Apple 2000 Vol 6 No. 2 1991 04 BASUG GB

Apple2000 THE NATIONAL APPLE USERS GROUP The Apple and Microsoft Alternative To the Industry Standards. PostScript Rules OK! StyleWriter Application MaclWrite II FileMaker Pro MacDraw II MacPaint 2.0 MacProject II 2.1 Claris CAD 2.0 SmartForm Series Business Development = Se ec 43 ay mas | = =a | ao =| = 1a il i A business presentation story Buy MacDraw Il now and get MacDraw Pro free (and take away MacPaint for nothing too!) Claris bring you their best offer yet. WY drawing software. Its ability to let you illus- Ee trate reports, design products, publish flyers MacDraw tt | and present proposals in a way that makes people sit up and take notice - even if you have never used a drawing tool - has made it the most popular Macintosh drawing tool by far. Later this year will see the launch of the more powerful and more flexible MacDraw Pro. But you ncedn’t wait until then to get all the advantages of this best-seller. Buy MacDraw II now and Claris will upgrade it to MacDraw Pro-Free! And if that isn’tenough, you will also get MacPaint and ArtFiles Clip Art, all together worth over £100, for absolutely nothing. (01991 Claris Corporation. All rights teserved. Claris, MacDraw and MacPaint arc trademarks of Claris trademarks: ‘Offer subject to availablity and cnds with the UK shipping of MacDraw Pro, *For enquiries in the Republic of Ireland call Dublin (01) 767 814. ‘The power and depth that MacDraw II offers have made MacDraw II is the leading Macintosh™ ita standard for companies who need a tool that beginners can start with and expert designers can stay with. It is equally popular with individuals who need the means to express their ideas persuasively because, as you find more things to do with graphics, MacDraw II gives you plenty of power to draw from. If you want MacDraw II to add clarity and colour to your graphics, and be first in line to get the upgrade to MacDraw Pro (without paying for it), see your authorised Claris dealer soon, For more information call Freephone 0800 899005." CLARIS Corporation. The Apple logs and Macintoh are ‘of Apple Computer, Inc. Fan Apple2000 Apple2000 The All Apple P.0.Box 3 User Group Liverpool Committed to 121 SPY All Apple Users Si ae anes including Macintosh April 1991 Fax: fl atl Vz ( Apple2000 supports users of >) (exe) NTE NTS all the Apple computers. The he 2020, I, 0, HS //e, ‘ ‘c+, gs, Igs+, , Lisa, Pariomente Comer Been Wanner, 3 |i) Xt. Mac 128, 812 MacPius, 7 ae Classic, SE, SE/30, Mac LC, 1, Bea gies Geass April Competition 8 ‘J a The small world of E-Mail 9 Isi, lex, Ici, ILx, fx and the AppkcXtras ProDOS 8 and IIgs 10 Mac Portable Disk Zaps (part 4) Ewen Wannop al Contributions and articles for AppleWorks Macros Peter Davis 12 the magazine are a Comms without tears Ewen Wannop 13 welcome. We can handle any Cree — Stern Deve Beare is disk size or format. Please send SofiCat Comer ion Gurr 19 GcoCale with GeoChart — a review David Morgan 20 to PO Box 3. Liverpool. 121 SPY ‘The Graphic Exchange 4.2 —a review Peter Stark 21 NOTE: High Speed DMA SCSI Card revisited Ewen Wannop 22 Designing Fractals to Order Mike Bass 23 The front half of the magazine Apple IIgs Software Selector 24 is mainly for the Apple Il, ProDOS Text File Readers — a review William Watson 31 Apple IIgs and Apple /// Surge Suppressors: Worse Than Useless? Andy Baird 34 he back half for the Macin- Pkitrriea aes Apple Computer Kd tosh and Lisa. Look for the peration AppleStorm, tive page icons. ‘The Nibbler Speaks The Nibbler 38 ae Pag MacChat Norah Arnold 42 R Flash in the Folder — a review Ewen Wannop 46 Apple Il, //e and //c & Open It! TENpointO 47 The Secret Diary of a Hard Dise Mike Dawson 48 Apple /// B Self-Help Legal Software Stephen R. Elias 52 Apple Iigs 8 AppleLink 6.0 Apple Computer 53 LaserWriter LS Apple Computer 54 Macintosh, Lisa i=] StyleWriter Apple Computer 56 InBox Plus 3.0 Sitka Corporation sr (Me ) y) Convertlt! Helzer Software co YB Hypermedia: The Multiple Message (part 1) Craig Radland 62 HyperCard Scripting Explained (part 1) Mike Dawson 66 | ar ee MaeWrite Il: Smart Quotes 68 t t Outlining the PLP IIS —a review Martin W. Twelftree 70 on ac Court finds in Apple's Favour 71 . ‘TN#273 — SCSI Termination Apple Computer 72 P t New Education Pree for LE 73 oints MAC 101 Keyboard — a review John Kishimoto 74 The Hewlett-Packard DeskWriter John Stanicr 75 AppkeXtras Mac 8 76 z Mac Library 77 Sa GF Local Groups 78 Members’ Small Ads. 80 Apple Ii Hotline: Dave Ward Advertisers’ Index 80 ‘Wiasiise: (Ghaemey seitiaiara Mon-Fri 1900-2100 Ee SS. OP Macintosh Hotline: John Arnold Whaniiid: (OF paLg AA310eD/ St) There are a number of ways) Weare very interested in the activities Mon-Fri 1900-2100 to contact Apple2000 of local user groups, and if you have TABRS: Ewen Wannop - SYSOP any information which you would like f r e4 Ifyou wish to order goods or services ublicised John Lee would like to hear (niente (al ‘a! from Apple2000 or just leave us a {Ses you. AppleLink: B, G1 message, call Irene on (fifi Stith li4i K ‘ (Ansafone during the day). Alternatively We reserve the right to publish, Revenue dattlewood you can Fax. your order to {fill aia without prejudice, any advice or : nw or write to the PO Box. Ifyou use comments given to members as a Local Groups: John Lee comms you can leave orders on TABBS _ result of letters received, in the journals Wiafhise: GIT D MabayEL addressed to the SYSOP or contact us of Apple2000. on AppleLink (BASUG. 1). TimeOut & ProSel; Ken Dawson Alittle praise for a few of our authors GH hase eat Ifyou are experiencing problems with wouldn't go amiss. Send all comments, Apple hardware or software Dave Ward —_ and contributions, via the PO box, AppleWorks: John Richey and John Arnold run the Hotlines and _ especially suggestions about what you (CLR PND will try and help you. would like to see in your magazine. “SS y) April 1991 Apple2000 = 1 Chairman's Corner Apple2000 1980-1991 RA A EERIE ES I am writing this having just re- turned from the MacWorld show at the N.E.C. The show was domi- nated by the two new printers in- troduced by Apple that week. The pricing of these printershas turned the computer world upside down once again. It is now very clear what Apple's strategy for the 90's has become. They no longer see themselves as addressing the high end business or graphics market, but spanning the complete range of computer solutions from simple word processing to advanced multi- media and graphics. It is now possible to buy a Macin- tosh with hard disk and laser qual- ity printer for just over £1000. This time last year you would have had to pay nearly £3000 more to have the same facilities from Apple. If you want more speed and memory power than the Classic can give you, then you need to pay more. That is areasonable situation to my way of thinking as even with the cheapest Mac Classic you will not be limited by your choice of software. With only a few excep- tions, and these are mainly the lack of colour on the Classic, all Macin- toshes will run all Macintosh soft- ware. This limitation applies to the There is a bonus in using a Mac- intosh. All Macs are now fitted with the high density SuperDrive. With the addition of a program like PC Access, they can read and write to an IBM 3.5 disk directly and with consummate ease. Having experienced the direct reading of a WordPerfect file into the WYSIWYG environment of MaeWrite II and writing it back out again toan IBM disk. I can testify to the transparent compatibility of the Mac with the IBM. What was interesting to me at the show was the number of people who were just about to get their first Macintosh. At previous shows it was the number of people who were only thinking of purchasing that were dominant. The main complaint of these new owners was their horrorwhen they realised that software could well cost them more thanthe cost of the computeritself. I predicted last year that the cost of software would come down. So far only a few dealers are trying to address this problem. The mail or- der companies like Camelot have been the first off the mark. Others T hope will follow. Camelot is also trying to address the cost of periph- erals as well. Though this is not so I throw down a challenge to the software publishers. Many people just do not know which package to buy. When faced with the vast choice and conflicting claims and high prices, they may well pirate a copy just to see if it works. When they have decided what they wish to use, they may well stick with the pirated version because of cost! Itwould not be too difficult for the publishers to manufacture ‘cut- down’ or limited versions of their software. These could perhaps generate limited sized documents or have features suppressed. The files that are generated should be transparent to the full package of course. These ‘cut-down’ programs would sell for less than their stand- ardequivalent. Asatisfied customer would soon want the full package. There should then be a suitable upgrade path to allow them to get the full program Even if he did not upgrade, the publishers would sell more programs and so should be a happy with the volume sales. It would also help to cut down on piracy. Aldus already sell a special 'Edu- cation’ version of PageMaker that is limited in this way. That version could easily be marketed as Page- Maker Junior without any delay. I will keep a keen eye out on developments. It would be nice to think the industry will become as responsive as Apple has been to market demands. I just hope it does not take as long to make up their minds as Apple themselves top end SE/30 as well of course. immediate a problem to owners. did. Ewen Wannop (neal subscription rates are £30.00 for UK residents, £35.00 for E.E.C. residents and £40.00 for other overseas members. Apple2000™ {s a trading name of BASUG Ltd, a non-profit making independent company limited by tee. The contents of this journal are copyright of BASUG Ltd and /or the respective authors. Permission {s granted for non- commercial reproduction providing the author and source are properly credited and a copy of the relevant journal ts sent to BASUG Ltd. The opinions and views expressed hercin are those of the various contributors, and are not necessarily endorsed by BASUG Ltd. ‘This journal is published bi-monthly by BASUG Lid as a benefit of membership in February, April, Junc, August, October and December. Tle Apple Slices newsletter ts pub- lished in the intervening months. The copy date is the Ist day of the month preceding publication. Advertising rates are available on request. Apple™ and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. Macintosh™ is a trademark of Macintosh Laboratory Inc and used with the express permission of the owner. Telecom Gold™ is a trademark of British Telecom ple. Apple2000™, Apple Slices, AppleXtras, Mac2000 and The FORCE are trademarks of BASUG Ltd. This issue was prepared using Aldus PageMaker™ 4.0, \\iicroSoft Word™ and Claris MacWrite™. . The Editorial team is: Apple Il Ewen Wannop Macintosh Norah Arnold, Irene Flaxman Reviews Elizabeth Littlewood Many thanks to all those who work behind the scenes and who receive no personal credit. These people are the stalwarts of Apple2000. Additional thanks go to Val Evans for designing our front cover, and to Walter Lewis of Old Roan Press (051-227-4818) for our printing service. Apple2000 are Founder Members and Wholehearted Supporters of the Apple User Group Council ee 8 Apple2000 April 1991 Newbridge-On-Wye Powys Dear Ewen, Inote your comments and would say that the meg of the Apple Mac com- puters now depends on the software - in the early days, when we had about three programs to choose from, it was true to claim that the computers were fast and versatile. ‘They are still fast (based on operations per second), but the point is that they are slow when you have to spend so much time sorting out the problems caused by software. In other words, today’s criteria are based on the speed and versatility of the PLATFORM, not on the computers. Today's problems are the result of Apple's success in getting so many developers to produce programs. And this is because they do nothing to ensure the guidelines are adhered to - and make it obvious, by not address- ing the problem, that they don't care either. Instead, they go on producing more and more computers and talk as if the PLATFORM was the same as it was in the early days. Now we all know that people like me, who don't agree with what big business says, are always opposed - but I think Ican say with some assurance that two more little boys will one day make another computer in their garage. It willbe Hust like alot ofother computers (only faster and more versatile), but will have a little swing-ticket attached to it saying “If you wish, you can buy software for this computer that is guaranteed to work first time, every lime, and with all the other guaranteed software too”. So let's all sit back and wait for the future to unfold ... Frank Pycroft QI must now agree with you. If it was an ideal world then I should like to buy this computer that works with its guaranteed software first time andevery time. It is not an ideal world however, and until we can persuade Apple to do something like you say, then we are going to have to put up with what we have got. Itoolose time because ofdisk crashes, media crashes and otherrandom bugs. April 1991 This wasted time can be expensive and is of course very frustrating. As a rogrammer , lamacutely aware Faw anything I may decide to program in as a feature may have an unknown effect with some obscure piece of software form another source. I try to keep to the guidelines, but frequently find it is Apple themselves who do not keep to their own guidelines! Do I not put a feature into a program in case it might conflict? I cannot test against every piece of software, especially those thatare not written yet. Life is too short to test everything, I would not finish a program if | did that. I must just take the gamble that it will work and cross my ers. You have a great idea there, but I suspect {it would be impractical and too expensive to implement. Perhaps all we can expect is that Apple tighten their guidelines. They have an excellent opportunity with the release of System. 7.0 to do this. Are they up to the challenge? Ewen Wannop « mora HPA NAS. TTT ea eT Dear Apple2000 As I have some questions, I'm trying to contact Apple 2000 via AppleLink E- Mail. Here is the problem, one of my col- leagues has encountered. He needs to transfer files from PFS file on the Apple Il to the Mac (and he does not need any special format on the MAC). The problem is that PFS on the Apple II doesn't accept serial output. So it isn’t possible to use, for example. Kermit taking the data printed to the serial port of the Apple Il and transferring them directly to the MAC. The format used by PFS seems also very mysteri- ous. So, has anybody some idea how todo this? I must say that we have PFS on the Apple II but also on the MAC (but nowhere in the documentation we found a word on compatibility). Eric Cornelis Ol have no information on the PFS file structure, though the file type is de- fined in the latest list from Apple. Also I am not familiar with PFS File. If PFS File cannot write out any form of text file report to disk then the printer output will be your only way of tapping the information. It is not so easy to convert parallel printer output to serial though not impossible. The main problem is that paral outputis by its very definition faster than serial. Aconvertor would allowyou to connect directly to the Mac and capture the incoming text flow. The main problem would be making sure that the con- vertor handshakes correctly with PFS file to control the flow. Ifanyone else can think ofa solution, please let us know and we shall pass this on to Eric over AppleLink. The Boffin Dear Ewen, I currently have an Apple II+ with an 80 column card and a CCS 7710-2 serial card, and I was wondering ifyou could give me an idea of what I would need, in terms of software and hard- ware, to set up a modem on my com- puter. Having fooled around a bit on Micronet with another computer, I'd be interested in using that, but also bulletin boards like TABBS. I gather Apple produced their own range of modems for the Apple II range, but I was wondering if there are any other makes which might also be compatible? I am a frequent attendee at the local amateur radio rallies (where there are always stalls selling 2nd hand computer equipment) and have seen a lot of extremely cheap modems for sale. Are there any common makes, which would run on my II+. which I could keep an eye out for? I bought a Protek 1200 acoustic modem, at one of these rallies. (for £10.00!) which has a non-standard RS232 port (a 5-pin stereo-din-socket) Earlsdon, Coventry If you have an pat eae problem you should ring the Hotline to mitted to Apple2000 will normally be dealt with as part Letters and Faxsul et help. ofthe editorial content of the next magazine. We shall endeavour toanswer problems ifat all possible before publication, but due to the large volume of letters received this may not be possible in all circumstances. Please submit all letters and articles to the magazine on disk wherever possible. The disks will be returned to you when the magazine is published. If you have a modem, send us letters, articles Domain programs either to 84:BSGO01 or to TABBS (ili Apple2000 id Public Pata) which I thought I might be able to wire up to the serial card's 25-pin RS232 socket, but haven't had any luck so far. The modem seems to use only 4 pins: Pin 1 Ground Pin 2 Modem input Pin 3 Modem output Pin4 Unused - seems to be a power line if the batteries are removed Pin 5 Answer/originate Would you have any ideas how to wire up the answer/originate pin on the modem to the relevant pins on the 25-pin RS232 socket? Protek seem to have gone out of business, as my en- quiry to them was returned marked “gone away”. What sort of software would I need to contact TABBS, or Micronet? Is there any PD or shareware that I could use? Would it support the split baud rate (1200/75) that Micronet uses? I would be very grateful to have any comments that you could offer on the above, and I am sure that the infor- mation would be of use to other “frustrated* would-be modem users like myself A series of articles on how to get on-line, with the various types of Apple equipment, would bevery helpful. Jon Harrington Starting from the beginning, you will need some software to access the mo- dem. On the II+ you have a limited choice available to you these days. There are some PD programs about, but most do not have the comprehen- sive file Sewnloading that you would need with most Bulletin Boards and especially TABBS. If you want to ac- cess Micronet or any of the Viewdata systems, then there is only one choice open toyouand that is Antelope, noth- ing else supports Viewdata on the Ap- ple Il. Antelope is sold by Apple2000 for £25.00 inclusive. I must of course own up to be the author of Antelope. It was perhaps better known under its previous title of Data Highway when it was sold by PACE some years ago. Antelope will see the CCS serial card though you will need to change the baud rate manually on the card if you change speeds. There is a drawback however with Antelope and many other programs for the Il+. They were written in the good old days of DOS 3.3 and so do not support ProDOS directly. ProDOS ts of course the preferred manga ie these days. You can convert files between the two systems with a program like Chameleon. Chameleon costs £16 and is also sold by Apple2000. It is not necessary any longer to have a split baud rate modem to access Prestel or Micronet. Nearly all the nodes have been changed to multi-standard modems and you can access at any speed up to 2400 baud. I do not know the Protek 1200 mo- dem, but from your description of it having an answer/originate pin, !would suspect it was using the 1200 part of 1200/75 and switching from receive to originate using the single carrier. There were a few modems that did this. Only specialised software would see this kind of modem and it is for all intents and purposes uscless these days. Look for a modem that has either 1200/75 (V23) or better still 1200/ 1200 (V22). Modems like the PACE Linnet or the WS3000 or WS4000 from Miracomare quite common these days secondhand. There are lots of other ones about, but it really depends on the depth ofyour pocket. The faster the modem the more expensive it becomes. However if you try to do any serious Bulletin Board work, you will find 300/ sor ite far too slow for you sanity. 1200/75 is all right provided you have food clean phone lines, but is no good you want to send any files anywhere. We have run many articles in the t on communications. As you will fave gathered it is my own speciality. I have been running some of these ol articles again as they are still relevant. I shall see what I can do. Ewen Wannop a Russell Ridout VA Dear Ewen, Just a few lines which I hope will be of interest to other A2000 members - phoned Alan Finn at Clocktower at about 3.30 - 4pm one day recently to ask aboutextra Ram chips fora Cirtech GS-8 Ram disk. Not only did he have some in stock (MGA quoted 7 - 14 day wait) they arrived the following morn- ing by post!! Couldn't be much quicker! You may recall some time back talking in the A2000 journal of your igs and the disappearing 3.25in drive when daisy chained with a 5.25in unit. I have just had the problem turn up on my system (bought from Holdens Computer Services about 18 - 24 months ago). After reading about a fix in A2-CentralI phoned Holden's on the off chance, though I doubted that they could (or would) beable todo muchalter that length of time. However, their Peter Carter (Service Dept) said he would take the matter up with Apple as he would normally have to charge iron £90 to replace the daisy chain @TABBS: Va >) VUMMITTTTTT TALE AA A Va a a oe eee § >>> T TOR MENU <<<<< Wl VT UL AA AE TA A Apple2000 WM OU ie et Le LL Bulletin <#>Endcall <.>Utilities WT <j>Time <G>oodbye /11/17 The Apple Bulletin Board System Board <1l> Appl folde: Speeds: V21(300) to V22bis(2400) 8N1 24 hours System <2> aS tecpaar Modem: PACE Ultralink 32 using V42 LAPM MNP <3> Macintosh folder <4> Apple2000 folder Q The TABBS message system is more than just a Bulletin Board. With a Shopping = Reserves eoldex Mall where you can browse the Apple2000 catalogues and order the goods you saicaamag require; a library with over 75mb of compressed files for the Apple II, IIgs and <D>ownload Libraries Macintosh; the NewsBytes™ news files updated weekly bringing you the latest in <tMailbox world computer news; a private and public E-mail service; file wansfers thatcan be | <N>ews Columns A enclosed in private or public mail; message areas covering many topics including the | <2 ery omen. Hoarding Apple Il, the Igs and Macintosh; with Xmodem, 1k Xmodem (Ymodem) file | <yshok's dee cn TARBS transfers; multi-speed access at all common speeds; 24 hour operation; and much, <HPelp files for TABBS much more make TABBS the premier Apple Bulletin Board serving Europe. \_ ee. Give TABBS a call today! Ring TABBS on (G221)745797 at any speed through V21, V22, V23 to V22bis 8N1 V42 MNP TABBS is available 24 hours a day ws y) “Aww Apple2000 April 1991 He subsequently advised that Holden's would do the modification for free - so off went my drive, and a week or so later it came back and so far (touch wood) there have been no fur- ther problems. I asked when I sent off the drive if they would let me know if didn't want this publicised and ve NOT said they did not want this is uperede known by A2000 mem- aie another bouquet for Holdens Computer Services. I know who | will be dealing with in future. Russell Ridout P.S. Clocktower also quoted a far bet- ter price than MGA for the chips. OThanks Russell, what more can Iadd to that. Alan Finn has been trying to provide a reliable, fast and cheap serv- ice to the Apple community. It looks like he ts succeeding! Ihave not had my drive done yet, but it looks like I shall follow your route. It Fulready Road London Dear Editor, ft I was glad to see that Graham Doubtfire is a fellow supporter of AppleWriter. I use it in preference to AppleWorks and would like to expand onsome ofits useful tricks, particularly the WPL mail-merge facility that Graham has played down. Here is the program I use, based rou; on the example in the manual but more suitable for my needs as secret of an amenity society (See Figure 1). It would be very irksome to enter names and addresses with the num- bers and other characters in the right place sol wrote a simple basic program which requires the user to type in form of name used in address (N$). Street address (A$), Town (T$), postcode (PC$), greeting (F$), job or phrase (J$). is program then writes them intoa sone would be interesting to know ifwe need file complete with numbers: both 3.5 drives done, or whether only 370 FOR W=1 TO NO (number of one would suffice. records) Ewen Wannop é 380 X=3*W-2:Y=3*W-1:Z=3*W Figure 1 START PIN Name of address file? =SA PIN Name of letter? =SB PSX 1 Loop NY LsB F! (ADDRESS) !! x LSA!<(X)>!*1N <loMr A. Robinson 20 Fulready Road London £10* <2>Arthur* <3>Civic Society* (4>..4626 etc and the actual letter might be: Dear (NAME). (ADDRESS) (set x to be 1) (clear screen) (load the letter) B (go to the top) Find “ADDRESS” & replace by blank Lead address file from “1” to”*” PGO FOUND (go to “found”. If at end of PGO QUIT (data goto Quit”) FOUND — PSX+1 (Increase x by 1) B (Go to the top) FP! (NAME) !! (Find “NAME”. replace by blank Y? LSA!<(X)>!71N (From address file load from 2 to **”) PSX+1 (Increase x by 1) B (go to the top) F! (JOB) !! (Find “JOB” & replace by blank) Y? LSA!<(X)>!71N (From address file load from “3” to "*”") B PNP (print the letter” PSX+1 (increase x by 1) PGO LOOP (if there is more data go to Quir NY Loop, otherwise quit) A single record of the address file looks like this: Are you still secretary of the (JOB)? April 1991 Apple2000 395 400 410 420 430 440 Subsequent additions and correc- tions can be made from the word- proccessor. When I first attempted to transmit letters via Telecom Gold I found that most of the text had disappeared. This was because AppleWriter stores the text without the carriage returns which occur at line-ends. The letter must be stored first in a formatted form which includes the CR's. The technique for doing this in described in the DOS 3.3 manual but not in the manual I re- ceived for the PRODOS version, The method is the same: Type CTRL-P (CR) PD8 (CR) (in other words, send the letter to slot 8. Since there are only 7 slots the computer knows you want to print to a disc. It asks for a file name.) Arthur Robinson ¢ Surrey Dear Apple2000, Having got an Apple //e almost a year ago, with all the hardware but withoutany instructions or guidelines, I'm getting a bit restless at not being able to use the thing. It's for a wholly domestic use and although lama total novice on Apple. I have been using another machine for 3 years so 1 am nota complete dunce with a WP. Ihave tosay that! do feel like it at the moment - I couldn't even work out how to run the Introductory disk you sent me! I have two disk drives, a User's manual andan Owner's Manual though the latter is not a lot of use. I also have a Starter Disk, a Systems Master Disk anda ProDOS Users Disk and Manual (largely unintelligible. I might add). However, I don't have the ProDOS supplement tothe //e Owner's manual, though I'm not a sure if it would help much am Ihave recent! "Jolned Apple2000.and I have to say that the prime reason for joining is to see if 1 can somehow get together on a one-to-one basis with another Apple //e owner who could look over my shoulder for an hour or two and point out my errors. Basically my overall requirements are very simple - I want to use the Apple primarily as a word processor but with further, small, need for a spreadsheet and database. As couldn't allord AppleWorks 3, I was recom- mended (by MGA Softcat) to get SoftSync’s Trio’ at £30. It seems pretty straightforward but. on my own, | haven't been able to run it properly and I have thoroughly scoured the manual to find out why I can't get further than the copy/move section PRINT “<“X”>"NS (W) PRINT AS (W) PRINT TS", “PCS (W);"°" PRINT “<“Y">"FS (W)”*” ee <NZ">""IS (W) "A" Byfleet & when I have followed all the instruc- poi Id th fate it if T woul atly appreciate you could sugeest a ing and I would welcome any advice you may feel able to proffer. Ambrose Smith fill GSMS DAHA (After 7pm) Ol have printed your phone numberin the hope that a member can help you Sheet wile your problems. I cannot really launch into a complete tutorial on the //e in these letter pages. I hope you will understand. If we can get you over the first hur- dies, I am sure you will be able to progress from there. Your predicament raises some in- teresting points. When the Apple II first appeared only enthusiasts would fork out the £1500 it cost to set up an Apple Il and a couple of disk drives. With that kind of investment we would do anything to find out how the thing worked, We quickly became computer freaks so we could thread our way through the jungle it presented. The machines were never that easy to use and the documentation in many cases was appalling. Things have changed these days and our expectations are very much higher. If we come into possession of an Apple II we have probably paid no more than a £50-200 for the complete package. Starting from square one with a difficult machine, when we would expect it to be user- friendly, is hard for many of our newer members: posh 4 It is not hel, a le of differ- ent bits of Hae eres sur- viving from those pioneer days that ae come with the package! e //e is an excellent computer for word processing. I would not recom- mend AppleWorks 3.0 on the //e, the older version 2.0 is quite enough. Version 3.0 only really comes into its own on the Ilgs. Ihope we can come up witha member who can help. In the meantime please ring Dave Ward on the Hotline. | am sure that Dave will help you get over Derby the very first of the hurdles. Editor Dear Editor, f Ihave an Apple //e with Computech Diplomat printer interface, Star LC10 multi font printer and a Thunder Mountain Clock card. I would like details regarding screen dumping and how to set up my clock card for which unfortunately no handbook is available. Kevin Potter Tielt, (G37 Ft Chellaston Q We do not have any details here on the ThunderClock. Perhaps a member could help out on that one please. tA me Screen dumps are another matter. I am not sure if you mean you want to print the text you have on the screen, or that you just want to make a graphic dump ofthe current screen. In the case of text, most word processors will handle that directly of course. If you want to make a graphic dump of the screen, or a dump of the displayed text screen, you will need a utility todo that for you. The main problem in doing this is that you will have to leave the program that has created the screen and run a separate utility. You cannot assume that any memory is free fora routine to be run under any existing program unless you are in Basic. In that case page 3 is always free. Most of these screen dumps take the form of binary code that is run at a specific address. With printers being non-standard and printer cards even more so, they are usually written fora specific combination. You do not say which printer and card you have. If your printer is a dot-matrix printeryou will be able to do graphic dumps. You may even find that your printer card already has this capability built in. Refer to the printer card handbook in that case. Ifyou would like to elaborate on your needs, we can try to be more specific, and perhaps find a member who can help directly or even write a screen dump for you. The Boffin é Co, Loch Garman Vi A Chara, Thanks for the disks which I received yesterday. Two problems have arisen however. Firstly, Ican't seem toload CheapPaint, on disk 8, and I also cannot load disk 037. probably because I only have 512k of RAM. As | also wish to upgrade my IIgs to 1.25 or even 2mb, I am wondering if ee could advise me how to go aboutit. ly ROMis version 01, and the memory expansion card is manufactured by Apple. | am hoping to purchase Ap- pleWorks GS to help me with school administration, and to ani and print a small research project in which Tam involved. Is it possible to install the fonts on the IIgs library disks on my II-Write word processor? Please help, I've little experience of computers, and no-one around here to turn to for help or advice !!! Aodhagan O Suird Pear QO Your lack of memory is at the root of all your problems. System 5.0.4 on disk 37 and 38 (you will need both disks to install it) requires a minimum of 1.25 megabyte to install. With al- most any of the IIgs operating systems running, you need more than 512k to run any of the major programs avail- Apple2000 able today. AppleWorks GS will run under 1.25 megabytes but they recom- mend 3.0 to really make it work Pegreny You have the Apple memory card nar This can be upgraded to Bive your machine 1.25 megabytes uy three sets of 256k bee) You wil need 24 in all to fill the card. Try Alan Finn at ClockTower for these (see ear- er letter!). They are not difficult to install given a bit of patience. If you want to go further than this, you should get a Cirtech Primo card (try Alan or Bidmuthin). The Primo comes with one megabyte on board. With the 256k on the Ilgs this brings you to 1.25 megabyte. You can expand the Primo to 2 meg and then to 4 meg if you wish. You will find that ifyou run System 5.0.4 on the IIgs, you will need at least two 3.5 disk drives. If you only have ‘one, it would be worth getting at least 2 megabytes of memory as you could partition off one megabyte as a fast Ram disk to hold the operating system. It is a hard fact of life these days that both the IIgs and the Macintosh are almost impossible to run from floppy disks. You need a hard disk drive ifyou are going to do anything sensible. lam sorry to say that AppleWorks IIgs would be impossible to run sensibly without one. Finally you ask about using the IIgs fonts on other Apple II programs. Of course all the IIgs programs expect and use them, ProDOS 8 programs except for a few exceptions cannot use them. The main exceptions are PublishIt!, Printrix and Timeout Superfonts. Editor e iT ait Northern Ireland Dear Apple2000, On glancing through the Problem page of an old copy of ‘Computer Shopper’ I was amazed to find some oneinthesame predicamentas If. By that I mean we were both suflering under the impression that unless you own an 1IBM/PC then no-one wants to knowyou. I can't tellyou how delighted I was to learn of your existence. For some time now I have been trying toovercome the problem ofattachinga parallel printer to my Apple //e. When | first acquired the Apple, the printer an EP-1201A Super 5, was connected directly to a printer card, of unknown origin. in Slot 1. The software was AppleWriter. Wanting to upgrade this I acquired AppleWorks. A package with which I was familiar. The problem is that AppleWorks is apparently in- compatible with the printer . On using the print command the VDU shows the command being executed that ae printer card does not use a ‘standard enti int’ which le- Works requires, be cl April 1991 I was next advised to purchase an Apple Super Serial Card. When this was done | was left with the problem of connecting the two. I have spoken to many ope (arr about this and genevally tt ec impression is. ifyou don't own anIBM/PC ..... A few did say they could help me, by selling me this card or that, but as they received so few requests of this sort it would be very expensive. I hope you can help me with this problem by recommending a tried and tested way to connect the Super Serial Card to the printer or is there an alternative so! package to Apple- Works V2.0. SSgt G. R. Dodd Q Oh dear, you have been badly mis- led. The Super Serial Card will only access serial printers, and as you have a parallel one you are going to get nowhere with it. If you ever decide to buy an ImageWriter or get a modem it will come into its own. They were correct in saying that the Super Serial Card had the correct en- try points. But what that really means is that the card has firmware onboard the card that responds to a standard initialising routine being called from AppleWorks. Many parallel printer cards also have a suitable routine in firmware so they can be called as well. Try Bidmuthin Technologies, I am sure they will be able to help you with a suitable parallel printer card, AppleWorks 2.0 is an excellent pro- gram. Having got it. I would not con- template anything else if 1 were oo Editor Dear Ewen, Recently I bought a new copy of AppleWorks GS. It supports the LaserWriter perfectly, but scrambles the output when used with a Grappler+ and an Epson FX-105 (and uses a different scrambling with an Epson LX-800). Itis clearly trying to work, but there are spurious characters and the 9th pin (?) leaves a white strip, and sometimes one trails for a while. It is running under GS/OS 5.0.2. When first run, it asked for a Graphicard driver - but adding this has no obvious effect. | had similar results with a copy of an older version from a friend. Can you suggest a fix, or are there suitable drivers in the library, or will something like ‘Harmonie’ be needed? Dave Sewart PS Should any members of Apple2000 use Publish It! and want laser quality printing, I would be willing to supply a service provided there was not exces- sive amounts. They would have to send the saved document (5.25* or fiw Gave: Chay Baa Paert Ciariitanidige ens Far April 1991 3.5” media), and have prepared the document with the font-widths in the ‘select-printer’ menu set to LaserWriter Plus, As yet I have not found a way to rint files containing ‘PostScript saved 8 disc with LaserPrep’. Q AppleWorks GS in its better print mode uses a graphic dump to send to the printer. I would suspect that some- thing is not quite setup correctly. My first thoughts would be that you do not have the handshake between the printer and the IIgs working smoothly. This would give the results that some ofthe output worked and some did not and spurious characters creep in. A horizontal white stripe usually means that the printer is advancing too far between lines. This ts usually changed by switches on the printer. You should refer to the handbook to see how to change those. However it may be that it is simply the printer driver that is not sending the right kind of information to the printer. This is more difficult to deal with. The Epson printer driver currently shipped with system 5.0.4 is the only one I know of. If that does not work for you then itis going tobe difficult to find one that will. The Boffin « Dear Ewen, Doyou have any further information on the Megaboard Hard Disk control- ler from Birre Genberg? Prolim have moved. No reply from DMA or Prisma Data Systems, Oberhausen, Germany. I have collected a very small Apple II bibliography, about 109 literature references. Does anyone else do this, my feeling was that your memory about the Megaboard was very slick? Peter Davis OTry ICT GmbH. Herr Zenglein, 8% (Gradbdtbsaeay th, auey. Welt) nie. (GiiSURUG\ae They were the last place we knew of with the board. Ewen Wannop « ‘Tithe FLithaata iLyuapeeeedl (Bhapaid ‘Ona hasnt thio Fue Ferndown Dorset Dear Apple2000, I am prepared to help as a Mac specialist on the Hot Line. My phone number is (SisiiitsgHinieyy and I can be contacted from 8.30 to 17.00 on working days. The number has an answerphone, s0 calls could be left at any time. Specific specialities are Hypercard scripting, Excel, MS Word 4, MacAuthor and ResEdit. A.W. Harmer OThank you. Editor e Apple2000 Es Q We have asked you all to send us our Compuserve/Forum ID's. We now ive some more added to our collection and these are printed below. There are still some of you that have not re- sponded, We cannot contact youonline unless we know who you are. Please send us your ID's either to the Ap- ple2000 ID 76004,3333 or to the PO Box in Liverpool or of course to the Sysop of TABBS (0225-743797). Apple2000 76004,3333 John Beattie 100012,360 David Collins 100016,3060 Gary Doades 100016,2353 Felim Doyle 100016,1151 David Evans 100014,1161 Mateen Greenaway _100016.602 Dale James 100016,1152 Bryn Jones 71307,1457 Mark Hooper 100014,374 Peter Kemp 100016,1172 Elizabeth Littlewood 100016,401 John Maltb 100014,2216 Mark O'Ne! 100016,476 Steve Perry 100013,365 Jeremy Quinn 100016,560 John Richey 10006, 1037 Russell Ridout 72007,211 Arthur Robinson 73457,3614 James Southward 73767, 1336 Ahmet Turkistanli 100016,3365 Andreas Wennborg 100012,342 76224,211 Ewen Wannop OQMany ofyou will already be members of AppleLink™ and others may be thinking of joining. For simple E-Mail it cannot be beaten. It will also keep you up to the minute with what is happening at Apple headquarters. We would like you to send us your contact ID's to add to this list. Apple2000 BASUG.1 Cumbrian Computers CUMP.COMP. Herts User Group NA-HERTSUG Liverpool Group LIVERPOOL.UG Mosaic Computers MOSAIC.COMPU O Members having offered specialist help facilities are listed below: A.W. Harmer (Mac) CL HHT Mr Armstrong (Apple II+. IIgs) (aps eB John Richey (AppleWorks) ONE. FR aes Ken Dawson (TimeOut, ProSel) (OFF hee mt a a 10 i 12 13 14 1s 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Clues Across Clues Down 1 Flax derivative for bats (7- 3) 7 To promise a high place without direction (5) 8 see 14 down 10 Obligatory shaken coin, echo (2,6) 11 Acase in the Tuilleries (4) 13 Commanding officer, p- payment for drink (6) 15 Write one hundred and forty-nine with it (6) 17 __ Irish policeman and King form a scrum (4) 18 Help net a large mammal (8) 21 ~=‘'‘And1I shall ------- be with them that rest’ (J. Milton) (7) 22 Consumed in directions and was consumed (5) 23. Rent bicycle without begin- ner for what seems to be automatic control (10) = 8 Enter, in charge of reason (5) Gas makes note riung out (8) Very loud in Common Market; model result (6) Fish-boat? (4) Subconcious I love; spasm is stupid (7) Large ungulate shook Norse choir (10) Chop off soldier with class taking chance in track (10) Political direction of castle port (4,4) Plant cultivation? Unfortu- nately not (7,7) Continue, but if you do you're out (4,2) Worker in charge of caper (5) Eyesore in West Yemen (4) Apple2000 April Crossword Rules of Engagement The first correct entry drawn from the postbag wins first prize. Please remember to indicate which of the two prize choices you would like. Only entries from current mem- bers of Apple2000 will be eligible. No member of the committee or the editorial team may enter. Our decision will be final. Only entries received in the PO box in Liverpool before the 31st of May will be deemed eligible. How to Contact You Membership Number: ..........++++ Address: ... Post your completed entry to: April Competition, PO Box 3, Liverpool, L21 8PY. Choose Your Prize If you were to win first prize, please indicate which prize you would like. Newsroom + Clip Art Vol 3 for the Apple II's or Weltris a game for the Macintosh, Please tick your choice: (1 Newsroom oO Weltris April 1991 COMPUTER LOGIC? - SOLUTION Q lan Archibald won the December Competition. He chose Certificate Maker as his prize. The solution is printed below. Name H/w s/w Fault Mable Ancom Graphol___Virus Fable Big Blue Calcit Connections Abel Pear Comms Colours off Table Orange Scriber Garbling Cable Sugar Venture No input The small world of E-Mail Ol received the following message the other day. The world really has got small when a few lines of text can be shunted around electronically and actually get to me intact! This message was forwarded to me over many E-Mail systems to finally reach me on CompuServe only a few hours later. Ewen Wannop é Sender: trout.nosc,mil!crash!pnet01!pro-party!pro- novapple!pro-applepilrzeman Received: from usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu by tut.cis.ohio- state.edu (5.61-kk/5.910130) id AA20396; Thu, 31 Jan 91 05:34:14 -0500 Received: from gatech.edu by usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu with SMTP (5.61 +ida+/CWRU-1.4-UUCPGW) id AA27825; Thu, 31 Jan 91 05:34:06 -0500 (from ucsd!nosc!trout.nosc.mil!crash!pnet01!pro-party!pro- novapple!pro-applepi!rzeman@gatech.edu for compuserve!76224.211@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu) bara: from ucsd.UUCP by gatech.edu (4.1/Gatech- id AA15851 for tut.cis.ohio- state.edu!compuserve!76224.21 1 @usenet.ins.cwru.edu; Thu, 31 Jan 91 05:34:07 EST Received: from nose.UUCP by ucsd.edu; id AA23527 sendmail 5.64/UCSD-2.1-sun via UUCP Thu, 31 Jan 91 02:18:49 -0800 Received: by trout.nosc.mil (5.59/1.27) id AA17657; Thu, 31 Jan 91 02:18:24 PST Message-Id: <9101311018.AA17657@trout.nosc.mil> Received: by crash.cts.com (smail2.5) id AA00926; 31 Jan 91 02:16:03 PST (Thu) Received: by pro-party.cts.com (sendmail 1.7) id au85913; Wed, 30 Jan 91 23:51:54 CST Received: by pro-novapple.cts.com (sendmail 1.7) id au85317; Wed, 30 Jan 91 23:41:58 EST Recelved: by ro-apple i.cts.com (sendmail 1.7) id au84460; Wed, 3OJan 91 23:27:42 EST Date: Wed, 30 Jan 91 23:26:52 EST X-Mailer: Mail Manager (1.1 26nav90) From: rzeman@pro-applepi.cts.com (Rick Zeman) To: 76224.211@compuserve.com Subject: New Mail Route Ht Ewen. It's amazing, but mail from here to CIS and vice-verce takes ~8 hours. Not bad. Rick +CIS) = 72677,3364 +AQ = RZeman GEnie =R.Zeman Internet = rzeman@pro-applepi.cts.com PROLINE: pro-applepi!rzeman UUCP: crash!pro-applepi!rzeman ARPA: crash!pro-applepi!rzeman@nosc.mil INET: rzeman@pro-applepi.cts.com April 1991 Apple2000 CLOCKTOWER GOES PUBLIC! We now have shop premises, but with unpredictable opening hours. So... callers by appointment, or at least, please phone first. Buy any combination of 3 items from this {ist at tho price In right hand column. Add £5 carriage to any goods loss than £100. Add 15% VAT to these prices - Apple 2000 members deduct 10% from the final total. VISA & ACCESS accepted. Beagle , TimeOut & Appleworks products price each: UltraMacros Primer Platinum Paint TimeOut SuperForms Outliner 3.0 SuperFonts Activity Guide ‘AW 3.0 Companion Decision Pak Style Pak Performance Pak TimeOut TextTools DeskTools | or Il FileMaster Graph PowerPack QuickSpell ReportWriter SideSpread Spread Tools SuperFonts TeleComm Thesaurus UltraMacros MacroEase MacroTools | or Il GS Font Editor MiniPix 1,2 or 3 Program Writer Beagle Compiler Point-To-Paint BeagleWrite GS GS Desk Accessories Clip Art vol 1 Font Library vol 1 BeagleDraw BeagleWrite ask Acc, Pic Mgr or FontPaks Prosel 8 (5.25" or 3. Prosel 16 / New ‘Professional’ Prosel package Dos,Master or PRO.CMD Double Data 1item 3 or more 19.00 69.00 48.50 48.50 15.00 58.00 38.50 \vailable if i April 17.50 | 21.00 } 28.00 21.00 14,00 | 15.00 19.50 24.00 18.00 12.00 ZIP CHIPS FOR ALL MODELS ZIP GS 1600 NOW £250 APPLIED ENGI inc. VAT & post NEERING Authorised Dealer HD 3.5" APPLE Il DRIVE £240 - FOR MAC £220 - 3.5" DRIVE FOR ANY APPLE £160 HD upgradeable, }[+ & //e needs controller card £55.00 [Nite Owl battery for GSE13-75 inc. VAT & post | RamFast SCSI card VERY FAST! £170.00 Full range of Cirtech Products - call Appleworks 3.0 or GS upgrades, call. Now, S/H available for upgrading ‘ Clocktower DRAM & SIMMS - call! 84 a WESTON PARK, LONDON, N8 9PW (callers by appointment, or at least, please phone first) = TELEPHONE & FACSIMILE N® 081-341 9023 ne , es hae /XTRAS.P8.NO.8/ Apple Xtras] ecresegep0:cnm eno Space telescope in depth ‘The files should all be c copled to toa blank floppy disk initialised with the name /HST. DEFNDRCLONE.SDK /XTRAS.P8.NO.8/ Unshrink with Shrinklt 3.0.2 from Xtras.P8.No.5 to produce a self-booting 5.25 disk arcade game. ~HST.SHK SEO 91 S-MAR-91 You will need a joystick to defend yourself against the =DEFNDRCLONE.SDK SEO 80 18-AUG-90 flying clones! “DROPIT. SHK geo as ewes DROPIT.SHK SORENASA: SHK = MAR A Tetris like game for the Apple II using Lo-Res “BASIC. EDITOR PIR a aes 91 Graphics. LoRes graphi tieeete easy to use and are a pie gate Sci ferential forgotten art by many programmers. -EDITOR BAS 14 10-FEB-91 ORBNASA.SHE Another educational program that explains how satellites orbit the earth. You can calculate your own /XTRAS.GS.NO.8/ orbits and paths and display the results. BASIC.EDITOR ~BOOT. SYSTEM SxS 2 S-JRI-90 Asimple text editor written in Basic. It can be used “Time pais 65 | S-MAR-91 as an instructional tool that can be modified or =PRODOS evs Ay 207A eS, it will edit small text files as it stands. Useful for =UTILITIES DIR 1 5-MAR-91 creating Exec files. “ABOUT DIR 1 5-MAR-91 y ‘*=ABOUT DOC TXT 51 3-APR-90 =ABOUT $B3 48 _ 3-APR-90 =ABOUT.1CONS SCA 4 11-MAY-90 /&TRAS.GS.NO.8/ “SHRINKIT.GS DIR 1 S-MAR-91 =GSHK $83 212-«19-JAN-91 Wiiitioe Directory, =BUG.REPORTS ™xT 16-JUN-90 ABO! =SHRINKIT.ICONS $CA 20 29-JUN-90 Auseful program from New Zealand that will ceplay =GSHK .DOCS TXT 59 13-JAN-91 and print many kinds of text documents and launc! =README TxT 14 19-JAN-91 programs. “VIRUS.RX DIR 1‘ 5-MAR-91 SHRINKIT.GS =RX.GS $B3 35 12-FEB-91 Shrinkit GS V1.0.4. This is mainly a bug fix to 1.0.3 =RX.GS.DOC TxT 33 12-FEB-91 VIRUS.RX =DEFANGED.VIRUS SYS 3 10-FEB-91 Glen Bredon's excellent Virus protection tool. It “RX.GS.DATA BIN 8 12-FEB-91 maintains a snapshot of your system and will inform SMENUTIME DIR 1 S-MAR-91 you if you are struck by a Virus or other disaster. “MENUTIME SB8 13 11-DEC-91 MENUTIME iE ec a AG at eee ‘An NDA that will display the time and date on the =AWKS. FINDER. DIR 1 S-MAR-91 Menu Bar. It is fully configurable from its NDA. - AWKS.FINDER ~AW.FINDR. LAUNCH SYS 31-Nov-90 =LAUNCH.AWKS =NOV-' ance conjunction with UltraMacros this program will “DESK AOESSORY DIR 1 SUARSOL your AppleWorks and load your AppleWorks ‘NIFTY .BXY BIN 254 21-FEB-91 flee directly from the Finder. =SUPER.BXY BIN 150 1-MAR-91 Desk Accessory Directory =MIX.N.MATCH DIR 1 S-MAR-91 NIFTY.BXY INSTRUCTIONS xr 5 18-DEC-90 Version 3.2 of Dave Lyons excellent utility. There =MIX.N.MATCH $B3 5 17-DEC-90 are many minor changes and some new additions. =INFO DIR 1 S-MAR-91 SUPER.BXY =NTS504..BXY BIN 41 6-JAN-91 Super Info version 2.1 tells you all you ever =PROGRAMS DIR 1 S-MAR-91 wanes to know about your Sy dene bags AUDIOZAP DIR 1 5-MAR-91 fixes made to this le NDA. =AUDIOZAP $B3 52 16-FEB-91 senaee ae cerarea ey B ety Mix.N.Match allows you to cut down ProSel to a ‘=AUD) - -FEB- manageable size when working from floppy disks. acon Sarah g phe ta gp Ev eg Cy eee Itallows you to discard any of the ProSel modules you =CRIBBAGE $33 172 22-FEB-91 copineed and so make space on yourdisk for your =CRIBBAGE.ICON $CA 14-Nov-90 Info Dieta ze “ART.DECO.36 $C8 28 25-JUN-88 TasO4 ERY. Q Our regular mixed ain this month. There are some The complete text files from Apple explaining the Saplatan Co aAtinE Seoteeeoe arid ean a items. We ty differences between System S02, 50-3 and 5.0.4 to keep a good mix of programs on the Xtras disks. Programs Directory we AUDIOZAP fe would like to hear from you to tell us ester rele like ‘A comprehienatye sould aditac which inot uly Mca hahaa ae ee aieayy he chain imetisding | processes sounds but it also allows you to create Let me remind those members who are not currently part many sound effects. It will work with most current ofthe Xtras scheme that you can of course join anytime you sound file formats and sound cards. er acl is ofthe cee duane caer bee aed by y one eed card sharps amongst us. Practise your issues e may be purcl any be member three months after their original issue. . game against the IIgs! If you do not know how to p! See the separate order form for current prices. « cribbage, full instructions are included. 107 a Apple2000 April 1991 Disk Zaps and all that (part 4) Make it Grow with Branches Ewen Wannop continues his journey through the Operating Systems Those of us who cut our teeth on DOS 3.3, first saw ProDOS as a con- fusion of pathnames. We neverseemed to get the right one entered, and could never seem to get even a simple Catalog ofa disc in another drive, Forever was the message ‘PATHNAME NOT FOUND’ being displayed. However, beneath the seeming difficulty of such normal commands, lies a powerful operating system. It leaves DOS 3.3 way behind with its speed, versatility and power. The Evolution of ProDOS To explain the evolution of ProDOS, first let me take you through a bit of history. When Steve Wozniak first wrote the routines for Apple DOS, there were only single density 5.25 inch drives around, With a maximum of 40 tracks on these drives, there was a practical limit to the amount of data on each disc, and so a limit to the possible number of sectors that could be accessed by DOS itself. This served us well for a time, until we tried to hook on a hard disc drive. We could only format the hard disc as a number of volumes the size of a normal 5.25 inch disc, rather than formatting the drive as one large disc. The reason that only such a small number of sectors was available to the DOS system, lay in the way that the Disc Map and VTOC was constructed. ‘This meant ae ase was simpy, no room to expan: is map beyond the 40 tracks. DOS had some other limitations as well. The Catalog structure allowed only a few file types to be defined, and no other information could be stored apart from the filename. It was because of such limitations, and also because Pascal discs had already allowed a more flexible ap- proach to disc structure, that ProDOS came into being. To be more accurate, SOS came into being first, and ProDOS followed. SOS is the operating system for Apple /// machines, and ProDOS is an extension ofthis system. In fact ProDOS can read SOS discs, and some ProDOS discs can be read by SOS. The main differ- ence between the two is that SOS files have different file type values. ProDOS allowed much more infor- April 1991 mation to be held about each file in its directory entry, and more importantly, its disc map allowed volumes of any size to be mapped. It was thus possible to build a single volume of any size on a hard disc. regardless how big the hard dise was. The actual information at sector level ona ProDOS disc, is written in exactly the same way as any Apple disc, whether it be DOS, ProDOS, Pascal or even CPM. This means that our DISK MAN. AGER program will read any disc sector on any of these disc hae However, there ¢ similarities end, and we find the indi- vidual structures of the different discs vary. Disk Structures Ex- plained Held in the infor- mation embedded on each sector, is the track and_ sector number of that par- ticular sector. As we readeach sector spin- ning under the head of the disc drive, we must process and store the information gathered, This takes some time, and when we are ready to take in the next sector, we will find that it has already passed underneath the head, an we must wait till it comes round again. For this reason, DOS does not read the sectors in ascending order, but uses an interleaving technique to achieve the fastest sector by sector read. It therefore does not use the actual sector numbers on the disc, but uses a lookup table to determine the actual sector to be read, from the tar- get sector given. SOS, ProDOS and Pascal discs use a different interleaving table than DOS, and CPM usesyet another. This means that ProDOS sectors are not compat- ible with DOS sector numbers. Using Disk Manager under ProDOS DISK MANAGER is written under DOS 3.3, so to access a particular sector on a ProDOS disc, you will have to determine the actual DOS sector required from Table 2. Just to complicate things even fur- ther, SOS, ProDOS and Pascal discs, store information in Blocks of 512 bytes, rather than the 256 byte sector of DOS. So to read a given Block on a ProDOS disc, you will need to actually find the track required, and then read in two sectors in turn. ProDOS discs start with Block 0 at Track 0 Sector 0, the Blocks then ascend numerically till the limit of the disc is reached. Because each Block is 512 bytes long, you can only get 8 Blocks on a track. To find the actual track and sector of an individual Block, take the integer of the Block number divided by eight as the Track. and then taking the remainder refer to Table 2 for the Sectors. The two DOS sectors are the low and high parts of the block respectively. See Table 2. ‘The layout ofa ProDos disk Having now explained how to use DISK MAN- AGER to look at ProDOS dises. I will give a brief rundown on the layout of these discs. This will allow you to have a first look at your ProDOS discs, but I will need to leave till next time a more detailed look at the ProDOS Directory, as it can be quite complex and overwhelming at first sight, but this is of course its great strength and power. I shall be referring to the ProDOS Block numbers, use the Tables to calculate the actual Track and Sectors TABLE 1 Track = Integer(ProDOS Block/8) TABLE 2 ProDOS Block: $0 $1 The remainder is the ProDOS Block within that track. $2 $3 $4 Dos Sectors ; $0,$E $D,$C $B,$A $9,$8 $7,$6 $5.$4 $3.82 $1.$F $5 $6 «$7 Apple2000 am ot required. These are the usual Blocks that ProDOS uses. It is possible for them to be in a different place on the disc, but forthe moment we will assume we have a normal ProDOS disc in our drive, BLOCK 0 is the boot-strap loader for the file ‘ProDOS’, If ProDOS itself is not present on the disc, then a message is given: “*** UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS ****. BLOCK 1 is a boot-strap loader for SOS. If the disc is booted on an Apple ///, then a search is made for *SOS.KERNEU’. If found this is loaded instead of ProDOS. This Block may not be present on all ProDOS discs. BLOCK 2 is the start of the Direc- tory. The Directory normally takes up four blocks, Blocks 2 - 5, but can be of any size. BLOCK 6 is the Disc Map. For a 5.25 inch disc, there will only be this Block allocated for the Disc Map. For larger Volumes it can be of any length. BLOCK 7 is the first Data Block of the first file on a normal ProDOS disc. BLOCK 279 is the last Data block on Track $22 of a 5.25 inch disc. Each file is constructed in exactly the same way. Unlike DOS, only the directory entry is changed to denote different filetypes. There is an Index Block associated with each file longer than one Block, this is analogous to the Track Sector list of DOS. The Di- rectory entry holds considerable infor- mation on the file, with entries such as filetype, access rights, date and time of creation etc. ‘The Directory itself can include en- tries to further directories, these are stored in the same manner as file entries. It is thus possible to nest sub- directories to any depth. It is this pos- sibility that of course is the power of ProDOS, and hence gives us the need to use Pathnames. Discs are referred to by Volume Name. not by Slot and Drive, and sub-directories are then referred to by their Directory Name. A Pathname thus actually tells us the route that ProDOS must take down the tree-like branches of the Directories to find an individual file. Sate: in Part 5 I think that this is a suitable point to leave you this time. Next episode will cover the actual construction of the ProDOS Directory. This will give you the clues necessary tochange filetypes, to enter times and dates and to unlock and lock files. I will also give you an introduction to the MLI. This is not a Mysterious Language Insight, but the very powertul tool s oe Machine juage Interpreter lurking within Proboss Ewen Wannop é TAs x AppleWorks Macros Peter Davis shows how not to lose track of pathnames in AppleWorks AppleWorks 3.0 offers options to save changed files to their current directo or their original directory. The problem is that when you select the "original" option you are left in the last directory used, and this can be a bother when you come to find your way back to the current working directory. ‘This macro identifies your current drive or directory, saves each file to its original directory then recalls your drive or directory. Variables $9 various : Disk : You: "" $7 Disk ? $6 Disk £ (Slot £) $5 /PATH/ $0 q subroutines also use R, C, x, z- Here is how it works. Peek the current file no. Use the Main Menu screen to check if the current device is accessed as a "Disk" or a Path. If disk then use $6 to hold the "Disk # /PATH/. Choose "3 Save Desktop files........" : message : call subroutine to control Arrows : start begin repeat loop to search for "You" on the screen until all files selected have been saved, after which "You" ceases. (Sense "You"; "made changes....."; "made NO changes...."; "created..."). Punch back the Slot and Drive or Path as appropriate. Return to the file no. ifany. Note ifa device is accessed as Slot and Drive then use the Token disk toggles the drive to determine the Path. Peter Davis Start <ctrl-S>:<all><Q = peek 3156 : oa-Q esc $9 = screen 1, 1, 21: $7 = left $9, 4: $6 = right $9, 15 : ifnot $7 = "Disk" then disk : wait 50 : $5 = $0" endif : >3<rtn msg ' Select —> Files to Save to original directory and RETURN ' : sa-ctrl-A : rtn : sa-ctrl-R : if $9 = "You" then>3<rtn rtn $9 =" " : mt: else: ifnot $9 = "You" then endif : if $7 = "Disk" then ba-Ctrl-D : else : ifnot $7 = "Disk" then ba-P : endif : ca-q : print q: esc! <ctrl-A>:<asr begin x= key: if x = 27 then meg ' Macro Aborted ! ' if x = 13 then endmero else print chr$ x : : wait 1000 : msg "" : exit: else xpt stop>! ba-ctrl-D>:<asr><oa-Q esc>S<rtn>i<rtn wait 20 : $0 = $6 : sa-ctrl-2 : if z = 0 then bell : msg ' ' + $0 + ' not found ' : stop : endif : rtn esc! <ba-P>:<asr><& “path" : & $5>! <ctrl-F>:<asr><R = 139 : C= 15 : $9 = screen C, R, 3! <ctrl-Di<asr>Z = 0 : find! Peter Davis es Apple2000 April 1991 Comms Without Tears Ewen Wannop gives us a first guide to comms and its mysteries - a reprint of an article first published in Apple2000 Well, you've unpacked the little black box, st led with the cables, hooked it all up, ted terminal pro- gramme, dialled the number ..... and then nothing, not even a bleep from your trusty Applemac. Take a large slug of Apple juice, sit down and culeme the problem properly. It is only then you notice that slogan you hung in sour cape tous one moons . Ifall else fails, read the MANU. Well and you ougrt communica- Hons was coe to be easy, you have to be able to as well! Still you pick up the manual, and look at the index. ‘First Plug in the Serial card’. Serial card, you did remember to get one didn't you? Or are you lucky and have a //c. or horror of horrors forgive me for mentioning it, a MAC. ‘Next check that your modem/serial card cable is correctly wired’. This can beanightmare, there are female plugs, male Plugs. 25 way D plugs, 5 pin plugs. DCE ends, DTE ends id goodness knows what else. Get help if you are in trouble here, it is the most common cause of modem prob- lems. Once you have the right con- nection, you can forget about it from then on. bought an unapproved modem, con- ‘this apparatus toany BT phone system will land you in deep trouble and a big fine’ ... Oh dear, but just a minute, itwasn't red at all, itis a green pages and sei: . ‘Well done, you bought roved modem, go ahead and plug ie in’. You did remember to get ts fitted by Telecom, didn't you? You sent back your old phone to save its rental, and now rou save = teand spanking new memory phone with nice buttons, to do all your dialling for you. In the modem lead goes to the wall socket, and there on the back of the modem is a nice convenient socket to park the phone in, so you don't have to unplug to use it normally. “Boot your disc and dial the service you require’, OH dear it still does not work, what have you done wrong this time. Back to Chap 1 ... ‘Configure the disc for your system’ ... Ah well I suppose it does need to know which slot everything is in, and it would be an idea to tell it what baud rate you are going to use, and it seems reasonable to tell it what bit format the other end wants. 8N1 gets you by in mot situations. beth ny that Bulletin Board tn Tins 1u is said to be a good one, lets dial it up. Engaged! How dare it. Still | suppose other people use it as ‘How to setup your System’, Chap 1, ‘Plugyourmodem intothe BT socket’. well, but we have auto-redial on our it says. Looks like you may get some- Hang on, is that a red sticker there. phone, so tryagain. ically up tohalf where here .... what does it say ... ‘Sorry, you have an hour later, end Goes more Apple LSyder eee InSyder simply plugs into a standard slot in the Apple //e or IGS — there’s NO power supply replacement, NO noisy fan and NO awkward cables! InSyder is fully compatible with GS/OS, ProDOS and the major operating systems. And with direct hardware access and full disk caching, InSyder supplies the performance demanded by the serious Apple user. slot-in hard disk card for the Apple // lad “— - ACTUAL SIZE! Available now in 20 and 40 Megabyte capacities (and soon 60 Megabytes), InSyder also provides a full feature SCSI port, supporting external devices. You can even share an external hard disk with up to seven other users. An optional Printer Adaptor also allows you to connect a parallel printer without losing valuable slot space! NEW SIZES, LOWER PRICES! InSyder 20 Meg — £398.00, InSyder 40 Meg — £498.00, InSyder 60 Meg — £598.00 (Prices exclude VAT) CIRTECH CIRTECH (UK) Limited, Monksford Stables, Newtown St Boswells, — MELROSE TD6 ORU. — Telephone (0835) 23898 Fax (0835) 22471 lee April 1991 Apple2000 GBBeawsz Juices, we get the ringing tone. Give it about four rings, ifit doesn't answer in that time, then it is not a normal computer service, hang up and spare the person at the otherend please. But ilanswers, atone whistlesatyou, what todowe do now. Ah well having started on Chap 1, you were wise and read on, found out what you should do next, so you are prepared. You switch on your modem and putit into Originate mode. The carrier light comes on, and sud- denly you hear a flight of starlings coming down the phone at you. Don't panic, it is the bulletin board sending you its header page, put the phone down so you keep the line clean from your nervous ci ig. the modem will hang on to the line for you. Ah we have something now on the screen ... Well I hope it was like that, ifnot, Si may have had the modem ‘set to Bell tones, or you may have been ringing the States, and were still on CCITT tones. The other end may have beenon Originate tones, which means you should be on Answer tones, there are two complement sets of tones, and you must be on the other set to the computer you are calling. You must have the same baud rate as the other end, or the complementary in the case of 1200/75. In that case you must be on 75/1200 if he is on 1200/75. You got all that right, and you seea me: fe on the screen, ‘FI NAME:’, what do we do here, put it in I suppose. If you must hide your proper identity, please respect the system and use a sensible pseu- donym. Remember BT can do nasty things to you if you use obscene words on the phone line, it is an offence to send any, even by computer! In goes your name, but a hint here, if this is not your aly oa on the tem, you can usually enter your eons Epanacing first and last with a semicolon. Like this JOE;BLOGGS<CR> ‘LAST NAME; will come next. If you have been there before, it will now say where it thinks you are from, and if that is correct, ‘FROM LONDON ?' Just answer ‘Y” here, no <CR>. But this is your first time, so you will need to put in where itis you , no semicolons here, but you can usually put in more than one word, so‘LONDON ENGLAND’ sounds good. Again, if you have been here before, you will now see ‘PASSWORD:", but if this is your first time, it will then ask you for your phone number, and a password that you will use next time you log on. The menus from now on, vary from ee to another, can us in doubt us! essing <CR> ri uu upa hone detailed descrij don 2 the menu. You want tofindthe ‘Utility’ area first, and set the system up for your computer. Most bulletin boards will assume, at first, that you do not have lower case, and can only display TA 40 columns. If you are new to the system, you findthatyoucanonly jet access to a limited area within the Board, but as you prove yourself, the SYSOP will open up more areas for you. The bulletin board is an interac- tive thing, please contribute toit, don’t just log on and read messages, put some in yourself, help it work. There must be something you can say, or some problem you want answered or someone you would like to contact. If you are adventurous, you often find hone numbers of other bulletin , some are on the continent and they even goas faras Australia. Though I suggest a large glass of the amber nectar before you contemplate how much that might cost in phone bills! When you log off the system. do say Goodbye Pape the system will feel happier if you do, and it will reset more quickly for the next caller, If it is your first time on, leave a message for the SYSOP (the SYStem OPerator) telling himsomething about yourselfandyour machine, it all helps the system be more useful to you, and for him to put you onto new parts of the system. Well now that was successful, now for something completely different. You have been given the phone number of your local PRESTEL computer. Setting yourselfup for 1200/75, you boot your PRESTEL emulation program (You will not get any sort of meaningful display unless you have sucha program), and dial the number. Ah we have the tone, and when you switch on your modem, you get the characteristic low tone from your end. The carrier light comes on, own with the phone, and the screen comes to life. But what is this, ‘CUSTOMER IDENTITY PLEASE’. Oh dear, you forgot to join PRESTEL didn't you, still never mind, all is not lost. Enter 4444444444’, this is the iden tity for non-members, it then asks for your ‘PASSWORD:’, well we shall try “4444’, it works, and we are greeted by the demonstration database. Ofcourse if you had joined PRESTEL or one of the CUG's, then we would be into PRESTEL properly. If you get your identity/password wrong, it will lect you try to put it in three times, and then hangyou up. The system is pretty easy to usc, as most pages have menus that simply need a one or two key press to precede, but Prestel howeveris funny, and asks for page numbers the rest of the time if you want to jump about. To enter one, you must first enter a ‘*, then the page number and then finish with a key you would not expect to have to press. It will also ask you at other times to press this key, It calls it ‘#', but it is not really a hash as we know it, and so Prestel emulation programmes will change one ofits ee to a Prestel ‘#° to cae life easier for you. Vicom for instance uses the nor- mal ‘#' key, but Data Highway, as- suming this is a key you are going to use often, and as it is really Prestel's ‘ENTER’ key, reconfigures the <CR> Apple2000 key to '#’. Well that was enough of that, lets hang up. No don't just hang up the phone, sign off properly with *90#, you don’t want to be left paying any charges after you have rung off do you? We seem to be getting quite bold now, so lets try FORCE, or as lesser users know it, BT GOLD. We have been learning fast, and have subscribed to it already. The SYSOP has sent us our manual and Welcome pack, and off we go. We need the normal terminal programme for this, so in AL. 6pes: We are getting good at this, and have remembered to change the modem to the baud rate we want. First time this should be 300 baud, till you get used to the system. We dial up the GOLD directly, or PSS if we live outside London. PSS is a funny thing at times, and downright unfriendly at first sight. Nothing appears on the screen, we have a carrier, the light on the modem says so, but nothing. Back to the manual. Ah we have to ‘wake’ it up. So we type <CR><CR>D1<CR>, if this does not work immediately, try again and again. At last it comes baci with a message. Bit of gobbledegook that, but never mind must mean the port we have entered, but it says NUI?. That means you must now enter your PSS Identity. You seem toremember it was ‘NILGOLD123XYZ or something like that, it is all in your welcome pack so you copy it on to the screen. What now, it says NUA? what on carth is that, if the NUI? was the identity, this must be the address of GOLD, so you typeinA2190987654321 (Imustlearn il off by heart sometime). Success, we have the title page of BT GOLD, but it is now asking for your personal pass- word. What was it again, ah yes, BSG001. Init goes (Ed. Phew... at least that one is not secret). Now it want's still more, never ending this it seems, so in goes your personal password, and you had remembered not to use your first name, your wife's first name, your birthdate, the name of your cat etc. Don't give a hacker an even break! At last, your there, what a perform- ance that was. Joc Clever Cloggs. got there ahead of you though, he used a ‘MACRO’. A MACRO, what is that? Then you remember that manual. it told you all about it in chapter 5. All he did was load the macro, press one key and all that question/answer per- formance automatically happened before his very eyes. Looks easy, and even if it did take time to understand how the macros are constructed, was worth it, as they only need to be pre- pared the once. If a macro ‘sticks’ on PSS at the start however, enterin <CR><CR>D1<CR> from the keyboard, usually starts it off again. The FORCE tells us there is a mes- sage ‘Unread’ waiting for us, so re- membering from our FORCE manual that MAIL READ UNREAD<CR> will bring it up. We try, and there we are, a welcome message from the SYSOP. We April 1991 ‘REPLY’ to thank him, and then ‘DEL’ to remove it, we don't want to keep paying storage charges on that one... low we SEND a m e to our friend BSG999, and when done we QUIT the message area, and the system. But wait, we still have the ‘>’ prompt. how on earth do we get off the System? QUIT doesn't work, BYE doesn't work ... of course, the manual again, it is quite simply OFF ! However all that does is give us a message saying how long we have been on the FORCE, we still have the carrier light on, we still seem to be on line. PSS thinks we might want to go on to some other database, so it leaves us con- nected, we must ‘hangup’ the pro- gramme or the modem or the phone, that will do it. These notes should help you over some of the complexities of the various systems, they can be rather daunting first time you encounter them, espe- cially as they all seem to work in a different way. But are not too difficult. Persevere, and do ask the SYSOP for help if you get stuck. Also the Hotline can help, or ring myself if you are a member of BASUG. We are a self-help group, and we can spread the exper- tise where it is needed to give help over problems that arise, and to give us all more from our machines. One final thing I should mention, PRESTEL has a lot of information on holidays and travel. It might be advis- able to look at their pages and to book yourself a long holiday in the sun. You see, you will not be too shocked at your bill from the FORCE. But when you have paid that. you might wish to leave the country before you get your BT bill. They havea nasty habit of goingbeserk when you get a modem. MUD addicts note (that's another subject .. come on someone write about it!), if your bill oes over £130 or so a quarter, and our an insomniac, join NIGHTLINE. ‘or £125 to install, and £95 a quarter, all your phone calls wherever in the world they may be, are free ... as long as they are made between 12 midnight and 6am. This may sound drastic, but I did hear of one addict that got a quarterly bill from BT for £900 ......... nee wee uononeofthe systems, Tcan be foundon the FORCE, PRESTEL and TABBS. Nearly all the committee is on the TABBS ... we do a lot of the committee work there now, the phone is cheaper than petrol ... « Postscript ... This article was written some time ago. Things have changed a great deal since then. Apple2000 no longer has the Force, though the notes that refer to it now equi apply to Telecom Gold. For the last year we have had CompuServe added to the list of ex- cellent systems we might call with our modems. Prestel may be called at speeds up to 2400 baud. Dialplus also supports these speeds. TABBS now supports all speeds from 300 baud to 2400 baud and with LAPM and MNP error cor- rection. We hope to shortly increase this to a maximum of 9600 baud. Costs have changed and the way of charging by Telecom Gold has also changed. Systems like AppleLink and CompuServe charge by the minute. It is now almost cheaper to call CompuServe from London than Telecom Gold from the rest of the UK. Fax has come and Telex is going. Local area networks are the in thing and user friendly comms software is certainly the name of the game. Xmodem sprouted 1k Xmodem then Ymodem and batch protocol Ymodem. Zmodem has come and with fast B+ downloads from CompuServe downloading is now a joy. The comms jungle is still very much there. There are a great deal of un- suitable modems and comms pro- grams available on the secondhand market waiting for the unsuspecting enthusiast. Apple2000 cannot be ex- pected to know every single one but we will have a stab at helping you out when we can. Write to the Letters page ifyou need more help to get you started through the jungle of comms. Ewen Wannop « HARD-TO-FIND, UNIQUE PRODUCTS FOR APPLE II ENTHUSIASTS from the most reputable fax/phone/mail order company serving the Apple Il community gs Batteries When your ligs loses track of time and can't temember your contol panel setings, it means your ‘anor ie dead. Since the igs batery is soldered wo the motherboard, some dealers acualy want you to pay fr a motherboard exchange to fx the problem, Instead, jst dlp off your od battery and side-on one of these ew replacements, No eoldeing necessary. 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Wks an Apple 3.5 at a racton of Appa’ $420 pice, 18M Slacks ar act eau by pon and ek. pia, ard ofa hot ea FE-N Indexed back issues, paper $39.00 Plug in gs ok Pls ick daleychan. Ako works on RW-005 HyperStudlo sizs00 ALN! AZGentral paper tyr satan FED Backiaaue ter on 2.5 dake $9.00 psig relat SCWHt Sead ypasacosinkconeasionon ALD! AContra Sf isk,1 yr $8400 FD.0O1 FastDam Pre for seurches $49.00 ‘AN001 ‘35 drive }199.00 M002 AMR35-controtertorile $59.00 IY ne: ae oeel eink co pectong |A2-Central Po tox 11250, overland Park, KS 66207 voice: 919-460-6502 Prosel 8 and 16 Agplotak note Not oly to fy cost loss han ftom) qty 1 price USA ——_fax:913-469.6507 Proselis a comprohenhvn dik uy Procoa _APPI'S connectors, these work with inexpensive © Send me your full catalog FREE! 4 works in the ProDOS 8 environment, Prosal 16 ‘#l4phene wire (not supplied) rather than Apple's name. (indies Prosel 8) in the GS/OS environment of ha S*Peneive, spacial cables. You need one connector for ‘Awle los. Indudes fe and disk copy and backup °%P.COmpUBe and pen on fe nator. ‘ae ilies, program selector, scheduler, and much more. 0E001 Modultet &-pin $4.95 8.001 Prose! 8 $40.00 06-002 Moduitet 9-pinr $34.95 68-002 Prosel 16 $60.00 INo Risk Guarantee! it you arent completely satiefied with your purchase, return] ‘the merchandise In Its original package and we will A2Z-Cennttraal ” ‘us your money in ti. We back our productal Our 45-day unconditional guarantee means you take| Wh MR 2 tsk 00 any product you buy from us. April 1991 0 Visa © MasterCard See ey tag eee Appie2000 Boe wsz ins Orca/C Dave Ferris reviews the Compiler and its Development Environment Introduction Twenty-odd years ago I wrote my first program in Fortran IV. Since then Thave used Algol, Cobol, Basic, Pascal but, almost exclusively, assembler. When Unix asserted itself, I decided itwas high time I learnt how to program in C. To this end I bought the obliga- tory copy of Kernighan & Ritchie and invested in Apprentice C, supplied by MGA. This is a subset of the Aztec C compiler that ran under DOS3.3 on my old Apple ][. It produced very slow P-code, but it worked very well and introduced me to a Unix like Shell environment on the Apple for the first time. I have already used Orca/M and Pascal on a //GS, Orca/M was pro- duced by ByteWorks for Apple, who distributed it as the Apple //GS Pro- grammers Workshop (APW). It is a complete development environment, providing a Unix-like text-based shell with scripts, environment variables and supporting utilities like the excellent editor, with which I'm writing this. Now ByteWorks has produced Orca/ C, a fully ANSI standard C compiler, that runs under the text shell or under Prizm, theirnew Desktop Programming Environment. The latter was developed some time ago and sold as an separate product, but is now included as standard with Orca/C. The Package It comes in a box with 3 x 3.5" discs and a 372 page manual, and requires an Apple //GS with at least 1 Mbyte of memory and | x3.5" drive, ByteWorks recommend 1.25 MBytes + 1 x 3.5" drive + one other drive (any type), or for preference a hard disk drive. I have 1.25 MBytes with 1 x 3.5" drive, normally I use a large Ram Disk, but I had to reduce it to 192K for best results, Disk 1 ts the Boot.Disk, this starts the Orca system and then initially loads the Desktop Development Envi- ronment. It then asks for Disk 2 (ORCA.C) to be put online. This con- tains the Compiler, Linker, Libraries and Utilities needed for normal op- eration. Disk 3 contains samples, including some benchmarks and text and graphic demonstrations. It also tA g contains the Editor and other files required if you choose to use the text- only development environment. The C Compiler This is basically an ANSI standard C Compiler, which makes use of some of the ANSI extensions, plus some Orca/ C unique extensions to enable Apple/ /GS programmers to make the most of their machine:- O Pragmas - the ANSI standard sup- ports these preprocessor com- mands thatare passed tothe Orca/ C compiler to control the way in which the program ts compiledand/ or linked. They are:- #pragma cda name start shutdown - create a classic desk accessory. databank parm - used to tell the compiler that it needs to set the databank register for function called by tools. itp #pragma debug parm - used to set or clear debugging flags. #pragma float card slot - if FPE float- ing point card installed. #pragma keep name - define output file name. #pragma memorymodel parm - small(0) or large(1) - see fig-2 #pragma nda open close action init eventmask menuLine - cre- ate a new desk accessory. #pragma optimize parm - set the level of optimization. #pragma stacksize parm - set size of stack (8K bytes by default). #pragma toolparms parm - used around a function that is to be called from a different calling con- ventions. O asm, inline - keywords allow the inclusion of 65816 native code ina function (asm) or an interface to Apple//GS tools. Inline(a,b), which is Orca/C specific, causes the X- register to be loaded with a and a JSL b executed, where a is the tool number and b is the main toolbox entry point at OxE10000. The second value may be changed for user tools. QO pascal - this is an Orca/C keyword, used in a function declaration, which tells the compiler that the function was written in Pascal. In this case the order of parameter pa needs to be changed. In ct, allofthe original P toolbox interfaces, such as the QuickDraw calls are available in the ORCALIB library for use by C programs, and the function is defined as pascal in the appropriate -h file. Q segment statement - this allows a pees tobe split into two or more segments, see fig-2. Functions declared after the segment state- 2h File Edit Windows Find txtvas Run Debug Languages BULLSEVE.CE SHELL Finclude (stdio_h) finclude (QuickDra void nain(void) radius 3 Link Editor 1.2.1 { unsigned color; color oH unsigned radius; Rect ri oy ‘aus ) 0; rad Lor); Figure 1 Apple2000 April 1991 ment appear in the new load seg- ment. There are advantages and disadvantages to using this. small segments are more ly to load when memory Is tight, but for large numbers of segments the extra re- location records will slow loading down. Libraries SYSLIB contains a powerful set of lib) functions. Most of these are standard functions provided with any good C compiler, for file handling, 1/0, string operations, conversions etc. A few are unique to Orca/C, and have been added to make it easicr to deal with the Apple //GS toolbox, such as startgraph(320) - which starts up QuickDraw Il in 320 mode, without having to do all the normal setup yourself. In addition to this there is ORCALIB which is used in conjunction with the -h files in ORCADEFS to give access to the toolbox routines. Note: According to the release notes a new version ORCAGLIB is required for inking when the large memory model a Ga The Linker Linker 1.1 as supplied with Orca/M and Orca/Pascal has now been replaced by the new improved version 1.2 (Zaplink). It is faster than theold NeIson4 god can weak with less memory, a feature when runt under 68/08 5.0.2, me In addition the new linker can take advantage of the new features of Ob- ject Module Format 2.0 and expressload. Output is compacted and expressed by default, to take up less room on disk and load faster. Flags can be used toturn these features off if required. Development Environment I have become used to the text based shell under Orca/M and Pascal, it is very like Unix and, with the use ofa few aliases defined in my login file, be- comes even more so. (One thing | missed though, was a way to get input into a shell-script from . as is possible with Unix shells.) | have also used desktop editors and debuggers on Sun Workstations, and looked forward to using similar tools on the Apple //GS. The desktop environment provides a large number of features:- Q Editor - invoked when opening a source or shell file in a window, is similar to the text-based version, but with mouse controlled cursor move- ment. It has a split-screen facility, which is very useful for looking at separate parts of a large file. O The Shell window - which is opened automatically when you compile / link source from a selected window, unless you have already opened one of your own. It accepts all the com- mands that the text-based system April 1991 64Kb up to Note: The small memory 9 model uses ORCALIB, wane but the large memory Segment pr “ORRAYS mpser Teeures t more functions Arrays and nc AL} = 7 Structures Seoment 0b Bank ttt ~ 64Kb other functions GLOBALS Bonk = 64K], : Global Dato agin, functions Bank th ~ 64Kb or Bonk th ~ 64Kb and all data Blank Segment ain & functions} main & functions Bank 0 - 64Kb Bonk 0 - 64Kb Staok, Locals Stack, Locals GS0S 6505 Either Model using NemoryModel 0 - Small Segment statements MemoryModel 1 - Large Figure 2 does, though it lacks the command completion facility and history mechanism. Q Graphics Output window - opened from a menu bar selection, is avail- able for use by simple graphics pro- grams, without the need for complex initialization of viewports or opening anew desktop. Q The Source Debugger - this is the biggest plus of the whole desktop environment, or at least it would be, if it worked as advertised. With the review copy on my home system, setting breakpoints and selecting auto-go lines (which runat full speed even in step mode) did not work. All the other feature. Step, Trace, etc. appeared to work though, and the debugger is an invaluable tool for examining (small) programs. It can provide profiling informa- tion, detailing which functions are called and how much time is spent in each, Variables nay be displayed. see fig- 1. This can be useful, though only scalars (single variables) may be shown. Arrays must be displayed element by element, and structures or unions are inaccessible. Vari- ables can only be entered once the Pp is active, and only for globals ¢ current function's local vari- ables. The debugger allows you to view the stack and dump/alter memory. Italso has a Native Code debugger to show Program Counter, Processor Status, Registers and disassembled code. The register contents may be changed and the address from which & file Edit Level Options Apple2000 #pragna keep “prime” Apreyes creates, leases f : ‘ : : ‘ : A : : : : : This 4s probably the most famous benchmark in use today. It teats the speed that a compiler can do logic and looping operations. While there are things that you can do to make this benchmark run faster under ORCA/Pascal, we have not doctored 1t in any way - this is the original benchmark in its original fora. To gat the best performance from the desktop development environment, be sure and turn debugging off from the Compile Dialog. Use the Compile command from the Run menu to gat the compile dialog. RRRERRAKRAAA RARE REAR ARE RAARERARARRERARA AREAL RARAARAR AERA ERE/ #include <stdio.h> define true 1 Wdefine false 0 #define size 8190 char flage[sire+i); main () ( int 4,prime,k,count, iter; print#("10 4 for (iter = count for (f= 0; 4 Af (flage(4}) { prime = 1+4+3; /*print? (“%-7d", prime) ;*/ for (k = i+prime; k <= size; k += prime) flaga(k] = falee: count++; , Jepetate(*\a") TRE me; 4¢+) { lr printf("d primes....\n", count) ; Figure 4 show time 5 cmol prime.cc 1 show tine Time: 20 Jan 1994 Link Editor 1.2.1 15e14est ment, for # length of #00002CCA bytes. Times 20 Jan 1991 15eise1a show time 4 prime 4 show time Timer 20 Jan 1991 15815142 10 iterations 2 s ? aa 13 17 19 20 29 3 s 7 at 12 17 19 23 29 3 s 7 12 13 17 iv 2a 29 3 s 7 at 43 17 19 23 29 2 s 2 14 13> 17 19 23 29 a 5 7 11 12 17 19 23 29 3 s 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 3 3 7 at 413 417 1? 23 29 9 5 2 at 19 17 19 23 27 3 s 7 at 12 17 19 23 29 18979 primes.... Timer 20 Jan 1991 15156196 show time 1 cap! prime.cc + show time Timer 20 Jan 1991 16109519 Link Editor 1.2.1 There is 1 segment, for a lenath of £00002CAA bytes. Time: 20 Jan 1991 16:03:45 show time § prime 5 show time Time: 20 Jan 1991 10 iterations 1899 primes. 16104100 Figure 5 Time: 20 Jan 1991 16104113 tA Apple2000 code is dumped may also be varied. I tried using both this facility, Ae a Cpro; , and disp! ig Variables at the same time Ann yleh damien in hanging the machine. Several com- binations of facilities seemed to have this effect. O The Desktop environment also sup- ports other desktop programs being executed from it. This results in a menu bar with a footprint and two arrows (see fig-3), which allow you to switch between desktops (like MultiFinder on a Mac). I'm not sure what the footprint icon is for, I think it freezes execution while selected, but holding the mouse button down anywhere on the menu bar is sup- posed to do this anyway. Benchmarks The CC.Samples disk comes with many examples, including some benchmarks. Fig-4 showsone of these, while fig-5 shows the results ofrunning itunder the desktop environment. The compilation and linking times are fora source file on the Ram Disk, but with the Compiler, Linker and Libraries on the3.5"disk. lalsoran this benchmark under the text-only development en- vironment and on a Sun Workstation (text and desktop). The results, in seconds, are interesting:- Compile Execute Execute & with without Link printf printf //GSDT 25 2400 13 //GS text 21 170 11 Sun Text 14 709 13 on workstation Sun DT 14 140 13 Sun Text 12 140 1.2 on terminal The Compile and Link times com- pare favourably with the Sun (a 680x0 based m/c), as do the execution times, under the text-based environment, when printing the results. The two big surprises were the //GS desktop envi- ronment when printing and the Sun, The latter is not so surprising when you remember that text on the workstation ts all done graphically, and when you run the thing as a terminal it to draw on a very bi, screen! But, 40 minutes under the /, GS desktop is astonishing, especially since most of the results were outside of the window and required nodrawing activity! Documentation The manual is extensive, 372 pages, with detailed explanations of how to use the Development Environments, Compiler and Linker, though it won't tell you how to write C programs, there is a list of reference works, including the ubiquitous Kernighan & Ritchie (you need the 2nd edition for ANSI standard). In addition to this there isa April 1991 very good on-line help facility, which makes using the shell much easier. Conclusions I have to admit a preference for the text environment for normal working, especially given the apparent fragility of the desktop environment. However, the debugger isn’t available then, and it does have it's uses. The compiler is a good implementa- tion of the ANSI standard and is fast and efficient. It should be noted that some of the Orca/C specific exten- sions (e.g. inline, ) will make source non-portable, but then asm has been supported all along and that makes source completely non-port- able. True portability can be a rare commodity. The manual still talks about run- ning Orea/C under GS/OS4.0, “unless the release notes say otherwise”. The release notes don't, but trying to install the compiler on a 4.0 disk with the old linker was a disaster, the compiler itself appears to have been expressed and will only load under GS/OS 5.0.2 (or higher?). I suspect that it is this change of OS that may be behind the problems I encountered with the desktop environment. I trust that ByteWorks can get these sorted out quickly, as! have great respect for their previous offerings. Then again per- haps GSOS 5.0.3 it cure some of them, but a hard disk would almost certainly be needed. Dave Ferris é info Product : Orca/C Compiler Publisher : ByteWorks Inc. Available from : MGA SoftCat 41 Cinque Port Street Rye East Sussex TN31 7AD 0797-226601 Price: £129.95 WYSIWYP Value : ddd Performance : éceed Documentation : éddd April 1991 i SoftCat Corner i” //¢ COLOUR MONITOR If you've always wanted colour for your games or educational software, we've happened onto some interesting 16" Decca units which will plug directh intoa UK //e withoutany kind of card. They cost just £159.95 and are a snip com to our normal Phillps CM- 8833 at £287.49, (plus its 2" bigger). If you want to use the same unit as a TV as well. we have an add-on box which takes the price up to £199.95", - still well below our normal offering which can't be used asa TV! Hurry though, as stocks are limited. simulator was not available when po- tential users contacted MGA. We are pleased to advise that we can now supply the product while supplies last for just £19.95. TML NOW ONLY DIG TUNNELS If you've tried contacting TML re- Saky yon have found that they now trade as Lennard Devt.Inc. TML Pas- cal/Basic are no longer handled by them. Apparently another outfit called Complete Technology now do these products as “Complete Pascal” & “Complete Basic”. I have been unable to connect with them by phone, but ECHELON have written and hope to have a reply Mentioned in Apple Slices Jul'90, _ from them by the time you read this... Access Software's “Echelon” spaceflight Jon Gurr - MGA SoftCat ¢ 5 Extend-S0 £39.00" (MAC CONNECTIVITY) Psion Organiser Cable £14.95 Ready-made 1.5m cable to connect your Organiser to a Mac or IGS 8-pin serial port, AppleTalk NetWork Cable Kit £119.95 DIY sect comprising 26 3-pin solder plugs together with 100m cabling, AMR SuperDrive £219.95* \.44Mb external daisychainable 3.5" drive for Mac. Apple SuperDrive ‘As above, but Apple Computer badged. EW SOFTWARE Copy I Plus v9.1 £34.95 Latest version of this best-selling utilities package now has a new lower price! Part-exchange upgrades will cost £19.95 + p&p, AIRCRAFT PICS K-7 £4.00* Crude hi-res pies depicting four different aircraft per screen, /MultiColour Grafix GS-207 £4.50* Ax above but over 100 pics of nature secnes, ‘animals, plants, and related topics. DOS 3.3 System Master for 64K IIr//ec08 £4.00* Not really new, but just jolly handy. Instead of| having to wait for Integer Basic to load every time you boot the DOS master, this version gives you the option of loading or not loading it, saving that annoying wait, I mean, let's face it; when was the last time you actually ran an integer program? ADDA+ £199.00* High speed data acquisition system on a card for Ils, lle oF UGS, A new 4-layer design offers 16 channels of high speed analog to digital conversion (is), 1 channel digital to analog conversion and 2 parallel ports with handshake. Includes elaborate interval and running timers for system speed- independant sampling rates. MicroPort-32 £65.00* 32 channel digital 1/O card with software selectable interrupts & WO handshake lines, standard dual in-line connectors mate with commonly available IDC plugs. Includes excellent documentation, OuterSlot £39.00* Puts a slot outside your Apple where it is convenient to troubleshoot, test, & experiment with plug-in cards, Cable length is 20 inches, (Waming: not compatible with high-speed cards or memory cards). £258.75 For designing & experimenting with clreuits. ‘This is a cable which connects any standard Apple IJ slot to a breadboard. Uxed in schools or laboratories, the Extend-50 is a remarkable low-cost solution’ for multistation s