Apple 2000 Vol 6 No. 5 1991 10 BASUG GB

Apple2000 6 THE NATIONAL APPLE USERS GROUP MacUser Show 30th October to 2nd November The only thing missing from our new spreadsheet is the learning curve. © file Edit Format Calculate Chart Sex| Prontepil So, You Want It All Now. Claris Resolve gives you the power of a billion cells and 149 advanced business functions. Yet its readily accessible —for example, zooming, so you can see the forest or the trees. Effortless Graphs. Making your own charts and graphs with new Claris Resolve is unbelievably easy: | of 25 chart types. ct one Informix Winge, an 31, 1991,.81991 C ‘Claris Corporation. Apple logo and Macintosh are trademarks of ‘Apple Computer, Inc. Claris International, Inc., 1 Roundwood ‘Avenue, Stockley Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UIT 1BG. Telephone: 081 756 0101 line Distribution, lotec-1, Wade Road, ONE. Telephone: 0256-46334, Disiribuied in the Republic of Ireland by Merrion Square South, Dub Teleptwone: (353) 1-6112 Distributed in the UK by Fr Finished in a Flash. Create graphics and handle text with tools you're already com- Sortable with. Select colours from the 81-colour palette. The System ? Spreadsheet Introducing Claris Resolve. The new Claris™ Resolve™ spreadsheet lets spreadsheet power flow to your fingertips freely and intuitively, for the first time. It utilises interfaces, tools and com- mands familiar to anyone who's ever used a Macintosh. Claris Resolve is packed with clever, interactive features that help people quickly get their footing. Like context- sensitive help. Automatic scripting. One-step charting. Instant zoom-in and zoom-out. Even a built-in spell checker. But lurking just beneath the surface are enough tricks to inspire any power user. 149 built-in functions to help solve any business problem. 25 kinds of charts and graphs to excite the most jaded audience. Elegant, built-in database functions so you can swiftly access your data. Yet, perhaps the most shining quality of Claris Resolve is how it exploits System 7's most powerful functionalities— Publish & Subscribe and InterApplication Communication. So you can effort- lessly combine the power of Claris Resolve with other applications. Claris Resolve is the latest addition to the Claris family of software for System 7—a new generation of applications that work together more simply, more powerfully, more gracefully than any software for the Macintosh ever has before. Special offer for owners of other spreadsheets? Get Claris Resolve for only £100 plus VAT. For more information in the UK call Fi 0800 929005; in the Republic of Ireland call Freephone 1800 732732. CLARI Simply powerful software." & Claris Resolve Apple2000 The All Apple User Group Committed to All Apple Users including Macintosh October 1991 Apple2000 P.O.Box Thenpool Fax: osu 4 waar CONTENTS Chairman's Corner Letter Box AppleLink Clippings AppleXtras ProDOS 8 and Ilgs Information and Contacts The Concise History of the Apple HyperCard GS — a review Caddraw and Cookie Cutter — a review ‘TimeOut-Central — a review Microdot 1.2 — a review TotalControl — a review Library /// Update The Graphics Department — a review Swift Spreadsheet — a review Pyware Instrument Designer — a review Salvation Exorciser — a review Members Corner Disk Doubling The DSP IIgs Card The Nibbler Speaks MacChat HP DeskWriter — a review Computer Assisted Learning — Part 2 FileMaker Pro — a review ‘Timeslips Ill — press release Committee Member Self-Portrait Mac. Repair & Upgrade Secrets — book review ‘The Apple in Education Tesserac — a review Converting HyperCard version 2.1 Apple ligs Survives the War MacSki — a review MacFourier — press release ClarisWorks — product fact sheet Three Offers from Claris Using Foreign Languages on the Macintosh Grammatik — a review AppleXtras Mac 11 Mac Library Darwin's Dilemma — a review Realise v. 1.06 Members’ Small Ads. Advertisers’ Index Ewen Wannop 2 3 © Apple Computer 8, 24 9 10 October Competition ll Ewen Wannop 12 Ewen Wannop 4 Mike Dawson 15 Peter Davis 20 Peter Stark 23 ‘Terry Morris 25 Peter Stark 26 28 Victor R. Wilson-MacCormack 29 Peter Davis 31 Stuart Anderson 32 Dave Ward 33 34 Steve T. Bett 36 37 39 Norah Arnold 42 Ewen Wannop 44 David Durling 50 Mel Male 54 Deepak Sareen Associates 58 Ewen Wannop 60 John Kishimoto 61 David Tointon 62 E. E. Littlewood 63 ‘The Boffin 64 Bruce Parry 65 Peter Kemp 66 Oxford University Press 67 Claris 68 Claris 69 Josephine Bacon 70 Geoff Wood 72 76 76 Peter Kem 78 David Durling 79 80 80 There are a number of ways to contact Apple2000 Ifyou wish to order goods or services from Apple2000 or just leave us a message, call Irene on 051-928-4142 (Ansafone during the day). Alternatively you can Fax. your order to (ij#ili i ‘040 or write to the PO Box. If you use comms you can leave orders on TABBS addressed to the SYSOP or contact us on AppleLink (BASUG. 1). If you are experiencing problems with Apple hardware or software Dave Ward and John Amold run the Hotlines and will try and help you. October 1991 We are very interested in the activities of local user groups, and if you have any information which you would like publicised John Lee would like to hear from you. We reserve the right to publish, without prejudice, any advice or comments given to members as a result of letters received, in the journals of Apple2000. Alittle praise for a few of our authors wouldn't go amiss. Send all comments, and contributions, via the PO box, especially suggestions about what you would like to see in your magazine. Apple2000 fF appiez00e supports users of \) ieece ue ple computers. The im 2020, I, II, I+, //e. //c, //c+, gs, Ugs+, ///, Lisa, XL, Mac 128, 512, MacPlus, Classic, Classic II, SE, SE/30, Mac LC, I, Isi, Mex, ci, Ix, Tifx, Quadra, Portable and PowerBook Contributions and articles for the magazine are alway welcome. We can h: le any disk size or format. Please send to PO Box 3, Liverpool, L21 SPY NOTE: Re front half of the magazine mainly for the Apple II, pest! ue and Apple /// The back half for the Macin- tosh and Lisa. Look for the descriptive page icons. Key: Apple ll, //e and //c Apple /// Apple IIgs Macintosh, Lisa Macintosh II a B 8 BS} Oo _ aN Contact Points Administration: Irene Flaxman Wait es y Hace (OF Geese) CINDIT Apple II Hotline: Dave Ward rian chpaine SeETTS Mon-Fri 1900-2100 Macintosh Hotline: John Arnold Weis OM sortie ts Mon-Fri 1900-2100 TABBS: Ewen Wannop - SYSOP Neiiaadeiee Oma Te DMECT AppleLink: BASUG.1 Reviews: Elizabeth Littlewood White (CEA eh Spt Local Groups: John Lee Wiehe: (ITD eR TimeOut & ProSel: isn Dawson OPED aa mua AppleWorks: John Richey 313i 3 Chairman's Corner Apple2000 1980-1991 ROC AS SEE ESI Once again Apple2000 is faced with a dilemma, This issue of the magazine will be published mid- October, while the editorial is being written in late September. Apple are to announce, at least we pre- sume they will, the new computers some time in October. We pub- lished in the September Slices a list of the new range as we knew it at the time. We can only wait and see if this turns out to be correct. What we really want to see are the long awaited pocketbook Macs. These we understand have been developed with the help of Sony. There will also be powerful tower Macs and we also gather a stream- lining of the current range with perhaps a Classic II to replace the SE/30. A new laser printer is also to be introduced. This is all specu- lation gathered from many sources. What we do know is that the LC Is now shipping in a 4/40 configura- tion for the same price as the 2/40 and that a 4/80 will be optionally available in due course. The basic floppy only Classic will be with- drawn. This is a good move as you cannot run a Mac without a hard drive. I can only think that the issue of this model was simply to help publicity. A Macintosh for under £500 was quite a draw. A pity they cannot sell the Apple Iigs for this price. We have also been caught out over the Hewlett Packard DeskWriter. No sooner had I writ- ten the review published in this magazine, than a colour version of the printer was announced. The colour version uses a special ink cartridge, interchangeable with a standard black cartridge. It is only a three colour cartridge so will not produce high quality colour im- ages, but we understand is good enough forgeneral spot colour work. The new printer is around the £795 mark. We hope to print a review of this printer in due course. Apple, especially in the UK, are not noted for their eagerness in telling the User Groups what they areup to. However they havesched- uled a satellite broadcast direct to User Groups on the 25th of Sep- tember, this is only a few days away from my writing the Editorial. The optimists think that a new Apple II CPU is going to be announced. I shall be extremely pleased ifit was, butam sceptical enough now about Apple's motives, to await such an event without baiting my breath! It seems clear to me that Apple are only committed to supporting the large Apple II user base through sofware upgrades and a few com- patibility products, and not by the extension of the line. I hope I am proved wrong. If a new CPU was launched, we now know that Apple UK would not support its distribu- tion. They just do not support the Apple II line any longer. Supplies of colour monitors for the IIgs have all but dried up and there is no plan to make any more. If you need one of these things, order one quickly, as you might just be lucky. We shall be at the MacUser show again this year, look for us on stand 413/B. This promises to be an exciting show with all the new Mac- intoshes on display. I only hope that the price of the pocketbook computers is sensible. The break- through into the business world will depend to a great extent on this factor. The lowering of prices last year was not enough to break the prejudice that the MSDOS world has against the Mac. The high price of Mac software is now their target, even though a £1000 Mac can out- perform a £2000 IBM clone. Apple2000 ts being hit by the recession like everyone else. Ad- vertising, as you will see in this issue, has dropped as dealers feel the pinch. We rely on advertising to shoulder the major costs of maga- zine production. When purchasing software or peripherals, please make it clear to the dealer that you saw their advertisement in Ap- ple2000. Only by doing this will they feel it worthwhile to continue members. (7 Annual subscription rates are £30.00 for UK residents, £35.00 for E.E.C. residents and £40.00 for other overseas Apple2000™ is a trading name of BASUG Ltd, a non-profit making independent company limited by guarantec. The contents of this journal are copyright of BASUG Ltd and/or the respective authors. Permission is granted for non- commercial reproduction providing the author and source are properly credited and a copy of the relevant journal is sent to BASUG Ltd. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the various contributors, and are not necessarily endorsed by BASUG Ltd. ‘This journal is published bi-monthly by BASUG Ltd as a benefit of membership in February, April, June, August, October and December. Tle Apple Slices newsletter is 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. to advertise with us. Ewen Wannop é : >) 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 Apple2000™, Apple Slices, AppleXtras, Mac2000 and The 4 FORCE are trademarks of BASUG Ltd. Apple User Group Council This issue was prepared using Aldus PageMaker™ 4.0, \UiticroSoft Word™ and Claris MacWrite™ under System 7.0. yy) 2 F | BEBEeafs Apple2000 October 1991 Lymington Hants Dear Editor, Re: Article on. LC Compatibility With the new ranges of Mac’s, Apple seems to be moving us towards the compatibility problems that have plagued the IBM PC community, 1 am contemplating an upgrade to the Mac that I currently use, but I calculate that my investment in exist- ing software is similar to the cost of buying a new Mac. I am thus very concerned that a new Mac should run my existing software. While I am pre- pared to believe that new versions of the mainstream packages will eventu- ally operate on the full range of Mac platforms, it is not always possible (or affordable) to adopt these new ver- sions. I was thus very thankful for your recent article on LC compatibility. Sadly, I currently run some of the packages which have problems on the LC. Is there any chance of finding and publishing a similar article for the Classic? In the unlikely event that Apple takes any notice ofits users, maybe someone should suggest that they provide a ‘Basic Mac’ mode on all Mac platforms. It need not run as fast as on the latest Mac ranges or offer the same range, but would guarantee that anythin; which runs on (say) a Mac Plus wou! run in Basic Mac mode on that ma- chine. From Apple's viewpoint, this would surely encourage established Mac us- ers (such as myself) to upgrade their hardware. Re: Antmation Works I responded to the advertisement (enclosure) that you sent out with the last issue of Apple2000. Please note the following letter identifying the in- adequacy of this software at least for my system configuration (1MByte Mac with hard disk). I hope that you can publish some warning about this software to warn others about making the same mis- take in purchasing this software. I do not have access to any of the bulletin boards but I would appreciate it if you October 1991 could relay my concerns about this to a wider audience. Dr. G. T. Haigh To: Managing Director Gold Disk Inc. PO Box 789 Streetsville Mississauga Ontario Canada Dear Sir, I recently purchased a copy of Ani- mation Works. It doesn’t. From the video and the manual it looks like an impressive piece of software. Unfortu- nately, the version (1.0) you have sup- plied is so bug-ridden it is impossible to use. My system is a Basic Mac Plus (1 MByte, with hard disk), running Sys- tem 6.0.5 and Finder 6. 1. The run-size of my system file is 161 les. Your documentation states this is a viable configuration for Black & White. I have removed all Inits, CDevs ete. in case of conflicts, but this does not improve the ce of your soft- ware. I run a variety of stan pack- ages and have no problems with any of them. Please understand that there are far too many software faults for me to catalog them all. Indeed many of them appear to be of a random nature. The prize bugs are: * AW Player does not run at all. It simply loads and then crashes the tem. « Animate XCMD does not run, and returns error 14 (out of memory). It doesn't crash the system, but it seems to mess up the memory application of HyperCard (V2.0). * I have not succeeded in getting through more than a couple of pages of any of the (B&W) tutorials before the system crashes. * The fastest repeatable crash is to load your B&W Tutorial 1, press the “Full Screen Play Mode” button and then the “Play” button, whereupon it crashes. «Ihave attempteda feweven abopier animations but your software has crashed before I have had time to create more than a couple of frames. Mostof the crashes are System Error 2, others are System Error3. Oncrash, the mouse still operates, but the re- start button fails to restart the system again. lam fencing you the registration card with this letter in case you can identify some simple remedy. Ifthere is none, then | will happily return the ned software toyou (or otherwise Fall ¢ Termination clause of you licence agreement) with the expecta- Hon ofrecet a full refund. I feelsure that Gold Disk Inc. would not wish to gain a reputation as a supplier of bug- ridden software. Dr. G. T. Haigh OFirst ofall let me say we are sorry you had such an experience with Anima- tion Works. Apple2000 accepted the advertisement in good faith. Please keep us posted as to any further devel- opments and we shall publish any future communications you may have over the program. What an excellent idea, to have a Basic Mac mode within each machine. Ifonly it was as simple as that! Itis very often not the fault of Apple that a new computer will not work with rae | software. Though of course this sometimes be the case. The most usual reason that existing software does not work is that software developers, for reasons of their own. did not follow the programming and toolbox guidelines laid down by Apple. Short cuts are taken either to speed things up or to produce a clever bit of coding. All of course {s well until Apple release a new computer that crashes with code that should never have been there in the first place. One of the most common problems seen recently has been soft- ware that falls over because the LC does not have a maths co-processor. This should only slow things down, not cause the program to fail. Software that uses colour often assumed incor- rectly that the smallest colour screen Olfyou have an urgent problem bie should ring the Hotline to get help. Letters and Fax submitted to App! 2000 will no: of the editorial content of the next magazine. We sh: be dealt with as part endeavour toanswer problems if at 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. The publication deadline is the Sth of the preceeding month to publication. If you have a modem, send us letters, articles and Public Domain programs to the Sysop on TABBS ((ti#®s *a 7/7) Apple2000 a oie was a 13 inch one and that the compu- ter had to be a Mac Il, that is till the LC came along. If a Basic Mac mode was created I think we should still see software fall- ing over, It could set a new standard from then on of course, but then Apple think they are doing that with their current machines anyway. It is the independent software houses that are at fault, not Apple. I think there will be no easy solution to this problem. Editor Oakley Bedfordshire Via Dear All, A Call to Arms Those le who have not been on holiday in outer Mongolia for the last few months will not have failed to notice the arrival of system 7.0. Judg- ing from all the excitement in the Mac- intosh Press you would be forgiven = mistaking this as part of the press I season. It can be of little doubt that a new operating system merits attention but the lack of software compatibility has been remarkably small compared to past revisions. Most of the commercial software will work with only some excep- tions to the rule. One of my complaints has been the total etd ered of The Typist scanner which has had the distinction of being the only piece of software that! own that makes my Mac bomb. Apple have been thoughtful enough to provide with system 7 a HyperCard Stack which will look at the contents of your hard disc and print areporton it's findings. This report has been found to that itsays must be upgraded seems to work OK on my system configuration. This experience has been shared with other people so I'm not alone. Also most of the shareware and public do- main software is simply reported by this stack as ‘Unknown’ which ts a lot of help. So it is these pieces of useful- ness and frivolity that will be of par- ticular interest to members. For in- stance did you know that Superclock V3.9 runs without any problems (on my Portable and Mac Il at any rate) ?. This brings me to the point of my writing this piece. I want to ask for the help of all members with Macs or ac- cess to Macs with the System 7 com- patibility issue. We want to compile a complete a list as possible of all the software available for the Mac with it’s compatibility. This particularly applies to the shareware and freeware utilities and programmes that we all use and love. So I would like to ask you all to send in your experiences, the Apple Compatibility Stack Report and re- ports of upgrades from vendors. We will print some of the hi-lights in the magazine and the full listing will be available on disc in due course. You will no doubt know the task is enor- mous and I can not possibly test every- ape myself so I do really need your elp. 1 would also ask thatall submissions be send it on disk as this does save some considerable amount of re-work. Naturally all disks will be returned to you with some on so there is another incentive. This will include a HyperCard 2.0 stack of the index of the Apple2000 magazine articles that I have written. Members who use TABBS: will be familiar with this but it has yet to filter into the Mac library yet. please include the following as a mini- mum: {1] Name of Application / Cdev / Init [2] Whether the item is an Application / Cdev / Init {3] The version number ( where avail- able) [4] The Machine you are using and the system software revision (eg 7.0) [5] How much memory you have in the machine. Remember that the old problem of Initand Cdev clashes remains and just becausea Cdev does not work does not necessarily mean that it is not System 7 compatible. Perhaps It needs to be moved around in the toa sequence or even moved within in the system folder. We have had reports that some Inits are unhappy in one part of the system folder but will run if placed in adifferent level from where the System would automatically have placed them. So get testing and writing and don't worry about duplicating someoneelses’ work as I prefer too much to do as too little (I don’t believe | just wrote that !). I look forward to receiving your letters and discs. Send them to me C/o PO Box 3, Liverpool, L21 8PY. Mike Dawson e Mapperly Park Nottingham Dear Ewen. I should like to thank you especially for the great help you gave me recently. As you may have gathered over the electric telephone, it was an enormous thrill to get my Apple // files up on the Mac acter Hana should have achieved be not too accurate as some software When writing of your experiences _ nothing without your advice. (7 >) TUTTE TEDL EAA A RT TR lea orm : >>>>> TOP MENU <<<<< WAIL VM AE TAA TA 7, Apple2000 WNT ME A A TT Bulletin <#>Endeall <.>Utilities Ms <;>Time <G>oodbye ///// The Apple Bulletin Board System Board Speeds: V21(300) to V22bis(2400) 8N1 24 hours System = Eons i <2> Il folde: Modem: PACE Ultralink 32 using V42 LAPM MNP <3> tmeietoan colder <4> Apple2000 folder <S> Developers folder O The TABBS message system is more than just a Bulletin Board. With a Shopping <6> Public areas Mall where you can browse the Apple2000 catalogues and order the goods you require; a library with over 75mb of compressed files for the Apple I, Igs and Sprownioas isbraries Macintosh; a private and public E-mail service; file transfers that can be enclosedin | <y>ews Columns private or public mail; message areas covering many topics including the Apple II, the <A>dvertisment Hoarding Tlgsand Macintosh; lively debating halls; with Xmodem, 1k Xmodem (Ymodem) file <S>hopping Mall transfers; multi-speed access at all common speeds; 24 hour operation; and much, por 8 new on TABBS much more make TABBS the premier Apple Bulletin Board serving Europe. ely files tore Give TABBS a call today! S Ring TABBS on (22) F4E98? at any speed through V21, V22, V23 to V22bis 8N1 V42 MNP TABBS is available 24 hours a day a, Ne ‘Ao Apple2000 October 1991 After using and programming Apple Ils since 1980 the Mac philosophy seems entirely different, both in the way the machine is driven and with its voracious appetite for memory; and it takes a little practice. Both machines have at least one thing in common: they remain head and shoulders above their contemporaries. Having been presented with a Mac Classic I am obviously very impressed with its power and ease of use but! shall certainly not put the Apple //es aside - they will map in with the Mac system very well and still have their advantages for certain tasks. For one thing I use a lot of technical programs. including some using a plotter, and with these the Apple //e copes very well. For another, I have a lot of text files written in AppleWriterese and AppleWorksese. For a third, for work away from the desk I use a Cambridge Z-88. After much hairtearing over the connecting cable this light and very versatile de- vice talks freely to the Apple //e via a serial card in slot 2. Steve Carter of Holdens tells me that a //e will write to a standard 3.5 in. Mac disk drive via a Universal Disc Drive Controller (UDC) card. so tocom- plete my setup I expect to buy these. May | say how much I appreciate uur Chameleon program, bought from UG some years ago and which has proved essential. I was a member of BASUG for several years and have just rejoined after a lapse, and find the magazine very interesting and main- taining a good balance between the Apple // and Macintosh concepts. Geoffrey Jago Q Thanks for all the praise, but this is of course what Apple2000 (BASUG) is all about. We share our knowledge and help each other. It should be a two way process of course. Ihave long said that the Apple II does all that mary pooue wish to do witha computer. The skeptics may say that you can hook your plotter on to the Mac and that you can read your AppleWorks files directly into MacWrite Il, but this would involve purchasing items you do not already own. If it it does the job why change? Note that the UDC card with the Mac drive will not write Mac formatted disks. The combination willonly write ProDOS disks but of course File Exchange on fe Mac loves to handle disks like ese. Ewen Wannop é Virginia Water Surrey Dear Sirs, I wish to connect together an Apple / /c and Macintosh LC to transfer be- tween them AppleWorks files and pro- constructed in AppleSoft Basic, using both ProDOS & DOS 3.3. I would be grateful if you could ad- October 1991 vise meas towhat cables, software and hardware I will need. The Say, addition eel fe is an Applied Engineering 5.: drive. J Tourmalain QYou state you wish to transfer vari- ous of files to the Macintosh. I shall break up my answer to you into various sections as there are many points that need covering. 1. By transferring files into the Mac- intosh you will only be able to use text files or AppleWorks text files within the Macintosh environment. Programs written in AppleSoft Basic will be ofno use whatsoever as they are not com- patible with any of the available Mac- intosh Basics. Noapplication programs or system files from the Apple II envi- ronment can be run within the Macin- tosh environment. 2. Asimple solution, which requires extra hardware to be purchased, is a / /e emulator card for the LC and an external 5.25 disk drive. It may be that your AE external drive will work with the LC //ecard though! have nodirect experience of that. With a //e emula- tor fitted your Mac can then switch into //e mode and allow existing ProDOSandDOS3.3 programs torun. You will also be able to transfer files directly to the hard disk on the LC which will then be available under the Macintosh environment. Bidmuthin can supply one of these cards for you. They are priced around £125 as I remember. 3. Another simple solution is to get hold of an external 3.5 disk drive for your //c and to transfer all the files to a 3.5 ProDOS formatted disk. You can then transfer files from that disk di- rectly into the Macintosh using the Apple File Exchange utility on your Mac Ries disks. 4. The more complex route, and one that is suitable for transfe: fles between any computer, is to hard wire between the serial port of the //c and the serial port of the Macintosh. The / /c to ImageWriter II printer cable will do this for you. We sell this cable from our mail order shop. Please quote the code 658010. Once connected you will need to use communications software at each end to effect the transfer. Red Ryder from the Macintosh library disk #81 will handle the Macintosh end and a program like Antelope from our Spe- cial Release library will handle the // c end. This program runs under DOS 3.3 so you might also require Chame- leon, again from the Special Release library, to transfer fles between the DOS 3.3 and ProDOS environments. You should then use the Xmodem transfer protocol of the communica- tions programs to copy the files be- tween the two machines. Option 4 Is not such an easy route to follow and would require quite a lot of learning to be able to operate the two communications programs success- fully. | would recommend either Op- Apple2000 tion 2 or 3 as being much simpler route, It really depends on how much money you are willing to set to this project and exactly how files and how often you wished to effect trans- fers. If it is to be a ‘once only’ transfer then I would suggest just sending in the i ee disks to us with some blank 3.5 Macintosh disks. Include return postage and full details of which files you transferred and I could then transfer the files for you. Ewen Wannop « Darlington Co. Durham Dear Sirs, Blind Transporter I would appreciate any help in get- ting my PC Transporter card to see my hard disk I recently purchased an Applied En- pee PC Transporter card from loldens in Preston, and soon got it installed and running in my IIgs. No problems except my inexperience with the peculiarities of MS-DOS. Shortly after, 1 purchased a hard disk from the States and that works like a dream. It came set up for the IIgs and all | had to do was change American plug for an English one, and it worked. Knowing how memory hungry MS- DOS pro; are, | bought a larger hard disk than I felt 1 would need for the Apple, and ended up with 105 megabytes split into 3 partitions of 32 Meg and 1 partition of 9 meg. en I tried to set up a hard volume for MS-DOS I hit my first problem. I followed the instructions in the PC Transporter manual and created a vol- ume called MSDOSVOL on one of my ProDOS partitions, and set the path in the Transporter Control Panel to find it. I then had to get Into MS-DOS and format the volume MSDOSVOL so that MS-DOS could use it. As instructed I booted up the Trans- porter with MS-DOS 3.3 and at the prompt typed “FDISK”, which is sup- to Find anyattached hard drives. It comes back with the message “No fixed drives present!”. HELP! Ihave an MSDOSVOL on and partition 3 of hard disk. Ac- cording to the RamF/ manual, the first two partitions reside in Slot 7 (card location), and the 3rd and 4th partitions are configurable to ghost user selected slots. 1 have tried booting the PC Trans- porter from the hard disk, and from floppies, and with the first of the ~ t” partitions set at Slot 6 and Slot 1 respectively. I have tried these configu- rations with the partition 1 MSDOSVOL, and partition 3 MSDOSVOL set up in the PC Trans- porter Control Panel, with the same result every time 1.c. “No fixed disk present”. Becca Re ition 1 Please help. AnIBM emulator is very unfriendly with only one disk drive, and I was relying on using my hard disk to make it usable. Martyn Hole Q The PC Transporter boots under ProDOS 8. This means that only parti- tions seen by irene 8 can be ue Depending on the partitio: soft- ware you lvoused eeyoun socicane it may that only partition 1 can be seen and used. GS/OS can see all the par- titions of course. If you check what drives are there from a program like Copy Il+ running under ProDOS 8 you will be able to see what is available. In the control panel of the PC Trans- porter you must set up the full pathname and exact spelling of the route to your MSDOSVOL hard disk complete with all separators. /partition.name/directory.name/ MSDOSVOL With the usual amount of floppy disks available to MSDOS you should see the Hard Disk as drive E: Having done this you will need to save the results to disk and reboot to finally see the fixed Hard Disk. You should use a copy of your AEPC disk to do this as it will need to be unlocked to save the configuration. FDisk should now find the drive when run. Make sure that the Assign Disk Drives list is correct. Ifthis does not match your exact setup then the AEPC program will not find the drives you have told it are there. If this still does not work then Iam not sure where the problem lies. I do not have direct experience of the RamFast card but doubt that is caus- ing the problem. To test things out you could always create an 800k MSDOSVOL on a 3.5 floppy and check that that is seen correctly. This would at least show you that you are going about things in the it way. I myself put ny PC Transporter card into Slot 6 and then alternate between MS/DOS and my 5.25 drives. I rarely want to use 5.25 drives from MSDOS! The 5.25 drives I have daisy chained from the back of my 3.5 drives. Details of this were published a couple ofyears back in the Apple2000 zine. I hope that some of this helps you resolve your problem. Ewen Wannop é East Ogwell Newton Abbot of Dear Sirs, lam using an Apple Il+ Payroll 11 wages program from Vlasak Electron- ics who are no longer teeing: Do you know of anyone who could tnoxitfy this program to take account of the current rules on National Insur- ance or alternatively supply a similar io program that runson the Apple +. D Martin Awe QI do not know the Payroll U pope myself but would venture the following comments; If the program ts a stand alone pro- gram that cannot be re-configured from masterdisks then your only hope would be if it were written in the Basic lan- guage and that the program files were accessible. If the program ts written in code or the disks are protected in some way then you will not be able to alter the program at all. If the program is configured from master disks it may be that it could be modified by someone with expertise in that fleld. Pah i As you juire a proj r the Apple I+ that cone conete current rules, I think this would be almost impossible to find. All programming done these days assumes that you have at least a //e computer. There is very little being written for the Apple II for business use now as most people have moved on to other machines for these purposes. 1 presume you have tried MGA or Bidmuthin for an alternative program. I will however publish your letterin the next magazine and see if we can get some more information from other members. Can anyone help please? The Editor e Bucks tL Dear Sir, In case anyone Is still struggling with the Applesoft year/clock programs in the August issue, a transcription error altered Line 240 in both the submitted listings. The last instruction in both (identical) lines should read YR = Y(V) not YE = Y(V). Fairly easy to deduce, but Wendover R. P. Brown é Farnham Surrey Dear Apple2000, Computers Can Kill Right now my Apple //e is killing me andI need some bee please. The story sofaris outlined under four headings:- 1. Tried to connect 2 * Unidisk 3.5s, daisy chained to Slot 7, lea 2*Disk Il in slot six, thus Unidrives have the recommended position toload. On load- ing disk to drive 1, little red light blinks, sighs and dies, Swapping drives, swapping slots, disconnecting Disk II brings no improvement. This system has been up and running in other hands. Software tried is ProDOS ver- sions of AppleWorks and Format80. 2. When in trouble use TABBS it says, so having tentatively tried and got through a few months back I de- cided to try again using Gazelle 1.8 but before doing sol decided to learn about Macros and automate the connection process. Apple2000 Hay comy aone line Macro to get ht iscne ieehon faced with the problem of saving it. The program disk was looking fora disk in Drive 2 to save it on, so I fed it another copy of the program disk. Volume name, pathname questions which I couldn't answer, left me with no alternative but to dial through D. Isn't there a simple default setting which would avoid all the process ofsetting up volume names and pathnames for a single macro? 3. So I got through to TABBS with great relief. It recognised me - and hit me with “Password?” Did I give it a password last time, the only time lever spoke to it? If so I have forgotten that and need to be bailed out or remain banished from TABBS forever, 4. Which brings me to Jon Gurr's kind offer. Earlier this year I had been looking for a home book keeping pro- rs to ation prop posse for 's . Itseems to me that any who is having to wrestle with a demanding job and the sheer volume of correspondence in- volved in running a fe household budget ies a good a rote system. Following request for sim- ple //e software, Thad a reply from Richard Kelly and subsequently ac- quired Book Keeper II by Advanced Micro Products. So far! am happy with it because it is simple and allows me to set up or amend the headings I use easily. However, lam interested in continu- ing to evolve a //e based home man- agement system which is on a par in user friendliness with current office items, but with its scope adapted to ie home market where the clerical staff may be limited to 1. Thus I would be happy to review any packages of- fered in this category as soon as I can get some advice on how to get 3.5 inch drives working. OComputers Can Kill ... a slow death for us all perhaps! Anyway, to your problems ... 1) UniDisks fail to work. The real problem here is that you say they worked on another machine. | assume that you are using them with the same interface card that they worked with before. UniDisks are not the same as Apple 3.5 drives for the IIgs or the Mac and not the same as the Apple 800k external drives forthe Mac. These drives cannot be used on the //e, Talso assume that the software you know is and will boot. You will only be able to use ProDOS and not DOS 3.3 with these drives. Slot 7 can cause problems if all the slots are full and the card placed there has pins 22, 23 linked to pins 28, 27. I doubt though this is your problem as you say you have moved the card around. The only reason to want to put itin Slot 7 would be for Slot 7 to auto- boot before Slot 6. You can of course do a PR#x to boot from Slot x. October 1991 I also assume that you have the drives well away from any video moni- tors. Donot sita monitor on the drives. The induced electrical currents will stop any drive working! I also assume that they have not been subjected to any damage between the mas je they worked on and yours! I also assume you do not have an accelerator work- ing which has not been told you have a slow disk drive in Slot 7. I cannot think of any other reason why they do not work. 2) Gazelle and say macros, The key to working with ProDOS is to un- derstand the /volume/pathname/ filename concept. This is fully explained in the Gazelle manual and of course in other places. If you have set a Prefix to apathname. This will be where ProDOS will put a file that only has a name and no separators to the full pathname. As an added bonus, Gazelle accepts the »$6,D1 format common to DOS 3.3 users. There should therefore be no problem at any time in saving a macro or other file. Again refer to the manual for full details. If you put in two disks with the same name however, ProDOS will get mightily confused! Gens in using Gazelle you should don Volume cominsind to en thie name of the disk you are using. Then either set the Prefix to that disk ora data disk which you have named yourself and Archive the results. Life should be easier from then on. 3) For security TABBS uses a Pass- word entry. This protects your private mail from prying eyes! When you logged on for the first time you were asked for a Password and told to remember it. However, once faa you need to sort out with the Sysop explaining what has gone on. I notice that you last logged in to TABBS three days ago so! assume that you actually remembered the password in the end! Ewen Wannop e ‘TABBS E-Mail Dear Ewen, Inoticeda letter fromEricLeadbeatter in August's magazine. He is asking about SYMBFILE hard disks. I had a Symbiotic hard drive. If that is the same then the position of ProDOS systems ts: I had to change the ProDOS version on some of my software before it would work on the hard drive. [had toremove the ProDOS and replace it with version 1,1,1. SoundSmith. I have downloaded this and received from the author a data disk and updated program disk. I wrote a short test piece of music. Ican play it OK from the EDIT menu using play zone. But it doesn't play from the PLAY menu - “play music*. Other musics (to use his term) already on the disk do play OK. Any ideas anybody? Arthur Robinson é October 1991 Reepham Lincoln Dear Editor, This is my first attemptatsendingan article on Disk to any zine let alone one devoted to computers, but having read the various letters in the the Apple 2000 publication I guess it's time | had a say. First and foremost let me describe If, | am 71 years old, a retired Electrical Engineer. I served in the Royal Corps of Signals di wwil and my travels over that period can be summed up describing them as being from Lapland toJapland. Inthe course of my work I repeated some of my service travels and worked in places as far apart as Norway and Ecuador. As | approached retirement, I looked round es a hobby to while away the hours and decided to make use of the training the army gave me. I managed to pass the examinations to obtain a Ham licence. For those interested, my call sign is G4LPV. I thought I would be able to devote all my time to this hobby, as unlike my working life I would not be travelling about, but of course my good Lady had other ideas, (I now wonder how I had time to work)! Icame into computing as an adjunct to my hobby as it seemed a good idea to make use of this new technology. It was another interesting way of com- municating in addition to the micro- phone and the Morse key and I could also make use of one of the skills the arty, taught me, touchtyping. ly first computer was a Commo- dore 64 and along with a home built interface anda purchased programme, I could run RTTY over the air and see the result printed out. I also used it for recording my contacts on a Database and some letters could be run off on the printer but they were far from what can be described as ‘Near letter qual- ity’. Oy son who had need for a much larger computer in his business gave me this eee pit IIc with its ImageWriter and second disc drive. Now I can run off a passable letter, make use of ‘Pub- lish It’, and find great interest in trying out the variety of programmes avail- able. Along with the llc came anumber of original disks that have helped me find my way through the maze of Applesoft, AppleWorks, Integer, DOS 3.3, ProDOS and my grandchildren still haven't tired of playing "Lemon- ade” which is a game on one ofthe early demonstration disks. I use a double video adaptor on the back of the IIc which enables me to use the 9" green screen that comes as standard and also use a 14" colour TV on the side. The colour TV is a Ferguson TX with a RGB monitor socket. On my Commo- dore I could make full use of this facility. but as yet have not found any reserence to it’s possible connection to e He. Apple2000 Maybe some electronic wizard out there could help. 1 am still looking for a suitable pro- gramme that will allow this llc to be used for RTTY. I did find one for the II that also gave a connection diagram with a choice between the game port or the cassette recorder port. | managed to work out a connection sequence that allowed me to receive RTTY but not transmit. The programme showed on the screen a transmit state, but operating the showed no al- teration in the state of the voltages coming from any of the pins on the gameport. So I am still looking. I notice that one of the complaints that is often repeated is that most of the magazine is taken up with Mac information as opposed to Apple II items and yet past numbers of the magazine are not available. Well here is an offer that in my opinion cannot be refused. Someone must have a collec- tion of these early editions where Apple Il reigned supreme. I am willing to copy these articles/programmes/tips/hints to a DSDD disk and return the maga- zines to whoever has supplied them and give the disk to the library so making it available to all. Next is a query:- What difference does the upgrading of the ProDOS file make to any Folder except to increase the number of blocks taken up by the new ProDOS 8V1.9.? The original was 30 blocks the new version takes up 34.1 have changed the ProDOS file on some of my Discs Basic, Utility, and even this AppleWorks disc I am using now and can see no difference other than losing 4 more blocks. One tip I would like to pass on was given to me via “Mercury” which is the magazine of the RSARS. If the printer ribbon shows signs of. irying up itcan be revived a couple of times before one has to revert to a new ribbon or an inker. Take the ribbon cassette out of the machine and gently prise off the cover taking care not to break off the locating pins. Froma distance of about twelve inches, spray the revealed coiled ribbon with WD40. Leave the cassette in this uncovered state for at least 4 hours and then replace the cover. Replace the cassette in the printer and you will find the density of print re- stored, and in addition, it lubricates the action of the pins. Last year when I made great use of Publish It and began to really run through my stock of ribbons I intended to make use of a Re-Inkservice run bya firm in Spalding, but they informed me they had given up this service and disposed of their machines. I tried another firm which advertised in the Computer section of the RSGB magazine ‘Radcomm'. I found them very good and prompt with both their service and return of the ribbons. They are :- ~ Re-Ink Services ~ 178 Long Lee Lane, Keighley, BD21 4TT. Telephone 0535 663203. Two more queries that maybe some a kind soul out there could help me with are as follows. Unlike the IIc+ this machine does not have amachine code assembler programmed in it. | arm look- ing fora reasonably priced pr me to enable me to do just that. Last but not least, does anyone know the cure for a fault that is on my ImageWriter. Using it in the single sheet mode the sheet tends to slip so it is obvious that the change over from pin feed to single sheet lever is not actuating the mecha- nism fully or it is worn. Before I attempt to open the ImageWriter up I would like some in- formation on the subject ifanyone can supply it. I have all user manuals for all this equipment and the IIc Tech- nical Reference Book. but this fault is not one of those included in the list of probable faults. My thanks to Irene who has shown great patience with my queries and actsso promptly insending those items Ihave requested. Thanks to Dave Ward for explaining the intricacies of Unshrinking and the same goes for Ewen in answer to my queries re the use of an old Miracom Modem to ob- tain TABBS. Some day I shall get on line I hope. Harold Bennett Q Thank you for your long letter and the he your purse with the Apple II world. The //c socket has a form of RGB available, but it is non-standard. The adaptor provided by Apple with the // c converted this signal into standard PAL composite video. There are some commercial adaptors available which will give standard RGB colour from this socket. The Peacock a Taiwanese manufactured product is one. I did see a pro; for RTTY many years ago for the Apple Il. |do not know where this is now or whether it will work on the //c. Can any of our other radio ‘hams’ please help us on this they must be using something them- selves? Perhaps they could provide us with some PD or Shareware for the library. I am pleased to see that you think that complaints are that there is too much Mac stuff in the magazine. The Mac people tell us there is too much Apple II material. We divide the maga- zine down the middle and try and please all of you at once. We do not have back copies of the magazine mainly because we would have no where to store them and the cost in printing extra copies in the first place could not be justified. Material from the last three years is held as archives on disk, though of the Macintosh kind. We can usually reprint articles on re- quest from recent issues. Just send a stamped address envelope, details of what you would like reprinted, and give us time to get the printout done. Apart from that your offer is an excel- lent one especially for the older maga- zines. tA Ifyou are running on a //c there is not much point in changing your ver- sion of ProDOS. The main differences in the latest versions, apart from cur- ing some very obscure ne are to make ProDOS (P8) compatible with the //gs and AppleShare. The latest ver- sion includes a very nice program se- lector which is well worth while if you do not already have a selector. You will otherwise see no difference on the //c. The most reasonably priced assem- bler must be our library disk D046. This is a very simple assembler but may do what you want. It runs under DOS 3.3. Otherwise look for a secondhand copy of the Apple Assem- bler (DOS 3.3) or for a copy of Big Mac. ‘This was the forerunner of Merlin which is probably the Rolls Royce assembler of today. Merlin 8 may be out of your price bracket though is well recom- mended if you can afford it. There should be a lever inside the ImageWriter on the left that controls the pressure of the rollers. However I would suggest cleaning the rollers first as this is the usual cause of paper slip on older printers. If you go to a good office supplies company they should be able to sell you a roller restorer that will clean accumulated mess and polish. I do not know the chemical they use in these preparations, so perhaps someone could enlighten us and save the expense of buying a brand name! The Editor « To the editor, For those who read my review on CNC Trainer (Apple 2000 Aug 91 6(4) pp 15) here is a little update. Kitchen Sink Software now supply the same pro; for the IBM and the Mac under the name of “Streamlined CNC". In the same issue of Apple 2000 (pp 30/31) you also published my Apple Il Information Source. I never ‘ined thatyou would considerit for publication. It got produced because I found that I was spending unneces- sary time searching back issues for some obscure tip I remembered from 4 years back. I have been living in hope that ieee people had done Lede thd thing long ago, so just to spi e load (hoping to persuade others to send me their lists), Ihave been includ- ing my Database on disks that get sent to friends. Perhaps I can use this platform to say if anyone has been quietly doing the same thing. please send me a copy tocombine it with mine. Ifany member of Apple 2000 wants to get a copy of my list, send me disk. (200+ entries in ADB). Peter Davis é ‘he: (Lilie Nheabetbest! Image Lnpiee sCbvephtnggitanss Taint maps. AS: Apple2000 AppleLink Clippings llgs Hard Drive Partitions QUESTION: How many partitions can I have ona hard drive connected to ANSWER , : Ifyou are using an Apple Il High-Speed gest cael tie Apple Ilgs will recognise up to 32 partitions on any one hard drive, While the 32 partition limit is correct for GS/OS, ProDOS 8 will only recognise two par- titions per hard drive. If the SCSI card is placed in slot 5 of the IIgs, up to 4 partitions can be reco; ProDOS 8. The limiting factor of using slot 5 for a hard drive is that this requires set- ting slot 5 to “Your Card". The Smart Porton the back of the Ilgs will then not be usable for 3.5" floppy drives. Any 5.25" drives connected to the Smart Port will still be usable. The only way to use 3.5" drives with this configuration is to use a UniDisk 3.5 and UniDisk 3.5 Controller card. The Apple 3.5 Drive (platinum) will not be usable, as there is no controller card that works with that drive. Products Forum Apple Il GS/OS 22/10/90 Apple IGS: Using ToolBox To Cre- ate/Modify Character Sets The Apple IIGS ToolBox allows pro- | to do some interesting am You can, for example, redefine the -yboard layout te! cer- tain calls to the toh esata To create new character sets. you'll intercept the data coming from the keyboard, translate it to whatever you want. and store it it the proper place. To learn how to do this, you'll need the Apple IIGS ToolBox Reference Manual (two volumes, APDA order number K2BGST). This book describes the ADB toolset that you would use to alter the les. The Keyboard Micro gets data from the ADB keyboard, then software is called to get that data and sendit tothe $C000 area. Your software would read the keyboard micro, and then trans- late the ke le that it gets back into an ASCII {or whatever) type of code, storing it back into the $CO00 vector. Altering the character set is not possi- ble in text mode, because the charac- tersets are in ROM (in the VGC custom IC) and can't be changed. But there is a simple way to accomplish this: use the standard graphics environment that the Apple IGS provides. By using the Font Manager, you can create your own customized fonts forany language and any type of symbols. This system is also documented in the Apple IIGS ToolBox Reference Manual. © Apple Computer « October 1991 AppleXtras /XTRAS.P8.NO.11/ =SUPER3 . BXY LIB 86 _5-AUG-90 =CHGFIT. BXY LIB 48 28-JUN-91 ~DIRECTOR.BXY § LIB 27 10-SEP-91 =SHRINK . BXY BIN 109 20-AUG-91 /XTRAS.GS.NO.11/ =BOOT. SYSTEM sYs 1 _6-JAN-90 =TITLE PIC 65 10-SEP-91 ~PRODOS SYS 34 20-AUG-90 PROGRAMS DIR 1 10-SEP-91 “WRITE.AWAY.BXY BIN 64 9-SEP-91 =SUPERVIEW.BXY LIB 41 10-SEP-91 “SAP.VER.5.SHK © SHK 381 27-JUL-91 ~SYQERR.TXT TXT 4 2-DEC-90 =SYSTEM.UTILS DIR 1 10-SEP-91 =SUPER.INFO.BXY BIN 162 9-SEP-91 =SUPERDPATH.BXY LIB 42 10-SEP-91 ~SDREMI . BXY BIN 11 9-SEP-91 =PORT.BXY BIN 5 9-SEP-91 =ZIPSWT.BXY TxT 6 9-MAY-91 “GSCIIP .BXY BIN 49 29-MAY-91 =GAMES DIR 1 10-SEP-91 “=MILESTON.SHK — SHK $65 16-JUL-91 =BLACKJK.SHK SHK 154 11-AUG-91 /XTRAS.P8.NO.11/ Q All files on this disk have been shrunk using Shrinkit. SUPER3.BXY SuperPatch 3.1 is the latest version of this utility to patch bugs and features into AppleWorks V2.0 and 2.1. It cures the known bugs and adds many extra features that will be a boon the busy AppleWorks user. CHGFIL.BXY Change-A-File 4.02 is the latest version of this AppleWorks utility. It can convert files to and from AppleWorks, convert AppleWorks 3.0 toAppleWorks 2.0 and repair and exhume AWP files and restore damaged ADB files. DIRECTOR.BXY A British made product from one of our own Apple2000 members, Martyn Hole's program selector not only browses and selects files but will let you print their contents to your printer as well. SHRINK.BXY The very latest ShrinkIt for ProDOS 8. Version 3.3 runs on the enhanced //e and //c. This new version cures a few bugs and is AppleShare friendly. This is becoming more and more important as time goes on! October 1991 Apple2000 /XTRAS.GS.NO.11/ Q Most of these files have been shrunk using Shrinklt. Programs Directory WRITE.AWAY.BXY WordWorks grows up and becomes Write.Away! This Shareware word processor has everything you could ever wish for. A snip at $10! jUPERVIEW.BXY ASuper Pic view program that can view and convert the various 3200 colour pictures that abound. Comes complete with a picture of your other car. SAP.VER.5 A Simple Animation Program that is anything but! You will be able to create your own animat cartoons, point of sale displays and other uses. You will be able to create your own objects or actors and place them into your own scenes. Full instructions and samples are provided. SYQERR.TXT This short text file explains all the Syquest errors you may see from your removable cartridge drive! System.Utils Directory SUPER.INFO.BXY This ‘can't do without it' desk accessory gets even better. It has now reached version 2.2 and has many new modules provided. Also included are APW source files showing you how you can make your own modules. SUPERDPATH.BXY Tired of being in the wring directory when you start your favourite application, SuperDataPath Will solve all those problems for you in a trice! SDREMI.BXY If like me ou use a Ram disk on your Iigs, you will no doubt have lost important files when you shut down the system without thinking. This neat little utility will remind you that you have unsaved files and allow you to reboot and preserve them. PORT.BXY This small Printer Driver allows the IIgs to talk at 57600 baud to the Hewlett Packard DeskWriter. Use this with Harmonie or Independence Desk Jet drivers and use the superior DeskWriter for your printing. ZIPSWT.BXY Adds desktop Control Panel support for the ZipGS accelerator. GSCIIP.BXY Adesk accessory which converts Binscii and BinHex files. You may come across this form of file transfer on some Bulletin Boards. Games Directory MILESTON.SHK For all those budding Nigel Mansell's get your crash helmet on, tighten your seat belt and off we go. See if you can beat the computer controlled car to the finish line. Throw in a few punctures and crashes to make things lively, The computer playsa mean game and is not easy to beat! BLACKJK.SHK Get your green eye shade on, cut a new deck and get card sharping! This Blackjack tutor will teach younil you need to know about the game. ¢ a okt Apple2000 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 Peter Bell 100010,404 David Collins 100016,3060 Michael Dawson 100015,2232 Gary Doades 5 Felim Doyle David Evans Mateen Greenaway Alastair Greenstreet 100010,742 Dale James 100016,1152 Bryn Jones 71307.1457 Mark Hooper 100014,374 Jihad Jaafar 100016,526 Richard Kelly 100029,177 Peter Kemp 100016,1172 Andy Letchford 100016,1771 Elizabeth Littlewood 100016,401 John Maltby 100014,2216 Mark O'Neill 100016,476 Steve Perry 100013,365 Jeretny Guin 100016,560 John Richey 100016, 1037 Russell Ridout 72007,211 Arthur Robinson 73457,3614 James Southward 73767 ,1336 Ahmet Turkistanli 100016,3365 Donald Walker 100015,256 Andreas Wennborg 100012,342 James Walker 100013,142 Ewen Wannop 76224,211 Brian Williams 100016,2735 Compuserve/Forum World's largest online database with many specialist Apple forums. Large libraries of PD and ShareWare soi ware, real time conferences, message areas and much more. Accessed ether directly on 071-490 8881, or through the BT DialPlus net- work. You donot need to havea DialPlus account to access Compuserve. It will cost you around £8-£12 an hour inclusive of all online charges, network access and local phone call. To join contact: Compuserve/Forum Freepost (BS 6971) 15/16 Lower Park Row PO Box 676 Bristol BS99 1YN 0800-289 378 or 0272-255111 O Mention youarean Apple2000 mem- ber and the joining fee will be waived. Ifyou are a Macintosh user then order a copy of Compuserve Information Manager at the same time. é Te ae 8 QMany ofyou willalready 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 Q Members having offered specialist help facilities are listed below: Alan Armstrong (Apple II+, IIgs) oral So Gantt Ken Dawson (TimeOut, ProSel) atl AR mt A.W. Harmer (Mac) NOI ahead He Leonard Horthy (4th Dimension) RR SHRINE John Richey (AppleWorks) rive U In response to our recent request we now have more Radio Ham call signs! Mike Bass - G30JE Harold Bennet - GA4LPV Andy Harrington - GIXLW (Packet Radio Mbox) - GB7SUT Tony Gatrell G4SVB Arthur Owen - G2FUD John Lincoln GMOJOL Ian Brydon GOPMZ MUG NEWS SERVICE é USER GROUP Appie2000 October CrossNumber Rules of Engagement The first correct entry, in each sec- tion, drawn from the postbag wins a prize. Please remember to indicate which of fthe prize choices you would like. Only entries from current members 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 30thofNovember will be deemed eligible. How to Contact You Name: ...... Membership Number: .........0008 AGATESS: ....ssecorersccescceserereroers Post your completed entry to: October Competition. PO Box 3, Liverpool, L21 8PY. Please indicate which prize you would like: The Carmen SanDiego geography [tro (World, US, Europe) Apple i 5.25" disks )PwwareMusicwriterforApplellGs [Tesserae for the Mac SPECIAL |All 3 prizes will be allocated this time asaChristmasbonus tothe members. These are great prizes and the CrossNumber is so easy so don't forget to take part and send in your entry. SOLUTION June's Acrostic “Then Katsuk, who had called him after along time, was carrying the pack. There had been nosign of body or bloody marks of a struggle on the trail.” The above passage is from Soul Catcher by Frank Herbert and is published by New English Library, price £2.99, Q Stephen Davies of Dudley (member 2734) claimed LOC as his prize for being the first to be drawn with the correct answer to the June Acrostic. October 1991 An Easy CrossNumber with Lots of Prizes To Reach You in Time for Christmas Across Down 1. Year Charles I executed. 1 Start of The Great War. 3. 9089 in hex. 2. Highest prime less than 100. 5. The answer to "Life, the Universe & 3. Number of whole miles in a marathon. Everything". 4. Number of yards in a mile. 6. A gross number. 6. Fourteen squared. 8. Biblical age-span for man. 7. Sequence of numbers. 9. Baker's dozen. 9. Binary team? 10. Number of the Beast. 12. Year of Charles Babbage's death. 11. Key of the door - used to be. 13. Heinz’ varieties. 15. Start of Queen Victoria's reign. 14. Number of semitones in an octave. 16. -ASpace Odyssey. Remember, there is no need to spoil your magazine as photo-copied entries are quite acceptable. e October 1991 Apple2000 S2&pee &B ae Disk Zaps and all that (part 7) Para re anne na Ewen Wannop concludes the Disk Zap series with a look at the GS/OS operating system The previous articles in this series were all written several years ago now. I had intended to complete the series with articles on the other operating systems then commonly used with the Apple II series but time was against me and the series was never properly com- pected as I had intended. This article rings us up to date and describes the changes that have been made since that original series. Postscript At the time of writing the original articles, DOS 3.3 was still the preva- lent operating system on the Apple Il series. ProDOS had evolved from SOS for the Apple /// and was beginning to make its mark. Pascal was still the ‘serious’ programming language and CP/M was used by those who wanted to word process with WordStar or wanted to use their experience of other operating systems. Since that time things have changed on many fronts. The consolidation of the ubiquitous MSDOS operating sys- tem all but killed off CP/M. Any sur- vival of CP/Mat all has been due to the enormously successful Amstrad word processor. Pascal has been relegated to the category of an ‘interesting’ lan- guage as C took over as the preferred Pa poot in the Apple IIgs and Macin- tosh environment. ProDOS finally won out over DOS 3.3 for many reasons which I will describe shortly. The pre- ferred programming language on the Apple II series is still direct 6502 ma- chine code written with the aid of an assembler though on the Ilgs it has been a mixture of assembler, Pascal and C. Probably the best and most widely used assembler on the Apple II is Glen Bredon’s famous Merlin. ProDOS in brief The strength of ProDOS, as outlined in the original series of articles, was its interdependence from the size and kind of disk medium used, A ProDOS block device is simply a storage device which can read or write blocks of data what it is made of does not matter. The first directory on the device tells ProDOS the size of the device and other charac- teristics it may have. As faras ProDOS is concerned it could not care less ifthe Am g storage medium is hard disk, Ram chips, floppy disk or even CD ROM. With this freedom a block device can range from a 140k 5.25 inch floppy disk to a 1.4mb 3.5 inch disk. It can also be a pseudo disk in the form of a Ram of any size up to 32mb, a hard disk, a CD ROM drive or even a tape streamer. The limitation in every case is 32mb within a single partition or logical disk drive. Individual files can be any size up to 16mb. It is this flexibility that has won ProDOS its rightful place as the pre- ferred operating system for the Apple Il. It is quite common these days to see a //e computer with both 3.5 drives and a hard disk drive and perhaps a Ram disk for fast access. There are even battery backed Ram cards that will give extremely fast boot times where this may be an important factor. Enter the Iigs The //e had introduced a new ele- ment into the Apple II arena. With its on board 80 column screen we started to see software written specifically for the //e. This software often would not run on the old II+, The //c came along soon afler and introduced the 65C02 processor. The 65C02 has anenhanced instruction set. Programmers wel- comed this as it increased the speed and power of their programs. This led to an enhanced chip set for the //e which included as well as new ROMS the 65C02 processor, The //e’s manu- factured today have this chip set in- stalled and so new software will often not run on the Il+ or on a basic unenhanced //e and only runs on an enhanced //e ora //c. Four years ago we saw the llgs launched into the eager arms of the Apple II enthusiasts. This extraordi- nary machine uses a hybrid micro processor built around the 65C02, It has twomodesofoperation. On startup the IIgs simply thinks that it is an enhanced //e. As such it will ofcourse runall the old Apple Il software. It has. also got a native mode operation where it switches into a full 16 bit processor addressing memory in 64k banks up to 8mb. The gaps seen in the operation codes of the 65C02 have been filled with new addressing commands and Apple2000 16 bit functions. The Ilgs also included a Super High Resolution colour display which was a considerable improvement over the previous High Resolution displays on the II+ or the //e. The increased power of 16 bit soft- ware demanded a more powerful oper- ating system. To start with Apple sim- ply built a shell round ProDOS, now renamed ProDOS 8 or P8 for short and called it ProDOS 16. P16 was a slow and cumbersome operating system mainly because it had to do far too much to actually achieve any results. It was familiar to work with at machine code level having only marginal changed instructions from its P8 pred- ecessor. Most programmers were still battling with the other aspects of the IIgs to worry about these limitations. It is interesting to note that many of the early games for the IIgs were written under P8 even though they used the Super High Resolution display. The Finder It seems it was always the intention of Apple to make the IIgs be the poor man’s Macintosh. The IIgs uses the standard Apple peripherals that are interchangeable with its sister, and in due course we saw a proper Finder based on the Macintosh forerunner, albeit working much more slowly. The whole system worked in such a slow and sluggish way it got itself a bad name from the start. As time went on we saw ProDOS 16 evolve through many versions with each one becom- ing marginally better in performance. e Apple programmers were hard at work however, and a total rewrite of the eatin was undertaken. GS/OSwas finally launched to the IIgs enthusiasts. Speed improvements were dramatic and with each release of the System since (GS/OS runs from Sys- tem 4.0) we noticed things getting bet- ter and better. Some work on the Win- dow toolbox has now made GS/OS comparable to a Macintosh Classic in visible speed of operation. In fact with my TransWarp accelerator running on the IIgs, the GS/OS Finder seems to work faster than the Finder on my SE/ 30 running under the much vaunted System 7.0! item 6.0 for the IIgs is on its way and this we are promised speeds things up even more. The Finder we under- stand has been rewritten and presum- ably has been harmonised with the new System 7.0 on the Mac. File System Translators One of the major innovations intro- duced with System 5.0 was the intro- duction of File System Translators. It is interesting to note here that many of the features we have been enjoying on the IIgs for some time only now appear on the Macintosh with System 7.0. The long lead time and testing period on the Mac meant that we have these features first. October 1991 All commands sent to block storage devices, aiken or ast Hae eE rt, pass ugh an 5 gives Ihe programmer the flexibility to sim- ply write standard IN/OUT routines to a common interface which will be cor- rectly ‘translated’ as required. At present we have only get FSTs for the Console (Character FST), AppleShare , ProDOS and the High Sierra formatted CD ROM's. In System 6.0 we are prom- ised new FST's for DOS 3.3, Pascaland the Macintosh, In practise the user does not need to know about the FST's running on their oyaten. There ‘peonepce simply how extra 'S al pearing on the Finder desktop. Those using AppleShare will see extra devices in this same way which may be anything from a Macintosh toa //e. Ithas been mentioned that aProDOS block device can be of any size up to 32mb and individual files being any size up to 16mb. This limitation is a limitation of a ProDOS directory only. not the GS/OS Sperating mystem: Un- der GS/OS we can therefore partition adevice which is larger than 32mb into several logical 32mb ProDOS sections all of which are addressable through GS/OS. Ifthe device addressed through an FSTis not limited to32mb then files upto4 eee long can be accessed as GS/OS uses a four byte length buffer. As well there is no strict limita- tion on device size as any device may be partitioned. At the moment anyone running the IIgs on an AppleShare netwo) ress the whole of a Macintosh disk even if it is 200mb or larger! With new FSTs on System 6.0 we should see no limitation as to disk size. GS/OS closely observed GS/OS was a direct descendant of ProDOS 16, which was itself a direct descendant of ProDOS 8, The directory structure of ProDOS 8 was preserved for compatibility purposes. Within the P8 directory structure several bytes were not used within the file definition and so could be used specifically by GS/OS. This has allowed a two byte auxiliary type record for a file, as well peter a ous bys filetype. to be a |. This gives the pro, er great flexibility. Ithie eiabeate eeatee aaa filetype for his program he can choose a single main filetype and then have 65536 different sub types to choose from! Under ProDOS 8 we had only a single prefix available that could be set to simplify the use of partial pathnames. Complete P8 pathnames could only be 64 bytes long with individual filenames having a maximum 15 byte length. GS/OS has changed all of this. Multi- ple prefixes are available ranging from 0-31. Some of these prefixes are fixed and are used for specific purposes, others can be prefixed by the program- mer for his own use. The user will not usually see these prefixes are there, October 1991 though ifasked fora full pathname can include them if needed. The main pre- fixes are as follows: */ Boot volume name 0/ Working path for standard file dialogs 1/ Pathname of directory holding current application 8/ Set to that of prefix 0 9/ Set to that of prefix 1 The @ prefix is special and ts re- served for work directories on an AppleShare server. GS/OS pathnames Pathnames under GS/OS 5.0 are defined in a similar way to ProDOS 8 but the maximum length is not fixed. When the programmer wishes to re- trieve a pathname from GS/OS he builds a return buffer to collect the thname. This buffer has a two byte length prefix which gives us a possible 64k pathname! In practice a 510 byte pathname will suffice for most pur- poses. If GS/OS reports this is not big enough the programmer can always address matters to make sufficient room. Filenames are still only 15 bytes long within a ProDOS device but may be any length as reported by an FST. Macintosh filenames can be up to 31 bytes long and programmers have been advised to allow 34 bytes for the new GS/OS System 6.0. Only certain characters were legal under ProDOS 8 but anything goes under an FST. This has meant a flurry of modifications as p1 rs alter their programs to be System 6.0 clean. Echoes of System 7.0 on the Macin- tosh here! Calling GS/OS The GS/OS operating system is ad- dressed in a similar way to ProDOS 8. A parameter list is pointed to by the actual call with input and output space allocated. The main difference to ProDOS 8 is the increased amount of information that can be handled and that all calls reflect we are in a 16 bit world. A typical call is given below: Idx #$2012 _ReadGS jsl $E100A8 Dispatch vector de i4’ParmList’ Address ParmList anop de i2'4" Parameter count dc 12°0° Ref number de i4'Data’ Input buffer de i4’Request’ Number of bytes de i4‘Transfer' Bytes transferred As well as the familiar calls to Open, Read and Write files there are many that allow the programmer to handle the devices directly and also some which we never even saw within ProDOS 8. Device format! is prob- ab the most noticeable of those new calls. Apple2000 GS/OS and the toolbox Although GS/OS is not iecily part of the IIgs Toolbox, and the are made in a different way, the program- mer uses both these types of calls in much the same way. A feature of the Ilgs was the introduction of the Toolbox, something that until then was only seenon the Macintosh. Gett togrips with the Toolbox may seem daunting at first, but once grasped, the power unleashed for the programmer and the freedom to manipulate ‘real code’ with- out having to worry about mundane repetitive tasks, makes the toolbox a most potent ally. Once a program has been written, if itis using tool calls correctly, it will instantly update itself when a tool has been updated or improved. The pro- Romucen rovides the Oe Acs ell, t tools do the rest. G: /OS itself works ina similar way to this providing its own set of wo. tools. et Se mers using the GetPal callfound that their programs brought them- selves up to date automatically with the introduction of the ‘Volumes’ but- ton on the new System 5.0, where before they had only seen a ‘Disk’ button before. It took the Macintosh till the introduction of System 7.0 to get this button for themselves! Resource fement From the very start Macintosh files were constructed quite differently from any other file that had been seen be- fore. They could consist of two forks. A Data fork and a Resource fork. The Data fork was simply that. a place where data could be placed. A word processing file for instance might con- sist of a single data fork containing ASCII text only. An application pro- ram might consist of a resource fork with all its code being placed into the resource and an empty data fork. Altho the resource fork can be opened directly it is not normally ac- cessible in the same way that the data fork is. Resources, of which there can be many of many different types, must be called through the resource man- ager. On the Macintosh there is a code resource which actually holds the main program or at the very least code that will launch the main program. This resource Is always run when an appli- cation starts and can then address other resources as it needs them. In- formation to build the various menus and dialogs onscreen Is usually heldin resources, The IIgs introduced a resource fork with system 5.0 of GS/OS, The prime difference between the IIgs and the Macintosh resource fork is that the first application code to be run is held in the data fork under GS/OS and in the resource fork of the Macintosh. The real power of the resource fork lies in the templates that can be placed within a resource to build the various menus and dialog boxes. A template may describe the whole menu system e A 13 & that the progenies has used, orjust a part of it. These templates also hold the strings of text that are used within the menus. To change the wording from English to Swedish for instance is an easy matter. Any resource editor can alter the text strings without af- fecting the operation of the original program. If the user does not like the arrangement of the buttons within a dialog box, he can change them to a new layout. Be careful though, chang- ing your favourite program in this way may tread onto dangerous ground and should be only done with extreme care! Resources are now a way of life on both the IIgs and the Macintosh. The visual shell of a Lad nee used to tee a programmer weeks to write. Bi ling the menus and dialog boxes of a Pe gram, can now be built in a very short time using a good resource editor. The favourite editor at the moment on the Ilgs is Genesys. Its counterpart on the Macintosh ts ResEdit. Using resources in this way leaves the programmer free to build the logic of the program and not be aed just down in unnecessary detail. Where next? There ts a lot of mileage left in GS/ OS. The base structure has been de- fined andas such Is independent of the device being used for storage. I for one, when I heard we were to get resource forks in our Ilgs files, wondered if we would see the IIgs using Macintosh disks for storage. I wanted to be free of the limitations of 15 byte filenames, 32mb drives, 800k 3.5 disks etc. True we have had 1.6mb 3.5 disk drives from Applied Engineering but these are not compatible with Macintosh 1.4 mb SuperDrive disks and so become specific to those AE drives only. System 6.0 for the IIgs is on its way. It promises us an FST to handle Mac- intosh disks and full support for the 1.4mb SuperDrive. This means that instantly we can have 1.4mb storage, hard disks of any size and all without chal \g Our pro} inany way. We rmat our disks and hard drives to Macintosh instead of ProDOS! Those who have used AppleShare between a IIgs and a Macintosh will have been tified to see that ProDOS and GS/ OS files and programs on the Macin- tosh server behave just as though were on a P8 hard disk. A Macintos! FST will behave in the same way as AppleShare but without the need fora Macintosh! Summary The keynote of the 90's has been compatibility. First we saw programs such as Passport and Apple Ex- change that would allow files to be transferred between the ProDOS. Mac- intosh and MSDOS environments. The Ilgs under GS/OS first saw File Sys- tem Translators, the Macintosh is closely following we understand. With all these FST's in place we shall see a true transparency Getwecn devices for- matted for the Macintosh or the Apple Hopefully we shall then see the full power of the IIgs being realised with powerful and serious programs added to its repertoire. Ewen Wannop - Apple II forever! & The Concise History of the Apple Computer QAsSYSOPofTABBSIget asked many questions. pec © was asked for a potted history of the Apple to help a Macintosh User see how all the various computers fitted into an overall picture. I thought it would be worth while shar. ene erettier to hicmnpsscge wale al Alastair, Sorry for the delay in answering your message, but you asked for quite a lot and soit has had to wait in the pile till I got round to it ... Apple started out in the garage with the zy ee I computer. Only some 50 or so of these were made and the line quickly turned into the now famous Apple Il. We normally think of the Apple II as the start of the Apple phe- nomenon. In avariation ofthe original, the Apple II is still being made today. All of the Apple computers until the Macintosh and the IIgs were based on 6502 8 bit CPU technology. The Apple Iwas a lmhz 6502 computer with 48k of RAM and 16k of operating system ROM. The keyboard was not a com- plete ASCII set and was upper case only. Screen display was 40 columns by 24 rows text and HiRes graphics with 4 colours, The Apple II could use Wome 5 a5.25 140kdisk controller in one of its seven slots. It was introduced in 1977 and was in production until 1984, The Apple /// was introduced in 1980 as an attempt to capture the business market. It sported 128k of memory and an 80 column display using the same 6502 processor. It never took off in the way that Apple hoped and was killed of around 1984. It is now very cheap on the second- hand market. The Apple //e was introduced in 1983 and had a Imhz 6502 with up to 128kof RAM and with 16k ofoperating system ROM. The hires graphics were improved and could now run 16 col- ours as double HiRes. The keyboard wasa full specification upperand lower case, and except for the omission of a keypad, has set the standard for all Apple computers since. This includes the Macintosh! It ts still in production! The Apple //c appeared in 1984, For all intents and purposes this was sim- py, a portable version of the //e with a uilt in 5.25 disk drive. It is still in production as the //c+ now having a 3.5 disk drive and 1 mb of memory. The Ilgs appeared in 1987 and wasa departure from the II line. It runs under a 2.8 mhz hybrid 65816 chip that can emulate a 6502 or run as a native 16 bit processor. In its emula- tion mode it itis a //e and will run all //e and II+ software. In its native mode it can address up to 8mb of memory and has a 128 k ROM operating system. More importantly it runs under a disk operating system that looks and has the feel of the Macintosh and has a full toolbox pro- gramming structure like its sister. With accelerators fitted, the IIgs can out perform a simple Mac in many cases. It Apple2000 is the standard computer used in US schools. Parallel to the development of the Il line was the Macintosh. The original planning work started in 1979, some five years before it was launched! How- ever the Mac was not the first machine to appear. The development project introduced the Lisa in 1983. The origi- nal Lisa was a cumbersome overpriced machine with 5.25 disk drives! It was honed down into the Mac XL using 3.5 drives. The Lisa was stopped around 1985 when sales dropped through the floor. The Lisa did ow: ever set the standard of the desktop interface, introduced the first mouse on a computer and had true multi testing io before the Mac. The first Macintosh took the world by storm in 1984. It had 128k of RAM, a 400k single sided 3.5 disk drive (the first computer to have one) and came with MacWrite and MacPaint software. It could only print to the ImageWriter printer. Even with these limitations it was a success. It quickly evolved into the Macintosh 512k (the Fat Mac) and then into the Mac Plus with a stagger- ing 1 mb of RAM! The disk drive ex- panded to 800k double sided with the Mac Plus. Around 1985 the LaserWriter and PageMaker appeared. The combina- tion of these two new elements with the Mac, kick started the DTP industry and with hard disk drives also appear- ing on the scene, the Mac took off and has never looked back. Paralleling all of this we had the IBM PC and its deadweight machines and software. They have never caught up with the joy, humour and power of the Mac! Regards Ewen é October 1991 HyperCard GS Our resident HyperCard expert Mike Dawson reviews the Ilgs version of HyperCard To those of you who read the Mac side of the magazine the appearance of my name in the Apple || section will come as a bit of asurprise. As I'ma bit ofa HyperCard enthusiast on the Mac I was asked to do a review of Hyper- Card GS as no one on the Apple ]| side was thought to be able to do it justice. HyperCard for the Mac has been bundled free with all Apple's Macs for some 's now. It has gained quite a following duc to it’s versatility and ease of use by complete novices to program- ming. As such it has Decals a the programming environment for the rest of us, just a the Mac was called the computer for the rest of us. HyperCard GS owes its parenthood to HyperCard on the Macand this shows throughout the programme. In fact the language. HyperTalk, is almost completely com- patible with the Mac version up to 1.2.5, The latest HyperCard on the Mac, V2.02 has many enhancements which are not implemented in Hyper- Card GS, but more of that later. Introduction First I shall attempt to explain the basic concept and uses of HyperCard before going on to describe the facili- ties and programming this remarkable software package provides. | say at tempt to explain as HyperCard does not easily fall into any convenient cat- egory that we are familiar with. Every- one should know the cornerstones of the computer world. Wordprocessor, Database, and Spreadsheet etc. Hyper- Card can be all of these with differing degrees of success and ease of attain- ment. I prefer to describe HyperCard as an information handling system. The user or programmer, as you don't need know how to programme to use HyperCard, hasa freedom to construct information systems in a way not avail- able before. Text, graphics, and sound can be combined at will to enable the user to save, search and present infor- mation with flexibility. The best anal- ogy to the real world! can think ofis the humble card file. Here a name and address is stored. one to a card with additional information on thataddress as required. Additionally extra infor- mation such as graphics can be added, Links can be easily set up to switch October 1991 between cards and indeed stacks. In- formation can flow from one stack to another under programme control. HyperCard is admirably suited to this type of flat file database as well as another area where it has excelled on the Mac, training. Many sophisticated programmes such as Excel ( a Mac Spreadsheet) comes with a HyperCard stack based tutorial. Indeed Apple themselves have used this ‘informa- tion’ medium to inform us of the new TrueType font technologyand thenewly released System 7 on the Macintosh. The Manuals The manuals come in three volumes starting sensibly with the introduction called “Getting Starting With Hyper- Card IIGS". This introduces the basic concepts of the HyperCard environ- ment and detalls how to install Hyper- Card.. All the basics are covered with buttons, fields, the message box (a command Ine) and very basic script- ing (programming). So it quickly takes the reader from the basics to beginning to tinker with stacks, The second manual is larger and ts called “HyperTalk Beginners Guide". The manual is again well written with liberal examples used throughout. All the basic components are covered in- cluding containers (‘variables’) and the actions ofbuttons, fields, backgrounds, cards and stacks. The third and by far the largest manual at 368 pages is the “Hyper- Card IIGS Reference” manual. This is an excellent manual full of examples and details of the extensive HyperCard capabilities both graphical and pro- gramming. All the little ins and outs are included as well as a handy pull out card listing all the keyboard short- cuts. In all the manuals are up to the excellent level we have come to expect from Apple. I cannot help but get the feeling that the manuals are aimed at school children but then perhaps I'm ust getting old. The manuals do not owever talk down to the reader and areall comprehensive and well thought out. In the final analysis not all the advanced programming issues are cov- ered exhaustively which will leave the third party publishers with a gap to fill. Apple2000 Nevertheless they are an excellent col- lection which give the userasound basis upon which to explore the pro- amme. Amongst the subjects not fully covered are the generation and attachment of sound, XCMDs and XFCNs. These manuals are what the Mac should have been provided with in the initial release. Apple have certainly learnt from the Mac experience and the mistaken assumptions that were made. I should explain that last statement as when HyperCard v2.02 was released with its attendant books (the books hit the shops in America several months before the programme) the reasoning for the original manuals and commer- clal books were revealed. Apple, the HyperCard design team and the free- lance authors assumed that very fewof the people that used Macs would want to learn about how to programme in HyperTalk. The manuals and books therefore did not go into this side too deeply and concentrated upon the con- cepts only. The reasoning was that a few developers and companies would produce commercial stacks for others to buy and use. How wrong they were, after the release of HyperCard an ex- plosion of stacks hit the USA user group libraries and bulletin boards. The rest is as they say, just history. Running HyperCard GS The prerequisites required to run HyperCard GS is an Apple Ilgs compu- ter with at least 1 M Byles of RAM and a 800k disk drive. Although | would recommend a hard disk with at least 2 M Bytes of memory available to be able touse this programme easily withouta lot of disk swopping. The programme comes on a total of six 3.5 inch disks which include addi- tonal stacks to help you build up your own ideas. The bare basic system is the HyperCard application and the Home Stack. Stacks are the “data files” that run under HyperCard. To get started in using HyperCard could not be easier as there is an installer programme provided. All that the user needs to do Is double click on the installer and the programme will do the rest. A word of warning here for users of large memory cards. I had a GS fitted with a 6 M Bytes memory card and the installer refused to load the programmes onto this. It will only load the files onto a mounted floppy or hard disk. Once the installer has done it’s stufl all that remains to do ts open the folder called “HyperCard" and locate the HyperCard application and double click it. This runs the HyperCard programme and loads the Home stack ready for use. The Home stack is like a base to operate from or home. It ts from this stack that all other stacks are run. Indeed there are buttons to click on just like the finder to run other stacks automatically. With a litle program- a oa Be ming effort it ts possible to run other applications such as wordprocessors from HyperCard. HyperCard Concepts. Home, Stack, Back: and Card HyperCard uses this list of compo- nents to do its work and each deserve an explanation. ene sbi k but most peopl is is really a stack but mos! le only use the first card or inion card. The other cards include a preferences card where the user can determine the amount ofaccess is going to be given to the user. This can be as low as levelone where only browsing is allowed, i.e. look but don't touch. Up to level 5 whereby anything goes in changing or deleting data, cards etc. STACK This is the deposi- tory for the individual collection of data, iphics and sounds at make up an indi- vidual stack’s person- ality. The stack can- not function without the pe a the HyperCard_ applica- teas and the Home card as it is these two items that contain all the routines for the stack to run. There- fore the exchange of stacks relies upon the sender and recipient both having Hyper- Card GS. In short the stack will notrunasa stand slots pro- gramme and nor can it at present be made to be. The stack has two major compo- nents, these are the background and card and are discussed next. Stacks are ofa fixed size, the full screen size of the GS screen. It cannot be any other size or resized. This is in line with HyperCard 1.2.5 on the Mac but not HyperCard 2.02 which can have sizes based upon choice and arabe memory. ge The BACKGROUND The background can be thought of as a backing paper upon which any graphics, fields or buttons can be added. A background is shared by as many cards as is ni (within limits) to present the data required by the user. The CARD can be thought of as the tracing paper which is overlaid on the background. It too can have graphics, fields and buttons but these will be available and visible only when that card is displayed. This is at vari- ance to the background where the background features are visible to all tA 8 the cards that are allocated to it. A stack can have many backgrounds {again within reason) with it’s attend- antcards, The only restriction is thata card created for a background cannot be displayed against another different background. CARDS ‘These are the pieces of ‘tracing pa- per’ that are placed in front of the background and can hold information unique to that card. The background can be seen and the ficlds on the background or card used by the card for holding information. The data in background fields will again be unique to that fleld on that card if the user requires. Gett! Started The first thing to do when first con- fronted with HyperCard is to run the Background picture Background buttons and fields Card picture and ficlds ‘The background picture is fixed in a layer by itself— it's always behind the background buttons and fields and all the card elements. ‘The card picture is also; fixed in a layer by itself—it's always behind the card buttons and fields, and in front of the background buttons and fields. HyperCard Tour. This isa stack which gives a tour of the major features and explains them in simple terms. Sound and animation are used to make the tour interesting with a little boy waving a magic wand to introduce the sub- jects. All this Is in living colour which is a pleasant change to the mono- chrome world of the Mac rCard. There are other stacks on the discs which give suggestions for buttons, fields, background and card art. Amongst them there is a stack called ‘Birds’ which details seven North Ameri- can Birds with a colour picture ofeach one. This stack is the subject of a tutorial in the manual which explains how to add an additional card com- Bes with a new colour picture of a Also included are sample stacks to organise your address book and social lendar. Naturally these are Ameri- Apple2000 Card buttons can in flavour with the inevitable State and Zip Code. More interestingly area couple of stacks, one to design ‘Icons’ and the other to move resources, Graphics and Painting HyperCard comes with a complete painting system that should satisfy the average aspiring artist. I'm not familiar with paint packages on theGS sol can't compare. All the accustomed tools are there in a tear off menu. For geometric precision asnap to Lay sree mand can be invoked as well a fat bits to magnify the working area for extra precision. All of this is of course in colour which I found to be an interest- ing new dimension to this programme. Painting can take place on the back- ground layer or the card layer with equal ease. Of course if there is some paint in the card layer it will obscure the paint text for the background layer so some care must be exercised. In Use I found the opera- tion ofHyperCardGS to be almost identi- cal tothat of the Mac. One of the things to become immediately apparent was the long delay between clicking a button to change cardsand the event to actually happen. This was not the delay because of a large shift in card movement say be- tween the first and last card of a large stack. Alll was doing was changing from one card to the next. This was the most noticeable delay. Otheroperations can seemalittleslowwith perceptible delays before action is ap- parent. Moving objects such as but- tons and fields was a bit frustrating. In all I would recommend the use of an accelerator card to get the best out of the system. Fields Fields can exist on the card or back- ground level and be configured in sev- eral ways. By using a pull down menu a new ficld can be created. Double clicking on this field will bring up a dialogue box where the field can be configured. This consists of selecting the style of the field which can be either : Trans- parent’ whereby only the text will be visible and not the outline of the field boxand background graphics willshow through. ‘Opaque’ where the outline of the field will not be visible but the graphics present behind the field will not be visible through the field. ‘Rec- October 1991 tangle’ specifies a plain line around the field so the user can see it's confines. ‘Shadow’ creates a shadow ellect to the right and bottom of the field to give a 3- Deffect. Finally “scrolling' changes the style of the field so that the user is not Umited to the visible area to type data into but can scroll the field tobring into view more space, Other attributes that can be set are the text fontand size, the border colour and the text colour. there isa button on the dialogue box to enter the field's scripting window. All the at- tributes listed above can be manipu- lated and set using the HyperCard language, HyperTalk. Buttons Buttons are created in the same way as the field above from the same pull down menu. In exactly the same way the attributes can be set for the style of the box for the button. The options are invisible, opaque, round rectangle, rec- tangle, shadow. check box and radio box. As before colour of the box outline can be set as can the colour of the fore and background of the icon. An icon is selected froma large scrolling field that is presented upon call-up. There are a host of icons provided to get started with so don't think you have to design all of them from scratch. Again there is a button on the dialogue to open up the programming window to type in the commands for the button's action. If all you wish to do is to make change the card being viewed by click- ingon the button then there is another option. A button on the dialogue box called “link To” will bring up another dialogue with the following options: {1} Link to this card [2] Link to this background [3] Link to this stack By navigating to the card, back- ground or stack of interest all that remains is to click on the option re- quired. The card to which the button is to be replaced is then once again dis- played. If the script of the button is viewed then HyperCard has filled in the necessary script to go to the card. background or stack selected auto- matically. ‘The Programming Language (HyperTalk) One of the biggest obstacles for the AppleSoft programmer is the differing terminology and the radically dillerent philosophy of this product. As HyperCard uses the same con- cept of programming as on the Maca shortexplanation is required. Although I have called the stack a data file that is not strictly true. A stack will contain all the text, graphics, sound and pro- gramming required, However for some of the built in commands to work a stack will refer back to the home card where more pro; es or scripts (in HyperCard Haan cea The pet October 1991 Card programme itse