Text content (OCR)
A2-Central’
TCC
A journal and exchange of Apple II discoveries
formerly
Open-Apple
if.
February 1992
Vol.8, No.1
ISSN 0885-4017
newstand price: $3.00
photocopy charge per page: $0.20
What’s new in System 6
Here's an inside look at what's new and/or improved in Apple ligs
System Software version 6.0, better known simply as System 6. Here
at Apple, we consider System 6 to be a major release since it intro-
duces significant new functionality in the form of new tool sets, new
applications, new NDAs, new control panels, and much more. Some
of the new components were frequently requested by users (the HFS
File System Translator (FST) for Macintosh disks is a prime example)
and some are unexpected (like the Media Control Toolset).
System 6 is expected to require about as much memory as a
similarly configured System 5.0.4 disk. It’s important to note the
words similarly configured — additional items that were not avail-
able with System 5.0.4, such as the new tool sets and FST’s, require
memory above and beyond what was needed for 5.0.4. A fully config-
ured System 6 set up (fully configured equals all FST’s, all NDA’s, all
Control panels, all drivers, etc. installed) will require slightly more
memory than 5.0.4 did. All that extra functionality has to go some-
where.
When the System 6 Beta CD was released to developers, it could
cleanly boot on a stock ROM 03 Apple ligs and leave a small amount
of RAM available while in the Finder. And the CD included more than
just all of the FST’s, drivers, etc. — it also included GSBug and
NiftyList (both of which take up additional memory). The footprint of
golden master System 6 may wind up slightly larger than the footprint
at beta, but it should be obvious that the engineers behind System 6
took great pains in keeping things as small as possible while still pro-
viding some exciting new capabilities.
Speaking of exciting new capabilities, System 6 includes
three new applications: Teach, Archiver, and synthLAB. Teach is
an elegant text processing environment, perfect for Read Me files,
perfect for quick notes to family and friends, and perfect for reading a
variety of other file formats. Teach can read files saved in the stan-
dard Apple llgs styled text format (text in the data fork, styling infor-
mation in the resource fork), plain ASCII, AppleWorks (8-bit) format,
AppleWorks GS format, and MacWrite v.5.0 format (right off of a Mac-
intosh floppy if you have the HFS FST installed).
Teach can save documents as styled text files, as plain ASCH
files, or as Installer scripts. Teach does not support saving files in
AppleWorks, AppleWorks GS, or MacWrite v.5.0 files.
Teach includes the bare bones features you'd expect in a text pro-
cessor: Find, Find Same, Replace, Replace Same, printing, and full
control over fonts/styles/sizes. You won't find high-end word proces-
sor features such as a spelling checker, a ruler (where you'd adjust
TAB stops, margins, etc), colored text, or the ability to mix text and
graphics. Teach is intended to provide a general purpose solution for
text handling on the Apple ligs, not be the next great word processor
to end all word processors.
Archiver is a hard drive backup utility with a desktop inter-
face (unlike Backup Il which is an 8-bit application). Archiver pro-
vides the basic services many users need in a disk backup utility: sim-
ple compression to reduce the number of disks required to hold the
backup, support for tape drives, and the ability to backup either an
exact image or individual files. There are third-party disk backup
applications already available that have more functionality than
Archiver, but Archiver's definitely worth checking out if you own a
hard drive.
synthLAB is a sample application that showcases the power
of the new MIDI Synth toolset. Originally available in beta format
from APDA for use with System 5.0.4, synthLAB combines a synthesiz-
er, a sequencer, and a MIDI driver to let users create new instruments,
record their own custom MIDI sequences, or play back other user's
sequences. Until you’ve heard your Apple IIgs’s sound hardware being
put through its paces by synthLAB, you just haven’t heard what that
sound hardware can really do.
The MIDI Synth toolset is a second generation note synthesizer that
handles most of the work required by an application in order to create
incredible music, MIDI Synth requires about 25-30 percent of the
CPU's time while running in the background (less if your Apple Iigs is
accelerated). There's already a commercial game for the Apple ligs
that takes advantage of the power of MIDI Synth (Dragon Wars GS
from Interplay), and XCMD’s for using MIDI Synth from HyperCard igs
or HyperStudio (ClipTunes from Triad Software).
MIDI Synth isn’t the only new toolset in System 6. There's also
the media control toolset, which provides a standard interface to non-
standard media devices such as laser discs and CD's. These devices
have a common high-level feature set; they can play, jump forward or
backward, pause, eject,and so on. But they have a very non-standard
application interface; some players have a serial interface, others con-
nect to the game port, some use numeric codes as commands, other
use short ASCII strings. The situation is so bad that laser disc players
from one company are controlled radically differently from those of
another and in fact, different models of players from one company
are controlled very differently from other models from the same com-
pany. Good examples are the popular consumer and industrial mod-
els produced by Pioneer. All are excellent players, but they are con-
trolled very differently by computers.
Prior to System 6, few applications implemented support for
[CRA TENN —
“ODDLY ENOUGH, IT DOES IMPROVE PC. PERFORMANCE . BUT
YOU'VE GOT TO MAKE SURE YOUR NITRO TO ETHYL -
METHALENE. MIXTURE [S JUST RIGHT, OR YOULL CRASH THE
DISK DRIVE AND CRAP OUT THE VALVES”
8.2 A2-Central
such devices because of the inconsistent approach needed for
each type of device. Those applications that did implement such
support generally only worked with a small handful of players.
During the course of providing support for multimedia
devices from within HyperCard Ilgs, it became obvious that a
general purpose solution was needed: one that provided access
to a multitude of radically different devices with essentially no
impact on the applications. The Media Control Toolset offers such a
general purpose solution, not just to HyperCard IIgs, but to any
GS/OS application that wants to push multimedia to the limits. Up to
eight different devices can be controlled at one time by assigning
each device to a channel. A channel is defined as the combination of
a type of device and a description of how it’s connected to your Apple
ligs. For example, a channel might have a Pioneer 4200 video disk
player connected via the modem port or a CD-drive connected via
your SCSI port.
Instead of changing the application to support a new type of
player, developers can simply create a media control driver for that
player, drop it into the user's System folder, and all applications that
support the media control toolset now work with that new type of
layer.
Phe Media Control Toolset includes drivers for Apple’s CD drives,
Pioneer's consumer models, and Pioneer's indiustrial models. Other
drivers may appear later, released separately from System 6 itself by
Apple, or they may come from third parties. Their format is fairly
straightforward and documented on the System 6 Beta CD, which
means the information should be available to all developers once
System 6 is released. Essentially, third parties could provide packs of
drivers for a variety of devices just like the current products that pro-
vide printer drivers for printers that aren‘t supported by Apple’s
drivers.
Included in System 6 is a new NDA for use with the Media
Control Toolset. Called the Media Control Remote, this NDA acts like
a super remote control; it controls all eight channels, provides access
to device-specific controls, such as turning on or off the left and right
sound channels on a laser disc, and provides status information, such
as which track is playing, or how many tracks there are on the disc.
Coupled with the Video Overlay Card, the Media Control Remote
opens the door to some exciting new possibilities.
The next release of HyperCard Iigs (version 1.1) includes a stack
that takes advantage of the Media Control Toolset. Called the Media
Control stack (ok, so the name’s not all that original, at least it's obvi-
‘ous what it does), it marries the ease of use of HyperCard IIgs with
the power of both the Video Overlay Card and the Media Control
toolset. Think of it as a user-scriptable super remote control for all
those multimedia devices, you just point and click as you create
whole new stacks that take advantage of all this new technology. No
scripting is required. The Media Control stack creates or contains
most of the scripts you'll need for a very wide variety of media activi-
ties.
The Media Control Remote isn’t the only NDA being intro-
duced with System 6. There’s a Find File NDA which quickly search-
es any online volume for a file. It can search in the background,
allowing users to keep working while a large volume is being
searched. Find File NDA allows users to control whether the search
string should be the exact file name, the beginning of a file's name,
the ending of a file’s name, or exist anywhere within a file’s name.
There's also a Calculator Desk Accessory in System 6. Nothing too
fancy, just your typical 4-function calculator that also handles hex-
adecimal. Users enter numbers by clicking the numbers on the calcu-
lator itself, pressing the corresponding number keys on their key-
boards, or pasting a number in from the clipboard. To access the hex-
adecimal functions, just click in the Calculator’s zoom box and it will
widen, revealing the hex keypad and two buttons that control whether
the calculator is working in hex or decimal format.
System 6 is the first release of Apple llgs System Software to
incorporate the Universal Access suite. Designed originally to aid
users with a variety of disabilities, the components of the Universal
Access suite are useful for all users. This suite is composed of Close-
View, Video Keyboard, and Easy Access, which in turn is composed of
Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys.
CloseView magnifies the screen from two to twelve times its origi-
nal size, making the pixels much fatter and thus easier to read by
Vol. 8, No. I
users with some visual impairments. It also makes it easier to line up
objects in any desktop application that doesn’t already provide a fat
bits mode. Since the desktop can now be several times its original
size, only part of it shows on your Apple Ilgs’s monitor. How then do
you control which parts show and which parts don’t? Simple — the
area around the mouse is always shown on the monitor. To scroll the
desktop so that other parts of it are shown on screen, simply move
the mouse toward the area you want to see. As the mouse gets close
to the edge of the visible area, the desktop will automatically scroll to
show a previously hidden area. CloseView only works with desktop
applicatipns, but does have key equivalents for all of its major opera-
tions so that you can turn it on or off and even adjust the zoom with-
out having to actually open the CloseView NDA.
Video Keyboard has been around the longest of any compo-
nent in the Universal Access suite. It's been available in beta for-
mat from APDA for quite some time and has been a regular on the
developCbDs. developisa technical journal published by
Apple that focuses primarily on the Macintosh, but its CD contains
some useful Apple I! material that's often not available to the public
anywhere else.
Video Keyboard is a special window that exists above all
other windows and even above dialogs and alerts. This window
contains the layout of a regular keyboard, allowing users to click on
the keys in the window instead of having to press a key on a physical
keyboard. Coupled with an alternative pointing device such as the
HeadMaster, Video Keyboard provides much richer access to the
Apple Ilgs than might otherwise be possible for some users.
Users familiar with desktop applications are sure to point out that
often modifier keys have to be held down while a key is pressed in
order to access certain characters within a font, issue key equivalents,
etc. No problem! Video Keyboard allows users to click first on the
me r (or modifiers if more than one is needed) and then on the
key. Video Keyboard simply holds down the modifier for you. To
release a modifier you didn’t meant to click on, simply click it a sec-
ond time. VideoKeyboard only works with desktop applications.
MouseKeys allows the Apple Ilgs’s keypad to be used to move
the pointer on the screen instead of the actual mouse. Once acti-
vated, the 5 key is the same as clicking the mouse, the 8 key moves
the pointer straight up the screen, the 2 key moves it straight down,
the 9 key moves the pointer up and right, etc. Just think of the 1, 2,
5, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 keys as arrows instead of numbers, each pointing
outward from the 5 key.
The 0 key is the same thing as holding down the mouse button, so
users can drag an item using only the keypad by first maneuvering the
mouse over the item, then typing 0 to hold the mouse button down,
and then using the eight ‘arrow’ keys on the keypad to drag the item,
and finally type the 5 key to release the mouse button. While that may
sound like a lot of work, it’s actually quite simple and proves very
handy when you're trying to align items on the screen (which is espe-
cially simple to do using MouseKeys since you can move the pointer
in a single axis with ease). MouseKeys is toggled on and off by press-
ing Command-Shift-Clear.
Sticky Keys is built into ROM 03 CPU's, but System 6 brings
that functionality to ROM 01 users as well! Some users have diffi-
culty holding down modifier keys and pressing another key at the
same time. StickyKeys simply remembers which modifier key (or
keys) were pressed one at a time before the regular key was pressed.
Thus, to type the equivalent of Command-Control-Esc using Sticky-
Keys, a user would press and release the Command key, then press
and release the Control key, then press and release the Esc key.
StickyKeys can be activated by pressing the SHIFT key 5 times
quickly. Once on, a small icon will appear in the upper right corner of
the menu bar. If a modifier key (or keys) is being held down by Sticky
keys, the icon changes to include a down arrow, providing visual feed-
back since the keys aren’t physically held down. Once activated, a
modifier can be locked down so it can be used with a series of key
presses without having to be pressed again each time, simply by
pressing the modifier key twice in a row. For example, the sequence
Select All, Copy, Paste three times can be typed using StickyKeys as
Command, Command (the second Command locks it down), A, C, V,
V, V which would be the equivalent of pressing Command-A, Com-
mand-C, and Command-V three times. StickyKeys can be turned off
by again quickly pressing the SHIFT key 5 times or by simply pressing
Downloaded from www.Apple2Online.com
February 1992
a modifier key AND a non-modifier key at the same time (which ind
cates to StickyKeys that it's not needed since obviously you can press
more than one key at a time).
The components of the Universal Access suite have all
appeared for several months now on the Developer CD's and on
the d e velo p CD's so that developers could have advanced
notice in case they needed to change anything in their applica-
tions to be compatible with Universal Access. Developers uncer-
tain whether or not they're doing everything they need to do in order
to remain compatible should read Apple llgs Tech Notes #91.
The most likely cause of conflict between applications and
the components of Universal Access seems to be applications
that write directly to the screen instead of going through Quick-
Draw normally (this was typically done to get a slight perfor-
mance improvements in the days before System 5.x’s faster
QuickDraw was released). CloseView has to patch QuickDraw at
boot time in order to work and applications going around QuickDraw
are then going around CloseView as well. The end result is that even if
CloseView is installed but the screen is not currently being magnified,
screen update problems can occur in certain applications. If you sus-
pect an application is incompatible with CloseView, or you simply
seem to be having weird things happen to your screen under System
6, remove or inactivate CloseView, reboot, and try again. Simply
avoiding the use of CloseView isn’t enough, you'll have to either
delete it from your boot disk or inactivate it using the Finder's Icon
Info window for CloseView and making sure its Inactive check box is
checked.
The Alliance for Technology Access Centers were licensed to dis-
tribute the Universal Access suite, along with electronic documenta-
tion for it, in late 1991. This was possible because Universal Access
was finished before the rest of System 6 and there was a strong
desire to get these important components to their target market as
quickly as possible.
Three new File System Translators (FST) are being introduced
with System 6! The first two are read-only FST’s that allow Apple II
DOS 3.3 and Apple II Pascal formatted disks to be used with any
application that properly supports GS/OS. These two FST’s make it
simple to move files formerly trapped on DOS 3.3 or Pascal floppies
onto ProDOS, AppleShare, or HFS disks.
The third translator is the long-awaited HFS FST — HFS is the file
system used on the Macintosh. The introduction of this FST means
that it’s now possible to read and write Mac floppies from Apple ligs
applications! You can’t run Macintosh applications on your Apple ligs
and only some Mac file formats are useful on a Apple ligs, but there
are definite benefits to this FST. The most noticeable benefit is the
elimination of the 32Meg limit for hard drive partitions (ProDOS-for-
matted files will always be limited to 32 Megs, but now you can create
HFS-formatted partitions).
Only a ProDOS partition or an AppleShare server can be boot-
ed from, so a user with one high-ca| hard drive would typi-
cally have a 32 Meg ProDOS partitions (for booting and for their
8-bit applications) and the rest of the hard drive (well beyond
the 32Meg limit of ProDOS) can be one big HFS partition. To
drive this point home to developers, the special System 6 Beta CD
that was sent to Apple II Partners and Associates in late 1991 includ-
ed four ProDOS partitions, the first of which was bootable on an
Apple ligs, and one 160-Meg HFS partition, all of which was accessi-
ble from a stock ROM 03 simply by booting from the CD. The HFS FST
was installed on the CD’s boot partition. The 160-meg partition is no-
where close to the maximum size of an HFS partition, it was simply all
the room that was left on the hard drive that was used as the master
for the CD.
The Control Panel NDA has undergone radical surgery—the
computer equivalent of a combination face lift, tummy tuck,
liposuction, and hair transplant. It barely resembles the Control
Panel found in System 5.x. In fact, the changes are so dramatic that
CDev’s (the items found within the Control Panel NDA) are no longer
called CDev’s. Instead, they're each referred to as a control panel and
users are no longer limited to only one CDev, er control panel, open
at a time. All of your control panels can be open at once if you want,
since each control.panel opens into its own window. In fact, if you
open the CDevs folder, you can open any control panel by simply dou-
ble-clicking on its icon! Since each control panel has its own window
A2-Central 8.3
under System 6, control panels can use smaller or larger windows
than the standard size imposed by System 5.x — SetStart uses a very
tiny window, while the AppleShare control panel uses a window that’s
very wide and very tall.
System 6 also introduces several new control panels includ-
ing: Sounds, SetStart, Media Control, Namer, and even one to
allow network booting directly into ProDOS 8. The Sounds control
panel allows sounds, stored as rSound resources, to be assigned to
various system events such as disk inserts, disk ejects, the regular
beep, bad keypress, windows whooshing open/close, etc. These
sounds are stored in the same format used by HyperCardilgs, in fact,
HyperCard ligs v.1.1 knows when it’s running under System 6 and will
also search for a requested sound in the *:System:Sounds folder.
Sound utilities such as Triad Venture’s Sound Convert should make it
simple to create rSound files for use with System 6.
SetStart allows users to easily boot into an application
besides the Finder. SetStart allows users to pick the Finder (which
facilitates restoring the factory settings), the currently running applica-
tion, or any application on the boot volume via a Standard File dialog.
The introduction of SetStart means users no longer have to know
exactly what file to rename in their System folder and no longer have
to copy their desired boot application into the System folder (or play
any other boot-time games) in order to boot into the application of
their choice.
The Media Control control panel (now there's a mouthful)
allows users to define how their multimedia devices are con-
nected. Users pick each of the eight channels, ignoring any unused
channels, and click on a list of drivers to indicate the type of device
for a given channel, then click on a list of connection methods for
that device. For example, my channel 1 is assigned to a CD-drive con-
nected via my SCSI card and my channel 2 is assigned to a Pioneer
4200 Laser disc player via my modem port. I could also assign chan-
nel 4 (skipping channel 3 just because | can) to a Pioneer 2000 Laser
Disc player connected via the game port (no serial interface adaptor
needed!) and channel 5 could be assigned to a second CD drive (if 1
had two) which would probably also be connected via the same SCSI
card that the first one was. Once your channels are assigned, the
Media Control Remote is about all you need to start dabbling in the
various media devices.
Users familiar with AppleTalk networks have probably seen
the old Namer application (an 8-bit application). Namer is used to
assign names to printers on your network (something normally done
by the network administrator). System 6 introduces a control panel
version of Namer that’s much easier to use than the old 8-bit applica-
tion. Once you've used the Namer control panel, you'll forget all
about the old way of doing things.
And speaking of networking becoming easier, System 6 includes a
new Network control panel that allows users booting over a server to
boot directly into GS/OS, like they did with System 5.x, or directly into
ProDOS 8 without having to install a lle Workstation card and con-
necting through it. Simply click the ProDOS 8 radio button in the Net-
work control panel and the next time your Apple IIgs boots from a
server, it will quickly boot directly into ProDOS 8.
Many of the control panels from System 5.x have been dra-
matically improved for better performance, a cleaner user inter-
face, simplification through combining several small control
panels into one, etc.
The AppleShare control panel is a little wider than it used to be,
making it easier to read the zone and server names. Perhaps this
wasn’t a problem if your Apple ligs was on a tiny network, but users
on larger networks should find this improvement to be quite a bless-
ing.
The AppleShare control panel also uses targetable controls (see the
explanation below) for its server and zone lists. As a result, users can
jump right to a specific server or zone by typing the first few charac-
ters of that server's or zone’s name. On a network with hundreds of
zones such as the one at Apple, this feature is almost mandatory
—without it, selecting zones involves a lot of scrolling.
The Time control panel has been rewritten. It no longer uses
popup menus to set the hours, minutes, and seconds. Instead, users
click on the hour, minute, or second portions of the time display and
either type a new value for it or click on the up/down arrow buttons in
8.4 A2-Central
the Time control panel to adjust the value. The month, day, and year
are adjusted in a similar fashion.
Other changes in the Time control panel include a display of what
day of the year it is and how many days are left in the year (which
simplifies planning your New Year's Eve parties).
The Time contro! panel also features a checkbox that lets users
decide whether or not they'd like the Time control panel to handle
adjusting their clocks automatically for Daylight Savings time. If you
prefer to track that manually, there are radio buttons for Daylight
Time and Standard Time, clicking the unselected button will adjust
your current clock’s time up or back one hour.
The General control panel is a combination of the old General
CDev, the Mouse CDev, and the Alphabet CDev. Now, you can
adjust menu blinking, cursor flash rates,,system speed, mouse speed,
double-click timing, display language, keyboard layout (USA, Dvorak,
etc.), and whether or not keyboard translation is performed. Keyboard
translation allows or prevents access to characters within a font that
requires the Option key to be held down. There's even a check box
that allows you to have your NDA menu alphabetized.
So much is new in System 6 that a Shortcuts file was added
to one of the disks. Prior to release, it was on the SystemTools2
disk but it could be moved to another disk if space constraints
demand it. Once you have System 6 installed, open the Shortcuts file
with Teach and you'll find tips for all-aspects of System 6, including
such gems as:
—Command-W always closes the front window even if it's a desk
accessory or control panel.
—Whenever you see a List control with a bold frame, you can use
the up and down arrows to select various items in the list, and you
can type the first one or more letters of an item to select it. (When
typing the first several letters of an item, you have to type a key every
two-thirds of a second or faster.)
—You can type letters to move around in the CDA menu (first letter
only). Each press moves you to the next line that starts with that let-
ter).
—When Initializing or Erasing a disk (in the “Initialize device SPLAT
as...” dialog), Command-Return works for the Initialize or Erase but-
ton.
—In the Finder, you can hold down Option and choose Control Pan-
els from the Apple menu to open the System:CDevs folder.
—Command-ShiftEsc opens the Control Panels NDA, just like
choosing Control Panels from the Apple menu.
—You can use letters and the arrow keys to select a control panel
icon.
—You can hold down the Command key and click on an icon to
select several control panel icons at once, or you can hold down Shift
to select a whole range of control panel icons.
There are some subtle changes to System 6 that may briefly
trip up experienced users who don’t bother to read the Short-
cuts file or the manual for System 6. Most notably, TAB no longer
advances to the next disk when a Standard File dialog is open. To
‘understand why, I'll first need to explain the concept of targetable
controls.
System 6 supports the same concept of targetable controls that
was first introduced in Macintosh System 7.0. A control is said to be
the target if key presses from the user are handled by the control
instead of being passed somewhere else or simply ignored. Let's look
at a generic example first: a dialog with two text entry fields. Normal-
ly, users would have to click in one field or the other to move
between them, Under System 6, if both are targetable controls, then
the current target is the one that is sent the user’s key presses. Press-
ing the TAB key tells the system to make the next control the target.
For controls other than line edit/text edit controls, a bold frame is
drawn around the current target to help inform the user where their
key presses will be sent. Text entry fields have a blinking cursor when
they're active (or a range of selected text), so no bold frame is need-
ed.
In a Standard Save File dialog, the intial target is the file name field
(where you type a name for the new file). Pressing the TAB key makes
the list of files/folders the target — pressing keys now simply moves
through the list of existing files/folders. While this may seem a tad
confusing at first, it take only a few tries to get used to this enhanced
approach to navigating disks,
Vol. 8, No. I
So just how does a user advance to the next online device if
TAB now does something different? Command-TAB moves to the
next disk. Also, Command-Esc is a new key equivalent for the Vol-
umes button, making it much easier to move between your online
devices,
Look around the system for other places that take advantage of tar-
getable controls. The AppleShare control panel is another great exam-
ple, it’s much easier to move around large networks when the
Fighting is unnecessary, gentlemen!
We've ordered 2 copies of System 6
zone/server/volume lists can accept keyboard input to jump to your
desired location without a lot of scrolling,
The Control Panels NDA isn’t the only long-time component of
Apple ligs System Software that’s undergone a major rework for
System 6. The Installer has been greatly simplified so it should
no longer be intimidating to normal users. Instead of forcing
users to pick which components of the System Software they want
installed, a new EasyUpdate approach has been implemented.
EasyUpdate tells the Installer to figure out what the user needs to
have installed in order to bring an existing or new system disk up to
date with System 6. The Installer looks at what you have already
installed (drivers, FST’s, CDev’s, etc) as well as what you have con-
nected (in case you forgot to install a driver that you really needed).
The old familiar list of scripts that could be installed is still avail-
able, just click the Customize button on the Installer’s EasyUpdate
screen. There are some changes in the custom installation area
though. Mostly they are behind the scenes changes that simplify
installation. If you select several scripts, each of which may include
the same file, the System 5.x Installer would copy that file several
times, once for each script that called for it. The System 6 Installer is
smarter than that — it scans the selected scripts and combines them
into one super script, eliminating all redundancies along the way. The
result is a faster installation and fewer disk swaps.
The Installer in System 6 won't let you install to the disk you
booted from, so make sure you boot from the floppy that the
Installer comes on. If you're not certain what portions of System 6
you need installed on your Apple Iigs, just let EasyUpdate handle
things for you. Bear in mind though that EasyUpdate won't add new
items, like the HFS FST, to your system. You'll need to use the Cus-
tomize mode for that after you've run EasyUpdate.
EasyUpdate also won't install applications like Teach or Archiver
since they could be placed anywhere, unlike regular system compo-
nents that have to be in exactly the right spot. Just use the Customize
mode a tell the Installer where you want those applications to be
placed.
One last note about the Installer — when you're prompted to insert
a disk, just stick the floppy in the drive. You do net need to click on
the OK button. No, the Installer’s not doing anything special, it’s actu-
ally a change deeper within System 6. Anytime the system prompts
you to insert a 3.5 inch floppy, the System will click the OK button for
you once it detects a disk has been inserted. 5.25 inch disks can’t be
detected as they're inserted, so you'll still need to click your own OK
buttons when prompted for one of them.
There are dramatic, behind the scenes, improvements
throughout System 6's Toolbox, but most of them don’t show
February 1992
up for end users. Instead, they open new doors or remove exist-
ing hurdles for developers. One of the most obvious changes you
will see is that the standard scroll bar coloring is no longer the coarse
black and white checkerboard. Instead, it’s a’smooth grey. While this
probably sounds like a trivial change, the effect in terms of polishing
the look of the desktop is quite large.
Other toolbox changes include support for larger font sizes and
thermometer controls like the one on the boot screen. Many of the
changes within the toolbox are the addition of new bits to define new
behavior, a change that end users aren't likely to notice but develop-
ers certainly have. There are so many of these changes that the lead
Toolbox engineer coined the phrase “we have a flag bit for that.”
There's one last major area of cl — the Finder. So much
has changed in the Finder that it really needs to be fully explored as a
separate article. Rather than make you wait in suspense until such an
article appears (editor's note: he can’t wait till next month?), I'll
briefly mention a few of the changes.
My favorite new feature may seem a little odd to some folks but it
makes managing the Finder's desktop so much easier that | now
expect all applications to include similar functionality. I'm talking, of
course about the new Windows menu. If you've ever had several win-
dows open at once, you know what a hassle it can be to find a small-
er window that’s completely hidden by a larger one. You have to shuf-
fle windows around so they're hanging mostly offscreen, or close
them and reopen them after you’ve carefully positioned the smaller
window. No more! Each window that the Finder opens is listed in the
Windows menu. Selecting a window's name from this menu snaps
that window to the front without requiring any other shuffling. Many
word processors already have this functionality, but | find it particular-
ly handy to have it in the Finder.
Holding the Option key down while selecting a window's name
from the Windows menu tells the Finder to close that window instead
of bringing it to the front. Another nice touch for managing your desk-
top.
“ine Windows menu also includes a Stack Windows item that, when
selected, neatly stacks all of your open windows on the screen. The
title bars are staggered vertically so that each title bar can be read. A
seemingly simple touch perhaps, but a very nice one!
As hard drives become increasingly popular among Apple
ligs users, files seem to be buried deeper and deeper within
nested folders. As you navigate downwards through the sea of fold-
ers, your desktop becomes a veritable junkyard of open windows.
What if there were way to close the current window as you were open-
ing a folder within it? As you dove deeper and deeper into the sea of
folders, you could keep only one folder open at a time if you so
desired (or keep only some of the folders along the way open).
System 6's Finder provides tunneling, first introduced in Macintosh
‘System 7, and also reverse tunneling, which lets you keep your desk-
top neat as you navigate back up the sea of folders. Holding down the
Option key when you double-click on a folder icon will open that fold-
er, and then close the parent folder (the one that contained the folder
icon you just double-clicked). If you want the parent folder to stay
open, don’t hold down the Option key.
Reverse tunneling requires two keys to be held down, the Option
key and the Command key. Plus, you have to click on the window’s
title bar. Don’t just click and let go of the mouse, you'll need to hold
the mouse button down because your action will cause a popup
menu to appear, dangling from the window's title bar. In that popup
will be the list of folders all the way back to the disk that the folder is
on. The top item in the list is the current folder, the bottom item is
the disk the folder is on, and the items in between represent the par-
ent folders for the current folder. Perhaps it's easier to visualize if I
say the middle items are the parent, grandparent, great grandparent,
etc folders. To close the current folder, and open a parent folder, sim-
ply select a parent folder from the popup menu and release the
mouse. The parent folder will be opened, then the folder whose title
bar you clicked in will be closed.
If you don’t hold down the Option key while clicking on a window's
title bar, you can still navigate to a parent folder, but the folder you‘re
coming from won't be closed. Together, tunneling, reverse tunneling,
and reverse tunneling without closing (for lack of a better name)
make it much easier to work in the Finder without introducing a lot of
window clutter.
A2Central 8.5
Prior to System 6, users have often asked how they could be
certain they were using a specific version of the System Soft-
ware. Hard core power users knew how to read the version numbers.
that appeared if you held down the space bar while booting, but
that’s hardly a solution for the masses. So, System 6 starts a new tra-
dition. On the splash screen, just above the thermometer that indi-
cates boot progress, the words “System 6.0” are displayed. As the sys-
tem is revised in the future, these words should change to reflect
what system is being booted.
If you forgot to check your splash screen during booting but still
want to verify what version of the System you're running under,
there’s no need to reboot. Simply open the Finder's About box. In it,
you'll see the Finder's version number, the System’s version number,
how much memory is installed in your Apple Ilgs, and how much
memory is currently available. Does it seem like there's not much
memory left over and you're certain it’s 6.0’s fault? Look again, the
Finder's About box also breaks out how much memory is being used
by the System, how much is being used by the Finder, how much is
being used by Setup files (things like SysBeep and GSBug), and how
much is being used by all those desk accessories you already had
installed.
1 was shocked the first time I saw how much memory my desk
accessories and setup files were using! So shocked that I cleaned out
the ones that I didn’t really use. | was surprised at how many desk
accessories were still active that I'd dropped in to try out, but never
used again. If you have a hard drive, odds are high that you're spend-
ing a lot more memory than you realize on things you don’t really use,
System 6 is in its final stages of development as | write this.
Engineering is working on their first final candidate, and Testing
is taking a deep breath to prepare for the big push towards
golden master. Hopefully, by Valentine's Day, System 6 will long-
since be in the hands of end users. That’s a little later than ! predict-
ed during last October's User Group TV broadcast, but | did say we
reserve the right to slip the schedule in the interest of delivering a
top-quality product.
So, where can you get System 6? All the usual places: order it
directly from Resource Central; get it from a User Group that’s
licensed to distribute Apple IIgs System Software; download it from an
online service such as GEnie, CompuServe, or America Online; etc.
System 6 is expected to be available in several formats: in the box
with new CPU's; as disks only for customers that want to save a few
bucks; for sale with the manuals that document all the new features;
and, if everything goes right, for sale on a special CD that contains
System 6, related sample code, related updates to Apple's developer
tools, updated interfaces, electronic documentation for the new tool
and operating system changes, and much more. Watch for more
details in future issues of A2-Central or keep in touch with your User
Group or online service.
As a closing note, many users ponder whether or not a hard
drive is needed for use with an Apple Igs and/or System 6.
Technically, the answer is “no”. You can operate cleanly in a floppy-
only environment, but you won't have full access to everything the
system has to offer (there just isn’t enough room on an 800K floppy
to hold all of the excitement that’s been packed into System 6). If you
have a hard drive, you're probably going to get a lot more out of the
system. My personal opinion on the subject is that it’s like wearing a
warm coat on a very cold day, it’s not required, but it’s generally a
darned good idea.
(Tim Swihart has been working with computers since his first FOR-
TRAN class in 1980. He was hired by Apple Computer, Inc to manage
Apple Iigs developer tools and is currently Apple’s Product Manager
for Apple ligs System Software, HyperCard Apple ligs, and developer
tools. Tim’s been part of the HyperCard Apple Ilgs v.1.0 and v.1.1
teams, the HyperMover team, the System 5.0.3, 5.0.4, and 6.0
teams, and lead the effort in the creation of the System 6 Beta CD.
He’s also written FreeWare and ShareWare solutions for the Apple
ligs, programming articles for the Apple llgs, fielded questions of all
sorts on America Online and GEnie, and recently co-authored a book
on Macintosh programming, Programming for System 7, Addison-
Wesley, Gary Little & Tim Swihart).
8.6 A2-Central
Miscellanea
The biggest news around here, miscellanea-wise, is that
Resource Central is the new home of all the Apple-label Apple II
development tools that were previously handled by APDA. By
the time this issue hits the newsstand, we will be fully stocked and
ready for your orders. Our prices will be the same as APDA’s or lower,
The best result of this development is that we will now be able to
offer System 6 and the upcoming ProDOS 8 System Disk 2.0 to any-
one. The licensing difficulties that prevented this in the past are
behind us. Check next month’s catalog for prices and a complete list-
ing of the APDA products that we have, or give us a call.
Early in March, Office Productivity Software, P.O. Box 1042,
Mahomet, Ohio 61853, will be releasing their third AppleWorks-
related product, Disk Tools, The package requires AppleWorks 3.0
and includes three TimeOut ™ applications. TO.Volume Backup
makes a full volume backup of your hard disk while compressing
data to reduce the number of disks needed and to speed the backup
process. TO.File Backup makes an incremental backup. TO.Archive is
used to handle NuFX archive files. This application is able to put files
into or extract them from both standard NuFX (.shk) archives or Bina-
ty Il encapsulated NuFX (.bxy) files. It also handles both the LZW/1
compression format used by the 8-bit Shrinklt and the LZW/2 format
used by Shrinkit GS.
Recognizing that the present economy makes it difficult to
invest in computer products, the president of the Morgan Davis
Group, Morgan Davis, is offering his highly praised Proline bul-
letin board software for the unbelievable price of $99.00. This
Vol. 8, No. I
information contact the company at 10079 Nuerto, Rancho San
Diego, Calif. 91977-7132, 619-670-0563, or fax 619-670-9643.
Rich man/poor man? USA Today recently reported that Microsoft
Corporation's 35-year-old William Gates may be the richest person in
America. The value of the 56.7 million shares that he holds in his
company rose to nearly $6.5 billion dollars on the first day of trading
this year. On the other side of the coin, however, the California Tech-
nology Stock Letter predicts, among other things, that Apple Inc. will
win the law suit against Microsoft and get an injunction against the
sales of Windows.
If you ever heard the Navy's Grace Hopper speak, you'll be
saddened to hear she died of natural causes on New Years Day.
She was 85. She had pioneered the use of compilers in the early 50's
and was involved in the development of COBOL, which is still one of
the most widely used programming languages today.
Apple Computer, Inc. has announced a special promotion for
purchasers of their extended service |, commonly
referred to as AppleCare. The promotion, which begins on January
20, 1992 and extends until September 30, 1992, gives AppleCare
customers the option of either deferring billing for one year or receiv-
ing rebates on selected Apple Computer products. For more informa-
tion contact your local authorized Apple dealer or call Apple at 800-
538-9696.
Of interest to European subscribers is the French version of
Ultimate Fonts by Kingwood Micro Software. According the King-
wood’s press release, this product is completely compatible with the
French version of AppleWorks 3.0C and UltraMacros commands. Con-
tact Beverly Cadieux at Kingwood for more details, (2018 Oak Dew
Drive, San Antonio, Texas 78232)
offer is good only until February 14,
Ask
Pve got the time...
On January 1, 1992, users of AppleWorks,
Publish It and all other ProDOS applications on
the Ile and IIc went back in time to 1986, at
least as far as dating files is concerned, that is.
This little inconvenience is not a result of a
problem with your clock card but a limitation
included within ProDOS when it was written
back in 1984. In fact, this same problem
‘occurred in 1987, ProDOS can only keep track
of, at the most, 6 years until it has to be
patched, Included here is a simple program
that will allow you to update your ProDOS Ver-
sion 1.7, 1.8, or 1.9 disks.
The problem occurs with an algorithm within
ProDOS after it reads your clock card. The algo-
rithm calculates the year based on the date and
the day of the week. Once this information has
been computed, ProDOS searches a table to
determine which year could produce the same
day/date combination it just read. This internal
table is seven bytes long and those years that
are leap years must be included twice. Because
both 1992 and 1996 are leap years, we can
only modify ProDOS to keep track of the next 5
“ears at this time. In 1997, the problem will
tart all over again.
1992. For further
After you type in the following program, save
it to disk as “UPDATE.PRODOS.” When you are
ready to modify a disk (you only need to modify
disks that you boot from), run the program.
When executing, the program will load the file
“PRODOS” into memory, make the necessary
patches, and save it back to disk-but obviously
with the wrong date. To test the new ProDOS
version, simply reboot your computer with the
newly patched disk. Make sure you saved the
program first.
When the disk boots and displays the Pro-
DOS startup screen, you should notice a plus
(+) sign after the version number, such as “Ver-
sion 1,8+". This indicates that the patch was
successful and that this is the new version.
100 REM Update ProD0S Year Table
101 REM Author: Edvard Girard Fantasyforks Software, Inc
102 REM Date: January 5, 1992
103 REM V1.9 mods by Tom Weishaar 1/13/92
‘104 RAM Pro00S Versions 1.7, 1.8, and 1.9 only
M0 DS=CHRS (4): Text: Bone
‘US Print "UPDATE PRODOS YEAR TABLE" : Print -Print
4150 Print “this program updates the year table”
151 Print * inside ProQ0S so that files are”
152 Print " dated in the 1992-1996 range.”
153 Print
160 Input “slot munber of disk to be updated: *;S$
161 S-Val (S$) : If $0 then Print D¢;"Bye”
162 If S<1 or $>7 then Print Chr§(7) : Goto 160
110 Input “Drive mmber of disk to be updated: ":D
171 If Dx1 or DD2 then Print Chr§(7) : Goto 170
180 Poke 9753,0 : Poke 9764,0 : Poke 9811,0
190 Print DS;"Prefix ,$";S;",D";D
191 Print : Print “Loading PRODOS"
192 Print D§;"BLOAD PRODOS, A$2000, TSYS”
200 If Peek (9753)=183 then 240 : REM V1.7
210 If Peek (9764)=184 then 250 : REN V1.8
220 If Peek (9811)=185 then 260 : REM V1.9
230 Print : Print ° ‘tee ERROR #88"
231 Print “Can't recognize this version of ProD0s”
232 Print" Must be V1.7, V1.8, or V1.9"
233 Get BS : Print AS : Goto 140
240 Poke $754,171 : Rem Add "+" for V1.7+
241 TableAdr=20854 : Size=15485
242 Goto 270
250 Poke 9765,171 : Rem Add "+" for V1. e+
251 TableAdr=21110 : Size=15741
282 goto 270
260 Poke 9812,171 : Ren Add "¥" for V1.9
261 TableAdr=21110 : Size=16509
270 Poke TableAdr,9§ : Poke TableAdrt1,95
271 Poke TableAdr+2,94 : Poke Tableadr+3,93
272 Poke TableAdrH4,92 : Poke TableAdr+5,92
273 Poke TableAdrt6, 96
260 Print; Print D$;"BSAVE PRODOS,TSYS,A$2000, 1"; Size
290 Print : Print “Update completed!
300 Get AS : Print A§ : Goto 140
Edward Girard
Bedford, Texas
Those of you who get our monthly disk will
find that the version of ProDOS 1.9 that’s on it
has already been fixed. Alternatively, just copy
it to your other boot disks. Nonetheless, we've
included this program on the disk as well as a
much longer program Apple is distributing that
can do a patch for any range of years from
1940 to 2039.
For those of you who'd like to know how to
patch other versions of ProDOS, look for the
hex pattern 5A 59 58 58 57 56 5B and change
it to 60 SF 5E 5D 5C SC 60.
If you use an Apple Ilgs, these patches
aren't necessary. The clock in the Apple ligs
keeps track of the year and ProDOS gets the
year from the clock when it’s running on an
Apple ligs. Clocks on other Apple Ils usually
don’t track the year, so on those computers
ProDOS has to calculate the year based on the
date and day of the week. Because there are
seven days in a week, this trick only works for
seven date/day combinations. And since any
seven-year period is going to have one or two
leap years, which contain two date/day combi-
February 1992
nations, the table has to be updated every five
or six years, This update will last through the
last day of 1996.—TW
Macro minded
It has come to my attention that, contrary to
my review, ProTERM 3.0’s macro language does
support arrays, after a fashion. The variables,
which are referenced by number, can be refer-
enced by another variable as well. For example,
referencing &$1 when $1 is set to 3 accesses
the third string variable. This is really more akin
to a pointer than to an array, but it can be used
to access different variables depending on the
value of a subscript. Another fact not men-
tioned in the review is that there are always
exactly 30 numeric variables; only the string
variables share space with the global macros.
Barry Hatchett
Detroit, Mich,
Calling it quits
I have become intrigued at the variety of dif-
ferent ways system programmers use the Pro-
DOS MLI Quit Call to exercise different options
in their programs.
For example, Glen Bredon’s ProSel Utilities
has a way of chaining a RESTORE program to
run after the RAM.DRV program has set up a
RAMdisk. Roger Wagner, in Ask Nibble of August
1988, also outlined how an ‘enhanced’ Quit (in
Prodos) could be used to run a P16 program on
the llgs provided that ProDOS 16 was already in
memory.
What I would like to do is get BASIC.SYSTEM
loaded and running in an enhanced lle, after |
have edited a TXT file with EDIT ITI, the superb
text file editor written by Bill Tudor of North-
East Micro Systems that was included with Talk
is Cheap. As the editor is mainly used in a 128k
Ile with dual 5.25" floppy drives, and no hard
disk or extra memory, | am reluctant to use a
program selector now that ProDOS 8 Quit code
is reasonably friendly,
Is there any chance of you giving us an
indepth article on different ways of using the
Quit call to advantage, and the programming
steps that must be implemented to achieve
this?
John Wolff
Hamilton, N.Z.
There are two separate issues here: ProDOS
8's “enhanced quit” actually passes quit infor-
mation to a GS/OS routine. Since GS/OS won't
run on the Ile, the enhanced quit won't work
there (or on a ligs where ProDOS 8 was booted
directly, for that matter).
Several of ProSel-8’s utilities quit to anoth-
er application by using a variation of the “start-
up’ protocol Apple described for ProDOS 8
system programs, Basically, the protocol
describes a standard way to embed a ProDOS
pathname near the beginning of an 8-bit sys-
tem (type “SYS” or $FF) file. To identify the
presence of a filename, the first three bytes
must be a 6502 JMP instruction ($4C followed
by a two-byte address). If the fourth and fifth
byte values are each $EE, then a program can
assume that the next byte is a length value for
a buffer containing a ProDOS pathname, fol-
lowed by the buffer. (Don't forget that the
pathname in the buffer must conform to the
ProDOS format with a leading length byte; the
byte before the buffer is the length of the
entire buffer.)
ProSel-8’s instructions describe how to edit
these pathnames for the utilities that use them
(some ProSel utilities also use multiple path-
name buffers). You could use a similar mecha-
nism in your own program, but the work of
reading the information from the buffer and
passing control to the next file is up to the pro-
grammer (that’s you). An example of “Iaunch-
ing’ a program from a “quit” mechanism is
given in Gary Little’s_Exploring Apple GS/OS
and ProDOS 8_, pp. 173-181.—DJD
(Word)Perfect Answer
In answer to W.A. MacDonald “(Word)perfect
processing’, A2-Central, p.7.95, Word Perfect
QS version 2.1e and 2.1f are both thouroughly
compatible with GS/OS 5.0.4. There is one
thing that must be done for the program to
work properly. This can be done only through
the graphics control panel from the Finder.
Select the keyboard option and set default
translation to none instead of standard. Things
will work fine after that.
While | wish Word Perfect would upgrade 2.1
with some bug fixes, they assure me that it is a
dead issue. In any case, it is by far the best
word processor for the Apple ligs in terms of
features and functionality. A word processor is
supposed to process words, not spend its time
playing with graphics. Word Perfect does this
and has a myriad of features not available else-
where in the Apple Il world.
Eric A. Seiden
Miami, Fla.
A2-Central 8.7
Icons and inter-connections
What programs are available for me to create
(draw and assign) icons for the Finder? | can
create icons for HyperCard Ilgs—can | use
HyperCard ligs icons with the Finder? I'd like to
generate some unique icons for a few of my
Applesoft programs and other applications.
I recently purchased a Mac Ilsi with a Laser-
Writer II NT for my office. I'd like to connect my
Mac SE and two of my Apple ligs computers to
the LaserWriter (and throw an ImageWriter II
into the network for good measure). | assume |
need an AppleTalk cable for each of the com-
puters and printers but what else do I need? If |
just want to be able to access either printer
from the Apple Ilgs computers, will GS/OS do
the trick?
And while I’m at it. I'd like to be able to mix
text (between AppleWorks and MS Word) and
graphics between the Apple Ilgs and Macintosh
computers. Up until now, I've converted an
AppleWorks word processing file to a text file
(using TimeOut), saved the file on a ProDOS for-
matted 3.5 disk, transferred the file from the
disk to a Macintosh formatted disk using Apple
File Exchange on a Mac, and read the trans-
ferred text file using MS Word. For graphics, |
have Graphics Exchange, but haven't used the
Mac-option yet.
Incidentally, my first issue of Script-Central
was impressive, enjoyable and very enlighten-
ing. | hope that you will continue to write about
Party Animals
I just finished reading your January issue
with the comments celebrating 15 years of
Apple. Most inspiring, Let me add one more:
As a consultant who specializes with Apple Il
jand Macintosh, | often get calls to solve
“impossible” tasks related interaction needs of
both computers. One day, I received a call
from a gentleman who asked me to go out to
his place to “fix things” so his Macintosh LC
would work with his new laser printer. I arrived
to discover that he couldn't get the printer to
lwork while using the Apple Ile card. A little
tricky but I showed him how to do it. Then [
discovered that this gentleman is busy writing
lsome pretty sophisticated programs in Apple-
soft BASIC on his Macintosh LC. He had taught
himself from scratch over a period of a few
weeks. What's so special about that? This gen-
tleman is 91 years old and is writing programs
to help his daughter who is a teacher at a
school using Apple II's.
Glad he found a useful function for his Mac-
jintosh LC. It took a Ile card to do it, though.
[And the next time someone tells me an Apple
II is good for everyone between 9 and 90, I'll
suggest he not be so restrictive.
This letter was prepared with AppleWorks
15.0 installed on a 1.44 meg disk (impossible!)
containing my dictionary, thesaurus, many
TimeOut applications, SuperFonts, and used
lon a Mac LC with the Apple Ile card. | am print-
ing it to a PLP printer which, | am told, is totally
incompatible with the Apple Il. 1 wish people,
especially those at Apple dealers, would stop
telling me all these things that are impossible
to do with an Apple Il,
Jim Low
Toronto, Ontario
In response to your January 1992 column: I
owned an Apple li Plus in 1980, and have con-
tinued to add to it since (I currently have an}
Apple ligs motherboard upgrade in an Apple|
Ile case). Until the recent shift by Apple, when-
ever someone asked “what should | buy?" ||
recommended the Apple II line, because it
could easily grow any way the user did. Mine
still grows with me, and it has enabled me to}
realize my dream of designing games in my|
spare time without giving up productivity or my|
day job. | will use other machines, but I'll
always show off my Apple ligs.
Ken (ReliefWare) Franklin)
1603 Northridge Court}
Clarksville, Tenn. 57042)
(Ken Franklin is the author of the very
entertaining and successful Apple _ligs
ReliefWare games Milestones 2000, Plunder
and One Armed Battle. ReliefWare is a con-
cept conceived by Franklin as a way to help
the homeless. He donates the money he
receives from his programs to aid the less for-
tunate.—edr)
8.8 A2-Central
HyperCard ligs and HyperCard on the Macintosh
as it relates to the Apple Ilgs. For better or for
worse, like it or not, the Apple I! will always be
a part of the Macintosh’s past and the Macin-
tosh has become part of the Apple II's future.
Richard Katz
Scottsdale, Ariz.
To answer the icon part of your question, we
consulted GEnie‘s icon expert, Lunatic. Here’s
what he had to say:
The Icon Editor stack that comes with Hyper-
Card IGS cannot be used to create Finder
icons or edit their attributes. When System 6.0
arrives, you may be able to use that Icon Edi-
tor stack to edit the new Finder 6.0 icon’s
images, but you still will not be able to create
them, The new icons in System 6.0 use other
new resources, called rBundle and rFinderPath,
which the Icon Editor stack knows nothing
about.
To edit Finder icons, right now, you need a
Finder icon editor, such as IconEd by Paul
Elseth, 2739 Fairview Ct., SE Rochester, MN
55901, $15 shareware fee; DicEd by Dave
Lyons, DAL Systems, P.O. Box 875, Cupertino,
CA 95015, $15 shareware fee; or Icon Editor
by Apple, soon to be available from Resource
Central. IconEd and DicEd are available on
GEnie as file #15301, ICONED.1.35.BXY, and
file #116153, DICED.1.2.BXY. They are also
available on other online services, from the Big
Red Computer Club, and probably from their
authors. Apple’s own Icon Editor never got
out of beta stage, so it still has a few bugs. It
A2-Central’
a
Copyright 1992 by
Resource Central, Inc.
Nest sits resoned. Al programs pubished in A2-Centra ae pubic
‘aan and may be coi ard staves wiht charge. Apple ser gus
and significant others may obtain permission to reprint articles trom time to
{ire by etc ween est
Pubs stor
Tom Weishaar Ellen Rosenberg
wit hep rom
Denise Cameron Dennis Doms Sally Dwyer
Dean Esmay Greg Miles Jeff Neuer
Jean Weishaar
A2-Central ted Open-Apple through Janwary, 1960s boon pub
lished menihiy shee January 1985, Workowde pros (n US. das; arma
‘Srey na aid cu) Sr yer 8 oes
3 years. Al bak ssues ae cuenty avaiable fer $2 each; bound, dese ec
{ee of ours sx volumes ae $18.5 each Vous end wth the January
Issue ander he pr velume included wh he February se,
“The ful tent ofeach isve of A2-Ceniralis avaiable on 35 disks, long
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doesn't have nearly as many features as
IconEd or DicEd, either.
SuperConvert from Seven Hills Software,
2510 Oxford Road, Tallahassee, Fla. 52504-
5930, 904-575-2015, contains an option for
creating icons from other types of graphics.
There's also an NDA called Instant Icon
that can save parts of the current screen as
Finder icons, but it cannot be used to edit
existing icons. Instant Icon is also available
on GEnie and other online services.
When System 6.0 comes out, you'll find that
it uses a new kind of icon, contained in
resources. The new Finder 6.0 can still use all
of the old Finder's icons, though, with no
changes. It actually converts the old icons
internally, as you use them. Right now, there
are no icon editors that can create the new
kind of icons and use their new features.
Genesys has an icon editor that could edit
the new icon images. The icon editor in
Genesys was written by the same person who
wrote IconEd, Paul Elseth. It even has the
same undocumented features, such as being
able to draw in a different color from the one
currently selected, by double-clicking! Howev-
er, until Genesys gets an update, it also will
not be able to create the new kinds of Finder
icons, or edit their attributes.
It sounds like you have the text transfer sys-
tem down, but there may be a couple of things
you can do to make it easier.
First, get some AppleTalk connectors. You'll
need one for each computer and printer.
Rather than Apple’s connectors, get the third-
party kind that can be connected with phone
wire. We just dropped the price on the ones we
sell to $19.95 each. You'll also need an
‘AppleTalk card for your ImageWriter Il. Use the
GS/OS Chooser to select whether printing will
go to the LaserWriter or ImageWriter. If you run
Mac System 7, you can also save files directly
to the Mac hard disk from either Iigs.
Next, see if you can find Works-to-Works
Transporter, an add-on translator for Apple
File Exchange that translates AppleWorks (2.0
and 5.0) files directly to Microsoft Works for-
imat (which will probably load into Microsoft
Word). You should be able to obtain Works-
to-Works from sources of Mac freeware and
shareware programs.
The bad news is that Works-to-Works goes
in the ProDOS to Mac direction only. If you're
interested in seeing two-way transfers, it may
be advisable to write Microsoft and ask that
they forward that request to the company pro-
viding the translator.
Most of Claris’s newer programs include
their Xtnd technology, which allows importing
and exporting files in a variety of formats.
MacWrite If and ClarisWorks, for example,
will import and export Word files as well as
AppleWorks 2.0 files. But the current transla-
tors will only import AppleWorks 3.0 and
AppleWorks GS word processor files; the only
‘Apple Il format you can export is AppleWorks
2.0.
An opportunity for some enterprising pro-
grammer would be to write a utility to translate
files based on the “rich text” format currently
supported by several programs. Rich text is an
ASCII text file representation of the document
where formatting codes are translated to text
tokens and embedded into the document text.
Another program reading the document there-
fore has the chance to interpret (or discard)
the codes, This creates a “text interchange”
Vol. 8, No. 1
format distinct from proprietary formats.
‘As for graphics, either The Graphics
Exchange or SuperConvert should serve to
translate graphics for you. The GIF or TIFF for-
mats are probably the most “generic” (you can
usually find a program to convert them to a
computer-specific format, such as ligs Apple
Preferred format or the Macintosh PICT format,
if your application won't import GIF or TIFF
directly). We tend to pass the files across
AppleShare; if you use Apple File Exchange
instead the most important thing to remember
is to tun any “text translation” off before trans-
ferring the files, Many programs save GIF or
TIFF files as “text” files, but the conversion
done by Apple File Exchange's text translation
will destroy the graphics format of the translat-
ed file.
The other problem is that the Mac can be
downright stubborn about “seeing” converted
files. Usually, in the case of GIF and TIFF files,
the type of the file needs to be changed; you'll
need to scout around for a Mac utility to do
this (normally, we change the type of a GIF file
to “TEXT’; for TIFF files, we use a type of
“TIFF”). Even then, you may run into other
problems, Quark Xpress doesn’t seem to like
any of the SuperConvert TIFF formats, and it
doesn't recognize GIF files. It does read Mac
PICT files, though, so we run the GIF or TIFF
files through a conversion (ClarisWorks's
graphics module can load either format and
save it as a PICT file).
‘Also, when you load images converted from
the Iigs’s 640 by 200 Super High-Resolution
mode, you may find their aspect ratio makes
them look half as tall as they should. Graphics
conversion programs often can resize the
image to correct this (just double the height).
520 by 200 pictures should look about right.
Reverse the procedure in the other direction if
necessary (often you'll have to squeeze a Mac
image vertically to fit it into a 640 by 200
screen; the Mac screens have greater vertical
resolution, typically 512 by 342 for “compact
Macs” like the SE or Classic, 512 by 384 for
the smaller color display, and 640 by 480 for a
color display). Overall, the problem is the
same as outlined in “Fonts on screen and in
print” (February 1989 pp. 5.1-5.6); the Mac
screen dots are square, while the Ilgs dots are
rectangular.
Transferring files is getting easier, and the
ligs can do it better than most personal com-
puters. The other day we examined an MS-DOS
CD-ROM filled with graphics files and we could
import them directly into The
Exchange and SuperConvert using GS/OS's
High Sierra FST and CD-ROM drivers with an
‘AppleCD SC. The best part is that it’s com-
pletely transparent, just as if the graphics were
on a ProDOS disk.
The major problem is still proprietary file
formats (an AppleWorks GS word processor file
versus rich text format, for example). If soft-
ware companies aren't given some motivation
to allow access to their formats (or document
them, as has generally been done for Apple-
Works and AppleWorks GS), that’s where the
information exchange will be frustrated. Apple
DTS has made a strong attempt to avoid this
problem by documenting many known formats
in their File Type Notes.—DJD