driver that can be used from desktop applications.
All is not perfect. The SIA III cannot receive status information
from the device from the SR port and will always return an indication
that the last command was received and executed. If you send a com-
mand to a device there is no way to tell if the device received it and
was able to act upon it, or whether the device has completed a previ-
ous task. There are also the limits originating in the devices them-
selves; for example, the CLD-1070 does not have the capability to
play only a specified segment of a disc once (for example, “play
frames 1000 to 2000 and pause”), a capability removed from the ear-
lier equivalent model, the CLD-1030. The current CLD-2070 and CLD-
3070 models do have the ability to play to a preset marker and stop
which can be used to simulate the “play a segment” function, but
there's no guarantee Pioneer will retain the ability in future revisions.
But we still see advantages to the consumer players; they are less
expensive and they play a wider variety of discs. The sales appear to
be rising for these players just as another “playback only” medium,
compact discs, has exploded. As the likelihood rises that the average
computer user may also have a laser disc player at home, maybe the
expectations for the incorporation of “commercial” features into the
“consumer” players will rise.
Despite the limitations of the consumer video disc players versus
the industrial versions, here is what we see as the truly interesting
capability of these players in combination with the SIA III: imagine a
couple of video monitors, a couple of video disc players, and a pre-
mier audio system connected to a computer via the SIA III. The com-
puter could issue commands to raise and lower the audio volume,
change the balance, change the video or audio sources and target
devices. With the proper controlling software, the computer would
become the orchestrator of a multimedia show.
A more modest system could consist of your Apple II system, a
consumer laser disc player, the SIA III, a hypermedia product, and a
monitor for the player (or a Video Overlay Card to overlay the player's
output on your current monitor). For example, I'm using the CLD-
1070 connected to a stereo (if you want external speakers on the
IIgs, the IIgs would need its own set) and a Video Overlay Card as 1
type this; when I'm not experimenting with the video features, | can
pop a CD into the same player and listen to music. A more practical
example might be in a music class; a hypermedia production could
use a video disc describing aspects of composition and have the stu-
dent stop at points to insert various CDs into the player so that the
software could play specific examples; something you couldn't do on
the current commercial players. Of course, it would help if Pioneer
would re-instate a way to play only a specified segment of the disc; for
now, we're trying to find a way to simulate that function by software
control
Even with all these features, the utility of the player as a computer
peripheral depends on the availability of laser disc software applica-
ble to your use, or justification for producing your own custom discs.
The current advantage of laser disc over CD-ROM players is that the
laser disc can easily be justified in terms of stand-alone use. (If some-
one ever adds CD-ROM support to a player at a consumer cost, it will
be Nirvana.) Interfacing to a computer just adds a new dimension,
and new dimensions expand the creative playground.—DJD
6.44 A2-Central
HyperScreen
HyperScreen is a (single high-res) graphics-based and menu driven
hypermedia system designed for the 128K Apple Ile or llc. Hyper-
Screen comes in two forms: a $99.95 “teacher edition” with a
detailed instructional manual (this is the package we received for
review) and a $32.95 “trade edition” with the same program but a
less detailed manual for home use. HyperScreen is available from
Scholastic Software, 2931 East McCarty Street, P.O. Box 7502, Jeffer-
son City, Mo. 65102, 800-541-5513 (800-392-2179 in Missouri).
Like other hypermedia programs, HyperScreen is based on the cre-
ation of a ‘stack’ of graphic screens on which "buttons’ may be
installed. When creating the stack, you select the action that will
occur when a button is selected; available actions are transferring
(linking) to another screen (within the same stack), linking to another
stack, displaying “pop-up” text, playing a sound, entering text, operat-
ing a video disc player (the Pioneer LD-4200 is specifically support-
ed), or executing a “multi-button” sequence.
When creating a new stack, you can use the built-in graphics tools
to create a graphics backdrop you feel is suitable to layer your control
buttons on. The available tools are a brush for drawing “freehand”
curves (the brush style is selectable from a set of options), a line tool
for drawing straight lines (the width is selectable), a “frame” tool for
drawing rectangular outlines, a “block” tool for drawing filled rectan-
gles, “ring” and “oval” tools for drawing hollow and filled circles and
ovals, a “flood fill” tool for coloring existing objects, a “type” tool for
text, and tools for importing full backgrounds and clip art. The
HyperScreen disk comes with a selection of backgrounds and clip art
Vol. 6, No. 6
samples ready to use. You can select the type of “opening transition”
you want the screen initially displayed with from 15 options such as
“wipe down’, “wipe left”, “dissolve”, and so on. Items can be drawn
using a mouse, joystick, touchpad, or even the keyboard.
HyperScreen also provides for “text-only” screens that contain
only text and a border; these are still displayed using the graphics
screen, but use a more compact form of storage. Text screens allow
the use of a built-in editor and text import facility, but they do not
allow the use of graphic images on the same screen.
Once you've created the background, buttons are added by select-
ing the “Set Buttons” item from the “Edit” menu. You drag the button
to the position on the screen and the size that you want; Hyper-
Screen will name the button “Button n° where “n” is the number of
the button. Once the button is created, you can select “Set Button
Info” to choose the button action. To link to another screen, stack, or
to play a sound file, you pick the name of the object from a list that
HyperScreen displays. For a multi-button action, you enter the names
for up to five other buttons on the same screen to be actuated in
sequence. For pop-up text, you enter the text you want displayed. For
text entry, you enter a pattern to match and the screens to branch to
if the entered text matches or does not match. For video control, you
enter the port (slot) you want the command sent to and the text of
the command. If you have an Apple Video Overlay Card, you can use
the Video Key Color option of HyperScreen to set the key color for a
screen so that it can be overlaid with the video image.
You can test the button functions through a “preview screen”
Ask
(or tell)
Uncle
Reader Kevin Thornton called to tell us that
the Finder's Icon Info “calculate” function
doesn't include “hidden” files in it’s file count
and storage use (by files) information. Hidden
files are created by setting a specific flag bit in
the file’s “attributes” byte; the most common
hidden files are Finder's data __files
(FINDER.DATA, FINDER.ROOT, FINDER.DEF).
This normally won't be a problem, but if you
have a program that reports “too many files”
when Finder reports a number within the stat-
ed capabilities of the program, this may be the
reason.
Another caller who had looked at the
changes in the ROM 05 IIgs disk port says the
changes reflect an attempt to reduce noise
problems on the disk bus, and also comment-
ed that he didn’t know of any current third-
party 5.25 drives specifically advertised for
use on the IIgs disk port (many are Apple Ile
drives installed using an adapter). We'd there-
fore conclude that our first theory was correct,
and that Apple made the changes without
intending to “obsolete” any drives. We'd still
like to know if there really are problems out-
side of the few reports we've heard; if you are
having problems with a third-party 5.25 drive
on the ligs, let us know.
After the letter last month commenting on
the use of the Leadman power supply with 220
volts, Tom Vanderpool looked carefully at the
power supply circuit board again and found
the magic incantation: you take a plug loose
from the post labelled “110V" and move it to
the one labelled “220V" (with the power off
and supply unplugged, of course!). Again, we
don’t have any way to actually test this here,
but we thought we'd pass the information
along.—DJD
DMA confusion
I read with interest your article in the June
A2-Central concerning the new Apple High-
Speed SCSI Card and DMA compatibility. 1 had
been having a devil of a time getting my new
card to work. Each time | booted the card it
would crash. After many tries and lots of tele-
Phone calls | got my upgrade for my Tran-
sWarp GS from Applied Engineering and elimi-
nated all other possible cards. So I, at Apple’s
suggestion, concluded that the SCSI card was
bad and returned it.
While waiting for a replacement to arrive, |
read the June A2-Central. In your article you
said that you had not been able to use any card
with more than four banks of chips. That rang a
bell. My GS-Ram Plus has five megabytes on
board. I had been repeatedly told by Applied
Engineering that the card should work in that
configuration. When the new SCSI card arrived,
however, | pulled the last bank of chips (after
again crashing on boot as a test) and the sys-
tem worked!
Something kept nagging me, however.
Applied Engineering said that the SCSI card
should work with the five meg GS-RAM Plus but
the card acted like those you mentioned. | final-
ly called Applied Engineering and got gently
obstinate. Although in all my prior conversa-
tions with them I had said that | had a five meg
board, they never told me that for the board to
work in that configuration any banks beyond
four must be configured as a RAM disk. Sure
enough, | got home tonight and replaced the
fifth bank of chips and reconfigured my RAM
disk from 800k to 1 megabyte and the board
works fine in DMA mode.
The first moral of all this is, of course, to
Keep asking questions. More importantly,
believe your vendor but still ask lots of ques-
tions. Finally, in a bit of irony | now have more
usable memory than before. This is because |
usually keep an 800K RAM disk in the configu-
ration. That means that each time | booted with
four megabytes on the motherboard 800K
above and beyond the needs of the operating
system was used. In short, | had upon booting
1655K used and 2596K available with a four
megabyte board. With a 1024K RAM disk and
five megabytes on the GS-RAM Plus | now have
upon boot 1879K in use and 3496K available.
From this I conclude that the RAM disk is set
aside first in the boot process and that the SCSI
card can and does then address the next four
banks on the GS-RAM Plus in DMA mode.
All of this may be a bit academic. If any of
your subscribers, however, are like me and typi-
cally use a RAMdisk of less than 1024K as part
of the system configuration, they may be able
to pick up added free memory by expanding
their GS-RAM Plus to five meg with a 1024K
RAM disk.
J. Latta
Evanston, Ill.
When you allocate a RAM disk, the memory
for the disk is taken from the “upper” portion
of the Ilgs’s expansion memory. The current
crop of Applied Engineering memory cards
have been designed to be DMA compatible,
July 1990
option, and you can export the background or a clipped image from
the screen for use in other screens. You can also print the screen to a
selected list of printers.
Overall, HyperScreen is capable. It even has one strength (other
than it's ability to work on the Ile and IIc) compared to HyperStudio:
you can easily edit the action of a button (currently, to do this in
HyperStudio you have to re-define the button).
But...Scholastic's vice-president Peter Kelman published an article
in the February 1990 Apple Direct advising developers to “Program
for 128K of onboard memory” on the Apple II and to write more
advanced applications for the Macintosh, discounting the IIgs entirely.
HyperScreen was mentioned in the article as one of several “Ile desk-
top-presentation tools that you'd be amazed to find on a IIgs”. I can’t
agree with that opinion; | would definitely consider HyperScreen for
my lle, but HyperStudio is obviously the stronger hypermedia prod-
uct, utilizing the Ilgs super high-res graphics screen, extra memory,
better sound tools, animation, and so on. HyperStudio's XCMD fea-
ture provides more expandability than HyperScreen currently sup-
ports. Scholastic has to decide if it feels challenged by that or not,
and customers that use a lgs as their primary machine must decide if
they are willing to work with a product that does not take full advan-
tage of their computer.-DJD
Miscellanea
AppleFest’s move to New Jersey netted them about 12,000 in
attendance, a smaller figure than previous years. Andy Calkins of
Exposition Management, Inc., says it appears likely the spring Apple-
A2-Central 6.45
Fest may be back in Boston next year. AppleFest/ComputerFest for
this fall will be September 14-16 in San Francisco; Exposition Man-
agement says exhibitor sign-ups for the fall 1990 and spring 1991
shows were strong. For more information, call 800-262-FEST.
More on using foreign characters with AppleWorks: Beverly
Cadieux of KingWood Micro Software, 3103 Lake Stream Drive, King-
Wood, Texa 77339, 713-360-5015, sent us a note on Ultimate Fonts,
a character conversion program for AppleWorks using TimeOut
SuperFonts. The product works with TimeOut UltraMacros to convert
text like:
Si’, yo hablo B’ span-ol!
to the SuperFonts form of:
S<x2>RCKL>, yo hablo <x2>C<xl>spacx2>V<x]>ol!
which prints (using SuperFonts) as:
Si, yo hablo fspafol!
This also comes in handy for various scientific and math typeset-
ting problems, like “Angstroms”. Ultimate Fonts is menu driven and
includes help screens to remind you of the translation formats. It’s
$30 plus $2.50 shipping.
As a follow-up to last month's article “Sculley committed to
Apple Il”; Barney Stone of the Apple II Developer's Association noti-
fied us that Ralph Russo, a seven-year Apple veteran, has been
appointed as director of the Apple II product line reporting to John
Sculley through Don Casey. That's only one “layer” removed from the
top, and this is the highest visibility that an “Apple II only” executive
has had at Apple in several years.—DJD
but (without ancillary hardware) cards that use
four rows of memory (the GS-RAM and the
GS-RAM Plus among them) may only support
DMA transfers in the first four banks of expan-
sion memory due to the design of the Ilgs
memory expansion slot. This corresponds to
the first megabyte on the GS-RAM and the first
four megabytes on the GS-RAM Plus.
By expanding the memory used by the RAM
disk to encompass everything except the four
banks that can accept DMA transfers, the oper-
ating system will attempt transfers only into
the compatible memory on the card and every-
thing works again. If you add another
megabyte of memory to the card (a total of six
megabytes), you'll need to increase the size of
the RAM disk to two megabytes in order to
keep things working.—DJD
Don't hang up?
In your June issue you wrote about the new
DMA SCSI card by Apple. Here are my two bits
of information:
My configuration is an Apple ligs with 2.25.
megabytes of memory, a TransWarp GS in Slot
3, two 3.5 drives connected to the disk port, a
Disk II controller in slot 6 and either SCSI card
in slot 7. The hard disk is a Seagate ST177N
with 40 millisecond average access time. It had
a SCSI ID of zero at first. | boot a system config-
uration with 190K of desk accessories, the
desktop picture, and “break cursor init” files.
With the Revision C card and the proper
drivers installed, | got the times listed in col-
umn | of the table (all times are in seconds).
This was with an interleave of 1:7.
1 2 3 4
boot to Finder 35.6 40.3 39.9 31.2
AWGS (all modules)24,.7 23.7 18.1 N.C.
load 405K file 18.8 17.5 15.3 N.C.
AppleWorks 3.0 16.4 12.5 10.8 N.C.
330K database 25.8 36.3 23.6 N.C.
After changing to the DMA SCSI card and
installing the drivers for that card, | got the
results which are listed in column 2 of the
table—still with an interleave of 1:7. Now |
reformatted the drive with an interleave of
1;1—that was even worse than before. So |
reformatted a second time with an interleave of
2:1—that gave the results in column 3 of the
table. Then | changed the SCSI ID of the drive
to 6 and got the results of column 4 ("N.C.” is
“no change” from column 3). But with a SCSI ID
of 6 ProDOS 8 needs about 4 seconds to identi-
fy the drive— with the SCSI ID of 0 GS/OS took
about 4 seconds before it started to boot. A fur-
ther annoyance is that the card hangs the sys-
tem if the drive is not on. You have to power up
the drive if you want to boot from a disk. It
needn't be ready; just powered up.
Udo Huth
Wittmar, W. Germany
We also have been using 2:1 on our hard
disks. Some drives, such as the larger Conner
or Quantum mechanisms, include a “track
cache” in the drive that would probably allow
the best performance at a 1:1 interleave (the
Quantum drives will always use 1:1; they don’t
accept a change in interleave from the host
computer). Our SCSI card is set to an ID of 7,
and we have noticed that the drive does seem
to be recognized faster when set to a higher
SCSI ID (however, the difference we observed-
with ProDOS 8 was only a few tenths of a sec-
ond).
The “hang” you're seeing when the SCSI
device is powered down is a “feature” of the
true SCSI nature of the DMA SCSI card. The
card supports arbitration (the ability to wait for
a device that’s in use to become “free*), which
means if a device isn’t ready when the card
tries to identify the device, the card will wait.
Part of the effect is that if the device is com-
pletely off-line, the card goes into an “infinite
wait” situation. The Cirtech SCSI Interface
(which also supports arbitration) react similar-
ly; it’s the trade-off for arbitration
support,—DJD
Cheap laser printer at last?
One of our morning papers is reviewing the
new Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III. Among other
things it speaks of a Macintosh version of the
printer, which will come with an AppleTalk inter-
face and a PostScript-compatible printer car-
tridge.
Could you please tell me if this printer, with
such an interface, can be used with an Apple
ligs?
Peter Bourke
Waverley, N.S.W.
Several “modular” laser printers have
appeared on the market recently that combine
a PostScript-compatible interpreter with an
AppleTalk interface for use with the Macintosh.
We don’t have any direct experience with
these printers yet, but if they are plug compati-
ble with the Macintosh (that is, if the printer
will plug into the Macintosh and work with the
current Mac LaserWriter driver) then we see no
reason why they would not work on the Ilgs.
The lowest cost combination we have seen
advertised is the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet IIP
with the additional interfaces. If you are price
shopping, also check the memory require-
ments for the conversion; you may find you
need to expand the printer's basic memory to
use the extra interfaces. If anyone gets such a
combination working, we'd like to hear about
it—DJD
A bit (and a character) lost
In AppleWorks GS the German umlauts are
represented by 8-bit ASCII values. If you trans-
mit a file containing such umlauts (or any other
6.46 A2-Central
8-bit ASCII value) either with FreeTermGS or the
communications module of AppleWorks .GS
these characters are simply omitted from trans-
mission. Do you or other readers know of a way
to patch either FreeTermGS or the communica-
tions module of AppleWorks GS so that they are
capable of transmitting 8-bit ASCII values?
Udo Huth
Wittmar, W. Germany
We got the same results in a test, but don’t
know of a cure. We hadn’t expected the prob-
lem since AppleWorks GS does save 8-bit val-
ues to a ProDOS text file when you request to
Save a word processor document as an ASCII
text file—DJD
Wipe it clean
How can | “wipe” (using Glen Bredon’s term)
a volume from within a BASIC program? | am
specifically interested in clearing my RAM disk
from ProSel without having to boot up Cat Doc-
tor.
Kelly J. Jones
Seattle, Wash.
The easiest way to “wipe” a RAM disk would
be to check to see if the disk is empty (you’d
usually, but not always, want to do this) and, if
it’s all right to erase, issue a ProDOS “format”
call to the driver for the disk, For a normal
disk, this might cause a time-consuming low-
level format, but for a RAM disk the format will
be quick.
To check to see if the disk is empty from
Applesoft, you can BLOAD the directory and
check to see if the file count is zero:
PRINT CHR$ (4) ;"BLOAD /RAM, A$2000, TSYS”
IF (PEEK(8192439) + 256 * PEEK(8192+40)) THEN
PRINT "/RAM NOT EMPTY!”
The format call has to be performed from
machine language using the ProDOS ROM code
conventions described in section 6.3.1 of the
ProDOS 8 Technical Reference; there is no
provision for formatting a ProDOS device from
Applesoft itself.
To issue the format call for a ProDOS block
device, you can use the following sample:
PRP save status
sel Lock out IRQ
WA #8 format conmand
STA $42
WA 4810110000 slot 3, drive 2
sma $43 device for format
STA UnitNun and for online
Ta #500 define buffer
STA $44 at $1000
WA #10
STA $45
WA §cO8B enable LC RAM
IDA $C08B bank 1
JSR $FFOO (for /RAM only!)
BIT §C082 ROM back on-line
Instr STA ExrRetrn
PLP recover status
Rts
ErrRetrn DS 1 for error code
Four zero page locations are used. $42
holds the ProDOS block device command (3
for a format). $43 holds the unit number; the
bitwise definition is “DSSSxxxx" where “D” is
“0" for drive I and “I” for drive 2 and “SSS" is
a slot number from “000" (0 decimal) to “111°
(7) and we've entered the binary equivalent for
the /RAM volume as the slot 3, drive 2 device.
$44 and $45 hold the address of a 512 byte
buffer for use by ProDOS; we've picked $1000
arbitrarily. (We locked out interrupts during the
format operation because the Apple Il, II Plus,
and unenhanced Ile monitor ROMs use loca-
tion $45 during an interrupt.)
To format the device, we need to JSR to the
address of it’s ProDOS 8 driver. We can get the
address of the driver by looking at the device
vector table beginning at $BF10 in the ProDOS
8 global page; your program should provide for
doing this after determining the correct loca-
tion of the device you wish to format. The
table consists of a series of (two-byte) address-
es for the “drive 1” devices of slot | through 7,
followed at $BF20 by the same list for “drive
2” devices. In our example /RAM is the slot 3,
drive 2 device and its vector is at $BF24-5; the
value there is $FFOO. This location is inside
ProDOS on the language card, so in order to
access the driver we select and write enable
the language card RAM, call the driver (per-
forming the format), and then re-enable the
motherboard ROM.
We can get away with this because we know
the /RAM driver supports formatting. For slot-
based RAM disks that have ROM-based drivers
(not in the “language card” area), you don’t
need to switch the language card space, but
you do need to check the ROM identification
bytes for the device to insure it is an “intelli-
gent” disk controller that supports the format
call. To do this, verify that (for a device in slot
“n") that $CnO1 equals $20, $Cn03 equals
$00, $Cn05 equals $03, and $CnFF equals
$FF (notice that the Disk II interface has a $00
here, and does not support the intelligent con-
troller features). If all these match, then the
status byte at $CnFE will tell you if the device
supports formatting (bit 3 will be set if format-
ting is supported)
The only way we know of to “erase” a disk
volume without actually formatting it (or manu-
ally deleting each file on the disk) is to use
block-level commands to read the volume
directory, purge all file entries, re-write the
“blank” directory, and then use a similar
Sequence to update the volume bitmap’s
record of used space on the disk. That's
beyond the scope of something that we can
duplicate here because it would require
explaining the directory and bit-map structure
in detail, but the structure is explained in
Appendix B of the ProDOS 8 Technical Refer-
ence.
For disk devices installed under GS/OS,
there is a GS/OS_ specific command
(EraseDisk) which handles “erasing” versus
“formatting” a device.—DJD
Don’t touch that memory!
I'm developing a potentially large utility pro-
gram that is supposed to run concurrently with
BASIC.System and Applesoft. In examining my
real estate option (looking for an out-of-the-way
place for the code to live) I’m thinking that the
upper reaches of auxiliary memory would work
pretty well. However, the memory map in the
ProDOS 8 Technical Reference manual (page
119, March 1987 printing) declares the area
from $E000 to $FFFF, and most of one of the
$D000 banks, to be an “Other used or reserved
area”.
This doesn’t necessarily deter me despite the
fact that my knowledge in the area is limited, as
the only system use of this memory range that |
can think of is by the ProDOS /RAM volume,
which is certainly expandable, (In fact, | seem
Vol. 6, No. 6
to recall Beagle Bros Extra Variables program
using this area quite freely).
Can you think of anything that happens in
this memory which would make it a no-no to
use?
Eliot Lifeson
Fair Lawn, NJ.
There are two reasons you shouldn't use
memory (or other system resources) Apple has
marked “reserved’. First, it may already be in
use by a product that has arrived since the last
printing of your reference manuals; for exam-
ple, part of that auxiliary memory language
card space is reserved for AppleTalk support.
While this may not seem of immediate conse-
quence to you specifically, writing software
that is incompatible with AppleTalk will be a
factor for others. (We are sensitive to this
because we've had to abandon more software
for AppleTalk incompatibilities than any other
reason.)
Second, Apple reserves resources so that
they will have a designated place to expand
the system when necessary without “breaking”
current software. If Apple had to expand the
size of ProDOS or BASIC. System by using main
memory, for example, everyone who had pro-
grams pushing the edge of available memory
would scream. All this is somewhat tactfully
explained in ProDOS 8 Technical Note #26,
“Polite Use of Auxiliary Memory”.
That /RAM disk itself is an acceptable place
to expand, and there is even a prescribed
method for grabbing its space. Section 5.2.2 of
the current ProDOS 8 Technical Reference
Manual documents the conventions, including
sample source code.
ProDOS 8 Technical Note #8 mentions
that ProDOS 8 versions prior to 1.2 do not
have the capability of removing the volume
control block (VCB) which ProDOS allocates
internally when /RAM is installed. This means
that if you disconnect /RAM, you will only have
the capacity for a maximum of 7 volumes on-
line as opposed to the 8 volumes ProDOS nor-
mally supports. This was fixed in v1.2 and you
can free the VCB by performing an on-line call
to the device after disconnecting it; MLI error
$28, “No device connected", will be returned,
and the VCB will be freed—DJD
Squashed mouse
Why is my mouse disabled after entering and
returning from the Control Panel? The program
doesn’t seem to make a difference.
Andrew Wehling
St. Louis, Mo.
I don’t know, but my ROM 03 ligs also does
the same thing and it is very imitating. It also
points out a weakness in Apple’s Human Inter-
face Guidelines: when the mouse dies and you
try to quit without destroying the work you did
in the previous session, the only keyboard
options you usually have to deal with the cur-
rent document are “Return” (to save the new
copy) or “Escape” (to return to the program). If
the mouse dies when the document in memory
is in a worse state than the one on disk, the
only option is to use reset to reboot, which
(considering you might catch GS/OS’s cache
operation in a bad state) isn’t exactly ideal,
either.—DJD
July 1990
DIF conversions
1 am looking for somebody who could have
made an adaptation of your program from
“What's the DIF” (A2-Central, April 1989) in
order to retrieve PFS:Plan data in DIF format. (In
order to import data into AppleWorks, for
instance.)
J. P. Busquet
513 Rue Lecourbe
Paris 75015
France
Large print
Is there any graphics program out there that
allows you to draw, edit, and print large format.
graphic images (ones that would require several
normal 8.5 by 11 pages to be pieced together
once the printing is done) without sacrificing
resolution; in other words, without just dou-
bling, tripling, etc., pixel size? | own a IIgs and
an ImageWriter Il.
J. R. Ginnow
Middletown, R.1.
In order to scale a drawing without resolu-
tion loss, the graphic has to be defined mathe-
matically (with equations describing curves and
So on) rather than by a “bit map” of the image.
The Ilgs (and Macintosh) each contain the abili-
ty to store such definitions using their respec-
tive Quickdraw commands.
A QuickDraw-based printer driver can accept
these commands directly to generate the final
document, scaled to the size of the print area.
But QuickDraw printers are rare; a more com-
mon solution is to use a “computer indepen-
dent” —_page-description language _like
PostScript, such as the LaserWriter uses. The
ligs (and Mac) LaserWriter drivers convert the
QuickDraw description of the document into
PostScript commands. These can draw on any
PostScript-compatible device using the
device's inherent resolution (unless the image
being generated is a bit-mapped image to
begin with). For example, we print the proofs
for this newsletter on a LaserWriter with 300
dots per inch (DPI) resolution, while the printer
masters are generated on a (PostScript) Lino-
Type phototypesetter at 1200 DPI (versus the
LaserWriter’s 300 DPI) using the same source
file. If you had a large enough PostScript
printer, you could print the document any size
you liked.
A super-large printer is impractical (the cost
would be prohibitive) for most users, so the
alternative is to divide the document into
“tiles” and print each tile separately. After
printing, the tiles” could be assembled into the
complete image. The normal printer drivers do
not handle this type of printing themselves, but
MECC (3490 Lexington Ave. N, St. Paul, Minn.
55126, 612-481-3500 or 800-228-3504) sells
a program called Designer Prints that can
import graphics and print images up to 10 by
10 (8.5 by II inch) pages in size using your
selected llgs driver. It is copy-protected, and
requires GS/OS and at least one megabyte of
memory.—DJD
BASIC networking
| am the District Computer Coordinator and
need some help with an AppleTalk network. |
am trying to write several programs in BASIC to
make the network work better. One of these is
to get rid of the temporary files that are left
behind when students do not log off the net-
work, I have the program written but it will only
work on legal file names. Since the files and the
names are kept on our Mac SE/30, there are
names that are not legal ProDOS names. Spaces
and other illegal characters are allowed and
converted to “?". Is there any way that I can
delete these files without going to the block
level of the hard disk? Could | find the place
where the prefix of the disk and directory is
stored and change it in memory? If | did this
would ProDOS examine the prefix as well as the
file name when I delete it? The following is an
example of the type of file that | am looking to
get rid of:
/HS/USERS/<ANY .USER>/SEG.A10000.34
//8S/USERS/DANIEL DILL/S8G.410003.2
The illegal part of the name is always the sec-
ond last part and never the last portion of the
name. Any suggestions?
Daniel Dill
Newton, Wisc.
If you are on a Ile locked into ProDOS 8,
there isn’t anything you can do about the file-
names from Applesoft (and ProDOS) since the
illegal characters won‘t make it past the operat-
ing system. It would require using the ProDOS
MLI AppleTalk command ($42) and talking to
the server directly through the Apple File Proto-
col documented in Inside AppleTalk (Addi-
son-Wesley) and The AppleShare Program-
mer’s Guide for the Apple Ilgs available
from APDA (don't let the title throw you off; the
ProDOS 8 stuff is in there, too).
But the “easy” solution is to do your file
administration from a llgs, and using GS/OS
(rather than ProDOS 8) to delete the unwanted
files. GS/OS uses the AppleShare File System
Translator (FST) to communicate with the
AppleShare volume, and the FST and GS/OS
are prepared to deal with the Macintosh file-
names. Assuming you have adequate access
privileges to do it, you can simply issue a
GS/OS “Destroy” command to remove the
offending file.
If you have control over the assignment of
user names, you can eliminate some of the
problems by asking users to enter their user
names as valid ProDOS names; for example,
“Dennis.Doms” (with a period) rather than
“Dennis Doms’ (with a space that ProDOS can't
digest). Using the ProDOS-legal form will create
user folders that are accessible from ProDOS
8, since the user name is used in the path-
name. That will help for all except the “<Any
User>” designation that the server defines (we
haven't found a way to alter it).—DJD
How much memory?
How many bytes equal one megabyte? | have
two conflicting theories.
Method 1: 40992 blocks (number of blocks
on my 20 meg hard disk) times 512 bytes per
block equals 20,987,904 bytes, divided by 20
bytes per megabyte gives 1,049,345.2 bytes
per megabyte.
Method 2: 1024 bytes per kilobyte times
1000 (to find bytes per megabyte) gives
1,024,000 bytes per megabyte times 20 gives
20,048,000 bytes (for 20 megabytes) divided
by 512 (to find the number of blocks) gives
39,156.25,
What’s wrong?
Rick Koch
There are 1024 times 1024 or 1,048,576
bytes per megabyte. (The 1024 comes from
the power of two that is closest to one thou-
sand; two to the tenth power equals 1024.) So
A2-Central 6.47
we'd calculate your hard disk capacity this way:
40992 blocks times 512 bytes/block equals
20,987,904 bytes, and dividing that by
1,048,576 gives us about 20.02 megabytes.
Don't worry about the slight difference; the
hard disk may not be exactly 20 megabytes in
size.—DJD
RAM chip designations
Please explain the terms “dynamic RAM" and
“static RAM", and the numbers “64K x 1, 120
ns”, “64K x 4, 100 ns”, etc.
I'm guessing the “xxx ns” refers to how fast
(or slow) the chip operates or can be accessed
in nanoseconds but the “x 1”, "x 4", is Greek to
me.
If | were to buy a OK memory board for my
lle or IIc, how would I know or determine which
memory chips to buy?
S. Dinnel
Santa Maria, Calif.
“Dynamic” and “static” refer to the RAM
chip’s ability to retain information. Either chip
will accept and retain data in normal operation,
but dynamic RAM's will “forget” the information
stored in them unless the information is
accessed within some minimum time frame.
To make sure the information isn’t lost, sys-
tems using dynamic RAM must supply a
“refresh” signal to the chips within the speci-
fied interval to preserve the information. Static
RAM will retain the information without requir-
ing any “refreshing” of the data. When needed,
the refresh is implemented in hardware; all of
this is transparent to you as a user.
The numbers describing the chip are the
size of the chip in bits followed by the number
of bits that can be accessed when an address
is supplied to the chip. For example, *x 1”
means that for a specific address only one bit
can be accessed, “x 4” means four bits can be
accessed. To get the proper number of bits for
your computer's processor, the chips can be
wired in parallel; for example, wiring two “64K
x 4" chips in parallel would allow you to access
64K bytes (a byte is 8 bits) of memory. Half
(four bits) of each byte would come from each
of the two chips. Again, all of this is imple-
mented in hardware.
As you suspected, the speed value tells you
the fastest rated speed of access for the chip
in nanoseconds (billionths of a second). You
can usually substitute a faster chip for a slower
one, but not the reverse; for example, a 120
ns chip should work where a 150 ns chip is
specified, but not the reverse.
Many of the chips look alike, so you can’t
tell by looking at the sockets on an “empty”
memory card what types of chips it uses. The
information supplied with your memory card
Should tell you the proper type and speed of
chips to use with it, and that’s what you should
refer to.—DJD
Documentation dilemma
I've some experience | would like to share
with you and your readers.
Recently | attempted to publish some weav-
ing software, but | made two major errors. |
released the templates without the author's
final approval and | did not supply sufficient
documentation which, under agreement, | was
to provide. The first mistake was stupid, it was
6.48 A2-Central
irresponsible of me to risk another person's
reputation. The second mistake, the lack of
documentation, is what | wanted to talk to you
about.
It seems that | did not have sufficient under-
standing of the processes involved in the weav-
ing processes that use the templates’ answers
and | now understand that | do not want to do
that much homework. | told the author so and I
have declined to publish. So we will be friends
again and the templates will get a rest.
It seems that in the Apple II kingdom there
are many fine programs without adequate docu-
mentation and the lack of documentation of
some programs is downright infuriating, I’m
talking about successful programs by clever
programmers. Of course, this goes with the ter-
ritory. The Apple II is like a giant erector set and
each person can create astonishing new tricks
with the billions of on/off switches without hav-
ing to apologize for their status in life. | bought
into the Il because I'm a techno-nut (my past
career was as Chief Engineer in the Merchant
Marine), and | don’t want to be spoonfed by a
Mac or have to deal with the hyperbole of MS-
DOS. Unfortunately, some programmers seem
to think that the rest of the world should under-
stand what little they cryptically say and their
documents reflect this snobbism. Sadly, at one
of the nation’s top engineering schools located
near me, the students (and not a few faculty)
regard English as a second language.
| wish that the guilty programmers and pub-
lishers would take the time and efforts to
ensure that their products do have thorough
ee Ceara :
© Copyright 1990 by
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Edited by
Dennis Doms
with help trom:
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Joyce Hammond JeffNeuer Jay Jennings
Tom Vanderpool Jean Weishaar
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documentation and make sincere efforts to
address that specific problem. | know now that
they work under tremendous pressures but that
is no excuse for leaving a job half done. | would
sooner wait for the finished product than get a
“kit” program. From now on | will discontinue
using those packages whose documentation is
the pits; where the author assumes that | can
intuit meaning from code words; where the
index, if it’s got one, is only jargon.
Let me not leave on a sour note. My thanks
to all of you who do go the last mile and
beyond. Your efforts should not be taken lightly
and my hat’s off to you and I will patronize you.
Quentin Packard
Troy, N.Y.
You have hit on part of the problem in your
letter: good documentation is hard work. Some
companies may find themselves in the same
predicament you did; they have the program
completed, but are faced with investing more
time and money in preparing the documenta-
tion. If the company has a financial need to get
the product to market quickly to generate oper-
ating revenue, the documentation may be the
part of the package that “slips*. The “chicken
and egg” syndrome here is that better docu-
mentation may make the product sell better,
but the company may question the need to
invest a large sum in the manual until they
know the product will sell enough to justify the
extra expense.
Translating a highly technical concept to
“plain English” is also sometimes difficult.
Many computer users claim to have an aver-
sion to “jargon”, but it does make sense that a
certain amount of a new vocabulary will have
to be learned in order to cope. One problem
we've seen is that some users want to be
“spoonfed” when there is a learning process
involved that involves some effort. It may even
be difficult, though good documentation (and a
good user interface design) should make it as
Painless as possible.
l'll admit to finding it hard work to write at
an “end user” level; I didn’t skimp on English
courses in high school and college even as a
science major because it was emphasized to
me that the ability to communicate your ideas
is at least as important as the ability to formu-
late them. The problem | perceive is that the
longer you work in a field the more inured you
become to the jargon; sometimes you use a
term without realizing that it’s meaning isn’t
plain to everyone. Editing your own writing is a
rather sobering experience, because you have
to make the additional effort to avoid that
trap.—DJD
Lost art?
Something that seems to be lost of late in
the Apple I world is all the amateur program-
ming enthusiasm there used to be back when
Applesoft was the thing. That alone used to sell
a lot of Apples. Seems like we need a new folk
programming language that will access the
power of the new machines but also be simple
enough for everyday users. Not that such a lan-
guage doesn’t exist, but no one seems to have
embraced it and made it popular.
Martin D. Paquette
Sebastopol, Calif.
For the Apple Il, Applesoft became the stan-
dard because it was included with every
machine (not an insignificant point) and it was
easy to learn. Another factor was that, for a
Vol. 6, No. 6
time, Apple included the Apple Il Reference
Manual, Applesoft Tutorial, The DOS Manual
and Applesoft BASIC Programmer's Refer-
ence with the Apple Il. This stopped with the
Ile, though Apple did start supplying a short
introduction to Applesoft (A Touch of Apple-
soft BASIC) with the llgs when it was intro-
duced in 1986. But there was no native ligs
language supplied with the system; Apple elect-
ed to let the market decide.
Apple did release a llgs development envi-
ronment contracted from The Byte Works
(Apple Programmer's Workshop) with an
assembler; The Byte Works, in turn, sells a sub-
stantially similar product as its ORCA/M
assembly language development system. Apple
has also released tools to “enhance” this envi-
ronment, such as the resource compiler and
decompiler REZ and DeREZ (part of the $50
Programming Tools and Interfaces for APW
package from APDA, part # AO228LL/A). APW
Product Manager Tim Swihart revealed in a
GEnie real time conference on May 28 that the
anticipated version 2.0 of the environment will
be released solely as a Byte Works product;
Apple will continue to supply ligs develop-
ment tools, but they decided having two forms
of essentially the same environment on the
market (one labelled APW, one labelled
ORCA/M) was not desirable.
Therefore, it is left mostly to potential pro-
grammers to decide what languages to use.
Weve found that many potential programmers
get confused just deciding which language to
use. We’re not immune to the confusion; one
of our obstacles in trying to cover llgs program-
ming is that we have to decide what language
to present the program in, and it’s likely we'll
have to make some effort to teach elements of
the language, because it will probably not be
BASIC. ligs programming uses a lot of data
structures which BASIC is not able to handle
conveniently. (My personal choice would prob-
ably be C, with Pascal a close second.)
The other hurdle is that the environment
Surrounding personal computers has changed
remarkably in their lifetime, from primarily a
“hacker” audience to a “user” audience. Much
of the user audience is unconcerned with the
mechanics of the system. And the truth is that
we get relatively few programming questions
these days, and the ones that we do get are
often complex or obscure enough that we're
not sure what the general interest in our reply
would be,
We may “experiment” with a sample Ilgs
program or two in the next few months to see
what the interest is. We'd like feedback on the
articles, good or bad, when they appear.—DJD
Which way did he go?
Any chance of a regular editorial column by
Tom Weishaar?
Isaac Molho
Garden Grove, Calif.
Tom slips in an article now and again (such
as “Personnel moves rock Apple” in the March
1990 issue); keep watching.
Currently, Tom is working on trying to get
our mailing list system ported over to GS/OS
as well as implementing an internal electronic
mail system. Tom says by the time he’s done,
he'll probably be sick enough of programming
to look forward to more writing.—DJD