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_A2-Central
a
A journal and exchange of Apple HI discoveries
Apple announces faster llgs
The faster, more powerful Iigs that Apple users everywhere have
been asking for was on display in Apple's exhibit at AppleFest Boston
May 5-7. In addition to shipping the faster machines to new cus-
tomers (starting sometime this summer) Apple has arranged to
upgrade the machines of all existing customers for little or no cost.
Apple was able to provide the benefits of its faster IIgs to existing
customers by tweaking the machine's software, rather than it's hard-
ware. The new software is called Apple ligs System Software 5.0. It
improves the performance of desktop-based llgs applications as
much or more than faster hardware could.
Hardware improvements have the potential to improve the speed
of the ligs by a factor of 2 or 3, as accelerators have done for the Ile
and llc. Software improvements, on the other hand, can increase the
speed of some operations 5 to 15 times or more, as we saw the
Beagle Compiler do to Applesoft string manipulations. Software
improvements don't improve everything across-the-board, as a faster
microprocessor would. But by concentrating on bottlenecks, software
improvements can easily do more to increase the apparent speed and
power of a computer than a faster microprocessor. Software improve-
ments have the additional advantage of improving the performance of
existing machines-not just new ones.
System Software 5.0 adds patches to much of the Apple IIgs
Toolbox to provide more speed. In some cases applications will
have to be slightly modified to take full advantage of the increases,
but other improvements apply to existing applications. In the best
case, the speed at which the IIgs draws on the super-high-res screen
appears to be several times faster than before.
A feature called ExpressLoad offers dramatic improvements in pro-
gram loading speed. Developers can convert most existing applica-
tions into ExpressLoad applications with a utility program. The ulility
adds some information to files that allows the system 5.0 loader to
deat with them much more quickly than the system 4.0 loader could.
(ExpressLoad files are-standard OMF files with an additional static, ‘pri-
vate segment. Thus there is complete backwards compatibility-the
system 4.0 loader can handle ExpressLoad files, albeit as slowly as
before. Applications that use ExpressLoad should load their segments
by name, however, not by number; the ExpressLoad segment is
added at the front of the OMF file and changes the numbering of any
other segments in the file.}
A new Apple SCSI Manager and a new Apple 3.5 driver provide
quicker access to storage devices. The Apple SCSI manager is com-
pletely new, works only with Apple's SCSI card (it bypasses the ROM
‘on the card and deals directly with the card's hardware where possi-
ble) and increases throughput from 18K per second to 80K per sec-
ond. The new Apple 3.5 driver includes a feature called ‘scatter read’.
On most multiblock reads of five blocks or more, the driver reads
entire disk tracks into memory in one revolution of the disk. This
gives the disk an effective 1-1 interleave while reading.
According to our sources at Apple, ExpressLoad lowers the Apple
3.5 startup time of AppleWorks GS from about 4 minutes to about |
minute. The new Apple 3.5 driver with scatter read further lowers it to
about 35 seconds.
Other changes in system 5.0 allow much faster switching
between ProDOS 8 and GS/OS applications. The time to get from a
formerly
Open-Apple
i;
dune 1989
Vol. 5, No. 5
ISSN 0885-4017
newstand price: $2.50
Photocopy charge per page: $0.15
ProDOS 8 application back to the Finder has been reduced to about 3
seconds. This is accomplished by leaving much of GS/OS in non-
purgeable memory while the ProDOS 8 application runs and vice-
versa. Since most ProDOS 8 programs don't use llgs memory, this
shouldn't be noticeable, although it could impact users switching
back and forth between AppleWorks and GS/OS applications (the
AppleWorks desktop will be smaller than under system 4.0, but the
additional switching speed is worth it),
System 5.0 includes version 1.8 of ProDOS 8, which comes with
the delete bug fixed (see our January issue, page 4.89). it also
includes a minor change that allows GS/OS to use lower case file-
names on ProDOS volumes, Also on system 5.0 is Basic.system 1.3,
which fixes the CHAIN bug (see ‘CHAIN bugs and overlays’, December
1987, page 3.87), fixes BSAVE so thal it chops off the end of long
files when a shorter file is saved with the same name (unless the B
parameter is used as part of the BSAVE~see our discussion on this in
the July 1985 issue, page 1.51), and replaces the do-nothing MON
command with a MTR command that enters the Monitor for you {good-
bye CALL -151).
Other features of system 5,0 include a New Desk Accessory (graph-
ics-based) control panel. The old control panel can still be used, of
course, but the new one can do everything the old one does plus
more. And features can be added to the new control panel simply by
placing a special kind of file in a new system subdirectory called
"CDEV’. Among other things, the ‘Choose Printer function normally
found in the ‘File’ menu on GS/OS applications and the Disk Cache
NDA have been moved to the control panel.
System 5.0 supports scrolling and pop-up menus. Up to 255 items
can be in a menu and any menu item can have a checkmark or key-
equivalent. Pop-up menus are typically used in a dialog box that can
have several settings, but only the current setting is normally
displayed. The Classic Desk Accessory menu now scrolls, too, if your
system has more than 512K memory.
A new parallel card driver supports a wider range of parallet
cards, including Apple's Wozniak-designed original. New printer
drivers (nothing new for the ImageWriter LQ, however) are faster when
, the jaser printer repairman. finds an idle
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3.34 Adz-Central
enough memory is available. The memory manager is faster. A 'key-
board translation" feature has been added that makes it easier to add
accent marks to characters and provides a standard method of doing.
msole driver’ (text screen) is faster and includes more *
so. The *
‘traps’ or "hooks' for programmers. A new ‘notification queue’ allows
applications to be asked to be notified when changes suth as disk
switches occur, which means the Finder shouldnt click 3,5 drives as”
often as before. An ‘out of memory queue’ has been added to allow
programs to take action when the system is about to run out of. mem-
ory and reduce the number of mysterious out-of-memory crashes.
The system 5.0 Installer now allows you to select several items to
be installed at one time by holding down the shift key while you
select the ones you want. It also requires a reduced number of swaps
on one-drive systems. It's more important than ever that you use it,
however, Just copying the files you think you need, particularly with a
ProDOS 8 file utility, is asking for trouble, Some of the system 5.0
files include a ‘resource fork’ that ProDOS 8 programs can't deal with,
The system 5.0 Advanced Disk Utility has been modified to allow 7
devices per interface card and 32 partitions per device. Previously it
allowed just 7 partitions no matter how many devices were available.
Software developers get several new tools and features in system
5.0. Our sources say it is now easier to write many desktop programs
for the IIgs than for the Macintosh because
wall - | the Iigs tools do more of the work. System
reer 5.0 also includes a new text ‘edlting. tool
which essentially gives developers a built-in
many desktop | desktop-based full-screen editor they can use
programs for in their software, and a resource manager.
the Ilgs than The resource manager allows programmers to
ig 3 separate program code from program
for the Macin- | resources, such as the text and icons dis
tosh because played by the pore This ae program:
mers to make changes In text or in the screen
the Ilgs tools position of an ane without recompilation of
do more of the | the program, which saves a bunch of time.
work. Other new features for programmers are calls
that will start up and shut down all the togls
an application needs at once and a rewritten
GS/OS-AppleShare-aware standard file selection tool that can display
only files that match specified file types and aux types and that allows
the user to select multiple files, not just one.
System Software 5.0 not only replaces version 4.0 for non-net-
worked computers, it replaces system 3.2 and AppleShare igs Work-
station Software for systems connected to AppleTalk networks. Under
system 5.0, AppleShare support is provided through a new FST or file
system translator. AppleShare file servers show up on the Finder desk-
top (and in GS/OS programming calls) just like any other storage
device. In addition to being able to access the network by starting up
from local disks, users may boot GS/OS over the network. This means
computers can operate on the network without their own disk drives.
System 5.0 includes an ‘@" prefix that points to the user's folder on
AppleShare for use by configuration files (if you're not using Apple-
Share, this prefix points to the subdirectory the application resides
in).
Uncharacteristically, Apple announced the Apple ligs System
Software 5.0 package without having it ready for release--with-
out even a formal release date. This is unusual for Apple. { think it
means that Apple wants to show it has heard user concerns about its
commitment to the Apple II and wants to demonstrate its commit-
ment.
The second paragraph of Apple's press release on the new system
software contained the following quote from Jean-Louis Gassee, presi-
dent of the Apple Products division, ‘The Apple {I continues to be an
important part of our business. Products such as Appie ligs System
Software 5.0 and the Apple Il Video Overlay Card, introduced last
month, demonstrate Apple's continued commitment to providing evo-
lutionary improvements that add functionality and richness to the
Apple I computing experience." (Don't expect MacWeek or MacWorld
to publish.that, however.)
A separate Apple press release distributed at AppleFest reviewed
the history and current status of the Apple Il. It ended with a section
entitled:
Vol. 5, No. 5
Apple Il and Macintosh Co-existence
The Apple Il product line represents an important part of Apple's
business. Apple, will continue to enhance the Apple Hi product line
and offer new functionality through incremental improvements that
extend the value of our Apple il customers' current investment.
Apple intends to sell Apple fl products as long as Apple customers
want to buy them, and Apple will provide these customers with a
high level of support for many years to come. The Apple Il product
line will continue to be-a viable choice for many customers into the
1990's:
Apple's philosophy is to change the world by providing tools that
enable individuals to be more creative and efficient-as well as do
things never done before. The Apple II has been a powerful start in
that direction. Years of experience with the
"We recag- Apple ii have taught the company a
nize that our deal and paved the way for the Macintosh,
ss be the next generation of computers with
cueromers DAVE. extraordinary technological _ capabilities.
different needs | Appie’s customers are finding that both the
and requite- Apple II and the Macintosh provide excelient
ments for the value, and that in environments calling for
computers they multiple computers, both products work well
choose, andwe | together for complementary tasks. This co-
are fortunate existence is fostered by the AppleTalk Net-
to be able to work System and many peripherals such as
offer them a printers, file servers and disk drives, which
| growing range ar eure to be shared by both families
en a lucts,
of choices. “We recognize that our customers have
different needs and requirements for the
computers they choose, and we are fortunate fo be able fo offer
them a growing range of choices,’ said Jean-Louis Gassee. ‘Just
because the world now has automatic transmissions doesnt mean
that we no longer have stick shifts."
While I don't believe Apple's management has made a complete
turn-around in its attitude toward the Apple Il, | do believe the ship is
turning, I'd be more at ease if Gassee had compared the Macintosh to
a luxury sedan and the Apple II to a sports car and if the press release
had recognized that the Apple Ilgs belongs to the same generation of
computers as the Macintosh, but the seed of the idea is there and it's
the Apple II community's job to nurture it-using positive response to
good Apple developments and continued pressure,
Opinions as to what exactly Apple should do to keep the Apple II
community (and its essential core of developers) enthused, happy,
and loyal vary widely. But ‘il clearly state my own opinion: the prob-
lem is not technology. While Apple's technological commitment to the
Apple Il isn't perfect (where's the ImageWriter LQ driver?), it's good.
The problem is Apple's marketing commitment.
First, Apple must give the Apple Il a distinct identity from the Mac-
intosh. Apple's current positioning of the Apple II as a computer that
does what Macintosh does, but not quite as well, is insane. This iden-
tity could be based on cost, color, the keyboard interface, the ability
of the Apple II to run both traditional and graphics-based programs, or
other factors, The important thing is that Apple must give the Apple II
a unique market position and identity that's as distinct from the Mac-
intosh as beer is from wine.
Second, Apple should attack potential markets with the Apple Il
rather than continue its retreat of the last ten years. The natural mar-
ket for the Apple Il is the consumer market. with strong links to both
education and small business. There is no reason Apple couldnt sell
100 million Apple Ils if it would just think of it as a consumer product
similar to a VCR, television, or microwave oven.
Third, Apple must sell its own employees on the Apple Il. Apple's
customers have far more respect and loyalty to the product line than
most of its own employees do. Outside of a few pockets of Apple II
enthusiasts in engineering, product marketing, and developer ser-
vices, Apple employees know far more about Macintoshes than they
know about Apple Ils. If Apple's employees had feelings for the Il as
positive as those they have for the Macintosh, they'd do a better job
of selling it to dealers, who, except for a few pockets of enthusiasm,
reflect Apple's II-deficient attitude perfectly.
The 1980s are the decade in which the Apple II allowed Apple Inc.
to build the Apple Ill, the Lisa, and the Macintosh, The Apple Il
allowed Apple Inc, to make lots of mistakes in the process. If Apple
Inc. would make just one year, 1990, the year of the Apple Il--concen-
trating on the future of the Apple Il, not its past; concentrating on giv-
ing the Apple Il a unique, positive identity in the consumer, school,
and small business markets; and concentrating on selling its own
employees on the Apple Il-the Apple I would reward it by continuing
to produce a significant part of the company's revenues through the
turn of the millennium.
On the other hand, if Apple continues down its present path-build-
ing the Apple II primarily for the cash it generates, without a clear
sense of market position or identity; retreating from markets at the
first sign of resistance; and training its employees that one of its prod-
uct lines is a generation ahead of the other when, in fact, the other
has caught up-other companies, be they Laser, Sony, Panasonic, or
Applied Engineering, are going to step in and take the Apple fi away
from Apple. There just arent many $1 billion-a-year consumer mar-
kets as ripe for plundering as this one is.
Just touch a button and...
If 1 were going to give an award for Most Questionable Over-
Exaltation of a new computer product in the last five years, it would
have to go to Apple's aptly named HyperCard. Not that the product
isn't important, mind you, but the sight of the entire Macintosh com-
munity failing all over itself in reaction to software that was, at heart,
an advanced version of Beagle Bros perennial worst-seller, Frame-Up
(written by yours truly), seemed a bit overdone to me.
Now the Apple figs community has its own HyperCardlike product,
HyperStudio, which was released by Roger Wagner Publishing at
AppleFest. It is the essence of HyperCard, optimized for the color and
sound of the Apple ligs, without any of the hype, as befits the Apple
tl,
HyperStudio allows Individuals to easily create and view presenta-
tions made up of text, computer graphics (still or animated), and
sounds. With additional hardware, the presentations can also include
television-quality video (still or movie). The ability to present a mix of
these traditional media on your computer screen and speakers is one
of the reasons HyperStudio and similar software have earned the clas-
sification, hypermedia’.
In addition, programs in the world of hypermedia must give
their users the ability to access these media mixtures in multi-
linear ways. Hypermedia offers many paths through a body of infor-
mation, not just one, Paths are taken by pushing buttons (well, you
use a mouse to guide a pointer to a sweet spot on the screen and
then push the button on the mouse). Modern mythology adores the
idea that there is nothing easier or better than pushing a button. That
element of modern mythology comes alive in hypermedia.
At the end of an encyclopedia entry on Thomas Edison you are like-
ly to find a note that says see motion picture, phonograph, telegraph.
Inside an encyclopedic hypermedia presentation on Thomas Edison,
on the other hand, you are likely to find buttons you can push to
obtain additional information on these same things.
A hypermedia author uses buttons to provide users with multiple
paths through his or her presentation. (Theo-
I'sa retically, users can also add buttons of their
own to connect or associate ideas; many peo-
powerful ple writing about hypermedia consider this
one of its primary characteristics. It's a pow-
erful feature, but let's be real-it's not magic.
The user has to find the associated informa-
feature, but
let's be real--
it's not tion by hand and has to install the new but-
7 ton by hand. How often will installing the but-
magic. ton be worth the trouble? Many enthusiastic
hypermedia promoters seem to think hyper-
media gives ordinary computers supernatural
powers. In fact, only UltraMacros can do that.)
The most basic presentation element in HyperStudio is a
“card” (there's no place on a sound or video to attach a button). A
card consists of a background graphic image and the author’s choice
of buttons, text objects, and graphic objects (still or animated). Each
card can also play one sound and one video disk sequence when dis-
played. A sel of related cards is called a ‘stack’.
Buttons are active screen areas. You can have as many of them on
a card as you can fit. You can leave each active button area blank (but
why?) or you can cover it with a standard button image, a button
image of your own design, or any other interesting graphic (how about
a map?). HyperStudio buttons can bring up any other card in the
stack (using one of a number of visual transition effects, such as top-
to-bottom or side-to-side wipes, fades to black or white, and more).
Buttons can also activate another stack or another program; they can
play a sound or a video, activate an animation, or trigger an external
assembly language routine you write yourself; and they can add to a
Score saved in a text file for testing purposes. Buttons can also be set
to auto-activale after a delay you specify.
Text objects are windows with text in them. The text that appears
in these windows can be typed at the keyboard (by either the author
or the user of the stack) or it can be imported from ASCII text or
AppleWorks word processing files (by the author). If there is more text
than will fit in a window, HyperStudio will add a scroll bar, unless the
stack author has prevented it (authors may limit some windows, such
as a window for an address book).
The contents of text objects can be stored inside the stack
(embedded data’-allows faster movement
between cards and allows the entire stack
to be in one file) or left in separate files
on a disk, If left on disk, a copy of the
text can be stored either in the same sub-
directory as the stack itself (‘focal data'-
much larger stacks are possible but the
whole subdirectory must be copied to
transfer a stack to another disk) or the
text object can just point to the original
text on the disk, wherever it is (‘extended
data’-allows updating of information inde-
pendently of HyperStudio and information
sharing by several stacks, but at the price
of speed and transferability).
Graphic objects can be created within HyperStudio using its built-
in painting tools. Or you can use any other Ilgs graphics program that
uses 640-mode Super High Resolution. An animation is a set of
related graphics in files with enumerated names such as BOUNCEOI,
BOUNCEO2, BOUNCE0S. HyperStudio can import any standard 640-
mode SHR graphic. It allows you to make windows for your graphic
objects any size you like and you can move any part of a graphic into
a window. Like text objects, the actual graphic data can be embed-
ded, local, or extended.
HyperStudio's painting tools can also be used to create card back-
grounds. An ‘Add Clip-Art’ function for pasting specific parts of 640-
mode SHR graphics on to backgrounds is available, as is a text tooi
for putting text on backgrounds. Stacks are smaller if many cards
share the same background-HyperStudio keeps just one copy of each
background no matter how many cards use it.
HyperStudio also includes a ‘print' command for printing a card, a
group of cards, or a stack; and a ‘find’ command that will display
cards that include specified text.
HyperStudio comes with a microphone, a small digitizing board
that doesn't use a slot, and a separate program, called Sound Shop,
for recording and manipulating sounds, Sounds can also be recorded
from within HyperStudio, but you have more control over the quality
of a recorded sound if you start in the Sound Shop and then load the
resulting sound file into HyperStudio. Sound Shop and HyperStudio
both use the sound chip in the Ilgs and produce high quality sounds
that could be used, for éxample, to teach the pronunciation of words.
Sound Shop gives you control over record and playback rates, vol-
ume, echo, and number of repeats. It also allows you to fade sounds
in or out, filter out hiss, layer one sound over another, reverse a
sound, and create stutter effects. It will add playback rate and volume
data to sound files from other digitizing systems so that they can be
more easily used by HyperStudio. .
Stacks are made
up of cards
consisting of:
+ backgrounds
+ buttons
+ text objects
+ graphic objects
+ sounds, and
+ videos.
3.300 Ads-Central
HyperStudio comes with four disks, The first is a GS/OS system
disk that includes Sound Studio, Browser (a program for browsing
sound files), and programs that make your ligs display a graphic of
your choice at boot-up, a sound of your choice at boot-up, and a
sound of your choice when an error occurs, The second disk includes
HyperStudio and a number of sample stacks. The third disk is full of
sample graphics files. The fourth disk is full of sample sound files.
In working with HyperStudio, | quickly realized that the ability to
add sound clips to cards and buttons added a whole new dimension
to potential presentations. Dramatic or funny sounds can be used as
part of the transition from card to card. Or sound can be used to
teach music, foreign languages, or what a heart murmur sounds like.
Yet another dimension is possible by adding digitized photographs
to cards. IIgs 640-mode SHR graphics aren't quite photographic quali-
ty, but they are close enough to be surprising. HyperStudio doesn't
come with any equipment for digitizing video or scanning pho-
tographs or art work-that would easily double or triple the $124.95
price tag of the product. But the market for IIgs digitizers and scan-
ners will improve quickly because of Hyper-
HyperStudio Sudo, a
has built-in Beyond digitized images are video images.
These television-quality pictures can't be
commands for | stored in a disk file, but with the addition of a
controlling a video disk player and Ae new Video
" Overlay Card you can get them to appear on
Pioneer 4200 your computer screen-either as stills or in
videodisk. motion. HyperStudio.has built-in commands
for controlling a Pioneer 4200 videodisk play-
er, or compatible, through the serial port on the IIgs.
But what good is it? HyperStudio could be used for training, ref-
erence, entertainment, or other purposes, As a medium of communi-
cation, hypermedia excels in situations where text, graphics, or sound
alone isn't enough and where it's helpful to give the user control over
the order in which information is presented. Weaknesses-for the user
~are that hypermedia \s tied to some fairly expensive, immobile com-
puter equipment, .
Clearly, early users of HyperStudio will be stack authors. If you're
not interested in creating stacks-only using them-there isn’t much
available to use at the moment. Authors who switch from other media
to hypermedia will do so to be able to take advantage of its’strengths,
to get some leverage from its newness and sexiness, and because it
offers a relatively low entry-cost that may lead to a lot of self-publica-
tion compared to other media.
On the other hand, creating useful stacks will turn out to be every
bit as difficult as writing useful books-if not more so because of the
necessity of dealing with several media. Stacks I've seen in the past
for the Macintosh have generally been too shallow to be worth using
more than once. For example, Apple has a HyperCard system set up
in it's company library that shows general information such as what
part of the library magazines are in, but it doesn't include anything as
useful as a list of the magazines actually in the library's collection,
what issues are available, or what the call numbers are. A good stack
is hard to find,
Since Apple includes HyperCard in the box with every Macintosh,
every Macintosh is a potential HyperCard machine. A significant prob-
lem for HyperStudio stack authors is that their market is limited by
the sale of HyperStudio itself. To get around this, Roger Wagner Pub-
lishing should develop a ‘run-time’ or “display module’ for HyperStu-
dio that allows stacks to be displayed but not created or edited (no
menu bar). This could be licensed to stack authors, who could
include it with their products. This would open up.the entire universe
of Apple ligs machines to ‘StudioWare’.
One important note. The version of HyperStudio released at Apple-
Fest is not the final version and it doesn't include a few of the fea-
tures I've mentioned here (nor does it include a few features it's sup-
posed to have that | haven't mentioned). It does comes with the
promise of two free updates between now and the end of the year,
however, and it certainly has enough working features for those who
want to get started creating stacks. Because of the programmable
nature of HyperStudio, we've decided to carry it in our catalog at $99
for those of you who are interested in getting a copy. And Uncle DOS
is interested in any observations or questions about the product that
those of you using HyperStudio come up with.
Yol. 5, No. 5
Miscellanea
Laser Computer announced a one-year warranty on all its prod-
ucts sold to consumers as of May 1. “This gives us a tremendous edge
in the Apple I] market and shows the industry that Laser Computer is
serious about standing behind the products we sell,” said Frank Pol-
lard, Customer Support Manager of Laser Computer, Inc. Currently, all
Apple products come with a only a 90-day warranty. Laser has also
formed an Educational Advisory Board consisting of fourteen experts
in various positions in education to identify high-quality educational
software that runs on Laser computers and to help Laser define future
products for educational institutions.
Claris announced its new site licensing program for Apple-
Works and AppleWorks GS at AppleFest. Site licensing allows a school
to legally duplicate an unlimited number of copies of Claris software
for on-site use. The cost of the license is $1,750 per site for either
AppleWorks or AppleWorks GS or $2,250 for both. Claris considers a
‘site’ to be a single school, although multi-school quantity discounts
are available to districts. Claris is also offering sitelicense discounts
to schools that already own Its software. An upgrade unit of 5 single
copies, a 10-pack, or a network version of either AppleWorks or
AppleWorks GS is worth a discount of $500 off of the cost of the
license. There are no annual fees for maintaining the license, howev-
er, there may be additional fees to upgrade to more advanced ver-
sions of a product. For more information or a contract, cail Claris at
800-747-SITE or 408-987-7000. Site licenses are currently available
for U.S. schools and Claris is considering making them available in
Canada and Australia as well.
Further notes on the AppleWorks GS 1.0v2 update sent to all regis-
tered users last month (see ‘News from Claris’, page 5.26)~existing
1.0 files can be opened directly with the new version. However, data
base and spreadsheet files created with 1.0v2 cannot be opened with
the original AppleWorks GS. The update includes a 34 page manual,
most of which supplements the original AppleWorks GS manuals.
Registered Claris users who live in the U.S. have also been receiv-
ing a 16-page newsletter on AppleWorks and AppleWorks GS every
other month since the beginning of the year. It's called Technical
Solutions. It's very nicely done and well worth a bi-monthly read.
Claris has been doing a lot of things right since it got on its feet and
discovered the importance of the Apple Il market-Technical Solu-
tions is among its best.
Another new Apple II publication is 1! at Work: Apple II Pro-
ductivity News. II at Work is a controlled circulation newspaper.
We've made arrangements for all of our current subscribers to receive
at least one copy in the mail for free. Look for it and fill out the free
subscription form on the back. Barney Stone. publisher of DB Mas-
ter, is the source of the energy behind J! at Work.
Meanwhile, the AppleWorks Journal from Sage Publications has
quietly disappeared.
Beagle Bros announced three new products at AppleFest,
TimeOut TeleComm (69.95), TimeOut ReportWriter ($79.95), and
GS Font Editor ($49.95). In addition, new Beagle versions of two
other products were officially released, Program Writer ($49.95), for-
merly published by The Software Touch, and Point-to-Point ($99.95),
formerly published by Pinpoint Publishing,
(Beagle is also offering trade-ups to its products from a number of
Pinpoint products at reduced prices: KeyPlayer to UltraMacros, $30;
Spelling Checker, Document Checker (or any other Apple Il spelling
checker) to QuickSpeli, $35; Graphic Edge to TimeOut Graph, $45;
Pinpoint Desk Accessories to TimeOut DeskTools, DeskTools II, or
PowerPack, $25; Pinpoint Point-to-Point to Beagle Point-to-Point, $30;
include $3.50 shipping on any trade-up; Beagle Bros, 6215 Ferris
Square, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92121 619-452-5500).
TimeOut TeleComm and Point-to-Point are both telecommunica-
tions packages. TimeOut TeleComm works from within AppleWorks.
Point-to-Point is an award-winning stand-alone program that uses an
AppleWorks-like interface.
GS Font Editor is a ProDOS 8 program that can handle fonts up to
127 points in size. Normal, bold, italic, outline, shadow, and under-
line styles of the character you are working on are all displayed
together during editing.
dune 1989
TimeOut ReportWriter gives you a relational report generator
that can take information from up to 11 separate files. The files
can be data base, spreadsheet, or word processor files. Only word
processor files must be on the desktop when generating a report;
data base and spreadsheet files can be either on the desktop or on
disk. You can have as many as 250 fields in one report, which you lay-
‘out using a word-processor-like editor. Reports can be up to 127 lines
long and 240 characters wide. They automatically print to disk when a
report is generated. From there you can print them to your screen or
printer.
ReportWriter has a rich set of functions that can be used within
fields. These include numeric range functions (Average, Count, Maxi-
mum, Minimum, and Sum), numeric non-range functions (Absolute
Value, Integer, Negate, Maximum, Minimum, Page Number, Square
Root), rounding functions (Round, Round Down, Round Up-you can
select the number of decimal places with each of these), text func-
tions (Capitalize First Letters, Convert to Upper Case, Convert to
Lower Case, Left, Middle, Right, Concatenate, Find, Change a Number
to Text), special functions (Choose, If, Match, Select Records}, and
date functions that can convert dates between AppleWorks format,
text, and Julian numbers and that can give the current date or time.
The date functions make date calculations for aging reports simple. to
do.
As a report is being generated, data can also be posted back into
data base or spreadsheet files on the desktop. The posted data can
overwrite existing data or be added to or subtracted from it. Thus, for
example, you can generate a sales report that automatically posts the
sales data to an inventory file, subtracting the units sold from invento-
ry on hand.
| think TimeOut ReportWriter is the most significant ProDOS 8 prod-
uct announced at AppleFest. It adds a number of powerful, relational
data base features to AppleWorks that, particularly in combination
with TimeOut UltraMacros, give users pretty incredible power from a
point and shoot interface.
Even Newsweek has gotten on the AppleWorks band jon.
Social Studies or Economics teachers who order a semester's worth of
magazines for a class (45 cents per student per week) get News-
Works, a set of AppleWorks data base files filled with statistics that
students can analyze and evaluate to arrive at their own conclusions.
A 36-page Teacher's Guide, with lesson plans and student activity
Sheets that direct students in using the data base files, is included
A2-Central 5.37
{Newsweek Education Division, P.O. Box 414, Livingston, NJ 07039
203-646-0492).
Kyan Software is still distributing its line of Pascal products,
however, the company doesn't actively market the product nor do
they provide support other than a money-back guarantee. For more
information write Kyan at 1850 Union Street, #183, San Francisco, CA
94123.
ligs replacement batteries-identical to the original equipment
except that they have special slide-on terminal connectors that don't
require soldering-are available for $9.35 each from Nite Owl Produc-
tions, 5734 Lamar, Mission, KS 66202 913-362-9898. Your original
battery (you have to lift the power supply out of the Ilgs to find where
it's soldered to the motherboard) should be removed by cutting its
wire Jeads, leaving about half an inch of each wire sticking up and still
soldered to the motherboard. The new battery slides onto the old bat-
tery leads. Old batteries should be sent to Bob Shofstall al Nite Owl,
who uses a special process to convert the environmentally hazardous
lithium in the batteries into fish bait.
Apple gave a new CD-ROM disk to attenders of its early May
developer conference. The disk is split up into three areas: ProDOS,
Macintosh HFS, and music. The ProDOS section is full of just about
everything Apple has provided Apple fl developers in the past, includ-
ing technical notes, sample source code, various versions of system
software, and other stuff. The musical section includes 10 Apple
songs. Apple reportedly also offered developers significant discounts
‘on its CD-ROM players.
We've discovered the Apple International contact in Apple's Cus-
tomer Service Department. She's Diana Hogue, Apple Computer, Inc.,
20525 Mariani Ave, M/S 37-S, Cupertino, CA 95014.
Hometown, U.S.A. is a neat little software package that con-
sists of graphic files of buildings you can decorate, print out, and then
Glue together to make them three-dimensional. The buildings are HO
scale. The package includes a bakery, bank, church, drugstore, gas
station, hotel, library, one- and two-story houses, several other build-
ings, and eight files with doors, windows, signs and store fronts you
can cut and paste onto the buildings with your own graphics software.
Hometown, U.S.A. is available for $39.95 in either IIgs (Super High
Res) or Ile/IIc {standard resolution) versions from Publishing Interna-
tional, 333 West El Camino Real, Suite 222, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
408-738-4311.
Ask
Applesoft bootstrap
| have an Apple fle and would like to learn
Basic programming. Could you recommend any
books or disks to start out with?
John Wheeler
Shelburn Falls, Mass.
If you can borrow a copy from a friend who
has purchased a new Apple i! within the last
year or two, start with A Touch of Applesoft
BASIC, which Apple now puts in the box with
new computers. It's a good first-step introduc-
tion. (it's not perfect, however. Subscriber
David Lyons has sent us list of 24 corrections
he recommended Apple make to the book.
The most important are: page 67, line 110,
GOTO 17 should be GOTO 170; page 90, the
argument in the second INT example should
be -273.16, not -273, 16; page 92, the descrip-
tion of ONERR GOTO Should mention that any
statements following the command on the
same line are ignored, no matter what.)
If you want more after you've polished that
off, get Apple's Applesoft Tutorial and its
Applesoft Programmer's Reference. Tens of
thousands of people have learned Applesoft on
their own using these two books. The Apple-
soft Tutorial comes with a disk.
If you want to do much of anything with a
disk drive you should also get Apple's BASIC
Progra with ProDOS (includes a disk)
or ProDOS Inside and Out (disk optional) or
both. The latter was written by our own Dennis
Doms and me, | recommend you stick to Pro-
DOS, but if for some reason you need to learn
about DOS 3.3, the obvious choice is The
DOStalk Scrapbook by me and Bert Kersey.
There are other, non Apple I! specific, books
available on programming in BASIC. Dennis
recommends BASIC and the Personal Com-
puter by Dwyer and Critchfield. This is a gener-
ic book, not fully Applesoft compatible, but
with some practical program examples and
some philosophy of programming that Apple's
books don't get into. It's easy to write very hard
to read programs in Applesoft. Learning how to
write clearly from the beginning is a good habit
that pays off quickly when you find yourself
revising a program you've written some time
Now a word from our sponsor: we carry all
of the above books (except for A Touch of
Applesoft BASIC) in stock-because they are
the ones we feel are useful. See our catalog for
Pricing.
Integer BASIC lives
| bought.a disk recently at a local discount
store for seven bucks that included four sports
games, two of which were written in Integer
BASIC. | was able to modify one program to
accept single joystick {rather than dual paddle)
input. But it does funny things if my computer
happens to be in 80-column mode when I start
the program and | can't figure out how to fix
that. | tried the standard PRINT CHR$(2!) for
turning off 80 columns, but that generates a
***STRING ERR message, so I assume it must
be done with POKEs. Do you have a tip?
Harry Barr, lll
St Louis, Mo,
Integer BASIC lacks a CHR$ command
(although Bruce Tognazzini's ingenious Infinite
Number of Monkeys, which you could get
from Apple dealers a decade ago, demon-
strates how to simulate one). Consequently,
Integer BASIC thinks your CHR$ is a reference
to a string variable.
5.38 A2-Central
In Integer BASIC, strings are handled differ-
ently than in Applesoft. First, all Integer BASIC
strings must be declared and DiMensioned
before they are used the first time. But you can
recover part of a string (like the MID$ com-
mand in Applesoft) by just indicating the start
and end points you're interested in. Thus:
‘10 DIM ag (12) : REM A$ can be up to
20 RS="ABCORFGEIUEL” : REM 12 bytes long
30 PRINT A5(9} + REM prints "I0KL"
40 PRIWT AS(4,6) : ‘REM prints "DEP"
50 END
In Integer BASIC, PRINT CHR$(21) means to
print the string CHR$ beginning at the string's
21st element. But CHR§ hasnt been DiMen-
sioned (to say nothing of not having a 21st ele-
ment) hence, *** STRING ERR.
Back in the days of integer BASIC the prima-
ry solution to the lack of a CHR$ function was
to simply embed control characters within
quotes. For example:
‘10 DIM BELLS(1) : BELLS="
20 PRINT BELLS
30 BD
You can't see it on the screen, but when
entering tine 10 you have to actually press con-
trol-G between the quotation marks. Unfortu-
nately, this trick doesn't work with control char-
acters that move the cursor (the Apple Il
firmware sees the character, moves the cursor,
and doesn't pass the character on to Integer
BASIC), such as control-U (forward arrow),
which is also used as the character that turns
off 80-columns. So here's a more brute force
way to do it;
10 FORE 768,169
20 PORE 769,149
30 2OKE 770,. 76
40 PORE 771,237
50 PORE 772,253
60 CALL 769 : EXD
Universal parallel driver
Your latest issue mentions the Apple GS/OS
‘parallel driver’ as does the previous one and
indicates that various parallel cards can be used
if the driver is modified to look for the correct
ID byte. Maybe someone has mentioned this,
but I sure could use some information on what
the ID byte is for my ProGrappler card and how
to modify the driver to work with it. Alternative-
ly, is there a way to have the system poll the
card and ask for the {D byte so that | can find
out what it is? Thanks.
: REM "control-6"
+ REM ABA #95 (control-0)
+ REM UN@ $PDED (COUR)
Richard Greeley
Merced, Calif.
I should have added some detail on this
before now. And system disk 5.0, when it's
released, will include a new parallel card driver
that should solve this problem. Meanwhile,
with 4.0, first install a copy of the GS/OS paral-
tel card driver in the SYSTEM/DRIVERS folder
of your System Disk. Then work your way to
the Applesoft prompt and enter:
PREFIX /SYSTEM.DISK/SYSTEM/DRIVERS
FEM use correct name for your system disk
slr = 1
RM use corzect slot mmber for your card
PORE 768, PEEK 49164 + (SLOT*256)
BSAVE PARALLEL. CARD, T$BB,A768, 11, B§2ED
RENAME PARALLEL CARD, MY. SLOT. 1 CARD
RM use correct slot munber for your card
After making the patch and renaming the file
(we don't want a bunch of patched
PARALLEL.CARD files roaming around posing
as the real thing), reboot and run a GS/OS
application. Puil down the file menu and select
“Choose Printer’. The ‘My slot I card" selection
should now appear in the interface cards list.
We'd be interested in hearing what type of card
and what results you have when you try this.
AppleLink, Pers. vs Indust.
What is AppleLink Industrial Edition? How
does it differ from AppleLink Personal Edition?
To whom is it restricted?
Gary McLaughlin
Freeland, Mich,
in the beginning was AppleLink. It is
Apple's internal electronic mail and messaging
system. Apple has allowed its vendors, dealers,
developers, national accounts, user groups,
and significant others access to this system.
Next came AppleLink Personal Edition,
Apple's online information service for con-
sumers, After introducing Personal Edition,
Apple started calling its internal system
AppleLink Apple Edition. We think ‘Industrial
Edition’ is a much more meaningful name,
however, and that's what we've decided to use
to distinguish the two.
AppleLink PE mailbox
How about getting an email address on
AppleLink Personal Edition? | found GEnie, the
time | tried it, not easy to navigate, whereas |
find AppleLink very easy to navigate. That way
some of the rest of us can reach you in a timely
manner.
Stephen Bach
Scottsville, Va.
There's no doubt that in the beginning
AppleLink Personal Edition is easier to navi-
gate than more traditional online services. But
we've put a lot of effort into providing Appie Ii-
specific help files on GEnie that have worked
weil at getting our subscribers going without
much effort. After a few weeks on GEnie you
can be using fast, automated retrieval that gels
you lots of interesting information at the
expense of relatively little time online. After a
few weeks on AppleLink, however, you're still
opening windows one-by-one. 1 think youll
eventually find it both tedious and unnecessar-
ily online-time consuming.
While GEnie is where we're putting all of our
online effort, we do maintain a low profile on a
few other services. You can reach us on
AppleLink by sending email to ‘DennisDoms"
or on CompuServe by sending email to
account 70120,202.
AppleLink and Lasers
| have a two-year-old Laser 128 with ROM
v3.0. | have been very happy with this comput-
et, which has in all respects performed up to or
better than specifications. | use il with a Laser
peripheral box, containing a 1-meg RamFactor
‘and a Transend Modemcard. The modem is
Hayes Micromodem compatible.
i had hoped to run AppieLink Personal Edi-
tion on my computer, but it is one of the very
few Apple Il programs that doesn't seem com-
patible with the Laser 128. Using AppleLink
software I can get as far as dialing out to the
local Tymnet number, but when Tymnet
Vol. 5, No. 5
answers, the program locks and nothing further
happens. AppleLink customer service says that
the program wont run on a Laser 128. Before f
abandon this software, 1 would like to know
whether you know of any way that I can run the
program on my computer.
Stuart L. Astor
Bayville, N.Y.
Laser technical support says the current
ROM for the Laser 128 is v5.0. We've had one
unconfirmed report that AppleLink Personal
Edition will work with this ROM, however,
Laser itself wasnt sure, Laser was sure that the
AppleLink software was incompatible with it's
previous v4.5 ROM.
ROM upgrades for the Laser 128 are avail-
able for $25 (550 E Main St, Lake Zurich, IL
60047 312-540-891 1),
Apple Ils and Fax
Can you communicate with a fax machine
through your Apple II? If so, how?
Ken Buesing
Dubuque, lowa
Apple makes a device it calls a ‘fax modem’
that can transmit and receive pages of graph-
ics, however, the software that comes with the
device is only for the Macintosh family. The
combination of the fax modem and a Macin-
tosh makes for a very expensive fax machine
(and the fax modem doesn't even double as a
regular modem).
If what you need to do is send fax mes-
sages, you can write the message on an Apple
I! word processor and send it, using a standard
modem, to a service that can forward the mes-
sage by fax for you. CompuServe has
announced such a service (prices are 75 cents
for the first 1,000 characters and 25 cents for
each additional 1,000 characters).
If what you need to do is receive fax mes-
sages, youre probably better off with a stand-
alone fax machine. The cost of dedicating even
an Apple i! to full-time phone-readiness would
be prohibitive for most fax applications.
ligs PAL follow up
I have taken Peter Sandy's advice (December
1988, page 4.88) and spoken to Frank Revell at
Apple Australia. Apple has come up with a PAL
video output conversion kit for the IIgs in Aus-
tralia. It involves a daughterboard that is placed
in the socket of the video coder chip (MC1377).
This is something of a problem, since up until
about six months ago, this chip was soldered to
the IIgs motherboard on units shipped to Aus-
tralia,
Consequently, when you get the conversion
kil, the daughterboard comes attached to a new
motherboard! (The old one is sent back to Sin-
gapore to be reworked, Im told.) Cost of the
conversion is $A40 and | expect the dealer to
charge another $A65 to fit it. I'll send another
report after | actually get one,
By the way, the real reason that Apple is
offering this modification is that a lot of govern-
ment/education contracts are specifying that
computers must have PAL video output. Apple
hasn't done this just out of the goodness of its
heart.
John D, Smyth
Blackburn, Vic,
dune 1989
JSR DOS 3.3
How is DOS 53.3 disk access performed from
assembly language?
Jonathan Famous
Gilbertsville, Pa,
There are three different ways to accomplish
this. One is to print ASCII strings containing
the normal DOS 3.3 commands you'd use with
Applesoft. The second is to fill out a table
called the File Manager Parameter list and call
the DOS 3.3 file manager (much like using the
ProDOS machine language interface). The third
is to fill out a table called the input/output con-
trol block, or IOB, and call the Read/Write
Track Sector routines inside DOS 5.3.
Each of the three ways includes some tricky
steps too complicated to go into here. Howev-
er, there's an excellent book available (if 1 do
Say so myself) that includes chapters with com-
plete information-including all tricks-on each
of these ways of accessing DOS 3.3 from
assembly language (to say nothing of many
other chapters of good stuff). It's called The
DOStalk Scrapbook: it's by me and Bert
Kersey; and it's available through our catalog.
Another possibility is Beneath Apple DOS b y
Worth and Lechner if you can find a friend who
has a copy; it's out of print.
File recovery via TXT
I have a good easy hint for recovering some
of those funny AppleWorks files that get messed
up and won't load. Change the filetype of the
file to TXT and ‘make a new file for the word
processor...from an ASCII text file’ with it. |
used an obscure part of Beagle Bros’ Apple-
Works add-on FileMaster to change the identity
of my lost file from an unreadable AWP (Apple-
Works word processor) file to a TXT (generic
ASCII text) file. AppleWorks read the TXT file
without any problem. My lost text was recoy-
ered, only needing to have little bits of format-
ting garbage edited out. This is easy to do using
the AppleWorks ‘replace’ function.
John J, Smith
Arlington, Mass.
We missed Timeout FileMaster's ability to
change file types when we gave our overview
of the Timeout series in December. However,
you don't need it. As mentioned here in August
1987 (‘Another use for AppleWorks‘, page
3.55) AppleWorks doesn't actually check a
file's type when you tell it ‘make a new file
from a text (ASCil) file’. It can make a new file
out of anything, including an AWP file. Just
type in the name of the file you want to load.
(if you load text files using the point-and-shoot
enhancement included with Late Night Patches
(see December 1988, page 4.84), however,
you are limited to TXT files only.)
AppleWorks file dates
How come when I save an AppleWorks file
the date and time of creation as shown in the
catalog get changed? | thought it would show
the original date that the file was created and
that subsequent changes would have the new
date and time in the date modified column of
the catalog.
Jim McMahon
Southampton, Mass.
our understanding of how creation date
and modification date are supposed to work is
correct. The problem is that when AppleWorks
Saves a file, it first saves it with the name
APPLEWORKS.TEMP. Since there is no other
APPLEWORKS.TEMP file on the disk, this is a
new file and it gets a creation date of today. If
APPLEWORKS.TEMP is successfully. saved,
AppleWorks next deletes your original file and
changes the name of APPLEWORKS.TEMP to
match the original. é
The reason for all this thrashing about is
that you still have a disk copy of the original
file if something bad happens while you are
saving the revised version (or if you decide to
cancel the save by pressing ESCAPE). It has a
couple of ramifications~one of them being the
creation date confusion you've mentioned, the
other being that you have to have enough
Spare room on your disk for the entire file, not
just for your modifications, when you try to
Save a file.
Full-time power
Explain -uninteruptable
please. Gotta be costly, no?
power supplies,
Keith Whaley
Los Angeles, Calif.
We've been using uninterruptable. power
supplies around here since 1985, Our January
1986 issue has a good overview (‘Reviewers
Corner’, page 1.98). These things consist of a
metal box with a marine battery (about the
size, shape, and weight of a car battery) inside.
The box has a-cord that plugs into the wall and
an outlet that you plug your computer into.
Inside the box are electronic gizmos that keep
the battery charged when everything is normal
and that supply your computer with 120 volt
AC power (made out of the battery's 12 volt DC
power) whenever the voltage coming in from
the wall starts to drop or falter,
if you have a hard disk, you should also
have an uninterruptable power supply on your
wish list, because if the power fails while
you're writing to the disk you're likely to lose
everything on It. (But then, if you have to have
the uninterruptable power supply anyhow, why
not skip the hard disk and just-use a RAMdisk?
Up until GS/OS made hard disks pretty much a
required piece of equipment, we leaned pretty
heavily toward the UPS/RAMdisk combination
in preference to a hard disk, and said so a
number of times~see, for example, "RamFactor
as hard disk’, December 1986, page 2.86.)
According to the latest Computer Shopper,
a 200 watt UPS, which is large enough for an
Apple il, hard disk, and monochrome monitor,
can be purchased from several sources for less
than $250.
GS/OS and disk space
| own a ligs with one 3,5 drive and one 5.25
drive. When launching an application from the
new GS/OS system disk, why must I swap disks
(‘please insert System Disk’) in the 3.5 drive?
What file could ] move or copy to my applica-
tion disk to allow a nice one-shot start-up from
the desktop?
Mark Bolduc
Albany, N.Y.
Moving files from the system disk to the
application disk won't help. GS/OS expects the
disk you boot from, which we refer to here as
the System Disk (capital S, capital D), to be
available at all times. If the System Disk is not
online when GS/OS needs it, GS/OS will ask
you for it, as you've discovered, There's no way
around this.
The only solutions are to figure out how to
A2-Central 5.39
squeeze your application software onto the
remaining space on the System Disk or onto a
5.25 disk for your other drive. Or, you can buy
another storage device. At the present time we
lean toward solving the storage problem by
putting together your own SCSI hard drive-see
last month's ‘Self-made hard drives’, page 5.28
and previous articles.
Apple VAR program
{ have designed a piece of automated test
equipment using an Apple lle computer. I would
like to market this device as a system-comput-
er, drives, monitor, and software all in one pack-
age.
What sort of licensing agreement would |
need with Apple in order to sell the software
and hardware? I can go with DOS 3.3 or Pro-
DOS. What sort of costs are we talking about?
Roy Roesel
San Jose, Calif.
if you want to include one of Apple's operat-
Ing systems (DOS 3.3, ProDOS, or GS/OS) on
your disks, you have to get a license to do so.
These have an annual fee of $50 (DOS 3.3 or
ProDOS) or $75 (GS/0S}. For more information
and the required forms, contact:
Apple Software Licensing
Apple Computer, Inc.
10101 , Deknza Blvd, H/3 28-B
Cupertino, CA 95014
408-973-4667
You don't need any kind of license to sell
Apple hardware. You'd probably like some way
to buy it directly from Apple at a discount,
however. Apple used to have a Value Added
Reseller, or VAR, program for this, however, we
havent heard much about that program lately.
(The minimum purchases required were far
above what most start-up. businesses are inter-
ested in, anyhow.) | tried to contact Apple's
VAR people on industrial AppleLink to learn
the program's current rules and status, but
they're not answering their mail.
ProDOS 8 changes
In a relatively short period of time we have
progressed from ProDOS 1.1.1 through 1.2, 1.3,
1.4 up to the current 1.7. As | was installing
ProSel on my hard disk I noticed the ProDOS
1.4B that-Glen Bredon uses, with an explana
tion that he has fixed a bug in it. fm sure I'm
not the only one of your readers who wonders
just what differences have been made in the
various versions and whether the latest version
is really the best.
Robert Sutherland
Toronto, Ont.
Apple includes a 20-page document with
ProDOS 8 when you order an update through
APDA that documents the changes since ver-
sion 1.1.1. Here are a few of the major ones,
Versions 1.2 and 1.3 included the following
changes: initialization of an auxiliary page
stack pointer; some changes in the handling of
a peripheral card in stot 3 (on a ligs, the con-
trol panel setting is consulted); interrupt status
is not altered on booting (ProDOS 1.1.1 always
turned interrupts off; some MU calls
(ON_LINE, OPEN, READ) were modified or
fixed; an enhanced QUIT call was implemented
for the Ilgs; the handling of index blocks
5.40 A2-Central
during a DELETE was changed; a bug in the
/RAM driver affecting a block read of block 7
was fixed; a bug in the ProDOS interrupt han-
dier was fixed; unclaimed interrupts are
buffered so that a single spurious (unclaimed)
interrupt wont crash the system; SmartPort
remapping from slot 5 to slot 2 was added so
that four drives could be supported by Smart-
Port devices in slot 5; the Disk II driver was
changed in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the
ProDOS track 0 bug; support for an AppleTalk
ATINIT file was added; a llgs clock driver was
added; the clock driver's look-up table for the
current year was updated; among other things.
Version 1.4 really fixed the ProDOS track 0
bug and got rid of a 65C02 instruction includ-
ed in version 1.5 that made that version dan-
gerous on a ILPlus or unenhanced Ile. Version
1.4 also changed the handling of the MLIAC-
TIVE flag-Glen Bredon's version 1.4B changes
this back so it matches previous versions,
In version 1.5 the MLIACTIVE change was
removed; interrupts are disabled during a sta-
tus call; a bug involving writing using too large
a positioning value was eliminated; and escape
is cleared from the keyboard when booting
(now plainly implemented for the sake of the
lic-Plus, which you can slow down to ‘normal"
by pressing escape after ~—open-
apple/control/reset).
No update information for versions 1.6 and
1,7 are included yet, but we understand
changes were made to give better support to
AppleTalk.
pe :
© Copyright 1989 by
A2-Central
progam published in A2-Central are pubic
domain and may be copied and dsrbvied whhout chage. Annie user guns,
land sintcant others may oblan perrssin io repent artces om Se o be
by specte wren request
‘Watton, edited, and published by
Tom Weishaar
vain hap ro
Dennis Doms Sally Dwyer Dianne Plumberg
Tom Vanderpool Steve Kelly Joyce Hammond
Dean Esmay Joen Weishaar
A2-Central,—ite Jaruary, 198—as been pub-
Ished monty since Janay 1985. Wordhwide prices (US. obfrs: imal
celery ined a no adore charge): $28 for | yer, $54 fr 2 years; $78 or
23 yearn. A back sues ae current avail or $2 ean bound, ndexed ed
lors of cuit four voumos ae $1485 each. Values ene wh the Jarry
‘issue; an nex rte pcr vole nuded wth the Februar st,
“The tl txt ofeach ssue ot A2-Cemtral'savatble on 3.5 disks, along
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Sider stuff, cont.
Category 11, Topic 15
Hessage 1 Sat Apr 22, 1989
D.LARSER2 at 11:17 PD?
The February A2-Central has a letter telling
about a replacement power supplies for 10 Meg
Sider 1's. The ‘PS-ASTEC from JDR Micro
Devices was a perfect fit electrically and physi-
cally and it only cost $25 as compared to $150
from First Class Peripherals."
Unfortunately, JDR seems to have discontin-
ued this power supply. Does anyone have any
ideas for an alternate source? | have a friend
who would prefer to spend less than $150 for a
power supply if possible.
Category 11, Topic 15
Sat May 06, 1989
at 01:45 PD?
1 cannot tell a lie. | wrote that letter to A2-
Central on the Sider power supply replace-
ment. JDR may not call it the PS-ASTEC now,
but I have their latest catalog (have them send
you one), and they have a PS37 supply (37
watts), $24.95 + $3.50 s&h, that looks like the
one | got for my Sider. Just a new name. My old,
dead, Sider power supply was 4.25" x 6.312"
and delivered unknown amps at +5V and +12V.
The PS-37 is 4" x 6.3° and seems to have plenty
of power for the job (+5V @ 2.5amps, +12V @
2amps).
My Sider 1 is still humming 4 months later.
JDR has another supply, PS-194, that is 4.125" x
6.5" and delivers even more power, at $19.95.
But the PS- 37 looks like what | used.
Extra notes: there is a small amount of modi-
fication necessary. | had to connect the com-
mon ground of the supply to the Sider power
supply case, and | bent the case just a smidgen
to make it support the new supply better, but it
was all very easy. Once you see how the exist-
ing supply fits, you'll see what I mean. |
removed the stand-off grounding post from the
old supply case and used that to ground the
new supply at a different spot.
1 assume you have figured how to get the
Sider case apart. If you can do that, you should
have little problem with the rest. And | bought
connectors to plug into the ones in the supply
for about $1.00 or so. AND, you need to know
that the wires in the Sider are as follows: black
is ground, red is +5V, and orange is +12V. I got
that info direct from First Class Peripherals. 'm
not an experienced hobby fellow, but I was able
to make it all work pretty easy. And to save over
$100, it was worth it. Good luck, and let me
know if you try it, and how it works out.
Cheers.
Craig Peterson
Santa Monica, Calif.
JDK Microdevices, 2255 Branham Lane, San
Jose, CA 95124 408-866-6200, 800-538-5000.
Modem hacking
What is there about my Hayes Micromodem
Ie (300 baud) that makes it operate only at 300
baud? Could | replace a chip or other compo-
nent that would upgrade its speed to 1200 or
2400 baud? Interestingly enough, { don't feel
the same way about upgrading any other part of
my Ie system, but that seldom-used Micromo-
dem board has just sat there in slot 2 for years,
not really earning its keep, and | would like, if
possible, to upgrade it myself to keep it up to
Vol. 5, No. 5
the state of the art, without the expense inher-
ent in purchasing a new one. Hayes Microcom-
puter Products company notwithstanding, do
you or your colleagues have any suggestions
regarding rebuilding/upgrading the speed of a
modem?
Bob Oringel
Bowie, Md.
We're not of aware of any way to upgrade it,
though our magic isn't very strong when it
comes to hardware. We trust that if any of our
subscribers know of a way that would cost less
than the price of a new intemal modem or an
external modem and interface card they! tet
us know, There must be hundreds of these
modems sitting on shelves around the country.
CDA keystrokes
1 have a bit of technical Information for any-
one writing a Classic Desk Accessory. Classic
accessories are usually written like text-based
applications and they usually poll the keyboard
directly for input. This can be a problem when a
Classic Desk Accessory is started from an event-
driven desktop application. In this case the
event manager is also polling the keyboard
when keyboard interrupts occur. This can create
a race condition where input is received by
whichever routine polls the keyboard first after
a key is pressed.
If the event manager's keyboard interrupt
handler polls the keyboard before the Classic
Desk Accessory gets around to it, the CDA may
not see the key stroke at all, This is a subtle
problem because the user usually blames him-
self for not typing correctly and simply hits the
key again; if the CDA gets the keystroke correct-
ly on the second try the user's feeling that the
Keystroke was mistyped is reinforced.
Of course, it's not the user's problem at all,
but a problem with the way the CDA was writ-
ten. The correct thing for the CDA to do is see if
the event manager is active. If it is, then
keystrokes should be obtained from the event
manager. This is what the Visit Monitor CDA
does.
A second method is to preserve the state of
keyboard interrupts, disable them during execu-
tion of the CDA, and restore them before quit-
ting. This allows the old tried and true method
of direct keyboard polling to be used while
insuring that keystrokes aren't missed.
Ray Montagne
Cupertino, Calif.
Move, Pick, Store
Using the Monitors move command (page
3.27) has its problems: one has to remember
where the start, end, and destination addresses
must appear in the command and, if the desti-
nation range overlaps the range to be moved,
there are strange resulls,
Under ProDOS, an easier method of doing
the move is to use the RAMdisk, Use BSAVE to
save the original range to /RAM and then use
BLOAD to load the range to the destination
address.
Minor point: In both the PICK and STORE rou-
tines in your January 1989 issue (page 4.96),
the combination of CLC and ROR (at bytes
$2008 and $2036) can be replaced by a single
LSR. This results in a saving of one byte in each
routine. This may not be much, but sometfercs
every byte counts.
Riaz Seedat
Natal, South Africa