Open Apple 1991 07 July 1991 Vol 7 No 6

A2-Central’ Ss A journal and exchange of Apple Il discoveries formerly Open-Apple July 1991 Vol.7, No.6 ISSN 0885-4017 newstand price: $2.50 Photocopy charge per page: $0.15 Comparative anatomy It's no secret that | am not now (nor will 1 be) an unqualified sup- porter of the Apple Macintosh. My bias does not lie as much in the technology of the Mac versus competing systems as it does in the overwhelming way in which the Mac tries to lay the smothering blan- ket of its user interface over the user. For neophytes, this is fine and desirable. As your familiarity with the system increases, the Apple Desktop paradigms break down; how many of us have gone crazy try- ing to copy files from a folder deep within one set of folders to anoth- er deep within another set? About the fifth time you have to move and resize the windows, MS-DOS starts to look almost enviable. What's great about the Apple Il is that we can run both the Mac-like desktop interface and more powerful alternatives such asProSel. Most of my comments regarding System 7 prior to this month have focused on its place in demonstrating that Apple has not treated the Apple [land Mac lines equitably in terms of promotion. Apple revealed most of its system software plans for the Mac well over a year in advance of System 7’s release while at the same time refusing to allow any official discussion of upcoming features for Apple II sys- tems. Given the uncertainty Apple had already generated in the Apple il market, Apple II users saw the System 7 uproar to be another nail Apple was driving into the coffin. Now that System 7 is here, it's clear that many changes are cosmet- ic, with a few (but significant) “golly-gee” improvements. The cosmetic improvements do a great deal to ease some of the limitations of the original Desktop, using sensible extensions of the Desktop model. A few changes indicate ways the Ilgs Desktop could be improved, and one particular change is of special interest to Apple I] users. Many of the improvements have to do with revising the “catch all” nature of the Macintosh's System Folder, which makes it more like the GS/OS System Folder. Like the System folder on a Iigs GS/OS boot disk, the Mac System Folder was intended to contain most of the system software core and enhancements such as desk accessories, initialization files, drivers, and so on. Unlike GS/OS (and ProDOS 16 before it), the Mac System Folder did not try to group related items within subdirectories; every enhancement was dropped into the same single folder. For power users, this resulted in a System Folder so overloaded with files that locating a specific file was like locating a needle in a haystack. System 7 solves this by grouping related files into functional fold- ers within the System Folder; the folders identify Enhancements (pro- grams that add features to the Macintosh environment), Apple Menu Items (Desk Accessories or other items that will appear in the Apple Menu listing), Control Panels (or CDEVs), Startup items (initialization files or programs to be executed when the system is started), Prefer- ences (a place for programs to store custom information), and Help (to store help files). ligs owners will recognize some of these folders as correlating roughly to the organization of the GS/OS System folder; apparently the Mac had to learn a few things from the IIgs. The System Folder also includes a System file that contains most of the core of System 7. Like the previous Mac operating systems, the ‘System file contains system fonts and sounds (Desk Accessories have been moved to the Apple Menu Items folder). Unlike previous sys- tems, the System file in System 7 can be “opened” to reveal the sounds and fonts it contains, and these resources can be copied in or out of the System file as if it were another folder. Most of the improvements in the new organization affect the instal- lation of and access to system software features. Mac users now no longer have to endure the use of a separate “installer” program (Font/DA Mover) to add fonts or desk accessories to their System; but that's an ordeal llgs users have never had to endure. Another enhancement in System 7 is that when you drop files into the System Folder, the Macintosh Finder will try to sort out where to put them and drop them in the correct “subfolders” for you (after getting your approval). There are also some improvements over the way the current ligs Finder environment works. Some actions are now more intu- itive, such as clicking a header category (such as “Size”) in a Finder window listing to sort the list by that category. Both the ligs and the older Mac desktop interface used a special Control Panel desk accessory to select certain system functions and configurations. Under System 7 you can now access a Control Panel device by clicking on it directly rather than having to first open the Control Panel itself. System 7 doesn't need a Control Panel desk accessory because it allows multiple applications, including the Find- er itself, to be executed and coexist in memory at one time. This effectively makes every program a desk accessory to every other pro- gram. Under System 7, a new mechanism allows you to create an alias for a file (a special copy of the original file’s icon) that relays mes- sages to the original file when acted upon. To add a “Control Panel” item to the Apple menu, you create an alias for the Control Panel fold- er and move the alias to the Apple Menu Items folder (actually, Sys- tem 7 comes with this already done for you). When you select “Con- trol Panel” from the Apple menu, you are automatically switched to Finder (if you're within another application) and the Control Panel folder is opened to display its contents. Aliases also allow the Mac to emulate a feature of the ligs Finder. On the Iigs, you can drag an application out of its folder onto the — TNE BEEN ON THE PRONE. ALL MORNING WITH You PEoRLE, AND THE SOFTWARE YOU SOLD ME STILL DOESNT WORK IN al WROTE. EVERYTHING YOU TOLD Me TO'TRY ON SCRAPS oF PAPER [AND TNE THEM. ATTACHED TO MY COMPUTER RGAT NOW WITH REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS, So CON'T TELL ME T MUST BE - DOING SOMETHING WRONG! 7.42 A2-Central desktop, but the original program filename still resides in the original directory and the program can use that directory path to locate its files. On the Mac (which uses a different directory mechanism), a pro- gram on the desktop is presumed to reside in the volume directory. Many Mac programs can't find their auxiliary files, which are still in the subdirectory. To make sure the Mac application can find its other files, you can now create an alias of the main program file and drag the alias onto the desktop; double-clicking it causes the same action as clicking the main program file, and the program runs from within its folder. You can even add an application to the Apple menu by sg ging its alias into the Apple Menu Items folder, or you can cause t! application to automatically launch on startup by putting the alias ns the Startup Items folder. The use of aliases isn’t confined to the Finder; they appear in file dialogs and other locations like “normal” files and can be used in the same way. The other major Finder enhancement is the accommodation of the file hierarchy of a hard disk. The original Finder was very awkward with a hard disk because each folder had to display its con- tents in a separate window. Under System 7, when listing the contents of a folder by Name, Size, Kind, or Date (options other than the Icon or Small Icon views) a small triangle icon to the left of each folder points to the folder’s name. If you click on the triangle, it rotates to point downward and the files within that folder are displayed in the same window, indented beneath the enclosing folder. You can repeat this for folders within folders, extending the display to show the entire hierarchy for the folder (or volume) in a single window. Best of all, you can select files from different levels of the hierarchy at one time; no more opening multiple windows to copy several files from different locations on a disk. The portions of these features that extend beyond their ligs counterparts would be welcome in the ligs System Software if feasible. Our favorites are the alias concept and the hierarchical fold- er display; these changes make the Desktop more functional for hard disk users. However, the lack of a MultiFinder for the IIgs may make enhance- ments such as the new Control Panel implementation difficult to implement (maybe the llgs wizards at Apple will think of other, possi- bly better, mechanisms). The ability to drop an item into the System Folder and have it automatically directed to the correct subfolder would also be a nice Finder enhancement. But realize that these changes incurred a heavy penalty on the Mac: Apple recommends at least two megabytes of memory and a hard disk to run System 7. Our own experience is that almost nothing but the Finder can fit in a two meg Mac. My System file, which includes several extra fonts and extensions we use for desktop publishing, takes up 2.25 megabytes when loaded into memory. We've upgraded the Macs we have to a minimum of four megabytes of memory. Another interesting feature is virtual memory. On a Macintosh equipped with a 68050 processor (current models are the Mac SE/30, Ilsi, IIci, and IIfx) or a system enhanced with a PMMU (paged memory management unit), it is possible to allocate memory from a hard disk to act as if it were extended (albeit slower) RAM memory for Macin- tosh programs. Since System 7 now supports memory sizes greater than 8 megabytes, virtual memory is a practical way to simulate large amounts of RAM with cheap hard disk space until you can afford to buy more RAM. Whether such a feature could be added to the IIgs is also unknown to us but we anticipate it would be difficult since there is no hardware memory management unit for the IIgs. (Apple's direc- tion toward multimedia makes more RAM attractive; sound and pic- ture files eat up a Jot of memory quickly.)—DJD A Mac as Apple Il peripheral At least one of System 7’s features actually benefits Apple igs users who work in a multiple-computer environment. Apple has added what amounts to AppleShare to every Macintosh (see “Apple- Share and the Apple Il", September 1989, pp. 5.59-62). “Personal AppleShare” does not support the printer server or Apple II startup options of a dedicated server and has a practical limit of 5 or 6 users, but it also does not require that a Mac be exclusively dedicated for use as a server. It means, for example, that if you have both a Ilgs Vol. 7, No. 6 and a Mac in your home or office, you can now easily connect the two so that they can access the same files on the Mac's hard disk. To do this you need ‘network connectors’ for each machine and some telephone wire to hook the connectors together. Apple's LocalTalk connectors are quite expensive, but alternatives are avail- able from a variety of sources, including our own catalog, The connec- tors plug into either the printer or modem port on the back of your computers. On the IIgs you have to install the GS/OS Appleshare soft- ware (use the Installer from your system disks) and you have to turn on AppleTalk in your contro! panel. On ROM | machines this will use up two slots (7 and I or 2). On ROM 3 machinces you lose only the slot related to the port you plugged the connector into (1 or 2). On the Mac end, file sharing under System 7 is enabled by highlighting a folder and selecting “Sharing...” from the “File” menu. A dialog box appears similiar to those used for setting Apple- share file access attributes from a ligs or on a Mac AppleShare work- station (System 7’s “Sharing...” replaces the “Get Privileges” option of earlier versions). From the dialog you can enable the options you want, including an option to give any new folders created within the shared folder the same attributes as the one they're in (on an Apple- Share server, new folders are always intially “private” to the creator). Next, you have to enable the use of your Macintosh as a server. Opening the “Sharing Setup” control panel enables you to enter your own name and password and a “Macintosh Name” (this corresponds to a server name when another workstation polls the network). Two buttons allow you to select whether “File Sharing” or “Program Shar- ing” are active or inactive. Your user name also becomes an identifica- tion you can use to access your Macintosh hard disk remotely from a workstation with all privileges. File sharing is the familiar AppleShare concept where the contents of volumes and folders can be accessed by others on the network, limited by the access priviledges assigned to the folder or volume by its owner. Even though the shared item may be a folder on your Mac hard disk (it can also be an entire disk volume, though CD-ROM vol- umes do not appear to work), it will appear as a “server volume” to a network workstation. You can designate up to eight shared folders and volumes for your “server’; all folders within the shared item will appear as folders on the “server volume”. Program sharing is a new capability. Programs within the hierar- chy of the shared folder will be available to other users based on the accesses set for the network. You can also designate a launchable application as “shared” (using the same “File” menu option) to allow other users on the network to launch and use it. Such programs should be written to expect simultaneous use by several individuals; such use may also be constrained by the use license for the program in question (most programs are distributed with at least a minimum restriction that only one copy of the purchased program is to be in use at any time). The server metaphor extends to a “Users & Groups” control panel that allows creating a “New User” or “New Group". These options appear in the “File” when you open the CDEV and a window displaying icons for the groupings appears. Selecting “New User" causes a “New User” icon to appear in the window, which can then be renamed to the user name you desire, Opening the icon brings up a dialog where user options can be entered. You can enter the user’s password (and enable their ability to alter it) and enable their ability to connect. There is also a list in the window where the user's group assignments can be viewed, and a checkbox to enable or disable program linking for the user. Creating a “New Group” brings up an icon that can be renamed to signify a grouping of users. To assign users to the named group, drop their user icon into the group icon. Opening a group icon displays a window with the icons for the members of the group. There is also a “File Sharing Monitor’ control panel that will display connected users and the total activity: if you want to temporarily “bump” a user from your system, you can highlight their name in the monitor list and click a “Disconnect” button. To keep them off, you'll need to disable their access to your “server’. Like other Mac files, users and groups can be completely deleted by dragging their icons into the Trash icon and selecting “Empty Downloaded from www.Apple2Online.com duly 1991 Trash” from the Finder's “Special” menu (the System 7 Trash can must always be emptied manually). The reason Personal AppleShare is so significant to Apple II users is that it provides a simple, inexpensive network environ- ment for users of multiple systems. A Mac Classic with two megabytes of RAM and a 40 megabyte hard disk (suggested retail under $1500) and System 7 software can become a network server; you no longer need to purchase a separate Macintosh and expensive server software, all you need is the appropriate network cabling. You can also have use of the Macintosh with two minor annoyances; some of the Mac’s performance will be absorbed in server duties, and a workstation will lose the server connection if a program crashes the “server” Mac in an unrecoverable manner. Practical limitations of such a server are the inability to configure the Personal AppleShare “server” as an Apple II boot volume or as a print server. Given that we've had a network for some time and long ago stopped trying to boot over the network — we use our network primarily to allow us to get at the same files from machines of differ- ent types in different rooms — neither of these omissions has been problematical. One bug has also been discovered: copying a file to an Apple It results in an incorrect auxiliary type due to a bug in the Per- sonal AppleShare software.—DJD The Apple Il as Mac peripheral Apple has also completed the announced Apple Ile Card that con- tains Apple Il hardware and firmware on a card that fits within the Macintosh LC. The $199 Apple Ile Card can only be used in the Mac LC; our sys- tem used the new (512 by 384 resolution) color monitor. The Ile Card occupies the Mac LC’s single 020 Direct Slot. Instructions for installa- tion are not provided (installation is intended to be performed by a dealer) but basically it’s a matter of removing an insert at the left rear of the Mac LC to provide access to a connector on the He Card and inserting the card into the 020 Direct Slot connector along the left edge of the LC motherboard. Also provided for installation is a Y-shaped cable with three con- nectors. One attaches to a connector on the back of the Ile Card, it Splits into a 19-pin connector for attachment of Apple Il disk drives, and a 9-pin “game” connector similar to that on the back of a real Ile. A Macintosh disk is provided that includes startup software. To launch into Ile mode, you double-click the Ile application from the Mac Finder. Without a Ile disk inserted you will find yourself sitting at a facsimile of the Ile power-up screen (with “Apple //e” at the top) and, after a pause while the disk drives are “scanned”, the Applesoft prompt ()”) will appear. If a bootable disk is present in a boot vol- ume, it will be used to start up the virtual Ile. You configure the Me Card through the use of a control panel entered by the same control-open-apple-escape sequence used to enter the Classic Control Panel on the Ilgs. The screen that pops up looks like the IIgs or (pre-System 7) Macintosh Desktop Control Panel; a series of icons along the left side symbolize various aspects of the card’s environment that can be configured: general defaults, Smart- Port (3.5 drive assignments), slots, network printer, memory card allo- cation (from the Mac’s available RAM), and so on. General setup. The Ile Card can be operated at one of two speeds: “Normal” (one megahertz; typical of a standard Ile) and “Fast” (two megahertz; twice as fast as a normal Ile but slower than most accelerated Ile systems). An actual change in speed will only occur when the Ile is “restarted” via a button option in the control panel. Other options which can be set are the system beep sound (one of the Mac beeps, or a provided “Apple lle Beep”), keyboard delay (before key repeat), key repeat rate, activation of a type-ahead buffer, selection of color or monochrome display modes (the manual is care- ful to point out color is only available if you have a color monitor and the use of color is also enabled in the Mac’s Control Panel), and the use of Normal or Inverse characters. Buttons at the bottom of the Control Panel allow you to eject a disk from the internal Mac floppy drive (or drives), request help on the cur- rent Control Panel device settings, quit the Ile (back to the Mac envi- ronment), restart (cold start) the Ile, or continue with the current (Ile) program. A2-Central 7.43 More RAM , please. As provided, the card is designed to appear in the standard Ile configuration with 128K memory (64K of “main” memory, and 64K of “auxiliary” memory). One “General” option that is available is the allocation of a second bank of 64K “auxiliary” mem- ory following the protocol orginated by Applied Engineering's Ram- Works expansion card. If you enable this option, you double the amount of auxiliary memory, but we see no real sense in this since the amount is not sufficient for any real purpose. The better way to proceed is to instead enable the use of a virtual Apple Memory Expansion Card, which is assigned to slot 7 by default, You can allocate up to one megabyte of memory to this virtual card and use it just as you would a memory card in a Ile. One megabyte may not satisfy some “power” Ile users, but it is more than enough to do credible work. If you do enable the use of the “slot-based” memory card, you will need to disable the use of the extra 64K “auxiliary slot” memory expansion or AppleWorks 3.0 will not use the “slot-based” memory. What's this talk of “slots”? In the Ile Card Control Panel, there is an option for slot configuration that allows you to mix and match devices from those already installed and a few “spares” provided. As supplied, the configuration is: Slot 1 <empty> Slot 2 clock Slot 3 00-colum card Slot 4 mouse Slot 5 SmartPort (3.5 disks) Slot 6 Disk 5.25 controller Slot 7 Apple Memory Expansion Card ae spare devices are a modem port, printer port, and network printer. You can re-assign slots by dragging the device of your choice to the slot of your desire, either from another slot or from the “spares” stored in an array on the lower half of the screen. If the destination slot is already occupied, dragging a new device into it will cause the two devices to exchange places (saving the extra step of removing the first device). Unlike a real Ile, but like the IIgs, the desired startup slot can also be set, Software compatibility does seem to be very good to excel- lent. Copy-protected 3.5 disks designed to expect a UniDisk 3.5 didn’t operate on the internal Mac 3.5 (which does work for unpro- tected disks), but did work on an external UniDisk 3.5. Most 5.25 disk-based copy-protected programs worked on an Apple 5.25 attached to the external connector; two exceptions out of a series we tried were Sirius Software's Bandits and Broderbund Soft- ware's AE which use complicated protection techniques. All of the “problem” programs (except the 3.5 software expecting the UniDisk) worked fine on a ligs using the same 5.25 drive. Some communications programs had problems with the modem port. Proterm v2.2 managed well, Applied Engineering's ReadyLink lost characters as if experiencing a buffer overrun, and America Online didn’t seem to be able to cope with the serial port at all. Some problems that crop up may remain obscure. Most of us know that the preferred interleave for formating a 3.5 disk for a lle (even with a Universal Disk Controller) or llc is four to one (for the ligs and an Apple 3.5 drive, it's two to one). Yet the internal drive on the Mac always formats a diskette to a two to one interleave. If students are moving 3.5 disks from one system to another, they may take a perfor- mance hit when using the two to one disks on UniDisk 3.5 drives. And for you old-timers: yes, AppleVision did run. CPU performance was generally on a par with that of a Iigs, with one salient exception. Comparing the Ile Card at 1.0 and 2.0 MHz with the Ilgs at 1.0 and 2.8 MHz respectively. Given Tom Smith's comments regarding the nature of benchmarks ("Apples and oranges”, March 1991, pp. 7.12-15) we paid particular attention to some of the subsystems, such as (3.5) floppy access and video speed. We used a program that wrote and read back a 64K text file, wrote 64K of text to the 40- and 80-column text display, and filled the high- resolution graphics display line-by line (proceeding from top to 7.44 A2-Central bottom) ten times. Times were roughly comparable until it came to video performance; the ligs at “fast” speed took 50 and 85 seconds to write 64K of text to the 40- and 80-columri screen respectively versus 99 and 189 seconds for the Ile Card at 2.0 MHz, and the IIgs took 24 seconds to complete the graphics benchmark versus 39 for the Ie Card. Given that educational use of Apple II systems is often heavily graphics based, the penalty in text and graphics display could be noticeable in normal use, What constitutes “no compromise”? When John Sculley first revealed plans for this card last spring, the operative phrase in his characterization was that the card would represent a “no compro- mise” Apple Il. Obviously, this card is being offered to try and appease schools and Ile owners in an attempt to get them to accept a Mac platform with Ile emulation as the “next step”. So how does the card measure up against the competition? We perceive the competition to be the Apple Ile (although the IIc serves many well, the slot concept of the Ile Card seems intended more to favor comparison with the lle), the Diamond TrackStar-E (see “Running with the enemy”, January 1991, pp. 6.93-95) in a PC compatible host (a combination being proffered to some schools), and the competition Apple seems to fear the most: the Iigs. At a “complete environment” level, the Mac LC in combination with the Ile Card would have to be judged against the latter two systems in terms of upgrade paths. We would classify “no compromise” to mean that the Ile Card is expected to run all software that a Ile could be expected to run, use all common peripherals that a Ile can use, and perform at least as well as a Ile. The biggest compromise is with the slot configuration options. They are not as flexible as a Ile, and you may notice obvi- ous peripherals such as a hard disk are not supported (yet; Apple included a note indicating support for AppleShare file servers is being worked on). Of the three peripheral interfaces Apple has announced for the Apple Il in the last three years (Apple I] WorkStation Card, Apple High Speed SCSI Card, Apple Video Overlay Card), not one is supported on the Ile Card. If these cards are considered valuable to the Apple Il community, why is Apple foisting off an incomplete implementation of a Ile on customers as “no compromise”? I decided | wanted to add a printer (our network LaserWriter, using the ImageWriter emulation) to slot 1; no problem. When | decided | needed the modem port in slot 2 I decided I would move the clock. After determining that the 5.25 drive was the most expendable option (I hardly use one these days), I drug the clock to slot 6; | was told it couldn't be put there (this was never a problem on my Ile). So I decided the slot 7 RAM card was expendable; [ couldn't put the clock there, either. So I ditched the mouse and put the clock in slot 4, | shudder to think where the hard disk or server volume is going to go when Apple releases the appropriate support. Comparing systems. Given that the Ile Card also requires the Mac LC, something has to be said about this combination versus the two alternatives: a Ilgs that emulates a Ile but has Mac-like features as well as some of its own, and the Diamond TrackStar that operates within various PC compatible hosts. In terms of Apple II compatibility, the Ilgs is the best option. Some of the “limitations” of the Ilgs are an artifact of the care taken to pre- serve compatibility, and users appear willing to deal with those minor limitations. The Ile Card's software emulation is close, but the slot configuration is considerably more restrictive (on the Ilgs, you can use the internal ports or the slots; surely the best of both worlds). The TrackStar has a few disadvantages versus the Apple Ile Card. It does not support Apple’s 3.5 drive formats, and its software compati- bility, while very good, is not quite as good as the Ile Card. Its price is over double that of the lle Card. However, it does support the use of hard disk space (including network volumes), and it works in a host that can be considerably cheaper than the Mac LC. In fact, you can select a range of hosts, from a basic PC to an 80x86 monster. Regarding the hosts themselves, that comparison is tougher. Apple has funded a study of productivity of their Mac models versus “comparable” MS-DOS systems; the results favor Apple. But not all customers buy first- (IBM, Compaq) or even second-tier PC compati- bles. Many will buy consumer-priced models at substantial discounts, and we have not seen a price/performance study from Apple for Vol. 7, No. 6 those circumstances. As a Mac, the LC is my least favorite of the three new models (Classic, LC, and Ilsi). The LC costs considerably more than the Clas- sic but does not have correspondingly better performance. It also lacks features that make the Ilsi attractive: speed (the LC is notice- ably slower), memory expansion (10 megabytes for the LC versus 17 for the Ilsi), and the presence of a 68030 processor (availability of virtual memory under System 7). My advice generally has been that, if you're going to buy one of the new Macs, buy a llsi if you can. If you can’t, buy a Classic and wait for the price on IIsi performace to fall (as many Mac prices have). If you drop the extra $1500 for a Mac LC, you may not have enough money to take the real plunge in a year or two. Another major issue is one of confidence in the company, which we have beaten to death elsewhere. The most pertinent question is whether an Apple II customer will see the Mac LC with lle Card as rep- resenting a logical progression of Apple’s technology (the “Swiss Army Knife” approach), or an investment in “new” technology that may have been better spent in making ligs systems more attractive and cost-competitive for schools. In our opinion the He Card represents a superior implementa- tion of an Apple Il emulation designed to go into a less than optimal CPU proffered by a company with less than exemplary support for its Apple Il customers. The combination results in something that is more than a separate Ile or a Mac, but for which each of the individual components leaves something to be desired in price or performance. It is also a combination from a company that has exhibited no real product support for the Apple II series in recent memory, but that felt “obligated” to supply Apple II compatibility to make its Mac products more attractive. Schizophrenia as a marketing direction does not imbue great faith. Should Apple do something dramatically visible to alter the equa- tion, the outlook may change. But given the limitations of the LC as a host, the erratic committment of the parent company to support its installed base of users, and the availability of a competitive solution that may be adequate for many users, there are problems in support- ing the Ile Card as a “solution” for current Apple Il owners.—DJD Miscellanea Apple‘s new Apple Il Evangelist, Rob Barnes, has forwarded a letter to Apple fl developers outlining the mission of the Apple Il Business Unit. The three main objectives are to continue to fulfill the demand for affordable color computers such as the Apple lle and ligs, to enhance and improve the user experience of those who have already invested in the Apple II family, and to shift the key focus to consumers while maintaining the support for education. Specifically, the letter says “Apple II evolution has not stopped.” {emphasis theirs). The letter does seem to be directed toward the pur- pose of keeping Apple Il developers “in the fold” as Apple’s new mis- sion is unveiled. Barney Stone's II at Work newsletter has pointed out the inability or reluctance of Apple's Evangelism group to work with Apple Il developers. The presence of an Evangelist that doesn’t have to think "Mac first” is welcomed (Rob is grouped into the Apple II Business Unit, not with the existing Evangelist group). Also welcome would be the positioning of the Apple Il as a computer for the home market that has been dominated by MS-DOS and Amiga systems sold through mass-market channels. The most welcome development would be that Apple would actual- ly get something moving out the door to indicate they want to market the Apple Il. It has been over a year since John Sculley started mak- ing his announcements to appease Apple Il users, yet Apple’s market- ing campaign to this point has continued to focus on Mac products, which Apple II users can only perceive as being accomplished at their expense. Given the amount of magazine ad space Apple has pur- chased for the new Mac models, printers, and so on, the absence of any separate advertisements for the Apple Il series or new products duly 1991 like HyperCard llgs only empasizes that Mr. Sculley is apparently will- ing to allow Apple Il customers to flounder while forcibly slinging Mac products at the market. . Apple announces more company restructuring. Over the next year, Apple plans to change the company to focus on achieving a bet- ter market share and on cutting expenses. This comes in the wake of reports of large numbers of unit sales for the new Macintosh models, especially the Mac Classic, but disap- pointing financial returns on those sales. The lower prices of the new units reflect lower profits per Macintosh sold, and Apple’s strategy now has to shift toward raising those profits by further increasing sales and by cutting overhead. Apple is reported to be holding con- versations with IBM regarding a technology exchange to the benefit of both companies. Apple has announced authorization of CompUSA and selected CompuCom Systems, Inc., locations to market Apple Systems. The only systems mentioned in Apple's press release were Macintosh models. Apple revealed that the number of authorized dealer loca- tions had fallen by 20 per cent (from 2000 to 1600) over the past two ears. ; Among the cost-cutting measures will be a reduction in Apple’s workforce by layoffs and attrition. Apple currently employs about 15,600 including contract employees. Reductions (which may affect as many as 2000 employees) will affect all classifications. Given estimates of John Sculley’s salary, some wags have already suggested a way to recover a large sum of money by cutting a single ition. POApple’s Developer CD Series Volume Vil has am Apple I partition, much to the chagrin of Apple. Apparently the format of the Apple Il partition went awry during mastering so that duplica- tion replicated the error. If you have access to a Macintosh with CD-ROM drive you can read files (with the exception of a munged Read Me file) from the Apple II content which was duplicated in a folder on the Mac HFS partition (Apple duplicates the Apple II material on the Mac partition for access as a file server volume). Some of the developer disc material is dupli- cated from issue to issue, but much new and revised information is also included. ‘SuperConvert ($39.95) has arrived with the capability to import and export several graphics formats using the Apple A2-Central 7.45 Iigs. Classic Apple II formats supported include normal and double high resolution, Print Shop (black and white) graphics, and The Desk- top Manager (On-Three) text screen captures. ligs formats include Super High Resolution ($CO and $C1), PaintWorks Plus, PaintWorks Gold, Print Shop ligs color and built-in graphics, Finder icon file, and 3200 color formats. In addition, SuperConvert will import and convert several other for- mats, for the Atari ST, Amiga (IFF FORM ILBM display structures), Commodore 64, Macintosh, and IBM PC compatibles. Several com- puter-independent formats (GIF, RLE, IPI, and QRT) can also be load- ed. Once loaded and converted, the graphics can be saved in several Ilgs formats as well as in the computer-independent GIF and TIFF formats. One of the options allows you to create a file that can be dropped into your boot disks’s System/System.Setup folder so that the image will be displayed as a “backdrop” for Finder and other Desktop applications (those that don’t overwrite the default desktop pattern). SuperConvert’s user interface conforms to the three-window design of its predecessor, SHRConvert. One window displays a list of available formats in the upper half; selecting a format class causes a list of specific formats supported to appear in the lower half of the window for selection. Once you have selected the format to load and convert, you can click one button in the window to get information on the format, or click a “Load” button to actually select and load a graphic. SuperConvert is available from Seven Hills Software, 2310 Oxford Road, Tallahassee, Fla. 32304-3930, 904-575-0566. Those who have paid shareware fees for Jason Harper's earlier SHRConvert program should contact Seven Hills about a special upgrade rate. If you're looking for an alternative Iigs monitor, the May 14, 1991, issue of PC ine ranks a large number of “Presenta- tion Monitors” (pp. 347-377). A summary chart lists Ilgs compati- bility among other features, and only three Mitsubishi models are not listed as compatible. The catch? Well, these are all high-end large-tube monitors (varying from 26 inch to 37 inch diagonal screen sizes) and the lowest-priced monitor in the group is $3795.—DJD price and revenge. mass, with much publicity (an essential ingredi- Ask (or tell) Uncle DOS Three errors Apple I! Sysops (“Miscellanea” last month): Douglas’s last name is “Granzow*, not “Gram- zow*, the rate for one issue should have been $2.50. and the ZIP code should be 21784, not 21874.—DJD ling the newsletter for Revenge? Like most Apple II lovers 1 have watched our discouragement at Apple Computer's treatment of us and our beloved machines. But I have finally come to accept the facts: Apple Inc. is indeed going to Kill the Ilgs and the Apple Il line. Our alternatives for future computer investment are the Mac or MS-DOS clones. There are two good reasons to go MS-DOS: First, MS-DOS clone prices are generally very low. Secondly, Apple Inc. has put the proverbial screws to us. They have lied to us over and over about their “commitment” to the Apple II line. The “promise” of a burst of Ilgs goodies to be announced in October did not take place. ‘And Apple is not above dumping its old Macs on school. teachers; 1 thought only IBM would stoop to this trick. Apple Inc. is just another corporation making a lot of bucks at our expense and is as manipulative as any compa- ny can get. And, frankly, | don’t think Apple Inc. is going to survive against the clones. MS-DOS and Win- dows will win. Eventually. There is one serious problem of switching computer systems: loss of AppleWorks and other programs that are simply not available in MS-DOS, like HyperStudio and DB Master. I would like to make a modest proposal. | would like to suggest that we Apple II users support the translation of our most important programs to MS-DOS. Fund it. Become stock- holders in a corporation that does the transla- tion and marketing. Frankly | think it is a good risk because AppleWorks will sell itself, as will the other out- ‘standing Apple Il programs. (Beagle Bros, Bar- ney, Roger, and all the other big Apple compa- nies, are you reading this?) If we could get an AppleWorks equivalent and if we Apple I! users left the Apple fold en- ent) we could give Apple a parting shot they deeply deserve. Robert R. Hall Nantucket, Maine Windows may not be the only MS-DOS GUI (Graphical User Interface) Apple has to worry about. We've seen the MS-DOS version of the America Online software which runs under Berkely Softworks GeoWorks interface; GeoWorks is not only attractive on a VGA dis- play-based system, it runs acceptably on even the basic 10 Miz 8088 system we tried it on. (One criticism of Windows has been that it is quite greedy about system speed and memory requirements.) The overall problem with MS-DOS GUI inter- faces has been that they suffer from two dis- advantages versus Apple’s integrated products, The MS-DOS environments do not have the inter-application consistency of the Apple Desktop; formal environments like Windows and GeoWorks may help standardize specific environments, but there is still the problem of whose standard(s) you're going to adopt when writing software. Also, the number of standard features a pro- grammer can reasonably expect to have access to on the Mac and ligs is greater; all Mac and ligs systems have extended sound 7.46 A2-Central capabilities standard, for example, MS-DOS programmers can't fully rely on these capabili- ties being present. ‘Apple has to exploit their proprietary advan- tages by fostering commercial software (for both the Mac and Iigs) that uses these features to outperform their competition in form and function. All is not assured for Apple; although toobox support for programmers on the Mac and igs is robust, MS-DOS machines may entice programmers simply by having the large installed base that will make many program- mers “jump the hurdles” to write software for them. So far, Apple has apparently been more concemed about displacing Apple Il sales with Mac sales to worry about their competitors. We don't find the MS-DOS GUI's to be quite up to the par of Apple’s GUI for the Mac or ligs, but it’s obvious that Apple is going to have to reckon with competition from these fronts. Especially in the case of Apple il users wanting to upgrade to more capability; these customers may find the Mac’s “GUI-only” philosophy too confining, and although the llgs has the dual text/graphics capabilities that these users may prefer Apple hasn’t exactly inspired great confi- dence in its committment to that system. The ligs is Apple's competition to the low-end “GUI clone” market, and Apple needs to start exploiting their advantages there. Regarding the MS-DOS AppleWorks “clone”; check the following...—DJD MS-DOS AppleWorks? Have you heard of a product for MS-DOS called SuperWorks? It’s supposed to be an AppleWorks clone aimed specifically at Apple I users who are switching or who have both types ‘of computers. I’ve heard it’s even file compati- ble with AppleWorks. I’d sure be interested in something like this. I really like my super- charged ‘386 but haven't found anything that even comes close ot AppleWorks in terms of functionality and ease of use. Microsoft Works has a long way to go. Rick Pedley Kingston, Ont. Weve received promotional literature for the product SuperWorks from Remarkable Technologies, 245 Pegasus Avenue, Northvale, NJ. 07647, 201-784-0900 (800-782-1955 for orders only). The product's normal suggested retail price is $599, but Remarkable is offering $200 off in it’s introductory offer. SuperWorks's selling points for Apple Il users are the importation and use of current AppleWorks data files and a sufficiently Apple- Works-like interface to allow AppleWorks users to adapt to SuperWorks without a long learn- ing curve. In addition, SuperWorks is sup- posed to work with Lotus 1-2-3, dBASE, and other files. In addition to AppleWorks compati- ble modules, SuperWorks supports 5-D spreadsheets, a macro language, communica- tions, and a print spooler, To seal the deal, Remarkable is offering a 60-day trial period; if you don't like the program, retum it for a refund. The capability it doesn’t list is two-way data transfer (right now, CrossWorks will allow transferring AppleWorks files to suitable for- mats for MS-DOS programs and back). If this is a one-way road, it will only interest someone who has already decided to make the move totally to the MS-DOS environment. And many AppleWorks users have made substantial enhancements in their copy of AppleWorks (through TimeOut modules and other add-ons) that probably won't have counterparts on the MS-DOS side, (It’s the integration problem again; you may find MS-DOS programs that duplicate some of TimeOut’s capabilities, but they likely won't work seamlessly within anoth- er program like TimeOut’s utilities do.) There’s no doubt that given the amount Apple hasn’t done to maintain product loyalty among Apple It customers that products like SuperWorks will find an eager customer base; AppleWorks is the premiere product that defined the Apple Il as a workhorse system for several million customers. Changing horses isn’t the ideal solution for users, though; a bet- ter solution would be for Apple to quit trying to put the Apple II out to pasture and to integrate it into their marketing strategy.—DJD GS/OS prototype? ProSel-l6 has a command called GS.OS.VERS whose sole function is to identify which version of the operating system is cur- rently installed. It identified System 5.0.2 as a “prototype” whereas System 5.0.3 is identified as version $0303 and is a “final” version. What does this mean? Ross Barrell Warwick, Qld. The version number returned is the version for the GS/OS component, which explains why System 5.0.3 retums “$0303" (for GS/OS 5.03). The tool sets, drivers, and so on all have their own distinct version numbers (that’s why it’s hard to determine the version just by checking the version number on a file, see “"GS/OS versions”, p. 7.52, May 1991). The retum value for the GetVersion call (page 169 of the Apple ligs GS/OS Reference) breaks down as: PMA Somme where “MMMMMMM” represents a seven-bit major release number, “mmmmmmmm‘ repre- sents an 8-bit minor release number, and “p” represents a bit that is set to indicate a proto- type (as opposed to final release) version. Apparently System 5.0.2 made it out the door with GetVersion returning the prototype bit set; this was fixed in 5.0.3 (and 5.0.4).—DJD Color printing and GS/OS GS/OS 5.0.4 does not work when I try to print in color using AppleWorks GS (the chroma selction for “Color” remains dimmed). Is there a bug? (I have an Apple ligs ROM O1 and an ImageWriter 1.) Carmela Anna Vitti Santhia, Italy There‘s a “gotcha” that caught us the first couple of times we tried to print in color: you need to have the color ribbon inserted before you set the “Print” option to bring up the print- er dialog box. Apparently the new ImageWriter Hi driver checks for a color ribbon when the driver is “opened” and won't enable the “color” option unless the color ribbon is already pre- sent. (If you used to select “Print” and then insert the color ribbon, you'll need to reverse the procedure.)—DJD Quick reboot Just a tip I recently learned about exiting the ProDOS “quit” trap we've all encountered. When the messages prompt you to give a ProDOS Vol. 7, No. 6 application name and you simply want to start up a new disk but you can’t remember for your life what the pathname is, simply input the word “PRODOS" and the newly inserted (ProDOS) disk will usually reboot. I have enjoyed receiving the A2-Central magazine. It’s full of helpful hints, some of which seem a little too technical, but nonethe- less there are golden nuggets within. Kerry Jacobs Valles, Mexico This technique isn’t one that will work for all circumstances but is one we forget to tell peo- ple to try. Thanks for the reminder—DJD Sound impressions 1 am working on converting a short story from straight text to a set of HyperStudio stacks. With a little rewriting I've developed a number of logical text links and I’ve added full screen graphics to illustrate some parts of the story. | would like to add the capability to play back some of the dialog from sound files but | have run into a problem: I'm the only actor available, and | don’t do impressions. | have a number of characters, both male and female, and would like to give them different voices. Do you know of any software or hardware (or com- bination) that would allow me to change the pitch and timbre of my digitized voices indepen- dently of altering the playback speed? (When | try to change voices with the playback speed all I get are munchkins and trolls, not real people.) James L. Gibson Indio, Calif. We're not aware of any software on the ligs (or, really, any personal computer) that would facilitate this, The easiest solution would be to draft a few friends to help with the voices. As for why a digitized voice would be hard to modify... A sound can be represented by a two-dimen- sional waveform (this graph is for the word “Calypso’, digitized with HyperStudio’s digitiz- er and Sound Shop program). F | 7 A i-e— ai The horizontal axis (“time”) represents the passage of time, and the vertical axis (-A” to “+A*) represents the strength of the sound's signal at that specific instant in time. When you digitize a waveform, you measure the vertical deflection of the wave at very short intervals of time, creating a discrete table of values repre- senting the approximate (within the limits of error allowed by the sampling intervals) shape of the wave. A constant, uniform, sound is described by the power of the sound, the number of times the waveform repeats within a unit of time, and by the shape of the repeating waveform creating the sound. The power of the sound is is defined by the “height” (amplitude) of the waveform. The number of times the waveform repeats determines the sound's pitch (or fre- quency), whether the sound appears to be a deep bass (lower frequency) or a shrill high (higher frequency). The shape of the waveform July 1991 determines the timbre of the sound; timbre is the “textural” characteristic of a sound that allows sounds of the same pitch to sound dis- tinct, such as a raspy saxophone versus a brassy trumpet. Any sound comprised of a specific ampli- tude, pitch, and waveform shape will sound the same, Just to make things interesting, though, all of these qualities can be changed as a function of time. This is familiar to us; when you strike a piano key hard and fast, the sound it generates starts with a sharp, loud tone. If you keep the key depressed, it will gradually (over several seconds) lose volume, and also change somewhat in timbre. Eventual- ly, the sound fades to silence. If you depress the key more slowly, the initial sound will start more gently. If you release the key more quick- ly (allowing the sound to be damped by the Piano’s mechnisms), the sound will abruptly stop. “The changing of a characteristic of a sound as time progresses is referred to as the enve- lope (probably so named because it describes an “enclosing” pattern for the sound). Electron- ic synthesizers designed to imitate other instru- ments usually allow the adjustment of the envelope for a sound, The simplest envelope in common use on these devices is a four- stage “ADSR” envelope to control the volume of a sound over its lifetime: “ADSR” is an acronym for “Attack” (the intitial change in vol- ume as the sound starts), “Decay” (the rate at which the volume is lowered after the initial attack), “Sustain” (a volume to be sustained after the decay until the synthesizer is told to stop the sound), and “Release” (the final rate at which the volume trails off to zero once the synthesizer has been told to stop the sound). Some current synthesizers use more complex envelopes; synthesizers can usually also change other aspects of the sound as time pro- gresses. The human voice varies many qualities of the sound it is producing in order to generate speech in a near-continuous fashion. You can see that there is very little “regularity” in our waveform for ‘calypso’. With some subjective analysis (and rough placement of the syllables in the diagram), we can almost see the *hard” attack of the “c’ in the first syllable where the amplitude rises sharply, then trails into the flat- ter (and quieter) hissing sound of the “s*. Trac- ing the gross structure of the sample in this wave gives us an envelope for the volume characteristics of the pronunciation of “calyp- Within this envelope and even within each of the syllables the fine structure of the sample (the changes in amplitude occurring within syl- lables) indicates that the waveform is constant- ly changing. In the first syllable, we change from the *k” sound of the “c” to the “ahh” sound of the ‘a’. This will in tum blend into the “I” sound starting the next syllable (“lyp*) and so on. Here the timbre and the pitch of the sounds is more of a factor. The human speech machanism makes these changes by varying the tension of the vocal chords, the shape of the thoat and mouth, the rate of air flow though the vocal chords, and so on. If you sat down to determine exactly how to duplicate these qualities, you get an idea of the complexity of speech synthesis, Compressing or expanding the time frame of the entire sound gives the distortion you mention. What we would need to make this sample sound like another person saying “calypso” would be the ability to separate the overall envelope for the pronunciation of the word from the relative pitches for the various sounds (whether the “ah” the same, higher, or lower in pitch than the “oh’, for example), and the timbre of the sounds. Then the word could be reconstructed by applying the envelope and relative pitch sequence to a series of tones with the timbre of a new voice. It's even more complicated than this, because certain characteristics of sound make it necessary to “fine tune” some of the interac- tions for the new “voice” we are creating. This is why computerized speech has been so diffi- cult to create in a natural-sounding form. Digi- tizing a sound is easy; creating a new sound (or revising an existing one) is still difficult. It is possible to use the computer to assist in these transformations, though the use of such software is specialized and may not be available ‘off the shelf” (it’s certainly beyond us). Even locating software to allow editing waveforms is difficult; most “synthesists” these days seem to be sampling existing sounds and making the limited alterations allowed by effects processing techniques rather than designing new waveforms from scratch. There is a device used for roughly this pur- pose; it's a synthesizer called a vocoder. A vocoder is a realtime sound processor that takes an input sound, breaks it into frequency and envelope components, modifies these according to settings on the device, and then re-assembles them into a new version of the sound. Adjusting the vocoder to shift the pitch of the input sound and adjust its timbre while leaving the envelope essentially unchanged alters the “voice’; this is one of the device's more common uses. In most cases, the result sounds “robotic”, but it may be worth some investigation. If you want to experiment, you may be able to find a vocoder at a professional musician's supply store in your area; rental may be a desirable option since prices run from several hundred to several thousand dol- lars.—DJD Another SCSI possibility In your discussion of SCSI standards, you mentioned a couple of things which might be meant by phrases like “Macintosh SCSI". There's (at least) one more. It turns out that at least one common SCSI control chip found in SCSI devices puts the SCSI bus into an illegal state for a very short time. The typical Messy- DOS machine SCSI interface doesn’t notice the illegal state, but the Macintosh does, and very grumpily reports the bus error. So the “Macin- tosh SCSI” phrase could mean simply that the device does not have this particular problem, In that case, there should be no problem using that device with the Apple II SCSI cards. John W, Baxter Port Ludlow, Wash. Jerry Kindall at Quality Computers also sent a note that it may be an indication of whether the drive supplies terminator power since some Macs apparently don’t require the drive to supply power (erty said the Ilfx was an exception; it doesn’t supply terminator power). We've been confused about this since we get conflicting reports. We checked the AppleLink technical library and the Mac Plus and Mac Portable were specifically listed as not supply- ing terminator power.—DJD A2-Central 7.47 Key resources 1 am looking for a GS/OS resource editor for my ligs. On the Macintosh a program called ResEdit is available and lets one change the keyboard layout (re-mapping of the keyboard) as one wishes. Can the Genesys software do the same thing? There has been a passing mention of this software over the past year but really nothing much has been said about the software capabilities itself. Dr. S. S. Datye ‘Akureyri, Iceland We think the answer is “yes”, but we're a lit- tle confused, as we will explain... Mac files have always been designed to con- tain two collections, or “forks*, of information. The data fork contains information that can be organized in any way your program cares to access it. The resource fork contains packages of information, which can be data or com- mands, that have specific defined structures. A resource is loaded by requesting it via a specific toolset called the Resource Manager; the Resource Manager will take care of locating the resource without your program having to know painful details of the resource fork’s structure. Resources provide a consistent means of organization for system elements (icons, windows, menu bar contents, and so n) that may need to be altered, transferred, or shared between programs. The Mac operating systems is based on resources as a fundamental component. Mac Programs often contain only resource forks since the program code must reside in a CODE resource. ResEdit is a Macintosh software too! devel- oped by Apple engineers that allows viewing the characteristics of Mac resources and modi- fying them, or even copying entire resources between files. For example, if you want to modify the contents of a menu list in English so that the contents are listed in German, the menu list resource can be “opened” and the items edited so that they are replaced with their German equivalents. Or if you have already prepared a new copy of the menu bar in a new file, you can “cut and paste” the copy into the file you want to modify. Macintosh pro- grammers (and well-informed users; you have to know enough about the structure of the items you are modifying to change them into a properly recognizeable form) can use these techniques to change the visual appearance of a program to “localize” it for various languages without having to re-write and re-compile the entire program. Probably the most profound change in Sys- tem Software version 5 for the ligs was the addition of a Resource Manager and the enhancement of several toolsets to allow spec- ifying the use of resources for required data structures. As a result, some system files and newer programs use resources for their data structures. Formerly, these structures were stored in a “non-forked” file along with the rest of the program code and data. However, since resources were not inherent- ly part of the llgs operating system from the beginning their use is not as ubiquitous as on the Mac. Some types of ligs data are not kept in resources as they are on the Macintosh. Also, resources are not available from ProDOS 7.48 A2-Central 8 applications. Here’s where we get confused. There is a keyboard translation table resource defined for the ligs System Software. We checked the USA version of System Software v5.0.4 and there wasn’t a resource of the proper type (rkTrans- Table, $8021) defined in the Sys.Resources file (in the System/System.Setup folder}. But there is a French version of v5.0.2 supplied on Apple’s Developer CD-ROMs, and _ its ‘Sys.Resources file does have an rkTransTable resource installed, Our confusion rests in whether adding an rkTransTable resource to the Sys.Resources file will cause it to be avail- able, Therein lies another tale. Genesys currently does not have a specialized editor for the rkTransTable_ resource, but its generic Hex/ASCII editor could be used to create or modify a table. The rkTransTable format is given in Apple Iigs Toolbox Reference Vol- ume 3, which also contains information on the Resource Manager and the new Event Manager calls that support the translation routines. (The Event Manager has to be active to use the translation routines.) Here’s what we ran into: according to the Toolbox Reference, a resource ID of the form $OFFFO6xx is required for an rkTransTable item (the French 5.0.2 used $OFFFO610), and Genesys wouldn't accept an ID larger than $O7FFFFFF. We've been told that $07FFFFFF should indeed be the maximum value for a resource ID, so we're going to need to spend a little more time sort- ing this out. (Maybe we'll have it cleared up by AzG ral” © Copyright 1991 by Resource-Central, Inc. ‘Al programs published in lestyreripheg lied domain and may be copied and distributed without charge. Apple user srdsicatobs mayan pesson ep aes tom ro ie by ecto wmten UES Prbisher: Editor Tom Weishaar Dennis Doms with ap om: Sally Dwyer Dean Esmay Joyce Hammond Jay Jennings Jeff Neuer —_Ellen Rosenberg Denise Shaffer Tom Vanderpool Jean Weishaar A2-Central,—iite Open-Apple through January, 1989—has been pub- Ihed monty sie January 1985. Wortewide pres (in U.S. dors; aad eivry cused ato ational hare) $28 o 1 year $4 fr 2 years $78 fo 3 years. AX back sues are cunenty avalabe fr $2 each, bound, ndexed ec tons of or fist si vues ae $1495 each. Volumes end wth he Jury ise; an index rho por wdume ncudod wi the Febru sue, The sch ane of ACen sl 35, sg wih a selecon ofthe bast new public domain and shaewarefles and Jans, br $2 year (cevslete arddskconbled) Sale des ar 0. Pease sod al coesponderce 0 A2-Central P.O. Box 11250 Overland Park, Kansas 66207 U.S.A. ‘A2-Central oid nan npotected tomar your convenience. You axe encourepe to meke back-up archival capes or easyto-ead enlarged caps fr your own use wtout charge, You ny ako copy A2-Central or <istbuton to others. The dtibuon le is 15 cons per page pe copy ds tinted ‘WARRANTY AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. We warrant thet most of the infomation in A2-Centralis seta! and cori, athough divel and mistakes ar ncded rom tie fo time, usualy unintentional. Unsatstieg subsorbers may cancel tei suascription at any time and receive @ tl relund of ee te subscription pane The untiled Lagi ot oa ley subscriion wil be relunded even to sate’ subsc S08 BILTY FOR ERAOKS AND OMISSIONS LAMTED 108 PUBLICATIONS PURCHASE PRICE. In no case shal our company or our contributors be able for any incidental or consequential damages, aa for ANY damages in excess ofthe fees paid by a subscriber. '3SW 0605-4017 GEnie mall: A2-CENTRAL Voice: 913-469-6502 Printed inthe U.S.A. next month.) In terms of paralleling ResEdit, Genesys for the ligs is able to act as an editor to modify the resource fork of a new or existing file, For example, Beagle Bros’s Platinum Paint has a very large list of items in its Edit menu (the menu “scrolls” vertically to allow access to all of the items); some users have modified the list to change the order of items to bring more commonly used items closer to the top of the list. In addition to being a resource editor Genesys can also serve as a design tool for the user interface of a pi . Genesys will display the element it is editing so that you can get a visual impression of its appearance in your finished program. It can also save the instructions needed to generate the resource in your program in several forms: most com- mon Iigs languages (Pascal, C, assembler, MPW ligs, and so on), in REZ source code (REZ is Apple's resource compiler supplied as part of the APW Tools and Interfaces package from APDA), or in raw binary form. Genesys includes its own language for writ. ing your own Source Code Generator (SCG), and some third-party SCG’s are appearing. One from Doni Grande (included with recent ver- sions of Genesys) even builds ORCA/C source code for a skeletal application program: after you define your “New Application” elements using ’s resource editor, you select the options to save the source code and equates and the SCG spits out an ORCA/C pro- gram and “include” file ready to compile and tun. (Of course, all that’s been defined is the interface; you still have to write the program logic to make it do something useful.) Resources on the ligs are maturing as part of the operating system. In addition to the basic types described in Apple llgs Toolbox Reference Vol. 3, newer types have been list- ed in the Appie Il Technical Notes for the ligs (igs Technical Note #76, “Miscellaneous Resource Formats").—DJD Resource forks and ProDOS 8 What is the ProDOS format for storing resource files? This would be the actual infor- mation in the catalog blocks that shows where the blocks are for the program and resource fork. The old format included the file type, date, name, name length, first block, file length, etc. ‘And why can’t an old fashioned copy program copy the file? (Though that would probably be explained by looking at the block information.) | haven't found this detailed information in any of Apple’s books, though it is probably in their tech notes somewhere. James Grey Anchorage, Alaska There is no ProDOS 8 format for storing information within the resource fork because there is not (and is unlikely to be) a ProDOS 8 Resource Manager. Resources are accessed by calls to the ligs (GS/OS) Resource Manager, and applications don’t know (and don‘t need to know) anything about the way the individual resources are stored within the resource fork. (There is probably a reason for this: if the Resource Manager needs to be altered or improved it can occur without breaking previ- ous applications.) The physical way an extended file (one with a resource fork) is stored is relatively simple. As for other ProDOS files, the ProDOS directory Vol. 7, No. 6 entry contains a two-byte “key” pointer and a storage type for the file. The “key pointer points to different things depending on the storage type of the file. For a file that uses one block or less of information (a ‘seedling’ file), the pointer points to the lone data block, For a file that contains 2 to 256 blocks of data (a “sapling’ file) the pointer indicates the single index block for the file. For a file that contains over 256 blocks of data (a “tree” file that requires more than one index block) the pointer indicates a block which in tum contains pointers to the index blocks for the file. For an extended file, we have in effect two parts: the data fork and the resource fork. In this case the key pointer points to a block that contains information for the data fork at offset $0000 (byte 0) and for the resource fork at off- set $0100 (byte 256). The information for each fork uses the same format. The first byte specifies the storage type for that fork (normally one would expect only one of the first three): $01 seeding $02 sapling $03 tree $04 Pascal storage area $05 extended file The next two bytes contain the number of the key block for the file (this would corre- spond to the proper data for the fork’s storage type). The following two bytes specify the size of the fork in blocks, The next three bytes specify the number of bytes in the fork. All remaining bytes must be set to "$00". (Incidentally, this is all delineated in Apple I ProDOS 8 Technical Note #25: “Non-Stan- dard Storage Types”. Apple’s not trying to hide the information; technical notes are where any updates to information in the manu- als, which are always going to lag the real world by at least their publication lead time, are likely to be found.) ProDOS 8 utilities can’t copy the files because ProDOS 8 itself is not designed to manipulate extended files. Some utilities don’t ignore files of an unexpected storage type and tty to manipulate the file anyway; in the case of Copy Hf Plus version 8, we found it thought the file was a seedling file and so copied only the extended file’s key block as if it were a data block. _ Notice that the format of the “index” blocks that are not actually part of the data portion of the file are only good for ProDOS physical vol- ume structures; GS/OS works with other types of volume and directory structures. If you have a ligs, you should be’ using “GS/OS friendly” utilities which have several attendant advan- tages.—DJD Coincidence? A random thought per the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey: HAL transposes to IBM; MAC can transpose to CRT. What's the significance? V.R. Reading Virginia Beach, Va. We think it means you miscounted; we got “DRT” (“dirty’?) instead. Incidentally, Author C. Clarke (who wrote the short story “The Sentinel” that inspired 2001) has denied the HAL to IBM tranposition was intentional —DJD