Text content (OCR)
-Open-Apple
Releasing the power to everyone.
October 1988
Vol. 4, No. 9
ISSN 0885-4017
newstand price: $2.50
photocopy charge per page: $0.15
Amazing Apple stories
As happens all too often anymore, | once again find myself trapped
in the infamous AppleFest time warp..['m writing this lelter to you
before the new product introductions of Applefest, but you're reading
it afterward. | could ask you to pretend AppleFest hasn't happened
yet, or I could report that Apple's supposed to have a new Ilc (the lic
Pius) and the rea! ProDOS [6 (GS/OS) up its sleeves and hope it really
does. Or i could just ignore the hubbub in San Francisco and tell you
some amazing Apple stories.
For example, have you heard that Apple fl software develop-
ers all received the “Apple II System Disk, Version 3.1, April 14, 1988"
the first week of September? Most of them threw it in the round file,
thinking Apple had really screwed up this time, since two months pre-
viously these same developers had received the “Apple [gs System
Disk, Version 3.2, June 24, 1988" from Apple. Moreover, they'll be get-
ting Version 4.0 any day now.
But it wasn't a total fiasco—it turns out many developers missed
the subtle difference that the disk they got in July was a ‘ilgs" disk,
while the September disk was a ‘II’ disk. Among other goodies, the
September disk has the heretofore missing version 1.5 of ProDOS 8
(the July disk has version 1.6) and a new program selector-called
LAUNCHER. SYSTEM that has a familiar interface but that allows you to
select only among System Utilities, FastCopy, Applesoft, or the
ancient ProDOS throw-your-hands-up-and-quit routine. Otherwise,
everything on It duplicates material on the July llgs disk, which is now
available for downloading on the major online services. Your dealer
may even have a copy you can copy. If you don't have it yet, however,
wait for 4.0.
Bob Sander-Cederlof has ceased publication of his newsletter,
Apple Assembly Line, and gone to work for Applied Engineering. He
had previously done a number of projects for AE on a consulting
basis. This is the second Apple I] publication to. pass away this
year—the other was Apple User, a British publication.
Sander-Cederlof's last article was an analysis of Apple's new
Basic.system, Version 1.2. It vividly demonstrates why his publication
will be missed:
New Version 1.2 of BASIC.SYSTEM, by Bob Sander-Cederiof
(Copyright 1988 by S-C Software, reprinted with permission)
When | receive a new version of something from Apple, my first
impulse is to try to find out exactly what they changed. Especially,
when for the first time in four years, they update a program so impor-
tant as Basic.system. And especially when there have been excellent
articles published in the Jast four years clearly describing definite
bugs, patches, and work-arounds,
1 was very disappointed this morning after carefully analyzing. the
new version 1.2 of Basic.system. | started by BLOADing the old ver-
sion 1,1 and they copying it into bank. 2 of my ligs. Then | BLOADed
the new version 1.2 and used the Monitor's V-command to compare
the two. There were a total of 24 bytes changed. Thirteen were inside
the parameter block for a Get_File_info call, so their value is irrele-
vant. One is a byte that is never referenced in any way. Three bytes
were Changed in the title screen, so that you see °!.2° instead of
"1.1% and ‘COPYRIGHT APPLE 1985-87" instead of COPYRIGHT
APPLE, 1983-84". That leaves only seven bytes in the total update
whose change has any significance. They have not fixed even ONE of
the many published problems in Basic.system!
So what did they fix? The description sheet that came with the
update said they were trying to fix a bug in the CATALOG command.
A variable they call TOTENT, which happens to be at $BCB9-BCBA, is
used for a counter to control the loop that displays file names and
info. When the directory is first opened, the total number of files in
the directory is,copied into TOTENT. The original intention of the pro-
grammer was to decrement TOTENT after reading each file entry in
the directory. When the counter reaches zero, the catalog should be
finished. Unfortunately, the program did not decrement the counter
properly.
To make matters worse, the new code in version 1.2 does not fix
the bug. Instead, the patch just omits testing TOTENT altogether.
Now if you have a jong directory, delete most the files leaving just a
few file names in the first few entries, and CATALOG it in Basic.sys-
tem, it will read all the entries anyway. No real problem, the disk just
spins a fraction of a second longer.
The original bug was not a very serious problem either. it only
failed when the total number of active files in a directory was a mult
ple of 256, which seldom happens. In fact it seldom happens that
there are thal. many files in any one directory, because so many of
the utilities and even AppleWorks get confused with large directories.
The symptom you would see if you had exactly 256 files in a directo-
ty, as | understand it, is that you would get an ‘OUT OF DATA’ error
message at the end of the catalog instead of the ‘number of blocks‘
line. | suppose that could be unnerving, so the bug should be
removed if possible.
The faulty decrement code is at the end of the Read Next Catalog
Entry subroutine, at $B215, and looks like this:
‘BLS: DEC §BCRO
218: BNE $B21D
BIA: DEC $BCEA
{ne
“OH SURE, $1.6 MILLION DOLLARS SEEMS LIKE ALOT RIGHT NOW, BUT
WHAT ABOUT RANDY? WHAT. ABOUT HIS FUTURE? THINK WHAT A
COMPUTER LIKE THIS WiLL DO FOR HIS SAT SCORE SOMEDAY,”
4.66 Open-Apple
B2ID: RIS
Jf the initial number in BCB9 (low byte) and BCBA (high byte) is
not a multiple of 256, this code will always result in BCBA going neg-
ative when the total value has been counted down. But if the initial
value IS a multiple of 256, it will take an extra 256 times to count it
down to a negative value in BCBA, The end-oFloop test code is at
SBOE:
BOSE: LOA $BCBA
‘BOAL; BPL $3078
The correct way to decrement the 16-bit value is like this:
‘EDA SBCBS
BNE 1
DEC $2CBA
<1 DBC §acBS
This results in both bytes being zero when it is counted all the way
down. Code to test the TOTENT variable for zero already exists at the
top of the loop in Basic.system.
BO70; MDA $BCRS
BO73: ORA $BCRR
3076; BBQ $B0A3
A little restructuring of the code would result in even fewer bytes
being required to do the decrement and loop control correctly.
Instead, we have this strange wipe-out instead. Apple went further,
and changed the branch at $B076 to two NOPs, and the error branch
following the call to Kead Next Catalog Entry to terminate the catalog
without error. Very interesting. | wonder if they know something I
don't? Maybe the value in the directory thal we get TOTENT from is
sometimes incorrect? Maybe it is sometimes 0000 when there are
really files? Why else NOP-out the instruction at $8076? Well, | have
never yet noticed such a problem. Have you? Notice that, with these
patches, if you get a disk error when reading a directory block, CATA-
LOG will terminate without reporting the error: you just will not see
the rest of the files.
The description also claimed to fix a problem that caused CATA-
LOG to prematurely terminate if a <space> was pressed after a con-
trol-S, | have never noticed any such problem in the old version, and
was unable to make it happen today. But sure enough, it doesn't fail
that way in the new version either. After all, they didn't change any of
that code anyway!
Why didn't Apple confer with Ken Kashmarek, Cecil Fretwell,
Sandy Mossberg, Don Worth, Pieter Lechner, Dennis Doms, or others
who have been so carefully analyzing ProDOS and Basic.system over
the last four years?
Anyway, after all the above is said, maybe you still wish you had
version 1.2. If so, you can tum version 1.1 into 1.2 like this:
BLOAD BASIC, SYSTEM, TSYS,A$2000
CALL-151
2282:82 (vas BL )
229R:00 (vas AC )
22R2:87 (was BA )
SAT6:BA BA (vas FO 28)
3RTC:26 (vas 3A )
GA9E:EA A9 FF DO (was AD BA BC 10)
3006
BSAVE BASIC. SYSTEM, TSYS,A$2000
Shem the Penman's Guide to Creative Writing, Reasoning.
and ramming is one of those rare educational software pack-
ages that does things in the classroom with a computer that can't be
done any other way. It's the foundation for a semester-long hands-on
course designed to improve the writing, reasoning, problem-solving,
planning and organizing, group cooperation, and learning skills of stu-
dents. They also pick up some Applesoft, but that's just a by-product.
Students taking a course based on Shem's quide spend a semester
writing an all-text adventure. The author of Shem's quide, Chet Day, is
a high-school English teacher, novelist, adventure programmer, ‘and
inhabitant of the steamy subculture of computer bulletin boards. His
guide is based on an elective course he designed and has given each
spring for the last four years.
Vol. 4, No. 9
Day says the course turns teenagers who boast they haven't fin-
ished a book since 6th grade into avid readers who spend hours turn-
ing the pages of interactive fictian. Among the course's benefits are
development of a student's ability to read far details and, to think logi-
cally.
Shem's guide outlines the course week-by-week. The first week is
spent getting familiar with interactive fiction. By the beginning of the
second week, each student must have written a story that will form
the basis for his or her adventure:
“During week two, students design the map’ of their adventure. Dur-
ing weeks three through five, the students write ali the text that will
make up their games. Then the students spend ten weeks fleshing all
this onto an Applesoft skeleton program that Day provides. The final
weeks of the course are spent-debugging, beta-testing, and creating
marketing materials.
Like all the best educational software, Shem the Penman's Guide
comes with a student manual on disk, where it can be shortened,
lengthened, or otherwise modified to fit the needs of individual teach-
ers and schools. The manual includes a thorough, annotated discus-
sion, with examples, of how to write high-quality interactive stories, as
well as a complete learn-by-doing tutorial on programming that begin-
ners are able to understand.
The disk also includes a teachers manual, the programming skele-
ton, and a sample adventure, "A Day at the Morgue’, written especially
for 13- to 18-year-old students. The course requires a lab of 80-col
umn-capable Apple Iis {one per student) and AppleWorks, The disk
isn't copy-protected, and comes with an unrestricted site license
priced at $65 per school. Demonstration disks are available from all
the usual online sources (on GEnie, search for uploads that include
the keyword "Shem') or for $2 from Shem the Penman Software, 625
Smith Dr, Metairie, LA 70005 504-837-0345.
For the past several years I've been convinced that one of the
last things the Apple Il world needs is another word processor.
My position has been that if you own an Apple fl you should own and
know how to use AppleWorks, It will do 90 per cent of what you want
to do. There are lots of people supporting it with books, newsletters,
and training seminars.
If youre one of the people who needs that final 10 per cent, Ive
said, look at the other word processors that are available and decide
if obtaining the final 10 is worth what it will cost you in dollars and in
learning time.
In a few cases, of course, it is. My wife, for example, uses both
AppleWorks and APA Manuscript Manager, a word processor designed
specifically for writing professional papers in the format and style
required by the American Psychological Association. Many of you use
StyleWare's MultiScribe or Apple's Apple Writer in addition to (or
instead of) AppleWorks. But in most cases, I've said, the average
Apple II user is far better off learning how to do what he-or she wants
within AppleWorks than chasing the elusive ‘perfect word processor.
But now the Bank Street College of Education and Addison-Wesley
have brought a new ‘writing environment’ to the Apple Il, called
Wordbench, that has me reconsidering my position. Not to the point
that I've actually invested the hours it would take to read the manuals
from beginning to end and touch the far limits of the program, mind
you, but enough that [ haven't yet been able to get the manuals off
my desk or the disk out of the llc Fuse as a second computer.
Wordbench (note the small ‘B’, thank you), was developed over a
three-and-a-half-year period by a team lead by Bank Street's Franklin
Smith. It's a lot more than a word processor. Just as AppleWorks inte-
grates a word processor with a database and spreadsheet, Word-
bench integrates a word processor with a database system oriented
around "notes'; outlining software; a spelling checker and thesaurus; a
reference tool for creating bibliographies; a print manager that can
automatically create a table of contents, sophisticated headers and
footers, and footnotes; a ‘folder’ manager for file and disk formatting,
renaming, copying, and deletion; and an ‘add-in’ "brainstormer’. Addi-
tional ‘add-in’ products are possible, using a standard programming
interface. Wordbench supports macros (‘shortcuts’) and will use mem-
ory expansion cards (recommended).
For screen display, Wordbench uses double-high-resolution graph-
ics, which means it displays on your screen exactly what will be print-
ed out on paper, including features such as underlining, boldface, and
October 1988
superscripts. When printing, however, it uses your printer's standard
text rather than graphics-generated fonts. And although it uses the
graphics screen and Apple-desktop-like menus, it doesn't use a
mouse. All command and block selections are made using cursor
keys and Return.
What's so striking about Wordbench is how it far departs from
today's software trends while still using many of the elements that
define those trends. Its use of the graphics screen and its user inter-
face is up-to-date and modern, yet it won't print using fancy fonts or
graphics within text. Instead of concentrating on tools for enhancing
the look or form of the resulting document, the emphasis in Word-
bench is on tools thal enhance the content of the document. The
form vs. content opposition has always pretty much defined the differ-
ence between Macintosh and Apple Il computing, but there hasn't
been a new Apple II product for months that focuses and delivers on
tools for enhancing content as well as Wordbench does.
The documentation that comes with the program includes three
books, a Tutorial, a User's Guide, and a Reference Manual. The pro-
gram requires at least 128K in a Ile, IIc, or ligs (an IBM-compatible
version is also available). There is no copy-protection.
The program isn't perfect, of course. It makes your disk drive
sound like it's washing clothes when you create a new file and takes
almost as long. Scrolling is slow and a built-in keyboard buffer means
the screen continues to scrolt long after you've released the up or
down arrow key.
But the program is new, improvements will come, and it's backed
by some very big players in the Apple I] community. ‘A Bank Street
spokesman says, ‘Wordbench emerged from Bank Street's interest in
developing a product that would address writing as opposed to word
processing.’ I'm a writer and [m convinced this is software writers will
buy a computer for. The package is $149 and is distributed to dealers
by Ingram Software, Micro D, and SoftKat.
Apple's Developer Services group publishes a miserable little
weekly newsletter for developers called Apple viewpoints, Most
of the feature-length articles published in Apple viewpoints imply that
if you don't develop software for the Macintosh you're a hairball. IBM
itself couldn't design a better piece of propaganda to demoralize
Apple II developers. And IBM certainly couldn't aim it at the heart of
the Apple II developer community like Apple itself can.
One of the few recent articles that didn't go out of its way to insult
Apple II developers was a piece called ‘The Information-Age Economy*
by Apple's president, John Sculley, which appeared in the September
5 issue. Sculleys main point is that as the world moves from an
industrial-age economy to an information-age economy, schools have
to prepare workers for a different type of job.
"Its not that schools have to train people to do the jobs them-
selves, whal schools really have to do is train people to be trainable,
Sculley says. "Institutions used to be measured by their ability to be
large, self-sufficient, and stable. Today, the most successful enterpris-
es are measured by their flexibility—their ability to adjust quickly to
change..."
Among other things, Sculley seems intent on keeping Apple
itself flexible. He's preparing it for the information age by reorganiz-
ing it every three months or so. The latest reorganization, announced
in mid-August, divides all of Apple into four divisions. They are Apple
Products (product marketing, worldwide manufacturing, and research
and development), headed by Jean-Louis Gassee; Apple USA (U.S.
sales and business marketing, information systems and technology,
customer satisfaction, and systems integration), headed by Allan
Loren; Apple Europe, headed by Michael Spindler; and Apple Educa-
tion & Apple Pacific, headed by Del Yocam. The symmetry limps a bit.
But it's clearer than ever before that the future of the Apple I! (at least
for this quarter) is in the hands of Gasseé and Yocam,
I don't know if you have any need for any BIG.DUMMYs around
your place, but | recently needed one here. | had installed one of
these newfangled StatDisks in my wife's enhanced Ile. When she ran
AppleWorks, AppleWorks, recognizing the card as a RAMdisk, expand-
ed Itself into al/ the remaining memory on the card.
| figured she'd need a little free space on the StatDisk even while
running AppleWorks (enough for the QuickSpell custom dictionary to
expand into, if nothing else}. Open-Apple published an AppleWorks
Open-Apple 4.67
patch previously for limiting the amount of RAM used by AppleWorks
{August 1987, page 3.56), but unfortunately, that patch doesn't work.
with Beagle Bros’ Timeout. Another possibility was to move a little
jumper on the StatDisk itself so that AppleWorks wouldn't recognize it
as a RAM-card (but so that I-Pluses and unenhanced Iles would recog-
nize it as a bootable disk drive), but that static memory is expensive
and | wanted to use il as much as possible.
My solution was to write a short Applesoft program thal saves a
dummy file on the StatDisk. Then it runs an UltraMacros task fite thal
starts up AppleWorks and deletes the dummy file, thereby opening up
some RAMdisk space. Task files are an UjtraMacros extension that
start up AppleWorks and press ils keys. My task file, which I called
AW.START, presses Return a couple of times to get past the flip-disk
and date prompts, then finds the dummy file and deletes it, then
changes the Current Disk Drive to the one my wife normally uses for
saving data files. In the end, it stops at the main AppleWorks menu,
just as AppleWorks normally does.
This trick would be useful with any RAMdisk, so many of you might
be interested in looking at these programs. To start up AppleWorks
under this system, put the Applesofl program, BIG.DUMMY, in the
same subdirectory with AppleWorks and UlfraMacros, set your prefix
to that subdirectory, and run BIG.DUMMY, This starts a chain reaction
that ends up within a memory-expanded AppleWorks that hasn't over-
taken the entire RAMdisk.
Here's the Applesoft program:
MY
25800, L800"
Here's the beginning of the Task File that erases the file created by
BIG.DUMMY, You can add other macros to it, but the part shown here
should come right at the beginning. If you're not thoroughly familiar
with UltraMacros, proceed like this:
sor file to the desktop from sc
cc see the Timeout nenu
", cher "Dis
* add a cew word pri
* Prese open-apple-
0
with your
nacros.
» Add the macro stown below at the top of
the comments. You can, however, enter
te. De not enter
comanas in a verticed
en all in one Line as
racro you nigit have and
ler" agaia and "Conpile 2 New Set of Macros."
* Select "Macri Task File’
‘Wher. it as! File ite: |STAR®". There's no ne
enter the prefix cf your AppleWorks subdirectery-Vitrakacros
* Select "Macro C
<0
ready
<ba-]>:<al>
<ctm>
<tt>
3<rtn>
4ertn>
<0 = "DUAN"
<find>
«cigs?
<rtm>
6 for upconing FIND
on SOM
One final warning: Before trying to start the BIG.DUMMY chain reac-
tion, run AppleWorks and use “Other Activities’, ‘Select Standard Loca-
tion of Your Data Disk" to point the ‘current disk’ at the subdirectory
you have AppleWorks and UitraMacros in. This is where the dummy
file gets saved. The macro wont find it unless you set up AppleWorks
to default to that subdirectory. As mentioned before, the end of the
“ macro, as written, changes the default to the second device in Apple-
Works’ disk drive list. You can change this to whatever you'like.
Ask
(or tell)
Uncle
DOS
Corrections and Auplifications: The fist
of third-party updates required for AppleWorks
2.1 that we published last month appears to
be wrong from beginning to end. According to
Mark Simonsen at Beagle Bros, Claris made
some last-second changes to AppleWorks 2.1
that prevented the third-party updates the com-
panies had prepared for AppleWorks 2.1 from
working. At the moment, it appears you need
Applied Engineering's AW 2 Expander v5.0.1:
Beagle Bros Timeout v2.1; Jem Software's
v2.1; and you have to stick with AppleWorks
2.0 if you want to use Pinpoint. Update at 11
(as in November).
On fast month's page 4.64, | mentioned the
programs Iconix and Sonix from So What Soft-
ware, but neglected to include prices or a
phone number. Iconix is $59.95, Sonix is
$49.95, and So What's phone number is 714-
9644298.
Back in July, (page 4.45) | neglected a
phone number for Innovative Systems, the
company that's producing the floating point
card for Apple ls that uses the 68881 math
chip. You can reach Innovative at 501-987-
8688 or 501-768-4599.
Apple's September dealer service notes
have more complete information about the
problems Apple had with RAM chips last New
Years Eve. | mentioned this in August {page
4.49). The problem concems both ligs memo-
ry expansion cards and ligs memory expansion
kits. The problem is that some of the chips
Apple used weren't ‘CAS before KAS’ (so even
Apple makes this mistake!). There were two
types of bad chips. One type has a ‘NEC* man-
ufacturer code and, just below it, a ‘UK’ coun-
try of manufacture code. The other set has a
‘NEC’ manufacturer code, a ‘JAPAN’ country
code just beneath it, and a four-digit date code
to the right of ‘JAPAN’ followed by a ‘FP and
some more stuff. If you have a memory expan-
sion card with chips like these soldered onto it,
your Apple dealer will replace it free. If you
bought an Apple memory expansion kit with
chips like these (chips bought from Apple have
an ‘A’ marked in the lower left comer of the
chip), your Apple dealer will replace them,
(Apple’s September's service notes also said
that beginning this month the Apple ligs will be
shipped with a new operating system called
GS/OS on system disk 4.0. Older Iigs units will
require the ligs ROM upgrade (see September
1987, page 5.57) to use this software.
Shhhh...we're not supposed to know this.)
Also in August (page 4.50) | left a comma
out of line 50 of the program that checks for
CyberAIDS. It goes between the open-quote
and the “A$. And on page 4.54, third column,
second paragraph | gave two of the Manx C
compilers the same name. Aztec C65-d Is the
correct name for the DOS 3.5 system; the Pro-
DOS system is called Aztec C65-c.
Way back in March (page 4.15), | dropped
an ’S* from the answer to the letter ‘Overstrike
cursor at startup’. It goes between ‘APLWORK’
and “SYSTEM.
A representative of Orange Micro was our
guest at a real time conference on GEnie on
August 30; we found out the answer to the
question asked in Jast month's letter, “Orange
Micro's Support" (page 4.58), is to get a vi.t
ROM for the ImageBuffer from Orange Micro.
And, finally, TIM.SWIHART, one of the lead-
ers of the Apple Il Programmers and Develop-
ers RoundTable on GEnie, sent mean electron-
ic pie embedded with a message that said my
answer to last month's letter ‘UniDisk Tech"
(page 4.59-60) was incomplete. Full informa-
tion on UniDisk 3.5 intemals is also available
in the Apple gs Firmware Reference Manu-
al, pages 142-151.
Back to bent arrows
I read in the September issue that you are in
search of a way to get the AppleWorks word pro-
cessor to display the MouseText bent-arrow
character for Return instead of the fuzzy box.
I've uploaded a file called AW.LOCATION.BNY to
GEnie that contains this patch, as well as many
others, Or you can use another of my uploads,
‘SUPEKPATCH, to install these patches into
AppleWorks 2.0.
John Link
Kalamazoo, Mich-
Here's the patch. You have to change three
locations:
PORE 768,205
BSAVE SEG.M1,7900,A768, 11, BS6FEL
BSAVE S2G.MI, 7600, A768, L1,BS7175,
BSAVE, SEG.M1, 7500, A768, L1,597A91
Link's files are probably available. on other
online services by now as well.
Another bent arrow
Another good place to use the MouseText
bent arrow in AppleWorks is in place of under-
line cursor. It makes it much easier to see. To
make this change do this:
POKE 768,77
SAVE APLAORKS..
‘STEM, TSYS, A768, Li, BSDA]
Thomas Militello
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
We've given essentially this same informa-
tion before (see ‘Blink and its gone’, May 1987,
page 3.52 and ‘Changing the blink speed’,
September 1987, page 3.63). The important
new information your tip ads is that you can
replace the insert cursor with any of the
MouseText characters by using values in the
64 to 95 range. -
Update blues
(think I am going to write a book and entitle
it ‘Adventures in Upgrading’. Getting Apple-
Works 2.1 to work with my other software has
taken a lot of postage and aggravation, At the
rate | am going with problems with JEM, Beagle,
and Applied Engineering, it will probably be
Christmas or maybe even AppleWorks-GS
before | get v2.1 installed. The only thing so far
that has been easy about upgrading has been
the response from Claris. 1 could not believe
how quickly they provided the update. Their
Vol. 4, No. 9
parent never responded so well.
Whit Crowley
Manchester, Mo.
Upgrades are always a hassle, especially for
those who are near the front of the line. I've
been known to skip a revision level every once
in awhile, but I'm not convinced even that real-
ly helps.
Don't pass go, v2.1
I thought you might like to have the patches
to bypass the startup ‘press-space-bar-to-contin-
ue’ and ‘enter-current-date’ messages for the
new AppleWorks 2.1:
BLOAD APLWORKS SYSTEM, TSYS, 452000
PORE 14118, 44 : REM bypass
POKE 14436,208 : REM bypass
POKE 14437,19
BSAVE APUWORKS .SYSTEK, 75YS,A52000
Daniel R. Creech
Hannibal, Mo.
Desktop expansion
What are three economical ways of expand-
ing AppleWorks desktop memory?
T. Garner
Coquitlam, B.C.
There are only three ways. With the price of
RAM chips, none of them seem very economi-
cal. They are ‘aux-slot’, ‘standard-siot’, and
‘memory-siot’ RAM cards.
He owners can buy either a standard-slot or
an ‘aux-slot' memory card. Examples of stan-
dard-slot cards are Applied Engineerings Ram-
Factor, Apple's Memory Expansion Card, and
Cirtech's PR cards. AppleWorks 1.5 and higher
automatically recognize this type of card and
use it for desktop expansion. Examples of aux-
slot cards are Applied Engineering's RamWorks
and Checkmate's MultiRam. AppleWorks must
be patched, using software provided with these
cards, to recognize aux-slot memory. The
patch programs, however, provide word pro-
cessor and database expansions beyond what
AppleWorks itself provides for standard-slot
cards.
Hc owners have the same options as lie
owners. However, the only standard-siot-type
card available for the lic is Apple's own. Older
Uc models require a free motherboard upgrade
to use this card. Applied Engineering and
Checkmate Technology both make aux-siot-
type cards for the lic, AE's is called Z-RAM and
Checkmate's is MultiRam CX.
ligs owners will find that AppleWorks 2.0
and higher automatically expand into their
memory-slot cards. These are made by a
number of companies. A ligs can also be fitted
with a standard-slot-type (but not an aux-siot-
type) memory card, but AppleWorks will not
expand into it without a special patch (see
“AppleWorks ligs defeater, December 1987,
page-5.86 and ‘llgs defeater defeated’, in Jan-
uary 1988, page 3.95.)
Device list too short
1 would like to have the AppleWorks “Disk
drives you can use’ list to display the choice
"Disk. 1 (Slot 2)' for my second 5.5 drive. To
date neither I nor my dealer nor the Washington
Appie Pi hot line nor Claris technical support
October 1988
can get it to do this with my hardware configura-
tion. It doesn’t matter whether | use plain vanil-
la AppleWorks or a patched AppleWorks. It also
doesn't matter if | start Appleworks from my
hard disk or 3.5 drive.
In addition to my 20 meg Sider in slot 7 and
two 3.5s, I have one 5.25 in slot 6 and a 1.5
meg IIgs internal RAMdisk that shows up as slot
5, drive 2.
Charles O. Ward
Centreville, Va.
Your problem is that AppleWorks will display
only six devices in its "Disk drives you can use’
list. You have more than that. The six that
show up in your list are the two volumes in slot
7, two in slot 6 (ProDOS cant tell if you have
one or two 5.25 drives connected, so it always
assumes two), and two in slot 5 (3.5 and
/RAMS). Your seventh, the 3.5 that appears to
be connected to slot 2, won't fit in the list.
One solution is to access the second 3.5 by
name using the ‘ProDOS directory’ choice at
the bottom of the list.
Another solution is fo tell ProDOS you really
only have one 5,25 drive connected. If you
have Glen Bredon's ProSEL, his SCAVENGE
program will remove the phantom drive from
the ProDOS device table. The newest version
of ProSEL's CAT.DOCTOR also has this ability
from its auxiliary (CD.EXT) menu ($40, 521
State Rd, Princeton, NJ, 08540),
If you know a little assembly language,
another possibility is to get a copy of Apple's
ProDOS Technical Note #8 (last revised
12/85) from APDA or an online service. it
explains how to remove drives from the Pro-
DOS device list.
«<L>ayout, search macro
Do you think most AppleWorks users know
about using open-apple-<L>ayoul to modify the
single-record screen in the database? I've been
using AppleWorks for almost three years and
just stumbled upon it {it gets a mere half page
in the old manual). At last I have a readable for-
mat for bibliographic entries.
The most useful word-processing macro I've
thought of is:
8
not
<sarf> is. coe-Potsca-®>
Press solid-apple-<S>earch and five charac-
ters and the macro will take you to the first
occurrence of those five characters in the docu.
ment, I find it useful when ! revise long docu-
ments on paper and then enter the changes in
AppleWorks. You could make the string in the
macro as long as you want; I've found five char-
acters virtually always enough. You can do a lot
to make sure that they are enough by typing a
‘string that contains the end of one word and the
beginning of the next. The final <rtn> is neat
since it works for both <N>o, I dont want to
find the next occurrence, and <Space Bar>, as
jin ‘Not Found, press Space Bar to continue’.
Michael Leddy
Charleston, Ill.
Since almost all of the public-domain tem-
plates I've seen have nothing more than the
stock two-column layout for the single-record
screen, I, like you, suspect most people don't
Know they have the capability of rearranging
the positions of the categories on that screen.
Some of the AppleWorks enhancement pro-
grams that add mouse support to AppleWorks
allow you to use the mouse to layout the cate-
gories on the screen, For my time, this is the
best use of a mouse inside AppleWorks.
Exclaimated vertical. lines, $300
In May a Swedish Apple I user asked how to
change the vertical lines in AppleWorks so they
used the exclamation point instead of ASCII
124, which isnt a vertical line in the Swedish
character set but an o with two dots over it.
Here are the patches for the menu cards and
the oa-Q menu. I wasn't able to find the needed
locations for the Database/Spreadsheet vertical
lines or for Tab Stops. (Try looking for ASCII
124 in AppleWorks and you'll find it appears
hundreds of times.):
BORE 168,33 + REM "!" char
BSRVE SEG.WL,
SAVE SHG.M1, 1800, A$200, 11, 351486
‘BSAVE SEG.M1,7$00,A$309, £1,381
SAVE SEG.M1,7$00,A$300,L1,BS1¢CC2
BSAVE SEG.ML,7S00,A$300, 51, 8514C05
BSAVE SEG.M1,1$00,A$300, 31,5$15836
BSAYE SEG.ML, 1SC0,A$309, u1,B915842
As for the space at $300, both Timeout and
UltraMacros use parts of that page. However,
$300-$31F is still safe from both these two add-
‘ons.
Mark Munz
Fort Lewis, Wash.
The ASCII 124 problem was encountered in
Greece two years ago when we were localizing
AppleWorks. About !2 other ASCII codes also
caused problems. | used ProSEL’s BLOCK. WAR-
DEN and recommend the following procedure:
a. Make lots of AppleWorks disks.
b, Prepare yourself to stay sleepless for a
week Or So.
. Scan SEG.MO and SEG.MI for the assem-
bly commands LDA, LDX, and LDY followed by
ASCII 124 (that's $A9 7C, $A2 7C,-and $A0 7C).
Change them one-by-one and try AppleWorks
every time. Not all are meant to be changed. It
took me a full month's work to change all of
AppleWorks into Greek.
Nick Andritsakis
Infostar Computer Consultants
Kallithea, Greece
The lesson here for software authors is to
set up a table in your program that holds ali
the changeable characters. instead of doing an
‘immediate’ register load, get the special char-
acters from the table, Localizers could simply
scan for and change the table. The characters
that change from language to language are
ASCH 35 (#), 64 (@), 97 (0, 92 (0), 935.0). 96 (),
123 ()), 124 (|), 125 @), 126 (~), and 127.
Czech video ROM needed
I need to be able to operate a database in
the Czech language. My Ile has a German key-
board and a switch that lets me flip to an Ameri-
can keyboard, Where can | get a chip that would
let me switch between German. and Czech? |
also need to find a supplier of European alpha-
bet daisy wheels for my printer. Any ideas?
Myron E. Schirer
Vienna, Austria
According to Jim Sathers Understanding
the Apple He (now out of print}, the video
ROM in your Appie ile is an 8K, 28-pin 2764
ROM (ies sold in the U.S, use a smaller, 46
video ROM). We know that it's technically pos-
sible to replace it with an EPROM that holds
the German and Czech character sets, but we
don't know where you'd get one already made
Open-Apple 4.69
up, We don't know of a source for the daisy
wheels you need, either, but will be interested
in what our European subscribers know about
this,
Old DOS, new CAT
Finally, the CAT command comes to DOS
CALL -151
6D N ABF1:43 41 N A937:40 70
20s
This changes the INT command to CAT. CAT
does the same thing as CATALOG, CATALOG
still works, too, INT doesn't.
Mark Cornick
Charlottesville, Va.
RESUME doesn't
ADOS 3.5 quirk I've run into and never seen
an explanation of is the use of RESUME after an
ONERR GOTO when there is an 1/O ERROR after
a text file has been partially read. RESUME does-
n't work—it just prints a "2" on the screen. If
there are still N records in the text file to be
read, you can hit Return N times and then the
file is closed and the program continues. Any
Ideas?
John Waters
Tampa, Fla.
Under DOS 3.3, an 1/0 ERROR will turn off
your READ and close your file. When you
RESUME, you go back to the INPUT statement
that was being executed when ihe [/O ERROR
occurred, Since READ is no longer active,
INPUT looks to the keyboard, rather than the
file, and a question mark appears on your
screen.
Most programs simply declare the file
unreadable at this point. if you want to be
more sophisticated, your error handling routine
would have to reOPEN the file and issue anoth-
er READ command, This, of course, would set
the fife pointer back to the beginning of the
file, not to the spot you were reading when the
error occurred. You could track how many
characters have been received as a file is read
and use a B parameter with your KEAD state-
ment to go back to the exact byte that caused
the 1/O ERROR. See July 1985, page 1.51, for
more on the B parameter. Also see January
#985, page 1.02, for more on ONERR GOTO
with READ.
Assembly RUN
| know that you can RUN an Applesoft pro-
gram from assembly language by jumping to
$D566 (54630). This will execute any Applesoft
program in memory from the beginning, as if
the RUN command was entered. I'd like to be
able to execute a program from any line—is
there a way to RUN a program starting from a
specific line number? Perhaps a GOTO would
be better, as the variables could be retained.
Benjamin Ng
Calgary, Alb,
Make sure that Applesoft has been initial-
ized (see August, page 4.56) and that your pro-
gram has been loaded, then:
ag YY LDA HS¥Y Store SKXYY in $50-51
45 59 STA $5
AS XK LDA 45xx
85 52 STA $51
4C.55 09 CMP sp955
4.70 Open-Apple
This is the equivalent of a GOTO $XXYY
command, where $XXYY is a line number (in
hex).
ProDOS zero-page usage
{'m writing a program on my Ile using assem-
bly language under ProDOS. Where can I find a
listing of zero page locations used by ProDOS
so that I don't accidentally clobber the area my
program is using with ProDOS (or vice-versa).
Allan G. Dunn
The ProDOS Machine Language. Interface
uses locations $40 through $4E, but it restores
them to their original values before a call is
completed. This is why you never see much
about ProDOS zero-page usage. The floppy disk
driver routines inside ProDOS also use $5A
through $3F, These are not restored and
should be avoided if your program will support
5.25 inch disks.
Directory deletion
When | try to delete a subdirectory from a
ProDOS disk from Applesoft it says FILE
LOCKED. Even if | unlock it | have the same
problem.
Chang Yuh Kang
Singapore
FILE LOCKED doesnt describe the actual
problem—it was just an error message already
built into Basic.system. The real problem is
that you can't delete a subdirectory from
Applesoft unless it's empty. First delete all the
files in the subdirectory, then delete the subdi-
rectory. The FILE LOCKED error will disappear
along with your subdirectory.
Undelete problems
Yesterday, while doing some house cleaning
of disks to remove old files, | inadvertently
deleted a needed file. | tried to undelete using
Copy i! Plus, but couldn't. In what way does
AppleWorks delete a file so that it cannot be
recovered?
Donald Bock
Hudson, Fla.
It depends which version of ProDOS you
were using with AppleWorks when you deleted
the file. Files deleted while using versions of
ProDOS prior to 1.5 cannot be recovered.
How's that for a good reason to update your
disks with a newer version ProDOS?
ImageWriters in the office
Today we had a label stuck underneath the
platen of one of our ImageWriter Ils. We spent
more than an hour with screwdrivers, tweezers,
pliers, a pencil compass, an Exacto-knife, and
anything else we could think of trying to get that
lite sucker out of there (we have a blowtorch
downstairs was tempted, but managed to
resist).
! even spent about half an hour trying to fig-
ure out how to just remove the bloody platen
from the printer, but nothing about the task is
obvious. While | sat there with sweat pouring off
my face, one of the secretaries brought me a
bottle of something called Dr. Scat! typewriter
cleaner. | was very skeptical, especially because
the applicator bali was far too big to squeeze
under the platen. But } tried it, squeezing some
of the fluid into the crack, Then I rolled a piece
of paper through the printer and said ‘WOW' as
an inch-square piece of label rolled right out
with the paper.
I don't even know where to get the stuff, but
it's probably available in office supply stores. |
am thoroughly impressed with it. I gave the
whole platen and print head. a good cleaning,
too, and the stuff did a marvelous job (it's unbe-
lievable how filthy a year-old printer can be). |
really don't know if this brand of cleaner is the
best, but | certainly know that it works.
Here's a handy AppleWorks tip I've never
seen in print before. In our office we do a lot of
stuff on single-sheet paper, though we don't
have a cut sheet feeder. It's easy enough to roll
the continuous. paper. back and flip the single-
sheet latch—the problem was that AppleWorks
was configured for continuous paper and- would
expect the next sheet to be there when It was-
nt, First [ tried to teach our secretaries to use
Appleworks's open-apple-<O>ption Pause Each
Page feature to solve this, but they often forgot
to include that code when printing on single
sheets.
So I configured AppleWorks for two printers.
The specifications for the two printers are iden-
tical except that one stops at the end of each
page. | named them ‘ImageWriter II’ and ‘Image
Pause’. Our secretaries have a much easier time
remembering to pick the proper printer than
they did remembering to use Pause Each Page.
Dean Esmay
Flossmoor, Ill.
You could probably even name the printers
‘continuous paper“ and ‘single sheets’. Those
make sensible answers to the question Where
do you want to print the file?"
You hint at another useful tip here, but.don't
actually say it—when switching between contin-
uous paper and single sheets on an imageWrit-
er Il, you don't have to completely remove the
continuous paper from the printer. When you
flip the single-sheet switch, it disconnects the
pinfeed tractors, so you can leave continuous
paper ‘threaded’ as long as it's clear of the plat-
en area.
Print downhill no more
| read with interest last month's letter called
‘Printing downhill’ (page 4.59}. My Epson MX-80
used to print with’a downward drift in double-
strike mode when each character was being
underlined separately. A magnifying glass
revealed the reason: Prior to the second pass
for printing each underlined character, the
paper would advance a fraction of a dot and the
second strike would fill in white space between
vertical dots. A fraction of a dot is not much,
but when it happens for very many characters,
it is decidedly noticeable.
The answer is to use the Epson's underlining
feature, not Apple Writers. The paper still
advances for overstrike but only once for the
entire line rather than once for each character
underlined.
Robert H. Holdsworth
Wilbraham, Mass.
To use the Epson's underlining feature from
within Apple Writer, enter control-V, the
Epson's underline-on code, and another con-
trol. Use the same sequence to turn it off.
The control-V allows you fo enter control codes
into your text. Back when | used Apple Writer
ali the time I had some ‘glossary keys or
macros set up to enter ail the codes; all | had
to remember was which macro turned under-
line on and which turned it off.
To avoid having underlines sticking out past
the left margin when a line breaks while under-
line is on, you also need fo use the printer's
Vol. 4, No. 9
Jeft_ margin command and leave Apple
Writer's left margin set to zero.
! looked in our Programmers' Handbook
af Computer Printer Commands for the
Epson underline on and off codes, It doesn't
show any for the MX-80, which could be a sig-
nificant limitation of this technique for some
Epson owners. For other Epson printers,
including the Epson FX that started ail this,
underline on is “ESC-I" (the hyphen is part of
the command) and underline off is "ESC-0’.
The left margin command is ‘ESC L n‘, where
‘n’ is the width of the left margin in characters.
(The width in inches depends on what charac-
ter set you are using.)
Mini-8 ImageWriter dealers
A cable is almost always a cable when refer-
ring to the Mini-DIN-8 (‘IIgs modem cables,
cont’, September 1988, page 4.58). But if you
use a switchbox to run more than one
printer/computer combination you will get into
trouble if you use all standard mini-8 cables.
Whether you have one computer and several
printers or one printer and several computers,
the cable from the box to the single device can-
not be a normal mini-8, it must be a special
straightthrough cable. [f not, the combination
will not work.
ImageWriter lls can be very crabby about
paper. The symptoms described in ‘Chronic
printer problems’ (page 4.59) and earlier letters
can be a result of paper that is too thin or too
thick. Too thin paper doesn't push well, espe-
cially when the humidity is high. Extra thick
paper also can be too hard to push through the
printer. It's also possible that the paper is hitting
the bail and binding when the printing begins.
ImageWriter' Il paper drive motors can fail
and still work sorta, kinda. This failure is charac-
terized by a horrible grinding noise when the
paper should be advanced, but will not be con-
sistent. Sometimes the paper will feed, some-
times not. The fix is lo replace the motor.
Incidentally, I'm an Apple dealer and | dis-
agree with a statement in the letter ‘Repair
Restraint” (page 4.62). Apple does not specifi-
cally require a dealer to use Apple parts for the
repair of Apple computers, Most of the parts
simply arent available anywhere else. The
prices aren't cheap, but we've found Apple to
be a fast and fair supplier of service parts. |
wish |-could say that about most of the electron-
ics companies we deal with.
Power supplies and TTL logic chips are the
most notable items that are available from
sources other than Apple. We have tested and
sold non-Apple power supplies for the II-Plus
and Ile. Our experience is that yes, they are
cheaper, but they also have a shorter life span.
We have also had a defect rate approaching 25
per cent.
Very little componentlevel service is done
anymore on logic boards, so we consume few
TIL ICs these days. Apple doesn't care where
we obtain these parts.
Vern Mastel
Bismarck, 4.D.
| added an automatic printer switch to our
collection of equipment this month and the
cable connections made me crazy. The switch
connects four computers to one printer. The
computers are a Ile, llc, IIgs, and Mac SE, so
there's quite a combination of connectors. The
October 1988
printer's an ImageWriter Il. The printer switch I
used had standard RS-232 25-pin connectors.
It took forever to wire up all the cables. As
you predict, my carefully thought-out plans for
the cables, using witing diagrams from a num-
ber of books, wouldn't work. I soldered and
unsoldered cables until the wee hours of the
morning before I got things going.
The printer switch 1 used automatically
detects when any of the computers starts to
print something and connects it to the printer.
While that computer has the line, the printer
appears ‘not selected’ to the other three com-
puters, so if you try to use one of them to print
something it will politely *hang’ until the first
computer is finished. Another feature of the
box js that it has lights that flash constantly,
which is much more impressive to friends and
neighbors than any other equipment i have.
The company | bought the switch from said
it wouldn't work with an Apple It (they wanted
me to buy a twice-as-expensive unit with a
memory buffer}, so Im not going to recom-
mend ihem. If you know of anyone who pro-
duces a switch like this with mini-8 connectors
and decent wiring diagrams, I'd like to know
about it.
Printing double-wide
What are the control codes to get an
ImageWriter Il to print 4 and 6 characters per
inch?
Clen Clogan,
Monticello, Ill
To get characters this big you have to use
the imageWriter's codes for double-wide char-
acters. You can't actually get 4 characters-per
inch, But you can get 4.5 by setting the
ImageWriter for 9 cpi and double-wide. 6 cpi is
the ImageWriter’s 12 cpi and double-wide.
For example:
SINT "This
PRIND 9;
SCSI numbers don't add
In the July issue on page 4.46 you say that
up to seven SCSI devices may be connected to
one SCSI card. | purchased a CT-20 hard drive
from Chinook Technology, but the User Manual
indicated only two devices could be connected.
Which is correct?
Gary Mert!
Brookfield, Wisc.
SCSI allows for seven devices per SCSI
chain. Current versions of ProDOS, however,
only allow two devices per slot, This is where
the confusion comes from. | expect future ver-
sions of ProDOS will leap over the two-devices-
per-siot limitation.
Another view on cheap drives
In your reply to ‘Rethinking hard disks,
(cont,)’ in the August issue (page 4.53) you say
IBM-type drives aren't really cheaper in the long
run and that all the letters you've received
about the Perlin Megaboard have been negative.
| have found neither to be true.
1 purchased a Megaboard about a year ago
and have been very satisfied. | am using a Tan-
don TM-705 drive that | obtained surplus for
$200. it is an AT-class drive that formats (IBM)
to 32 megabytes, has an average access time of
45 milliseconds (fast), and has auto-park. With a
case and power supply available for as little as
$50 (I paid $75 for extra current capacity) and
with the Megaboard (which includes all cables
and software) for $195.00, | was online for
under $475,00,
The only drawback to the Megaboard is that
its hardware is set up for drives with 4, 6, or 8
heads, As about 80 per cent of the drives avail-
able fall into one of these categories, it's usually
not a problem. The TM-703, however, has 5
heads. This means that I can only access about
25 megabytes on my drive. Due to its speed
and other features, J find that limitation accept-
able.
The Megaboard allows partitions for DO5 3.3,
ProDOS, CP/M, and Pascal. I find the system
quite fast and flexible. If 1 had it to do over
again, | would still have purchased the Mega-
board, although a drive with an even number of
heads would have been better.
1 feel I must correct your other impression,
as well, In addition to severat Apples, | also own
an IBM clone. | added a 52 meaabyte hard drive
to it also. The drive was purchased for $325
and included a controller card and cables.
That's all you need. No upgrades to the power
supply or operating system were needed, con-
trary to your statement. IBM power supplies
include connectors for four drives, hard or flop-
py. MS-DOS (2.0 or higher), which is included in
most system purchases, is fully capable of
accessing hard drives without modification. My
IBM drive is an admittedly slow 65 millisecond
model, but it has worked fine for about two
years.
| find each machine. has its own set of advan-
tages and disadvantages and that one of each is
the best way to go.
John L. Alexander
FPO San Francisco
I reviewed the major complaint letter we've
received about the Megaboard and have to
admit it contains a lot more smoke than fire. In
addition to requiring an even number of heads,
the other big complaint is that on a ligs the
Megaboard fas to go into slot 6, which makes
it difficult to move files from 5.25 floppies to
the hard disk. There are also some limitations
to the DOS 3.3 partition, which has a maxi-
mum size of 38 140K volumes per drive. 400K
DOS 3.3 volumes are’ not supported. There
was also a problem with the configuration soft-
ware, which couldn't deal with drives larger
than about 43 meg, but that bug has been
fixed, The software now works with drives up
to 64 megs in size.
As for the IBM drives, we priced all the vari.
ous items you need separately. If you are able
to buy them in a bundie or get them when you
buy your system, as you did, the prices get bet-
ter. We've always agreed that IBM-type drives
are cheaper than Apple drives; our point is
simply that the real price difference is iess
than the perceived difference—users who put
together a hard drive system using IBM-type
drives will save money, but usually not as
much as it would at first appear.
Open-Apple 4.71
French accents
Using an Apple Iigs and ImageWriter IL, | have
been unable to access French vowels with cir-
cumflexes (the vowel with a caret above it), All
other accented vowels are available in the
French character set on the ImageWriter, and
via the control panel on the IIgs, but not with
any software I've yet tried (AppleWorks, Word
Perfect GS, MultiScribe}, | know it's accessible
in Word Perfect for IBM. How do Apple users
manage?
Dorothy Nesbitt
Winnetka, Ill.
Let's start with the AppleWorks example, Go
into the ‘Options’ selection in the ligs Control
Panel and set the screen display to French. You
may also be interested in setting the keyboard
Jayout to French, which is a separate selection.
Now AppleWorks will display the built-in French
Characters, which, as you point out, do not
include circumflexed vowels.
To get this much to print on your printer,
you have to tell the ImageWriter you want to
print in French. You can do that “permanently”
by setting the dip switches correctly, or with an
AppleWorks printer setup (see ‘Danish t0 gO" in
our July issue, page 4.47, for more informa-
tion).
In France, | suspect the ImageWriter adds
the circumflex by backspacing over the vowel
and printing it separately. There is no way to
duplicate this on the ligs text screen and it isa
feature that the U.S. version of AppleWorks
doesn't support. I'l rely on our French sub-
scribers to fill us in on how this works with the
French version of AppleWorks.
With a program like MultiScribe you are not
limited to the Iigs text screen or the
ImageWriters built-in fonts. What you need is
simply a font that contains all the French char-
acters. I'm not sure whether there's a French
font in the public domain, but if there is im
sure we have it available for downloading on
GEnie. There may be problems with display of
even special fonts, however, as described in
the next two leiters,
To summarize, | don't know very much
about this, but | know we have subscribers in
Europe who are very familiar with the issues
and who'll tell us how to proceed.
More characters, more tongues
HodgePodge,. from the Programmer's intro-
duction to the Apple ligs disk, lel’'s me sée and
print all characters of any font, from $00 to $FF,
including accented letters, symbols, and ding-
bats. But all other ProDOS 16 applications let
me see and print only from $20 to $7E.
Is it possible to use all characters with Muiti-
Scribe, Draw Plus, Graphic Writer, or Paint-
Works? And why don't these applications obey
the ‘Display Language’ and "Keyboard Layout’
options of the IIgs Contro! Panel?
! also tried to read, with MultiScribe 3,0, an
ASCII file with accented characters taken from a
Mac, but MultiScribe resolutely refused.
Luigi Bruno
Rome, Italy
There is one aspect of some ligs software
that | have not seen mentioned in any article |
have read. In Macintosh software it is possible
to generate extra characters by holding down
the option key when typing. This is not possible
in all IIgs software—for example, it doesn't work.
in MultiScribe GS (at least up to 3.01c), but it
does in TopDraw. These two programs are from
4.72 Open-Apple
the same company!
Mac and GS fonts use 8-bit ASCII. Normal
characters are "low ASCII’ and the extra charac-
ters that are available correspond to “high
ASCII". These extra characters are most easily
seen using HodgePodge.
| asked StyleWare about this nearly a year
ago and their response was "the lack of ability
to access the high ASCII set is a limitation of
the operating system of the Apple llgs. In Top-
Draw it was possible to overcome this limitation
without corrupting the system files, but we have
yet to find a way to do this in MultiScribe."| also
tried asking Apple Australia about this but did
not get anywhere.
Its possible to overcome this problem, but
it's tedious. First you. need to create a file that
has the 128 low-ASCI! characters in it. Do this
with MultiScribe or whatever. Next, use a zap
program to change each character to it's high-
ASCII equivalent. Once you have a file like this
(you could also use a program that will deal
with high-ASCII characters, like TopDraw, to cre-
ate it) you can use copy and paste via the clip-
board to put the special characters into your
document.
On another subject, in reference to ‘Speaking
in tongues’ in your August issue, you didn't
mention Pecan’s Power System software. |
haven't used this software or seen any reviews,
but | have the following information from their
brochures. UCSD Pascal, Modula-2, FORTRAN-
77, and BASIC compilers are available, as well
as a separate assembler. Each of the five is
available in either an ‘Apple 11 6502’ version or
a ‘Apple {Igs’ 65816 version. All of the compil-
ers use SANE numerics and can ‘access ProDOS
files’, although the compilers don't appear to be
Open-Apple
2
a edted, published, and
© Copyright 1988 by
Tom Weishaar
with help
‘om
Tom Vanderpool Sally Dwyer
Dennis Doms Steve Kelly
Most rights reserved. AY programs published In OpemApple are pubic
doman and may be copied and astributed without charge. Apple user groups
{nd separ thers ray can permission wren aces kom ie eine
by soecaic wean rues.
‘has deen published morihty since January 1985. Woric-wde
‘prices (n U.S. dollars; airmail delwery included at no additional change}: $28 lor 1
year, $5¢ for 2 years: $78 for 3 years. Al back issues are cumtenty avaiable for
‘$2 each, bound. indexed editions of our rs twee volumes are $14.95 each, Vol
umes. oe wh ‘the January ‘ssue; an index tor the prior volume is included with
Open-Apple
P.O, Box 11250
Overland Park, Kansas 66207 U.S.A.
Opee-Apple 1s avaiable on disk for speech symheszer users from
‘Speech Enierprises, P.O. Box 7986. Houston, Texas 77270.
‘Open Apple is sold an unprotected lormat for your convenience. You
‘are oecouraged to make back up archival copes or easy-to-read eniarged
‘copes [or your own use wioul charge. You may also Copy Opex-Apple for
cistbuton fo others. The ditrbtion fe is 15 cenis per age por copy dis
‘ibuted.
[WARRANTY AND UMITATION OF LIABILITY. | warrani thet mos’ o the
Information in Open-Apple is useful and correct. athough crvel anc ms
‘takes are included kom time Io time, usually unintentonaly. Unsatisied
‘subscribers may cancel ther subscription al any time and receive a ful
relund of thew last subscipfion payment The urfllee portion of any paid
sabscription wil be relundad oven to saistied subscribers upon request.
MY LIABILITY FOR ERRORS AND OMISSIONS IS LIMITED TO THIS
PUBLICATIONS PURCHASE PRICE. in no case shall or my coninbutors
be Fable lor any incidental or consequential damages. nor lor ANY cam
ages in excoss ol the fees paid by a subscriber.
ISSN 0886-4017 nie mail: OPEN-APPLE
Printed in the U.S.A, 91469-6502
ProDOS-based. The brochure says the ligs
implementations utilize extended memory, sup-
port toolbox routines, and are compatible with
Apple Pascal. A variety of utilities are available.
| was interested because-1 would like a FOR-
TRAN-77, but am still undecided. I would prefer
a-compiler that ran under APW.
Stephen Harker
Oakleigh, Vic.
If HodgePodge can display all 256 charac-
ters, it would seem other programs should be
able to. We'll see what we can find out.
Four compilers and an assembler times two
versions (Apple II and Apple IIgs) makes ten
separate packages from Pecan Software. Each
package sells for $100. We haven't seen any of
these products either. (Pecan Software Sys-
tems, 1410 39th St, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11218 718-
5h 5100 or 800-637-3226.)
Watch those controls
After we upgraded the ROMs on my father's
Ilgs, trying to turn on the 80-column text screen
from Applesoft with PRINT CHR$(4);'PR#3° yield-
ed a NO DEVICE CONNECTED error, PR#3 in
immediate mode did the same. It turned out to
be a control panel problem—slot 3 was config-
ured for Your Card.
Clark Hugh Stiles
Grand Rapids, Mich.
CDA/NDA lesson
| have downloaded some Classic Desk Acces-
sories from GEnie, but | haven't seen how to
install them or how to access them. Could you
fill in the details?
John Christensen
Indian Head, Md.
Desk accessories come in two flavors ‘clas-
sic’, or CDA, and ‘new’ or NDA. They are useful
only on the Iigs; earlier Apples cant use them.
Take your CDA and NDA files and copy them
to your ProDOS 16 System Disk (the disk you
boot from). They must go in the
SYSTEM/DESK.ACCS folder (subdirectory).
When you next boot that system disk, the
desk accessories will be automatically
installed.
To use the classic ones, press open-
apple/control/escape, just like you were going
to use the contro! panel. You will see a list of
the CDAs and you can choose which ones you
want to run. You can access this menu from
any kind of software, including newer ProDOS
16, older ProDOS 8, and DOS 3.3 packages
(unless the program turns off ‘interrupts’, in
which case the menu isnt accessible).
To use new desk accessories, you must be
Vol. 4, No. 9
using a ProDOS 16 program, such as Finder.
Point at the small apple in the upper-left corner
of the screen and press on the mouse button.
A menu will drop down that includes the NDAs
on the disk you booted from.
There are limits to how many desk acces-
sories you can have access to at one time.
However, those limits have been punctured by
programs such as Two Apples and Master
CDA, mentioned here in July (‘Desk accessory
limits, page 4.45).
Beagle Compiler and slot 2
Since the time | wrote the ‘ligs is slot poor’
letter that you published in the September issue
{page 4.62), Alan Bird has modified the Beagle
Compiler such that APPLEMEM.SYSTEM now rec-
ognizes a memory card in slot 2.
Elliot Lifson
Yonkers, N.Y.
The bias potential
| request that my subscription be cancelled
immediately and that you refund the prepay-
ment amount on my subscription. While ! don't
owe you a reason, | will volunteer one. While 1
cannot be knowledgeable as you or your staff
about the bottom line in what it costs to run
such a newsletter as yours, | have become
painfully aware in recent months of the shift in
emphasis on sideline retailing of books. When |
received this month's issue and saw the allen-
tion given to the pitching of memory cards, |
decided it was time to part company.
I support Consumer Reports Magazine for the
same reason I've supported you in the past. |
believe there is a place for newsletters and
magazines of small, select audiences that do
not accept advertising and do not sell the prod-
ucts they are talking about. You've crossed the
line. And lost a subscriber,
Kate Kelbaugh
Herndon, Va.
I dont think it's fair to compare Open-Apple
to Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports is
a mass-market publication that is ten to twenty
times larger than our newsletter, online ser-
vices, and book and product sales combined,
it solicits, receives, and depends on tax-
deductible donations for its existence.
But I'm sorry if | created the impression
somewhere along the line that Open-Apple
would be designed on the Consumer Reports
model. Consumer Reports is not just a differ-
ent animal from what we're trying to do here,
its a different species,
Open-Apple is a ‘high-tech/high-touch’
information -Age enterprise. What we do for a
living, at its most essential level, is bring peo-
ple with a common interest together so they
can help each other accomplish their goals.
This is easy to see even in the Cirtech case,
where we're giving U.S. Apple II users the
opportunity to obtain high-quality products
made by European Apple I! users.
On the other hand, | recognize that selling
both products and information about products
creates an explosive mixture. I'm acutely aware
that we have to handle it carefully. If we ever
start to let our newsletter (rather than our cat-
alog) recommend what we sell, rather than
what's worth recommending, we'll dilute the
value of our information. | dont want or intend
to do that and | appreciate people like you
making every effort to keep me honest.