Shareware Solutions II Volume 4 Issue 3 1998 04 Kohn Joe US

Shareware Solutions II An Exciting Apple II Journey Into The Future Volume 4, Issue 3 Spring, 1999 Heard It Through The Grapevine KansasFest ’99 Each summer since 1989, Apple II users and programmers from all over the United States and Canada, and from as far away as Europe and Asia, have gath- ered together on the campus of Avila College in suburban Kan- sas City, MO for the Apple II conference known as Kansas- Fest. For four long nights and five fun filled days, KansasFest participants celebrate the mag- ic and experience the excitement that continues to surround the Apple II computer more than two decades after its release. Over the years, KansasFest has come to mean different things to different people. For program- mers, Kfest is a new product showcase where they can debut their latest software. For end users, Kfest is a learning experi- ence with many different educa- tional seminars and tutorial sessions to attend. For software publishers, Kfest is a trade show where they can publicize and sell their products. For mo- dem owners, Kfest is an oppor- tunity to meet friends with whom they have corresponded only through e-mail. For user group officers, Kfest is a place to learn about other user groups. Yet, no matter why they come, all Kfest attendees share in the excitement and enjoyment of meeting and spending days on end with fellow Apple II enthu- siasts who are all more than eager to share their knowledge of the computer that brings everyone together each year in Kansas City. The 11th annual KansasFest conference is scheduled to take place from July 21 to 25, 1999! Past Kfests have traditionally offered two full days of informa- tive and educational seminars which have been conducted by Apple II programmers, publish- ers, engineers and hobbyists. But, the KansasFest ’99 Coordi- nating Committee has, after soliciting feedback from past attendees, decided to add an extra day to Kfest 99! The dorms at Avila College will therefore be open a full 24 hours earlier than ever before. On Tuesday night, July 20th, early arrivals are expected to make the customary visit to the world famous KC Masterpiece Res- taurant. Wednesday will be a free day during which time at- tendees can visit local area at- tractions. The conference’s key- note address will be delivered by Juiced.GS publisher Max Jones on Wednesday evening, followed by the first formal con- ference sessions. All of Thurs- day and Friday will be devoted to seminars, tutorials and per- haps a slew of new product introduction sessions. Saturday morning will be devoted to software and hardware demos, and on Saturday afternoon, a Vendors Fair will take place. There are several different reg- istration rates available, de- pending on whether you stay in a single or double room on the Avila campus, or whether you stay off-campus. When making your plans to at- tend Kfest ’99, please remember that much of the fun and excite- ment occurs at night after each day’s formal sessions are con- cluded. For that reason, all at- tendees are encouraged to stay in the Avila dorm in order to partake of and enjoy the fullest Kfest experience imaginable. For those staying on the Avila campus, the cost of the confer- ence registration is included in the room rate. All meals from Wednesday night through Sun- day morning, with the exception of Saturday dinner, are also included in the room rate. The various rates to attend KansasFest ’99 are as follows: Double room: $275 Single room: $325 Spouse rate: $225 Conference only: $225 The rate for early arrivals who wish to stay on campus Tuesday night is: Double room: $25 Single room: $33 Registration for Kfest ’99 is once again being managed by InTrec Software, the publisher of the ProTERM telecommincations program. Contact InTrec at: InTrec Software 3035 E Topaz Circle Phoenix, AZ 85028-4423 Shareware Solutions II 1 Shareware Solutions II Volume 4, Issue 3 Shareware Solutions II is pub- lished by Joe Kohn, 166 Alpine Street, San Rafael, CA 94901- 1008. Publisher/Writer: Joe Kohn Proofreader: Jane Kos Entire contents of Shareware Solutions II copyright (©) 1999 by Joe Kohn. All rights are reserved. Nothing may be re- printed or reproduced, in whole or in part, in any media without the prior written consent of Joe Kohn. Available by subscription only, several options are available: A) The first 24 issues: $75 for US/Canada; $100 elsewhere. B) The next 6 issues/Renewal: $25 for US/Canada; $40 else- where. Make all checks payable to Joe Kohn. US Funds Only. No charge cards, purchase orders or COD orders will be accepted. This newsletter was created entirely with an Apple IIGS. All articles written in AppleWorks Classic. Page Layout prepared in AppleWorks GS. Printing was done on a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet IIP Plus, connected to the IIGS courtesy of Harmonie. The use of TrueType fonts is courtesy of WestCode Soft- ware’s Pointless. CIS: 76702,565 DELPHI: JOE_KOHN GENIE: JOE.KOHN INTERNET: joko@crl.com or joko@concentric.net http://www.concentric.net/~joko 2 Shareware Solutions IT 602-992-1345 Voice 602-992-0232 Fax kfest@intrec.com Additional information about KansasFest ’99 can be found on the world wide web at the following URL: hitp:/ /www.kfest.org Easter Egg Contest Shareware Solutions II, in as- sociation with Seven Hills Soft- ware, is more than pleased to announce that two winning en- tries have been received in “The Great Easter Egg Contest.” The contest challenged readers to find the hidden Easter Eggs in Spectrum, GraphicWriter III and Space Fox. The contest was initially announced in Volume 3, Issue 6, but was extended un- til Easter Eggs in those pro- grams had been uncovered. We are pleased to announce that Paul Schultz of Ann Arbor, MI correctly identified several Easter Eggs in Spectrum, and Perry Watson of Raleigh, NC correctly identified one Easter Egg in GraphicWriter III. According to Paul Schultz: Here are some Easter Eggs from Spectrum 2.2. Some or all of these may have been in previous versions, or are already fairly well known. There may be a more “proper” way to activate some of these Easter Eggs but, if so, I haven't discovered them yet! ¢ In the editor window type in any of the following and then choose to “Run Editor as Script” from the Script Pull Down menu: Play Real Audio Define Trigger John Bull (Note: The humorous message which is displayed by activating the “Define Trigger” Easter Egg script is different in Spectrum v2.1 and v2.2.) To see a special message appear at the bottom of the About box, hold down the option key while choosing “About Spectrum” from the Apple Pull Down menu. ¢ Select the “About Spectrum” op- tion in the Apple Pull Down menu and leave the About dialog box on the screen for 1-2 minutes without doing anything. You'll see the same thing as the “John Bull” Easter Egg described above. According to Perry Watson: Launch GraphicWriter III, and once the programs loads, access the Apple Pull Down menu. Choose the About item, and when that screen appears, hold down the Option Key and click on Richard Bennett’s name, or any place close to it. A list of credits will scroll by and will continue to scroll until you click the mouse or press the space bar. For their efforts, Paul and Perry were awarded one software pro- gram of their choice from each of the contest sponsors. Paul Schultz elected to receive Trans- Prog III from Seven Hills and WebWorks GS from Shareware Solutions II. Perry Watson chose Express II from Seven Hills, but instead of naming a program published by Shareware Solu- tions II, asked if it would be pos- sible to receive AccuDraw from Kitchen Sink Software. Thanks to Eric Bush of Kitchen Sink, Perry got his wish. Meanwhile, Ewen Wannop has been dropping some hints online Spring, 1999 about a new Easter Egg that he included in the recent Spectrum v2.2 update. Ewen stated at one point that his latest Easter Egg was inspired by a very impor- tant utility program that Apple had included on the DOS 3.3 Operating System disk. To activate this very important utility, launch Spectrum v2.2. Once the program loads, hold down both the Open-Apple and Closed-Apple (Command and Option) keys, and then choose the Status item from the Set- tings Pull Down menu. After you enter your date of birth, Spec- trum will display your Bio- rhythm Chart. Space Fox, an outer space shoot ’em up arcade game, requires a steady trigger finger and split second timing. But, there’s a cheating option built into the program that makes the game player invincible! By activating the Easter Egg, anyone can easily complete all ten levels of the game. The Easter Egg was actually in- serted into the game for a useful purpose, as it served as a diag- nostic tool that permitted the programmers to complete all ten levels in order to determine if their code worked properly or not. In order to activate the Space Fox Easter Egg, launch the pro- gram, and when the title screen appears, type the word “gemini” and when the first level starts, press the Tab key on your key- board to become invincible. Conflict Resolution When a previously well behaved Apple IIGS starts to exhibit problems, one of the first troub- le-shooting tests that many Volume 4, Issue 3 TIGS users perform is the pro- cedure known as the Shift-Boot. If the Shift key is depressed as GS/OS starts up, add-ons such as Initialization files and Desk Accessories are not loaded. If GS/OS becomes more reliable and stable after a Shift-Boot, then in all probability, nothing more serious than a Desk Ac- cessory or Init conflict was the cause of the problems. Conflicts among GS/OS add-ons can be responsible for all sorts of unpredictable or intermittent problems including system crashes. For that reason, please be aware that the following GS/OS add-ons have been iden- tified as the cause of problems on some IIGS systems: ¢ LE.Fix is a freeware Initial- ization File, written by Apple employee Dave Lyons. In the documentation, Dave states that this Init fixes a problem with the LineEdit Toolset. But, LE.Fix was released back in 1989 and whatever problem it originally addressed has since been fixed in the IIGS System Software. LE.Fix is no longer needed, and in fact, its con- tinued use can lead to problems when attempting to enter keyboard input into a LineEdit control. Check to see if you have LE.Fix installed on your sys- tem, and if you do, remove it. * SANE.Fix is a freeware In- itialization File from Seven Hills Software that at the time of its release fixed a problem with the SANE Toolset. How- ever, whatever problem the Init file originally addressed was in an older and now obsolete ver- sion of GS/OS. Apple’s System programmers have since fixed that problem in System 6.0.1. SANE.Fix is no longer needed and in fact can cause problems if it remains installed. Seven Hills Software does confirm that finding, so if you still have SANE.Fix installed on your sys- tem, remove it. ¢ SFUtility is another freeware Initialization File from Seven Hills that was included with the initial release of Babelfish. After the Babelfish Installer copied SFUtility to the System folder, some IIGS users were dismayed to discover that they were unable to successfully start up GS/OS. Ewen Wannop and Seven Hills Software confirm that SFUtility can result in problems and state that it may be removed from your system and Babelfish will continue to work just fine. ¢ EditMenulcons is a freeware Initialization File that places small graphic icons into GS/OS’s Edit Pull Down menu. In a re- cent discussion on Delphi’s A2 forum, a number of people re- ported that their system became much less reliable after the installation of EditMenulcons, and conversely, their systems returned to full dependability after removing this Init. Despite the fact that no solid evidence existed to prove that EditMenulcons was indeed the cause of my problems, I person- ally removed it from my system, as AppleWorks Classic has on rare occasion crashed on my normally dependable IIGS sys- tem. Since removing EditMenu- Icons, AppleWorks has become, once again, 100% dependable. So if you are having intermittent problems with your IIGS, check to see if EditMenulcons is installed on your system, and if it is, chances are that if you remove it, your system will become much more reliable and dependable. @ Shareware Solutions IT 3 Modem Madness ProTERM Listserv InTrec, the publisher of Pro- TERM, has recently started the ProTERM-List, an online inter- active Internet forum conducted through e-mail which fosters the exchange of hints and tips and technical support among a large group of Apple II and Mac Pro- TERM users from around the world. InTrec would like to invite all ProTERM users to join the list which is available in two dif- ferent formats. If you sign up for the Immediate format, you'll be e-mailed every message as soon as it is posted. If you sign up for the Digest format, all of the day’s messages will first be col- lected, a table of contents will be added, and then you'll be e- mailed a single message which contains all of the messages posted the previous day. You can easily sign up for either version of the ProTERM-List from the following URL: Attp:/ /www.intrec.com To sign up for the Immediate ProTERM-List via e-mail, send a message to: majordomo@intrec.com You must include only the fol- lowing in the body of the mes- sage: subscribe proterm-list To sign up for the Digest Pro- TERM-List via e-mail, send a message to: majordomo@intrec.com In that e-mail, include only the following in the body of the mes- sage: 4 Shareware Solutions IT subscribe proterm-list-digest Once you’ve successfully sub- scribed, you will receive confir- mation almost immediately via e-mail. New Apple II Web Sites The world wide web continues to grow and with each passing month, more and more sites ap- pear that are dedicated to sup- porting the Apple II computer. As evidence of that, the Apple II Web Ring, of which Shareware Solutions II is a proud partici- pant, now consists of nearly 40 sites that are linked together. The world wide web continues to mature, and several of the new web sites offer features that were simply impossible to offer until quite recently, including interactive message boards and chat rooms. * The Apple II Message Board, an Australian web site that is hosted by Terry Allen, offers an interactive message board as well as several other sections which offer informative and edu- cational articles not available anywhere else on the web. Terry Allen contacted the Aus- tralian division of Apple Com- puter and was able to secure permission from their legal de- partment to make available the contents of several of Apple’s copyrighted manuals, including the “Apple IIGS Owner’s Manu- al” and the “Apple IIGS — Get- ting Started” manual. Additionally, Terry has secured permission to place re-printed articles on his site from “The Australian Apple Review.” He also has a section devoted to as- sisting beginners in the Apple II world; there are articles that teach the various DOS 3.3 com- mands, instruct how to format disks with DOS 3.3 and de- scribe how to format and make ProDOS self-booting disks. To visit the Apple II Message Board, point your favorite web browser to the following URL: hitp:/ /www.educate.net.au/ ~apple2 * Long time Apple II enthusiast and programmer Dave Tribby accepted Terry Allen’s offer of setting up a web site on the Apple II Message Board site, where you can download most of the software that Dave has written over the years. In addition to Dave’s boastful, yet amusing and true assertion that he is one of the only people who has ever actually visited “The Shareware Solutions II Galactic Headquarters,” he has distinguished himself over the years by writing many Apple II and IIGS programs and by having programming articles published in Nibble, GS+, Soft- disk G-S, and Juiced.GS. There are four general catego- ries of software that you can download from Dave’s site: Ap- ple Pascal, IIGS specific soft- ware, MIDI Synth related soft- ware and GNO/ME utilities. If youre not familiar with the work of Dave Tribby, make sure that you download some of the musical selections which can be played back with SynthLAB. And if you’ve ever dreamed of “making a killing” in Las Vegas, you really owe it to yourself to download Dave’s Blackjack Tu- tor program for the IIGS. To visit Dave Tribby’s site, point your favorite web browser to the Spring, 1999 following URL: hitp:/ /www.educate.net.au/ ~apple2 / software /tribby / * DejaNews is a web based sys- tem that for the past several years has provided a keyword driven search engine to help those on the web to quickly find Usenet newsgroup articles. In recent months, DejaNews has sought to expand its scope and to that end has set up what it calls “DejaNews Communi- ties.” In essence, DejaNews now provides free space on their computer servers to individuals who want to set up and main- tain web sites. Kirk Mitchell, a high school lev- el teacher from Kansas, has availed himself of DejaNews’s free offer, and has set up the “Apple IIGS DejaNews Commu- nity.” In his statement of pur- pose, Kirk wrote, “Before the Mac, there was the Apple II. This computer inspired a great deal of loyalty, and one of the most friendly and knowledge- able group of folks in computer history. Welcome to another of the many communities that share our love of the Apple II.” Although Kirk’s site is quite new, it already offers a message base, interactive voting polls, and chat rooms. Although the site is accessible to Apple II users who traverse the web with the lynx web browser, lynx users unfortunately cannot partici- pate in the chat rooms. To visit the Apple IIGS Deja- News Community, point your favorite web browser to the fol- lowing URL: http:/ /www.dejanews.com | ~appleiigs Volume 4, Issue 3 * The last of the really large Ap- ple II trade shows took place in mid-1993 in San Francisco. At the time, Herbert Fung travel- led from his home in British Columbia to attend Apple Expo West. Herb had a camera with him, and after all these years, he has just recently set up a historical web site that includes photos of some of the attendees, including Eric Shepherd, Burger Bill Heineman, and Joe Kohn. These photos are in Jpeg format, and can be found at the following URL: http:/ /persweb.direct.ca / mystix/AEW93.HTM FTP Sites FTP may stand for File Trans- fer Protocol, but the term is generally used to denote sites on the Internet which contain file archives that can be down- loaded using ftp. Both of the major Apple II ftp sites on the Internet have new addresses. * The Ground ftp site, located at the University of Iowa, has a 1.7 gigabyte hard drive that was purchased several years ago through donations made by more than 50 Apple II users who each pledged $20 or more. The current URLs are: hitp:/ |ground.ecn.uiowa.edu | fip:/ /ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/ * Before the acquisition of the large capacity hard drive at the ground ftp site, the largest In- ternet based Apple II download library was found at Cal Tech. Over the past several years, the Cal Tech site has been plagued with periodic outages, and due to its inaccessibility, it’s no longer as widely visited as it once was, and the number of new uploads has suffered. But, if you wish to access the Cal Tech ftp site, the current URL is: ftp:/ /apple2.caltech.edu | pub/apple2/ ¢ The newest of the large Apple II ftp sites is also the most or- ganized. Begun in late 1997, the Trenco Apple II Archive is quite convenient to use. As soon as you access the site, you'll see links for “New This Month,” “New This Week,” and “New To- day” items which include lists of newly uploaded software. If you haven’t yet turned to Trenco for your Apple II down- load needs, visit either of the following URLs: http:/ /www.gno.org/ pub/apple2 ftp:/ | ftp.gno.org /pub/apple2 Spectrum Internet Suite Geoff Weiss has just presented to his beta test team what he hopes will become the release version of Spectrum Internet Suite v1.1. Although the long awaited SIS update has been close to completion since Janu- ary, one relatively minor prob- lem has held up its release. The beta test team is expected to take several weeks to fully test SIS v1.1, and upon their ap- proval, the final version will then be sent to Seven Hills Soft- ware for their approval. Exactly how much longer the entire pro- cess will take is unknown, but it appears as if the final obstacle has just been overcome, and the release of Spectrum Internet Suite v1.1 is imminent. Although the newest Seven Hills Shareware Solutions II 5 web site is currently experi- encing major problems that render it temporarily inacces- sible, it is expected that Seven Hills will soon fix those prob- lems and announce on that or on their older site the actual re- lease date and specific ordering information including costs. For additional information, visit either of the following URLs: http:/ /www.sevenhills.com / applesoftware /iigs / sis /sis.htm Attp:/ /www.nettally.com/ shss/IIGS/ When ISPs Go Bad We live in a mobile society, and since so many people move each year, traditional businesses such as telephone companies and the Post Office routinely of- fer forwarding services so that those who do move can count on receiving mail and phone calls at their new residence. Unfortunately, most Internet Service Providers do not provide similar forwarding services, and so many people who have had the same e-mail address for years are somewhat hesitant to give up on an ISP whose serv- ices have deteriorated. That’s the situation that Share- ware Solutions II finds itself in now. Shareware Solutions II has had the same Internet e-mail ad- dress for many years, and has hosted a web site at crl.com ever since the debut of the world wide web. For that very reason, Shareware Solutions II has con- tinued to subscribe to a system that continues to deteriorate. The problems started nearly two years ago, and instead of getting better, the service con- 6 Shareware Solutions IT tinues to deteriorate. Enough is enough. In the next month or so, Share- ware Solutions II will be moving its Internet base of operations to another Internet Service Pro- vider, one which comes highly recommended by many fellow Apple II users — Concentric. The new Shareware Solutions II e-mail address is: joko@concentric.net The Shareware Solutions II web site will be accessible at the following URL: hitp:/ /www.concentric.net | ~joko The new e-mail address and web site are already activated. In the meanwhile, both the old and new web sites will be main- tained for another month or two, at which time, the account with crl.com will be deactivated. In the meanwhile, please feel free to start using the new e- mail address and web site at Concentric, effective immedi- ately. @ DeskJet Alert Incompatible DeskJets During the past several years, Hewlett-Packard DeskJet print- ers have become extremely pop- ular for use on the Apple II and TIGS, primarily because Desk- Jets provide incredibly high quality printed output at a rela- tively low cost. With “street prices” starting as low as $99 for the HP DeskJet 420c model, all current models of the DeskJet offer up to 600 x 300 dots per inch (dpi) reso- lution for printing in black and white, and 300 dpi resolution for printing in color. DeskJets have finally caught up to laser printers and now actually offer higher printed resolution than was available, as recently as just a few years ago, on high end and expensive laser printers! Until mid-1997, an Apple II owner who wanted to purchase a Hewlett-Packard DeskJet could simply purchase any model of DeskJet, and have complete confidence that it would work on his or her computer. That changed in June of 1997 when HP released the DeskJet 820c series of printers, the first DeskJet models designed to be used strictly and exclusively within the IBM PC-based Win- dows 95 environment. Fortu- nately, those first Windows-only DeskJet models sported a silk- screened designation on the front of the printer that clearly and unambiguously displayed: “For Windows.” The “For Windows” DeskJet 820c was a short lived model, but since then Hewlett-Packard has released a number of new DeskJets which will not work, under any circumstances, with any Apple II. The following DeskJets are simply incompati- ble with the Apple II computer: DeskJet 710 DeskJet 712c¢ DeskJet 720c DeskJet 722c¢ Spring, 1999 DeskJet 820 series DeskJet 1000 series To add slight confusion to the matter, only the printers in the 820 series have the “For Win- dows” silkscreen designation on the front of them. However, once you understand the reasons why some DeskJet models work on the Apple II and IIGS and why others don’t, purchasing a Desk- Jet should once again become as easy and routine as it was be- fore mid-1997. PCL vs PPA Until mid-1997, every single DeskJet model ever produced included support for HP’s own Printer Control Language, oth- erwise known as PCL. Program- ming documentation for PCL was, and still is, readily avail- able from HP; it was this tech- nical documentation that al- lowed IIGS programmers to learn enough about PCL to cre- ate the Harmonie and Inde- pendence packages; both of these GS/OS based printer driv- ers work with all PCL-based HP printers. The DeskJet 820c series was in some ways an attempt by HP to lower the manufacturing cost of producing inkjet printers. This was accomplished in part by HP introducing a brand new set of protocols named Printing Per- formance Architecture, other- wise known as PPA, which replaced PCL as the standard protocol. All HP printers, whether Desk- Jets or LaserJets, which sup- port PCL have sophisticated electronic components and cir- cuitry built in which essentially control the printer. Much of that electronic circuitry has been re- moved in PPA-based printers, Volume 4, Issue 3 consequently, all of the compu- tational controls are now han- dled by the computer and the printer driver. Unfortunately, HP has not released any tech- nical programming information for PPA-based printers, and so those models will only work with the Windows 95/98 printer drivers which are supplied with the printers by HP. All DeskJet models which are compatible with the Apple II have two things in common: they all support PCL Level 3 (and since PCL is backwards compatible, PCL Levels 4 and 5) and they are all compatible with IBM PC and clone com- puters which run under the MS- DOS operating system. Conversely, if a DeskJet sup- ports PPA, it will not work on an Apple II. If a DeskJet works only with Windows 95/98, then it too will be incompatible with the Apple II. Equipped with this critical in- formation, it’s still not readily apparent simply by looking at any particular DeskJet model whether the printer in question supports PCL or PPA. Since that determination must be made, there are several ways available to find out this critical information: * Hewlett-Packard’s Customer Information Center can be reached at 1-800-752-0900. ¢ Hewlett-Packard maintains an informative web site at the following URL: hitp:/ /www.hp.com/ cgi-bin / peripherals / pandi.pl To locate technical information about all of the current DeskJet models, follow the “Personal Printers” link where you will find a listing for the current models. The information you will need to find is listed in the “Printer Specifications” section of each electronic document. If the specs for any DeskJet in- clude the following — “Print Lan- guages, Std. HP PCL 3” — it will work with an Apple II. ¢ Hewlett-Packard states on each model’s sales brochure or on the side of the shipping car- ton whether a printer is based on the PPA or PCL protocol. Best Buy Models Conducting the above research, it didn’t take more than a few minutes to determine that both the DeskJet 420c and 697c¢ mod- els are very affordable printers that will work just fine with the Apple II or IIGS. Since both models support PCL Level 3, connect to an Apple II via a Parallel connection, and produce the same 600 x 300 dpi black and white resolution, what exactly are the differences be- tween a $99 DeskJet 420c and the slightly higher priced $149 DeskJet 697? In a word, convenience. ¢ The 420c can accommodate only one ink cartridge at a time, whereas the 697c can accommo- date two ink cartridges simul- taneously. When a 420 owner wants to print using black ink, he or she must first physically remove the color ink cartridge and replace it with a black ink cartridge; owners of the 697c simply deselect the Color option in the Print dialog box. ¢ Both a color and black ink car- tridge are included with the 697c. Only a color ink cartridge Shareware Solutions IT 7 is included with the 420c; an optional black ink cartridge for the 420c retails for an ad- ditional $30. ¢ The print speed of the 697c is much faster than that of the 420c. Although the numerical figures used by printer manu- facturers to designate page per minute speeds are theoretical and rarely achieved in real world applications, the 697c is capable of printing up to five Black and White pages per min- ute while the 420c is capable of printing up to two Black and White pages per minute. For color printing, the 697c is capa- ble of printing up to .8 pages per minute, while the 420c can take 4-7 minutes to generate that same one page color document. * The 420c comes with 16K of resident RAM memory; the 697c comes with 512K of resident RAM memory. ¢ The paper tray on the 420c can hold 50 sheets of paper; the paper tray on the 697c can hold 100 sheets of paper. ¢ The 697c is a much more rug- ged and durable printer, rated with a duty cycle of up to 1000 pages per month; the rated duty cycle of the 420c is only 416 pages per month. * To achieve the best printed results possible on the 420c, the 560c Harmonie driver should be used for black and white print- ing, and the 500c Harmonie driver should be used for color printing. To achieve the best printed results possible on the 697c, only the 560c Harmonie driver is necessary. In The Future Hewlett-Packard seems to be 8 Shareware Solutions IT releasing new DeskJet models every few months, and so it’s quite possible that both the 420c and 697c will be available for sale for only a short period of time. When these current models are replaced, HP is sure to release newer models, with similar model numbers and similar ca- pabilities, to replace these older models. So, if you are not quite ready to purchase a DeskJet now, just remember the two keywords that define Apple II compatibility: PCL3 and MS- DOS. No matter what new features HP adds to DeskJets in the fu- ture, the ground rules which de- termine Apple II compatibility will remain unchanged. So, just make sure that any future DeskJet is designed to work from MS-DOS (sometimes re- ferred to as DOS 3.3) and PCL, as it will also work on the IIGS, with the Harmonie or Independ- ence drivers. If, on the other hand, a DeskJet is designed to work only from Windows, Win- dows 95, Windows 98 or Win- dows NT, then it will not work with any Apple II or IIGS. Stop The Presses!! In late January, 1999, Hewlett- Packard issued a press release which “announced plans to enter the ultra-low end of the inkjet- printer market — printers under $100 — through the formation of APOLLO Consumer Products, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary. APOLLO-branded printers will serve this market, the fastest- growing segment in the indus- try, with products combining style and function at a low price point.” Just as this issue of the Share- ware Solutions II newsletter was going to press, the first of the new APOLLO inkjet print- ers was released. The APOLLO P-1200 carries a list price of $80 and because it meets the two criteria — it supports PCL 3 and works from MS-DOS - it is fully compatible with the Apple II and IIGS computers! The APOLLO P-1200 sports a silkscreened designation on the case: “Powered by Hewlett- Packard InkJet Technology.” Nowhere else on the printer nor on the shipping carton is Hew- lett-Packard named as the man- ufacturer. Additionally, there is no mention of the P-1200 printer on HP’s web site, nor is any information available from HP’s Customer Information Center. Several calls to Hewlett-Pack- ard’s corporate offices revealed that not even the corporate telephone operators had ever heard of HP’s newest subsidiary and had no contact information whatsoever. In any case, the APOLLO P- 1200 looks remarkably similar to the Deskjet 420c, and one look under the front cover of the APOLLO P-1200 revealed a printer that looks indistinguish- able from the DeskJet 420c. Additionally, the technical spec- ifications of the P-1200 are exactly the same as the DeskJet 420c, and the P-1200 even uses the exact same ink cartridges as does the 420c. The shipping carton of the P- 1200 yields but one bit of in- formation that could possibly explain how this new printer can cost less than the DeskJet 420c: Made in Thailand. Apparently, Hewlett-Packard has adopted yet another strat- egy to lower the cost of their Spring, 1999 printers, and in the case of HP’s APOLLO wholly owned subsidi- ary, the first of the new DeskJet “clone” printers sounds made to order for Apple IIGS owners on a budget who wish to purchase a new high quality printer that is capable of printing at 300 dpi or higher. The APOLLO P-1200 is cur- rently available only at Wal- Mart and The Office Depot for $79, and it includes a color car- tridge. According to an APOLLO spokesperson, the P-1200 in all probability will also become a- vailable in the near future from several other national chains of electronic superstores, including Circuit City and The Good Guys. Additional information about APOLLO Consumer Products and the P-1200 can be found on the world wide web at the fol- lowing URL: hitp:/ /www.myapollo.com Questions about the P-1200 can be submitted, via e-mail, to the following Internet address: apollo@webcentric.com If you do not have access to the world wide web, you can find out more about the APOLLO P-1200 and where it can be purchased in your locality, by dialing the following telephone numbers: 1-214-503-2222 or 1-877-MYAPOLLO (Note: Harmonie is available ex- clusively from Shareware Solu- tions II for $20.) @ Bernie |[ The Printer From Eddie To Bernie Since its initial release as Fast Eddie in 1996, Shareware Solu- tions II has provided on-going coverage of Bernie ][ The Res- cue, the Apple IIGS emulator for Power Macintosh computers. With each successive release, we the programmers at FE Sys- tems have made Bernie faster, more powerful and much more capable, and with the recent re- lease of v2.0.2, many Bernie users are now reporting that their emulated IIGS computer runs all their Apple II and IIGS software at speeds of 50 Mhz or faster! Although there’s always some- thing new and exciting hap- pening in the Bernie world of IIGS emulation, the specific purpose of this article is not to provide yet another overview of Bernie’s features, but to de- scribe Bernie’s printing options and capabilities, in order to assist Bernie users who would like to transform their docu- Volume 4, Issue 3 by Henrik Gudat, FE Systems ments from the screen onto the printed page. This article makes several wild assumptions, namely that you are somewhat familiar with Bernie and that you already have a complete installation of Bernie, along with a ProDOS and GS/OS startup disk. If you are new to Bernie and in need of an Operating Manual, we've pre- pared two valuable resources: the user’s manual (included in the Bernie package and view- able with any web browser) and a number of very detailed tours that guide you through various common tasks. These how-to guides are readily available on- line from our web site: http:/ /www.magnet.ch | emutech / SupportCenter Which Flavor? This issue could well be titled Printing Solutions III, as Bernie offers three distinct printing methods for controlling your printer. Each method has its share of advantages, and ulti- mately this article should help you to pick the best one. InkDirect: The Direct Way InkDirect is Bernie’s direct con- nect, serial printing solution for all of your classic Apple II soft- ware such as AppleWorks Clas- sic and Applesoft BASIC pro- grams. Think of it as a contin- uous flow data meter: whatever you feed into slot 1 (which hap- pens to be the printer slot) will be passed on to the Mac’s serial port. Because neither Bernie nor the Mac attempts to figure out what exactly is sent to the print- er, only your software cares what printer you have connected. Note: InkDirect printing is available only with registered copies of Bernie ][ The Rescue. Serial vs LocalTalk InkDirect can only drive serial printers. Printers designed for Shareware Solutions IT 9 the Macintosh are mostly Local- Talk printers —- a subtle but very important nuance. Local- Talk means that the printer plugs into one of the serial ports and talks to your Mac in Apple- Talk lingo — something that is not supported in Bernie. For ex- ample, some laser printers de- pend on the AppleTalk protocol, and if you'd like to print with them you are advised to shop around for another printing so- lution, as described below. Set Up A Virtual Apple IIGS To print with InkDirect, you need to check the settings of both your emulated Apple IIGS and Bernie. Assuming that you have started Bernie and emu- lation is running, first have a look at the slot settings. The classic control panels (press Command, Control and Escape) feature a “Slots” screen where you can switch each slot be- tween its built-in function and “Your Card.” Bernie’s InkDirect feature is like an expansion card that is sniffing in slot 1 - hence slot 1 must be set to “Your Card.” It is very impor- tant that if slot 1 was not set to “Your Card”, you must restart the IIGS in order to have the changes take effect. This is accomplished by opening Ber- nie’s Setup menu and choosing the last item, “Reset.” Set Up Bernie Since Bernie is given the mun- dane task of transmitting every bit, the emulator must know ex- actly at what speed the printer is communicating and in what form the data is expected. All these settings are fully custom- izable in Bernie’s Preferences window: ¢ Open the Setup menu and 10 Shareware Solutions IT choose “Preferences.” * In the Preferences window, click the “Communications” icon in the left side bar. Eventually, you'll need to scroll down a little bit. The Preferences window should now reveal a number of Ink- Direct controls: * Port: pick the port your printer is connected to on the Mac. * Baud: choose the speed (baud rate) at which your printer is communicating, typically 9600. * Data/Stop bits: the format of a data byte, usually set to 8/1. * Parity: the parity of each data byte, which is most likely set to ¢ Handshake: if your printer is expecting a particular hand- shake option, you can tell that to Bernie here. The baud rate, data/stop bits, parity and handshake settings can be set to any value you pre- fer as long as both the printer and Bernie are using identical configurations! Lastly, two check boxes let you overcome unwanted behavior. If your printer is not advancing to the next line after a carriage return, “add LF after CR” keeps the paper going. The other check box, “Strip MSB”’, ensures that text characters are within ANSI limits; some software is always setting the highest bit which may confuse your printer and you'll get alien style documents with out-of-this-world charac- ters. By checking this box, Ber- nie strips the most significant bit and your Master’s Thesis turns out to be less bewildering. You have set up your emulated TIGS and you have configured Bernie. Now it’s printing time! InkMeister If for some reason your printer does not meet InkDirect’s re- quirements, Bernie has some- thing else for you; it’s called InkMeister and it prints ASCII text to any printer for which your Mac has a driver. Please note that InkMeister only works from within classic Apple II, or more precisely from within software that is using Apple Ile-style printing through slot 1. InkMeister does quite a lot of processing: it reads each charac- ter that was originally intended for the printer and spools the entire document into a Preview window. When the document has been processed, you can browse through all the pages. Configuring Your IIGS As with InkDirect, slot 1 must be set to “Your Card.” Please re- read the section above — “Set Up A Virtual Apple IIGS” — for de- tails on how to do this. Tell Bernie About InkMeister Lastly, Bernie needs to know that you would like to use Ink- Meister. You won't find a switch for turning on InkMeister; in- stead, Bernie assumes that when you turn off InkDirect, you intend to use InkMeister: * Open the “Setup” menu and choose “Preferences.” * Click the “Communications” panel in the left side bar. ¢ Find InkDirect’s “Port” popup menu and set it to “Off.” Spring, 1999 InkMeister is now active. The Preview Bernie’s “Window” menu has a “Printer” item and when you click it, the InkMeister window appears. When youre now print- ing, Bernie is grabbing all char- acters and displays them in the InkMeister Preview window. Doesn’t it? Well, yes, but it takes half a minute of idle time for Bernie to automatically ter- minate a print job. If you are impatient, like yours truly, put on your eyeglasses, move the mouse cursor to the small red down arrow in the Preview win- dow’s button bar and push it. This button adds a form feed and completes a pending print job. Let’s have a look at what you have printed so far. If you have spooled more than a single page, you'll notice that another small red arrow button has become active — the red right arrow button. With its help you can advance to the next page. The functionality of the little left arrow button may be the subject of a contest to be held at a later time. The little trash can removes all spooled pages. If you're starting to print multiple documents, they will be appended to what- ever has been spooled before, thus the little trash can is your friend when you prefer to start from scratch or are getting close to the 99 page limit to which Bernie adheres. Fine Tuning The Page It’s always possible that your printed page will not look prop- er; the font may be too small or the margins may be off. Due to technical difficulties, Bernie is Volume 4, Issue 3 unable to copy the margins, font face and font size, but it sports a dedicated InkMeister panel where you can adjust the page to your needs. You reveal the InkMeister configuration panel in the Preferences window that you've seen before. Locate the “InkMeister” icon and click it once. After some housetraining, InkMeister will deliver beauti- ful pages. InkMeister Pro The previous printing solutions, InkDirect and InkMeister, re- portedly only work with classic Apple II software because they emulate a serial controller card in slot 1. What if you’d rather print from a GS/OS application such as GraphicWriter III or AppleWorks GS? InkMeister has a big brother, and it’s called InkMeister Pro. As with InkMeister, the Pro ver- sion is a cross-platform solution which means that you print on the IIGS and Bernie shuffles the data to the Mac from where you can print it with the usual Mac printing tools. InkMeister Pro uses the exact same preview window, so be prepared for a major deja vu. Teach Your Dog A New Trick InkMeister Pro does not need to be configured in Bernie or on your Apple IIGS, but it needs to be installed. It’s actually a cus- tom printer driver that makes your IIGS believe that there’s a printer connected, but that fake printer is nothing but our pet dog Bernie. The Bernie distribution comes with a folder that’s entitled “InkMeister Pro.” When you open this folder, you'll find a tiny disk image: * Boot Bernie into GS/OS. * Open the “File” menu and choose “Mount Disk.” ¢ In the file dialog, locate the InkMeister Pro disk image and mount it. Upon completing these steps, the InkMeister Pro disk ap- pears on the Apple IIGS desk- top. The only file on it is the custom printer driver that you need to move to the folder: *:System:Drivers: Once the file has been moved to the “Drivers” folder, InkMeister Pro is ready to perform. You will have to restart the Apple IIGS, though, in order to make GS/OS aware of the freshly installed driver. A Printer That’s Not There Back in GS/OS with InkMeister Pro loaded, tell your IIGS that it’s time to print with Ink- Meister Pro. Open the IIGS Con- trol Panels (from the “Apple” menu) and choose the “DC Print- er” panel. What you will see is an upper list box that we re- spectfully discard, plus a lower list box. That’s where the music is. The “InkMeister” will appear in this last box as a possible option, and upon highlighting it, everything’s settled for an Ink- Meister Pro session! One remark from the FE Sys- tems Quality Assurance Team: when filling in the “print” dialog box, be sure to enter a starting and ending page number. Some applications, including Apple- Works GS, are subject to a ma- jor hiccup if you do not provide a page range. While InkMeister Pro does a Shareware Solutions IT i marvelous job with text and line art, it does not support a few more complex drawing objects such as bitmaps. A detailed dis- cussion of InkMeister’s capabili- ties is included in the User's Manual. Conclusion This article explained how you can print from classic Apple II software with InkDirect and InkMeister, and from GS/OS applications with InkMeister Pro. Printing with emulators is rocket science, but once you get past the liftoff, it’s a great ex- perience. If reader demand calls for it, FE Systems will be back soon with more in depth coverage of other parts of Bernie. In the mean- while, if you have any specific suggestions or would like to contact the doghouse, send an e- bone to emutech@magnet.ch or for more information about Bernie, fire up your web browser and check out the FE Systems web site at the following URL: http:/ /www.magnet.ch /emutech If you do not feel comfortable downloading Bernie, you can al- ways order the latest version of the Macintosh PowerPC based Bernie software from Shareware Solutions II for $5. Please bear in mind that be- cause FE Systems is based in Switzerland, we cannot rely upon traditional mail services to provide speedy answers to any of your questions, and for that reason, we are compelled to con- duct all of our correspondence through e-mail. You will there- fore need to have an e-mail ac- count to register your copy of Bernie and to avail yourself of technical support from me and my fellow programmers at FE Systems. @ Y2K And The Apple I Time Waits For No One Many Apple Ile owners who have clock cards installed were more than just a little surprised when they turned on their com- puter for the first time in 1999 and saw that their Ile reported that it was 1993. As Apple II users march col- lectively towards the next mil- lennium, was this the first glimpse of upcoming Y2K prob- lems and impending doom? Not at all. Apple II models that preceded the IIGS did not include any electronics that kept track of the date or the time. Since saving files with date and time information is so important, Apple’s oversight presented a golden opportunity for third party developers to build and market interface cards that included clocks that permitted the date-stamping of files. 12 Shareware Solutions IT One of the first clock cards pro- duced for use on a Ile was the Thunderclock. The Thunderclock followed an efficient model of timekeeping that became the de facto standard for all Le clock cards, and support for the Thun- derclock was even incorporated into ProDOS itself. The clock keeps track of the time, but it has to calculate which year it is by referring to a lookup table that is a part of the ProDOS kernel. However, that lookup table holds only seven values, one for each day of the week. Each entry corre- sponds to the year in which Jan- uary lst falls on the day of the week for that table entry. But, there needs to be at least one year duplicated within the look- up table to account for the in- tervening leap year, and there- fore, the ProDOS lookup table must be updated every six years to keep it current. Since the final version of Pro- DOS-8 (v2.0.3) was released in 1993, the time had simply come for Thunderclock owners to up- date their lookup table. Of course, the programmers at Apple anticipated that the look- up table would need to be up- dated every six years, and so they included an Applesoft BASIC program on the final version of the ProDOS-8 based System Disk (v4.02). Written by Greg Branche and later updated by Dave Lyons to work with ProDOS-8 v2.0.3, the program is named “Clock.Patch,” and after it was run in 1999, Apple Ile computers with clock cards in- stalled once again knew what year it was. While those who use PCs may have reasons to be concerned about what will happen to their computers on January 1, 2000, Apple II owners can, for the most part, rest easily. GS/OS itself will have no prob- Spring, 1999 lems with dates until 2039. Time Out Of Mind However, there are a handful of ProDOS-8 based application programs which will not work properly in the next millennium. Some of the problematic soft- ware will exhibit minor prob- lems that some will consider to be merely cosmetic, but other software will exhibit problems which will make the continued use of that software next to im- possible. One such problematic program is Quicken, a personal finance program. On 1/1/00, Quicken will behave as if it were 1900 instead of 2000, making it im- possible to use Quicken to print out checks with a date of 2000 or later. Time Is On My Side Fortunately, several Y2K so- lutions are already available, thanks to the foresight and hard work of Beverly Cadieux, the publisher of the highly ac- claimed, AppleWorks v5.1 oriented newsletter, TEXAS II. Bev is one of the world’s fore- most experts in AppleWorks Classic, and she routinely shares her discoveries and teaches AppleWorks v5.1 users how to get the most from Apple- Works through her subscription based TEXAS II newsletter. She also routinely provides Ap- pleWorks v5.1 related software, such as updates or patches or workaround solutions, on the companion TEXAS II on Disk collection. Since mid-1998, Bev has taken it upon herself to find solutions to potential Y2K problems, and she is making those solutions Volume 4, Issue 3 available through low cost disks that are now available by mail order from TEXAS II. Due to Bev’s primary focus on AppleWorks v5.1, she initially focused her research and inves- tigations into potential Y2K problems with AppleWorks, and she eventually discovered Y2K problems in all versions of AppleWorks except for v4.0 through v4.3. Those discoveries opened the door for additional Y2K investi- gations, and Bev spent hun- dreds of hours trying to deter- mine what other software had Y2K problems and when pos- sible, she created updates or patches that overcame the en- countered problems. Although Bev continues to in- vestigate the problems with Quicken, at this time, it is un- known whether she will find a solution that will permit the continued use of that software to print out negotiable bank checks after January 1, 2000. Fortunately, Bev has had better success with identifying and fixing Y2K problems in the fol- lowing software: ¢ All versions of AppleWorks, except for v4.0-v4.3 ¢ Karl Bunker's Sneeze * ProSel 8’s Mr Fixit * ProSel-16 * Randy Brandt’s TimeOut File Librarian * Harold Portnoy’s Change-A- File * Dollars & Sense * Managing Your Money Subscribers to the TEXAS II newsletter are generally the first people who learn of Bev’s latest discoveries, and since all TEXAS II subscribers routinely receive as part of their sub- scription the actual Y2K solu- tions, the TEXAS II newsletter is highly recommended as the absolutely best source to stay abreast of the latest Apple I related Y2K developments. Bev also maintains an ex- tremely informative TEXAS II web site that is open and ac- cessible to the general public, and it is on this site where she provides complete details of all of the potential Y2K problems that may be encountered while using any of the above software. Of course, she also provides de- tails about the available solu- tions, as well as information about all of the other products available from TEXAS II. If you have access to the world wide web, visit the following URL for complete details on all that TEXAS II has to offer to the Apple II users of the world: hitp:/ /members.aol.com /a2mg Alternately, if you do not have access to the world wide web, you can mail Bev a self ad- dressed stamped envelope, and by return mail, she will send you information and a product price list about the various Y2K solu- tions that are available from TEXAS II. Bev provides several different methods to overcome Y2K prob- lems. For power users, she pro- vides two different 3.5" disks from TEXAS II on Disk that pro- vide specific instructions on how to patch the problematic soft- ware, and in some cases, there are replacement files included on the disks that must be copied to your program disks. For those of you who are wary of patching software yourself, Bev also offers what she calls the Shareware Solutions IT 13 ‘just hand me a finished disk so Ican GO!” method. This second approach may be a little more costly if you have more than one product to update but it is ad- vised for those who don’t en- tirely trust themselves to per- form the actual patchwork or copying of updated files. Most of the Y2K patches re- leased to date are available on TEXAS II on Disk, Volumes 29 and 30. The cost of each disk volume for non-TEXAS II sub- scribers is $15. Volume 29 includes patches and/or replacement files for the following software: AppleWorks v2.0, v2.1, v3.0, v5.0, v5.1 and Sneeze. Volume 30 includes updated re- placement files (not patches) for the following software: ProSel 8, ProSel-16, Change-A-File and TimeOut File Librarian. If you would rather have Bev perform the Y2K updates for you, she currently provides this service for $10 per program, or $15 for overseas delivery. She will update the following software for you, provided you mail her a backup copy of all startup and program disks: « Any version of AppleWorks, except v4.0 to 4.3. * Dollars & Sense * Managing Your Money Additionally, Bev will mail out updated versions (for $10 per program or $15 for overseas delivery) of the following soft- ware, without the need for you to submit proof of ownership: * ProSel 8 * ProSel-16 Subscriptions to the printed TEXAS II Newsletter are $18 for six issues. Additionally, all back issues of the printed TEXAS II newsletter are avail- able for $40, and all 25 back issues of TEXAS II on Disk are available for $66. (Texas residents, please add 8.25% sales tax.) Beverly Cadieux 2503 Sherbrooke Lane McKinney, TX 75070-4766 972-562-6335 (11 AM to 5 PM) 972-548-0591 (All other times) a2mg@aol.com (Note: System 4.02, including an already patched ProDOS-8 v2.0.3, is available from Share- ware Solutions II for $5. Please specify with your order whether you prefer 5.25" or 3.5" disks.) @ ProSel Placed Into Public Domain ProSel Status In early March, Chuck Newby dropped a startling and truly exciting bombshell on an unsus- pecting Apple II community by posting the following announce- ment online: “September will end 10 years that Charlie’s Ap- pleSeeds has published and sold ProSel and ProSel-16 for Glen Bredon. Demand for things Apple II is almost nonexistent and for that reason, I asked for and was granted, by e-mail, per- mission to announce that Pro- Sel and ProSel-16 will be moved to the public domain.” Since its initial release in 1985, Glen Bredon’s ProSel has reigned supreme as the abso- 14 Shareware Solutions IT lute best, most comprehensive and powerful set of utility pro- grams ever written for the Ap- ple II family of computers. Available in two versions, Pro- Sel 8 for use with the Apple Ie, Tle, and IIc+, and ProSel-16 for use with the Apple IIGS, ProSel has long been the undisputed tool of choice to use when trying to fix or retrieve data from a cor- rupted or otherwise damaged Apple II disk. ProSel was written by Rutgers University math professor Glen Bredon, and for many years, Glen himself marketed ProSel and provided all the technical support for it via the various on- line services. In the early years, update followed update, with each one offering more and more and more features than the pre- vious version. Several years ago, Glen retired to the foothills of California’s mighty Sierra Nevada mountain range, and no additional up- dates have been issued to ProSel since his retirement. Then again, no updates were really necessary, as both ver- sions of ProSel are quite stable and already so packed with fea- tures and options that it’s hard to imagine how Glen could have possibly improved upon such a treasure. The final released version of ProSel 8 was v4.0 and the final released version of ProSel-16 Spring, 1999 was 8.84. These versions, and these versions only, have been placed into the public domain. According to Duhaime’s Law Dictionary, public domain is “a term of copyright law referring to works that are not copyright protected, free for all to use without permission.” Therefore, by placing ProSel into the public domain, Glen Bredon has volun- tarily withdrawn all his legal claims to ProSel’s copyright and to the protection that a copy- right supplies. Once something is placed into the public domain, anyone is free to copy it or use it in any way they wish, as the author re- tains none of the exclusive rights which apply to a copy- righted work. Since ProSel 8 v4.0 and ProSel-16 v8.84 are no longer copyrighted, anyone is now free to use the ProSel soft- ware, or if so desired, to make changes or improvements to the software and to give the deriv- ative work away or to sell it. ProSel Features Both ProSel 8 and ProSel-16 op- erate in very similar manners, and provide the same basic set of useful utilities, although the component names may be slightly different in the different versions. Prosel is actually two programs in one: it is a complete set of powerful and highly effective utility programs, and it is a program launcher. As a program launcher, Prosel allows you to create a custom- ized menu that contains the names of your most commonly run programs, which can then be launched from ProSel by using the arrow keys and pressing re- Volume 4, Issue 3 turn, or by using a mouse. When you stop working with a pro- gram, you are then returned to your customized Prosel menu screen. When first setting up your cus- tomized “run list” of programs, you only need to enter path- name information once; after that, everything is on autopilot. Using Prosel as a program selector and launcher makes it very easy to navigate through high capacity disk drives. A pro- gram does not even have to be included as part of your run list to be run; there is a File Finder utility which can search your disk drives for any program, and when it is located, it can be run simply by pressing the “R” key. Using ProSel as a program launcher is completely optional. Those who like to use the IIGS Finder as a program launcher may continue to do so after Pro- Sel is installed, and may simply make use of ProSel for its sophisticated and powerful disk management utilities. In addition to its program launching capabilities, Prosel’s legendary utilities are the most complete set of Apple II utility programs available. Prosel al- lows Apple II or IIGS users to quickly batch copy files or disks, display the contents of any type of file, lock/unlock and hide/ unhide or delete files, exhume a deleted file, verify the integrity of a file, perform an alpha- betical sort of a directory or sub- directory, change file dates, move files, compare directories or compare files, locate a string or a file name anywhere on disk, display graphics upon bootup (Prosel-16 only), blank the screen after a certain amount of inactivity, and it even allows you to add password protection to files. For programmers, those who are technically inclined, and for hunters of Easter Eggs, there’s Block Warden and Zap, sector editors that allow you to examine a disk right down to each individual byte. ProSel-16 also features virus protection, a reverse polish notation calcula- tor, and a sophisticated perpet- ual appointment calendar that can help you to keep track of im- portant events. If that isn’t a complete set of utilities, consider Mr Fixit in Prosel 8, or its Prosel-16 coun- terpart, Volume Repair, which addresses a problem that all of us have unfortunately encoun- tered at some point, namely, a damaged disk from which stored files cannot be retrieved. ProSel has the ability to repair disks that have been damaged by 12 different problems. These utilities are generally successful in fixing disks that have dam- aged directory structures or where bad blocks occur. But, they are such powerful utilities that they can even retrieve infor- mation on a disk that has been accidentally formatted. Additionally, ProSel includes hard drive utilities that are without peer. When a hard drive is used for any length of time, files on disk become fragmented, resulting in less than optimal performance. Over time, frag- mentation really slows down all disk operations. To make disks as responsive as the first day they were used, it is necessary to defragment the disk. In Prosel, that is done by using the Opti- mization module which offers two different methods to defrag- ment a disk: Turbo, which oper- ates on files, and Complete, a method which defragments all files in all subdirectories. In ei- Shareware Solutions II 15 ther case, optimization often re- sults in dramatically noticeable speeded up disk access. If you have no idea whether you have sufficient fragmentation to slow down your computer's perform- ance, just access ProSel’s Info Desk, and with a single key- press on the file fragmentation counter, Prosel will tell you ex- actly how many files on your drive are in need of opti- mization. Another major concern of hard disk owners is protecting the data on their drive. If using 5.25" or 3.5" disks, it’s relative- ly simple to periodically make a duplicate copy of all disks you can’t afford to be without. On a hard drive, there is space for so much information that hard disk backup is a procedure that many hard drive owners follow scrupulously. If hard drive own- ers don’t take precautions, they could lose everything in an elec- trical storm, or if the hard drive develops mechanical problems. Prosel allows for several types of hard drive backups. It can back up the entire drive, or it can be used to incrementally back up only files changed since the last backup, or to back up only files added to the drive after a particular date. When backing up a hard drive, Prosel performs compression on the files, so that it is possible to store more than 800K of data on a 3.5" disk. When first running the backup utility you are in- formed how many floppy disks it will take to store all the con- tents of the hard drive. The process of backing up a hard drive is very straightforward. Prosel asks you to insert disk after disk, and it takes care of all the formatting of disks. Backing up a 32 megabyte par- tition to 3.5" disks takes two 16 Shareware Solutions IT hours or less. Restoring a hard drive from the backup disks couldn't be easier. Just choose Prosel’s Restore op- tion, and Prosel will tell you when to insert the next disk. Restoration takes a little longer than backing up the drive, and a 32 megabyte partition will be restored in three hours or less. Apple II Users may not realize that they need Prosel, but they cannot find a more complete set of indispensable utility tools anywhere. There are other pro- grams that back up hard drives, and others that provide ProDOS utilities, yet there are no other programs in existence that do so much as ProSel! Glen Bredon does not make false or exag- gerated claims when he states that ProSel is “the first, best and most complete hard disk management system for the Apple II.” Thousands of Apple II users whose corrupted and damaged data have been saved by ProSel, including the author of this article, know that Glen’s claims about ProSel are 100% accurate. ProSel and Y2K Beverly Cadieux of the TEXAS II newsletter has identified sev- eral Y2K problems which ProSel users will encounter on or after January 1, 2000. After that date, ProSel 8’s Mr Fixit and ProSel-16’s Volume Repair modules will report that files saved in 2000 will have an in- correct date-stamp, and when these utilities attempt to fix the problem dates, the “fixed” files will display a date of 00/00/00. Bev has also identified a less critical date related problem in ProSel-16’s File Finder. Beverly spent hundreds of hours tracking down potential Y2K problems within each version of ProSel, and she spent many more hours figuring out exactly what needed to be patched in both versions of ProSel so that there would be no Y2K problems at all come next year. Now that ProSel is no longer constrained by copyright, Bev has released her Y2K complaint versions of ProSel which are for sale directly from her. Please note that Bev’s updated versions of ProSel are not in the public domain. Please see Page 14 for infor- mation about ordering Beverly’s Y2K fixes for ProSel and other programs. ProSel Availability By the time you read this, Pro- Sel 8 v4.0 and ProSel-16 v8.84 will be available via download from all of the online networks and ftp sites on the Internet, as well as from most Apple II user groups worldwide. Shareware Solutions II admit- tedly has some misgivings about making available software that will have Y2K problems, but in order to assure as wide a base of distribution as possible for Pro- Sel 8 v4.0 and ProSel-16 v8.84, it is nonetheless making these versions available. Please note that ProSel’s Y2K problems will not manifest themselves until January 1, 2000 and that the use of either version of ProSel is quite safe until then. You will have to modify the program if you intend to use it in 2000, and for that very reason, Shareware Solu- tions II has thoroughly evalu- ated the updated versions which are currently available through Spring, 1999 Bev Cadieux’s TEXAS II organ- ization, and can confirm that they are fully Y2K compliant. ProSel 8 v4.0, for use by Ile, IIc and IIc+ owners, includes 70 pages of documentation on disk, and is available from Share- ware Solutions II on either 5.25" or 3.5" disk. Please specify whether you prefer 5.25" or 3.5" disks. The cost for either is $4. ProSel-16 v8.84 can be used only on an Apple IIGS. No docu- mentation is included, so Share- ware Solutions II is making v8.84 available in conjunction with a working ProSel-16 demo disk which will demonstrate for you some of ProSel’s program launching capabilities. This two 3.5" disk set is available from Shareware Solutions II for $5. ProSel-16 Documentation For many years, documentation for ProSel-16 was included on disk. However, since ProSel-16 has grown so much in size with each successive update, the doc- umentation has in recent years been published in a bound 140 page program manual. This Pro- Sel-16 manual is still available directly from Chuck Newby for $14. Additionally, Chuck has pledged to split the net proceeds from the sale of the ProSel-16 manual with Glen Bredon! To purchase the ProSel-16 manual, send your check or money order to: Chuck Newby 9081 Hadley Place San Diego, CA 92126-1523 chucknewby@aol.com Shareware Solutions [e/IIc/Igs Q Labs Freeware For many years, Scantron Qual- ity Computers (SQC) was the largest and most popular Apple II mail order company. In ad- dition to distributing other com- panies’ software and hardware, they employed several top-notch Apple II programmers who developed software for SQC’s Q Labs division. Thanks to the efforts of Howard Katz, SQC has just reclassified four of their Q Labs software titles for the Apple Ile as free- ware! EasyDrive is a suite of 8-bit software for hard drive mainte- nance. It includes a program launcher, backup and optimizer software, as well as file mainte- nance software. RepairWorks recovers and re- pairs some damaged Apple- Works Classic word processing and database files. QRam Ile is a program that Volume 4, Issue 3 allows Ile owners who own a bank-switched memory card to easily set up and create a RAM disk of up to 1 Megabyte in size. QDrive Ile is a program for con- figuring a hard drive connected to a Ile computer. The software will copy and set up the neces- sary system files, and includes partitioning and verification software. Since SQC has reclassified these software titles as free- ware, they will no longer offer technical support for any of it, and they make no warranties regarding the software or its performance. Lastly, no docu- mentation is currently available for this software. Also included in this collection is a second set of AppleWorks Classic utilities and repair pro- grams that have also recently been reclassified as freeware. Formerly available as share- ware, Harold Portnoy’s Resur- rection and Change-A-File can repair some damaged word processing and database files for AppleWorks v3 or v4. The Q Labs Freeware software is available from Shareware So- lutions II on 5.25" or 3.5" disk for $5. Please specify with your order which size disk you prefer. Lamps Plus Each month, Ryan Suenaga col- lects all the messages posted on the Apple II forums on Delphi, combines those messages with informative articles and re- views, and makes it all avail- able as The Lamp newsletter. Each issue is approximately 100K in length, which would be approximately 20 pages or more if printed out. Just as it did with the old GEnieLamp, Shareware Solu- tions II is pleased to make The Lamp available to Apple II users who do not participate on Delphi, because each issue is well written, informative, hu- morous and timely. For those not currently online, it provides Shareware Solutions IT 7 an accurate representation of the fun those of us on Delphi have. It also provides up-to-date information about new soft- ware, and it always has useful hints and tips that might help you to gain a greater mastery over your Apple II. The Lamps Plus disk includes all issues of The Lamp produced so far in 1999, along with some other useful and informative files collected online this year. Available on 3.5" disk only, the Hal of the Lamps Plus disk is 5. Coming Attractions ¢ For years and years, Randy Brandt wrote add-on programs for use with AppleWorks Clas- sic. He produced a number of highly regarded TimeOut mod- ules, first for Beagle Bros, later on through his own JEM Soft- ware company, and finally for Scantron Quality Computers. Randy has just confirmed the rumor that all of the appli- cations that were written by him as add-on products for Ap- pleWorks Classic have been re- classified as freeware. Randy Brandt is well known for such applications as Outliner for AppleWorks 3, and powerful TimeOut applications such as UltraMacros, FileMaster, and PowerPack. As Randy was also the author of AppleWorks v4 and v5, many of the functions of his TimeOut and other earlier add-ons for AppleWorks v3 were incorporated into those later re- leases of AppleWorks. Therefore, those who continue to use AppleWorks v3.0 will bene- fit the most from Randy’s gener- osity, as there are no additional add-ons built into that version. Upon the impending release of 18 Shareware Solutions IT Randy’s freeware add-ons, Ap- pleWorks users will have more computational power than they have ever dreamed possible. Thanks Randy! * Doug Gum, yet another pro- grammer whose commercial Ap- pleWorks Classic add-on prod- ucts have been marketed by Scantron Quality Computers, has just begun the process of reclassifying his TimeOut appli- cations as freeware. Two of Doug’s most significant Time- Out applications which are slated to become freeware are TimeOut Statistics and Time- Out Shrinklt. ¢ The above information has been based on a series of e-mail messages, all received at press time. It will take a while to de- termine exactly which of Randy Brandt’s TimeOut modules will be reclassified as freeware, and much work remains to be done getting manuals and documen- tation transferred to disk. In any case, Shareware Solutions II hopes to have all the details in the next issue, as well as or- dering information. If you would like to be informed as soon as the above software becomes available from Shareware Solu- tions II, please send a self ad- dressed stamped envelope, and as soon as all the details be- come available, they will be mailed to you. Shareware Solutions IIGS Animasia 3-D Due in large part to the efforts of Max Jones, the publisher of the Juiced.GS newsletter, Mich- ael Lutynski has reclassified his astounding animation work- shop, Animasia 3-D, as share- ware! When the commercial version of Animasia 3-D was released in 1995, it cost $99. The share- ware fee that Michael requests is only $10; this latest version is an update that now runs 33% faster than the original! Animasia 3-D is a sophisticated object oriented animation sys- tem for the Apple IIGS that can be used to produce flicker-free “movies.” It employs a point, click and drag method for placing objects on screen, and it allows for the creation of 2 or 3 dimensional shapes using oval, rectangular, polygon, cone, lathe and helix tools. It comes with on-screen alignment guides, and a multitude of graphic tools that are truly unique; for example, Animasia 3-D allows objects to wrap around the screen and of- fers hierarchical object relation- ships that allow designers to create sophisticated models of real world objects. Animasia allows for flexible time based animations of any objects on-screen by moving the mouse. Another impressive fea- ture allows designers to add variable ambient lighting, per- mitting special effects like shad- ows to be cast from the sun. Animasia 3-D is a masterpiece which can be used to create beautiful and breathtaking ani- mations; spread across the four 3.5" Animasia disks are many stunning examples that illus- trate what can be accomplished with the program. There are also Spring, 1999 tutorials, an XCMD that per- mits you to integrate ani- mations into HyperCard IIGS, and a HyperStudio stack that exhibits how easily animations can be used to enhance hyper- media presentations. Animasia 3-D requires a IIGS with at least 2 megabytes of RAM memory, and System 6.0.1. Although neither a hard drive nor an accelerator are re- quired, they are recommended. Animasia 3-D is available from Shareware Solutions II for $10. SheppyWare ’99 In February, 1998, Eric “Shep- py” Shepherd completed and released Wolfenstein 3-D, one of the most highly acclaimed and enjoyable freeware arcade shoot ’em up games ever created for the Apple IIGS. In the year since then, Sheppy has turned his attention back to creating useful utility programs, and this past year has been perhaps the most productive year that Sheppy has ever had. He has updated some of his older utility programs, reclas- sified several of his shareware programs as freeware, and has created some incredible new IIGS programs that “push the envelope” of IIGS computing. Sheppy’s most significant re- lease in the past year has been the commercial program Web- Works GS, a GS/OS based html editor that is available from Shareware Solutions II for $20. Since its release at Kfest ’98, WebWorks GS has already been updated several times, provid- ing IIGS users with even more power and flexibility than ever before for creating or updating web sites. Volume 4, Issue 3 Sheppy has also reclassified KeyNotifier and SysFail Plus as freeware. Since Kfest ’98, he has also issued new updated ver- sions of LotsaTools, ProBOOT, Cleaner Clean Up, and Shifty List. In addition, he has also re- leased two brand new share- ware programs that have be- come incredibly popular: gsAIM and ImageMaker. His latest program, Image- Maker, is a $5 shareware pro- gram that should prove to make life easier for those who use TIGS emulators such as Bernie ][ The Rescue. ImageMaker can easily convert IIGS RAM disks, floppy disks, and hard disks into disk images for use under Bernie. According to Sheppy, “simply select a disk to create an image of, and ImageMaker will create the image file in the format of your choice. For the first time, you can create stan- dard disk images from your Apple IIGS disks without using a Macintosh!” Sheppy’s gsAIM is a $10 share- ware program that works in association with Marinetti v2.0, and it permits IIGS modem owners to engage in up to 20 different one-on-one private chat sessions over the Internet. gsAIM is provided as a New Desk Accessory, and since it uses Marinetti to dial up and establish a PPP or SLIP con- nection to the Internet, it’s now actually possible to engage in online chatting from within any TIGS program that displays the Apple Pull Down menu! gsAIM is compatible with AIM, America Online’s Instant Mes- senger software, and it actually logs you onto the AIM server, thereby permitting you to chat with your Mac and PC using friends and family who also have a free AIM account. With gsAIM, you can set up a “Buddy List” and once you connect to the AIM server, you'll be notified when any of your buddies be- come available to chat. Eric Shepherd has authorized Shareware Solutions II to collect together all his recent utility software, including freeware, shareware and updates to Web- Works GS, and to make the SheppyWare ’99 disk available for $5. Crock 0’ Gold Upon the completion of the Spectrum v2.2 update in late 1998, author Ewen Wannop turned his attention back to Crock O’ Gold and he has re- cently released v3.0 of the COG offline reader for use in acces- sing the Delphi online network. COG v3, just like Spectrum v2.2, now supports Marinetti and can be used to establish a SLIP or PPP connection to the Internet and a Telnet connection to Del- phi. Of course, it still permits a direct dial connection to Delphi. COG v3 is much, much faster than any previous version, and provides many elegant additions to an already wonderful pro- gram. Among some of the many new and improved features are: automatic extraction of encoded e-mail files, hierarchic menus for choosing options, a powerful new “Threads” feature to assist in reading individual messages, much faster posting of e-mail and forum messages, a new “Log” file which keeps a record of your session actions, and in- ternal support for NiftySpell that guarantees that all your Shareware Solutions IT 19 out-going messages are spelled correctly if you have NiftySpell installed. (Note: NiftySpell is a universal spell checker New Desk Accessory for the IIGS which is available exclusively from Shareware Solutions II for $20.) Soon after COG3 was released, several minor problems were re- ported, but by the time you read this, Ewen should have already released an updated version and it is this update which is available on 3.5" disk from Shareware Solutions II for $5. Also included on the COG3 disk are two other programs that also work with Marinetti v2.0: Sheppy’s gsAIM and Geoff Weiss’s GW-FTP. GW-FTP is an exact clone of the Unix based version, and it allows you to upload and download software via the Internet. European Orchids Boris Gunther of Mannheim, Germany has released a fas- cinating three disk shareware HyperCard IIGS stack that is devoted to educating IIGS own- ers about the many varieties of European Orchids. While the stack is educational in nature, it is also colorful, musical, sometimes amusing, sometimes sad, and perhaps even a little controversial. Apparently, some varieties of orchids are endangered plants, and the stack also details the tale of Boris’s frustrating at- tempts to preserve some rare orchids. Many of you may know Boris’s online alter ego, Marvin, who has been active on the Apple II Usenet newsgroups for years. Most of Marvin’s online com- ments are accompanied by quotes from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” that some- how always seem to address the discussion at hand, and are appropriate yet wacky. Marvin obviously helped Boris to create this stack; click on any graphic to see Marvin’s philosophical comments and quotes. A lot of time and effort went into the creation of this stack, as evidenced by the multitude of graphics and biological descrip- tions and explanations, and it was clearly produced as a labor of love; a love of both orchids and the IIGS. The European Orchid Hyper- Card stack is available from Shareware Solutions II for $10. Joe Kohn Shareware Solutions II 166 Alpine Street San Rafael, CA 94901-1008 FIRST CLASS - AIR MAIL