Mini'app'les Newsletter — June 2000

Telecommunications Si CANCELLED x: Bert Persson, 612-861-9578 Board of Directors min'app'les members welcome. Byerty's 7171 France Ave. S., Edina Lisa Huston ‘Computerized Investing Washbum Library 5244 Lyndale Ave S. Mpls, Denis Diekholt, 612-920-2437 AppleWorks SIG Washbum 5244 Lyndale Ave S. Mpls ohn Hunkins, Jr., 651-457-8949 Macintosh Main Washbum Library 5244 Lyndale Ave S. Mpls, Denis Diekhotl, 612-920-2437 a) cA Microsoft Word SIG 2850 Matro Drive Rm 124, Bloomington Tom Ostertag, D 612-951-5520 E 651-488-9979 Quicken SIG 2850 Metro Drive, Rm 124 Bloomington Dale Strand, 612-835-5872 Macintosh Consultants SIG Embers 7525 Wayzata Blvd St. Louis Park Bob Demeules, 612-559-1124 Fourth Dimension SIG 8200 Humbo Ave South 2nd Fir. Conference Rm. Bloomington David Ringsmuth, 612-853-3024 Applo Il/ GS SIG New Brighton Family Ctr 400 10th St. N.W. New Brighton Tom Gates, 612-789-6981 Photoshop-Digital Imaging Hennepin Technical College 9600 Flying Cloud Dr. Eden Prairie Gary Eckhardt, 612-944-5446 FileMaker Pro SIG Partners, Sulte 5 1410 Energy Park Drive, St Paul Steve Wilmes, 651-458-1513 Macintosh Novice SIG Merriam Park Livrary Marshall & Fairview, St Paul Richard Becker, 612-870-0659 Moot Your IMac / Mac SIG Merriam Park Library Marshall & Fairview, St Paul Brian Bantz, 612-956-9814 Macintosh / Programming SIG Washburn 5244 Lyndale Avenue S, Mpls Andre Benassi, 612-502-0187 & miniapp! The Minnesota Apple Computer Users’ Group, Inc. P.O. Box 796, Hopkins, MN 55343 Board of Directors: President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Marketing Director Publications Director SIG Director Past President Membership Mac Software Apple Il Lisa Huston macgal84@aol.com Denis Diekhoff 612-920-2437 diek @mac.com Mark Watzke 952-945-9039 MWatzke@mm.com Don Walz 651-426-5602 John Pruski 952-938-2818 johnpruski@aol.com Bert Persson 612-861-9578 bpersson@isd.net Bruce Thompson 612-546-1088 bthompson@macconnect.com Erik Knopp Bryan Lienke Owen Aaland Introduction - This is the Newsletter of mini‘app les, the Minnesota Apple Computer Users’ Group, Inc., a Minnesota non-profit club. The whole newsletter is copyrighted © by mini‘app’les. Articles may be repro- duced in other non-profit User Groups’ publications except where specifically copyrighted by the author. (Permission to reproduce these articles must be given by the author.) Please include the source when reprinting. Questions — Please direct questions to an appropriate board member. Users with technical questions should refer to the Members Helping Members section. Dealers — mini‘app ‘les does not endorse specifical- lyfic dealers. The club promotes distribution of information which may help members identify best buys and ser- vice. The club itself does not participate in bulk pur- chases of media, software, hardware and publications. Members may organize such activities on behalf of other members. Advertisers — For information, see Newsletter Ad Rates box within this issue. Newsletter Contributions — Please send contributions directly to our Post Office, Box 796, Hopkins, MN 55343 or upload them to our BBS at 952-595-9404. Deadline for material for the next newsletter is the 1st of the month. An article will be printed when space permits and, if in the opinion of the Newsletter Editor or Manager, it constitutes material suitable for publication. Editor/Publisher: Tom Ostertag 651-488-9979 Newsletter Layout: John Pruski 952-938-2818, Bert Persson 612-861-9578 mini‘app ‘les BBS — 952-595-9404, (co-located on Twin City Interlink BBS), 24 hrs. Settings: 8-1-0.Call in with FirstClass® Client software or any text-based terminal program. mini‘app ‘les Voice Mail - 651-229-6952 mini‘app ‘les WWW site: http://www.miniapples.org The miniapp'les Newsletter is an independent publication not affiliated, sponsored, or sanctioned by Apple Computer, Inc. or any other computer manufacturer. The opinions, statements, positions, and views herein are those of the author(s) or editor and are not intended to represent the opinions, statements, positions, or views of Apple Computer Inc., or any other computer manufacturer. Instead of placing a trademark symbol at every occurrence of a trade-marked name,.we state that we are using the names only in an editorial manner, to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. mini’app’les Newsletter June, 2000 CHANGE OF ADDRESS Moving? Going to be away from home and leaving a for- warding address with the Post Office? Please send us a Change of Address when you are informing others. By using a moment of your time and a few cents to drop us a card, you save the club some money and you get your newsletter delivered promptly to your new address. If you don’t inform us, the Post Office puts your newsletter in the trash (they don’t forward third class mail) and charges the club for informing us of your new address. Change of Address should be sent to the club’s mailing address: mini’app'les, Attn: Membership Director, Box 796, Hopkins, MN 55343. FOR RENT: BRILLIANT PRESENTATIONS 9 Proxima On Cali™ Rental Program. For gj the Multimedia EG Projector You Need. ‘When You Need it. + Local service and ‘suppot * Fast delivery * PC and Macintosh ‘compatibility + Avarlely of projectors and paneis 10 choose from Expert advice ‘on selecting equioment Rental credit program For more information regarding: ‘Computer Projection Systeme— LCD, Data oF Video Projectors Compleia Conference and Training Rooms Table of Contents July. 2000 Preview...... Members Helping Members... The Sims- An MGL Sneak Peak... Dual platform: Mac COMSIStCNCY ..........-sssscsoseesseecseesseeesseeaseensnesssresssneessecssnsned 6 Joe Card upgrade cards... Microsoft submits remedy proposal. Sixty Percent of Americans play video games. Unreal Tournament ‘Non-linear’ word processor. Ten reasons why graphic professional....... Apple Computer (AAPL) announced stock split. Aspyr and Westlake to bring Sims to the Mac....... Membership Application. New Computerized Investing SIG... For Sale by Members..... July 2000 Preview Here is the tentative calendar of our Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings for July 2000. Please pencil these events on your calendar. As always, when doubtful of a SIG date, time, or location, confirm with one of the following: © Our BBS, the Calendar Folder in the Conferences Folder © Our Voice Mail Telephone number: 651-229-6952 © The cognizant SIG Leader Saturday July 1 Monday July 3 Wednesday July S Wednesday July 12 Thursday July 13 Board of Directors meeting Computerized Investing SIG AppleWorks nee ClarisWorks SIG Microsoft Word SIG Macintosh Main SIG Monday July 17 Fourth Dimension SIG Tuesday July 18 Apple II / GS Main SIG Wednesday July 19 PhotoShop / Digital Imaging SIG Macintosh Consultants Quicken SIG Thursday July 20 Thursday July 20 WiAy Goasseteeie tee tank Monday July 24 Meet Your iMac / Mac SIG ° Wednesday July 26 Macintosh Programming SIG PLEASE CALL a Bs wh Thursday July 27 FileMaker Pro SIG pil SaTRRNey Monday July 31 Macintosh Novice SIG & 3300 University Ave, S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55414-9852 an 612-331-5500 » 1-800-933-7337 ‘ {Ask for Extension 254) — mini’app’les Newsletter 3 June, 2000 Members Helping Members Need Help? Have a question the manual doesn’t answer? Members Helping Members is a group of volunteers who have generously agreed to help. They are just a phone (or an e-mail) away. Please call only during the appropri- fate times, if you are a member, and own the software in question. Apple II / I1GS Software & Hardware 1, 5, 8, 15 1, Les Anderson 651-735-3953 DEW ClarisDraw 2 2. Mike Carlson 218-387-2257 D AppleWorks / ClarisWorks 7,8,9 3. Eric Jacobson 651-645-6264 D FileMaker Pro 4. Nick Ludwig 612-593-7410 DEW FirstClass 5. Tom Ostertag 651-488-9979 EW HyperCard 11 6. Ardie Predweshny 612-823-6713 DEW MacWrite Pro 7. Owen Strand 612-427-2868 D Microsoft Excel 2,5,6 8. Bruce Thompson 612-546-1088 EW Microsoft Word 5 9. Pam Lienke 651-457-6026 EW MYOB 6 10. Tom Lufkin 651-698-6523 EW PhotoShop 3,14 11. Ben Stallings 612-870-4584 DEW Quicken 2,6 12. Chuck Hauge 651-292-9029 D QuickBooks and QuickBooks Pro 6 13. Rodney O. Lain 651-452-5821 EW Mac OS 7 8 14, Gary Eckhardt 612-944-5446 EW Mac OS 8 12 15 Michael Cumings-Steen 651-644-8653 DEW WordPerfect 4 Cross-Platform File Transfer 5,15 D: Days, generally 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Networks 11 E: Evenings, generally 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. New Users 10,11 W: Weekends, generally 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. PowerBooks 11 Classic Macs i Power PC 601 Power Macs iMacs 13 Please call at reasonable hours, and ask if it is a convenient time for them. By the way, many of these volunteers ican also be contacted on our BBS. We appreciate your cooperation. If you would like to be a Members Helping Member volunteer, please send an e-mail message to John Pruski on our BBS, or call him at 952-938-2818, with your name, telephone number, contact hours, and the software or hard- ware areas you are willing to help others. Newsletter Ad Rates 1/12 page ... 2.25" Width x 2.5" Height........ $5 Outside back cover . 7-1/2" Width x 7-1/2" Height . . $50 . 2,5" Width x 5" Height. . . $10 Inside back cover .. . . 7-1/2" Width x 10" Height ... $60 1/3 page... . 2.5" Width x 10” Height Vert or 5.5 H.. $20 All ads must be prepaid and submitted on 1/2 page...... 7.5" Width x 5" Height (save 5%)....$30 electronic media. Ads of $20 and under must run for 2/3 page...... 5" Width x 10" Height (save 7%)... . $40 a minimum of three months. Full page ... 7-1/2" Wi 10" Hei . Mail inquiries to: PO Box 796, Hopkins, MN, 55343 meee 12" Width x 10" Height (save 15%). . $60 UT ore inquiries to: John Pruskl, 952-938-2818 2 mini’app’les Newsletter 4 June, 2000 ~ The Sims- An MGL Sneak Peak Submitted by Dave Peck "..1 originally started work on this about seven years ago - before SimCity 2000. I wanted to do a game involving architecture because I get very fascinated with the process of designing houses. Everybody seems to have a feeling of how they would like to design a house so I started research- ing that but at some point I got pulled off to do SimCity 2000. I worked on this on and off through the years but Ireally got serious about The Sims about two or three years ago." "As I got further and further into the architecture I needed to put peo- ple living in the house to basically score the architecture and determine how good the house was. Then we developed this personality simula- tion/people simulation that took about a year to develop. After we got the people up and running it seemed much more interesting and the focus of the whole product moved more and more onto the people and their behavior.” The Sims Creator Will Wright, in an interview with pc.ign.com While it took Will Wright over 7 years to mold and create The Sims, it will likely take less than six months to bring the title to the Mac platform. For the past two months the premiere Mac porting house in the world, Westlake Interactive, has been busily working on the title behind closed doors. Today, in an exclusive announcement at MacHome Magazine, it's been revealed that the game will be published by Aspyr Media later this summer. The Sims is nothing like you've ever played before. In the popular SimCity series, you're challenged to create a city and successfully mold and manage it into a booming metropolis. The Sims takes that same idea to everyday life; you take a group of people (your "sims") and direct them into a successful group of indi- viduals that function normally like your average family. The fun comes in how you want to achieve that and how your sims react to how you direct their lives. So, to begin the game, you decide on what kind of sims you'll be manag- ing throughout your game. You can begin the game with a pre-generated family of sims or create your own using a number of different 3D mod- els, more of which are constantly being made available on Maxis' web site. Each sim has five personality attributes (neat, outgoing, active, playful, and nice) which help deter- mine the sim's personality and how compatible he'll be with other sims. Each sim also has six learnable skills (cooking, mechanical, charisma, body, logic, and creativity), which not only affect the way a sim interacts with his fellow sims but also how well he can make use of the objects in his house and how well he can perform his job. The career choice of your sims is one you'll be making for them. After browsing through the Want Ads in the newspaper or online, you select from ten different career paths. After selecting a job your sim will need to be outside at a certain time to jump in the carpool and make their way to work. A job is your only way of gener- ating income for your family so you can buy new things for your house. Once you have some money to spend, it's time to spend it on things to fill the void of your sims' empty lives: a TV, a couch, a lamp or even a hot tub with plenty more appliances and entertainment items being released by Maxis all the time. You can even expand your house with a second story or new rooms just by switching into and you have your the bathroom or even death if they're not fed adequately. If you're neglect- ing one of the sims' needs, such as social interaction, they'll become depressed and unresponsive to your requests which could lead to the loss of their job or their wife/girlfriend. Your sims' relationships are a whole other aspect of life that you'll need to direct and manage. It might sound cool to have your young bache- lor hook up with the girl down the street and the young wife of your next-door neighbor, but if both run into each other then you're in for some trouble. Your usual fights between boyfriend and girlfriend are to be expected, and the way your sim handles these situations might con- tribute to whether they ever exchange vows in a wedding ceremony. But whether your sims are making out on the back patio or dancing to the music flowing from the stereo, they'll keep you interested, enticed and com- ing back for more every chance you get. Download The Sims- Coming Soon Quick Time Movie (4.7mb) at: http://www.thesims.com/us/about/vi deos/soon.zip Reprinted with permission of Mac Gamer's Ledge. The original article is located at: http://www.macledge.com/sneakpeek s/thesims/thesims.chtml. For more info on the Sims see: http://www.thesims.com/index.phtml choice of windows, doors, walls and much more. More space means more stuff and, most importantly, more sims. And it's really the sims is what The Sims is all about. Every sim has eight needs: hunger, comfort, hygiene, bladder, energy, fun, social, and room, and each need is indicated by a status bar that fills up when needs are met, but are constantly being drained otherwise. It's your job to keep these needs met, or your sims will suffer from embarrassing little accidents on the Macintosh™ Consulting Individual & Group Training Computer Problem Assistance ' Mike Carlson (218) 387-2257 (Grand Marais, MN) mhcnvc@boreal.org FileMaker® Solutions Alliance Member lawn when they don't make it to mini’app’les Newsletter 5 June, 2000 Dual platform: Mac consistency makes life easier Submitted by Bryan Lienke by Dennis Sellers, dsellers@maccen- tral.com May 10, 2000, 2:00 am ET Last month, we ran a request for help from John Eller of Hoover High School who is working to prevent the Des Moines School System from nar- rowing its school network down to a single platform - Dell/Windows -- with Macs being phased out. Eller asked for reasons he could present to the board that showed the advantages of a dual platform approach. MacCentral readers sent him LOTS of information, which Eller kindly shared with us. But he says he doesn't need any more info. Still, we'll contin- ue to present testimonials on the ease, advantages, and importance of keep- ing a dual platform network in schools (and similar organizations). John Hsu, managing partner, SurfMerchants LLC: "I am an lowa native and technical support profes- sional who has been supporting mixed PC/Mac platforms for the last six years in four different companies in the fields of corporate accounting, small business, Web development, and programming, and entertain- ment/multimedia. I can say with great confidence that the minimal addi- tional effort needed to train and maintain technicians in Macintosh support is well worth the long term benefits : "Greater stability: Our Macs have consistently proven easier to maintain and more stable over the long run than our PCs. "Built in Multiple User support: With Mac OS 9, it has become a breeze to restrict users to the level of access to which they are approved. With our PCs, we are still at the mercy of individuals making unau- thorized changes to our systems (unless we are willing to undergo the painful, risky, user-unfriendly and expensive procedure of installing security software on each desktop). "Ease of software and hardware upgrades: Adding peripherals, upgrad- mini’app’les Newsletter ing memory and hard drives, and installing software have time and time again proven infinitely easier to execute on the Macintosh side (not surprising, given the hardware stan- dardization across all Macs). We rarely see functioning configurations sud- denly fall apart when a new applica- tion or utility is installed. “Networking: The wireless net- working option built into all current Macs and the superior simplicity of the built in Macintosh Ethernet inter- faces make it far easier to install net- works, troubleshoot network prob- lems and configure CPUs to connect to printers and servers. "Superior software: Our experi- ence has been that the versions of graphics, multimedia, MIDI and Internet development software on the Macintosh side is more stable and superior in features to their Windows counterparts. In many cases (especial- ly for music/multimedia applications and desktop publishing plug-ins), there are NO equivalents on the Windows side. ~ "Consistency: Many organizations make the mistake of thinking that supporting the Macintosh platform will DOUBLE the expertise and effort required to maintain their technolo- gy: This is patently untrue. The out- standing consistency across the Macintosh line has proven to us that a universal Mac configuration can be carried across all the models with lit- tle to no modifications. "We experience little to none of the model-to-model variations and poorly documented differences (BIOS, hard disk drivers, network cards) that make supporting PCs (even of the same brand) a real challenge. Furthermore, cross platform support has become easier and easier in the past few years, a trend that we expect to continue. "Standardization of hardware components. Macs commonly share the same kinds of RAM, hard drives and network cards found in PCs, mak- ing it far easier and less expensive to obtain and stock these parts. 6 "The Internet as a global stan- dard. As the entire technology indus- try becomes more and more Internet based, it becomes less and less impor- tant what platform computers are based on. For example, my current company SurfMerchants uses both Macs and PCs for web development, web serving, email serving, and data- base serving and our clients cannot tell the difference. "Microsoft applications. Since Microsoft's renewed commitment to the Macintosh application market, we have seen infinitely fewer cross plat- form issues between versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer. “We strongly believe in support- ing both platforms for the reasons that an educational environment may share: "The Macintosh resurgence: With the powerful sales of iMacs and iBooks in the consumer areas, it is important for us to be educated on this platform for us to consider our- selves truly computer literate ... as it should be for students. “Our clients: Our clients have both Macs and PCs at home and for us to serve them most efficiently, we need to be handle all of their plat- forms ... just as students with Macs and PCs at home have a right to expect as well. "Better education (right tool for the right job): When we go out into the marketplace, we don't try to force our clients to deal with Mac Web Server limitations, nor do we expect to pressure them into using inferior PC desktop publishing workstations. To consider ourselves first class com- petitors, we have to offer the best available tools, regardless of the plat- form. 1 would think the Des Moines school systems would similarly want their graduates to be as competitive as possible in the job market by having mastered the best tools at their dis- posal. "In my experience, technology groups who strive for single platform environments typically do so with June, 2000 am om their own best interests at heart _ instead of focusing on providing superior environments and options for their users. Time and time again, technology groups seek to cover up their own lack of knowledge by push- ing for the one platform they know best instead of broadening their own skills. "Ironically, by trying to make their jobs easier by eliminating a cer- tain platform, they miss out on the myriad of ways that platform can strengthen their technology base, and in the case of the Macintosh platform, actually reduce the long term mainte- nance required to keep users produc- tive." Raleigh Ledet: "Last May I gradu- ated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. (Since then it has been renamed to University of Louisiana at Lafayette). During my last two years in the Computer Science Department, I worked as a tech for the art department. While 1 was the 'Mac guy,' I did do some PC stuff. "There where numerous other Macs and a few PC's and laser printers scattered about the rest of the Art Department that where also net- worked to the campus network, so each machine had Internet access with dedicated IP addresses for each machine. "The Art Department took a most- ly platform independent approach. We had Photoshop, Archicad, FormZ After Effects, Quark Express and some other apps installed on both the PCs and Macs. The students could mostly choose to work on the platform of their choice. Generally the architec- ture students worked on the PCs and the visual arts students worked on the Macs, but not always. “All of this was done with 10b-2, 10b-T, and 100b-T networking that eventually tied into the campus back- bone through a repeater. Which means that we saw most of the other network traffic on campus and they saw ours. The campus has a couple of Solaris labs (which are isolated by routers) an IBM mainframe, a whole slew of PCs in offices, (in other departments), at least four or so PC labs, another two Mac labs that I can think of, all sharing this backbone. In other words, we had AppleTalk, TCP/IP, Net/BUI, IPX/Sx and God knows what other network protocols all running around on the same net- work at the same time. "So is it possible to have multi- platform computers share a network? You bet! Is it easy to manage? Yes, if your IT people or informed and self- motivated. We handled the art lab when none of us had degrees or certi- fication, nor where any of us in an IT program. But | propose you ask your IT people this: what do they spend more time working on, problems caused by PCs or problems caused by Macs. I was able to manage at least twice the number of machines that the PC guy and SGI guy had to man- age put together." Aaron Booker, general manager, Alpha Tech Computers, Bellingham, WA: "In reading previous entries in this series, | couldn't help but notice the mention several times of DAVE as the panacea for getting Macs onto Windows NT networks. If the IS dept is helpful, there's no need to buy (expensive) software for this, as NT has Mac support built in. Services for Macintosh needs to be installed (FREE). One caveat, I never recom- mend that Macs use the MacPrint Print Server built into Windows NT; it reliably munges Postscript as well as slowing down Mac print jobs. Another great way for Macs and Windows to share data using the same servers is to use Linux as the server platform. This need not be scary. We love the Cobalt Network Appliances which run on Linux but have a Web based front end that works beautifully. They use a freely available piece of software for Linux called Netatalk (Mac networking sup- port which included AppleTalk AND Appleshare over IP support) as well as a piece of software called Samba (Wintel networking support) to make cross platform file sharing easy and incredibly stable.” JoeCard upgrade cards come to North America Submitted by Bryan Lienke Staff Report, email@maccentral.com May 10, 2000, 2:00 am ET Met@box Corp. -- a wholly owned subsidiary of Met@box AG, a publicly traded company based in Hildeshein Germany -- is bringing its line of Mac upgrade cards to North America. With a new headquarters in Austin, TX, the company is rolling out its JoeCard line of Power PC G3 and G4 processor upgrade cards on these shores. The JoeCard has been produced and marketed in Germany, the European community and Japan for the last two years and has won awards from the European Macintosh Press including Editor's Choice from MacWelt and best performance from MacUp. The US company will market G4 upgrades for the beige G3, Blue G3, and the G4. Plus, they have a com- plete line of G3 and G4 upgrades for the cache slot of "Tanzania" based machines including the Apple 4400 series and Motorola StarMax series. Want more? Okay, how about a line of upgrades for PCI or daughtercard based machines that include the Apple 7300, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600, Umax SuperMac J700 and S900 and many of the Power Computing line of Mac clones. The product line is avail- able through Outpost.com, at the company store, and soon from several other leading Apple resellers. "Metabox believes this is an opportune time to enter the upgrade market in the US with a proven prod- uct and a financially stable company behind it that will be able to quickly and reliably supply the channel in the US, says Clint Giles, president of Metabox Corporation Austin, ina press release. "This has always been a strong product category and with the recent successes with Apple we look for the upgrade market to continue to grow as Apple regains market share and as vintage Mac users upgrade to OS X and G4s this coming year." A mini’app’les Newsletter 7 June, 2000 In addition to marketing the JoeCard line in North American, Metabox Corp. will reportedly be establishing manufacturing, purchas- ing and resourcing relationships in Austin and throughout the US for Metabox AG. Metabox AG's primary focus in Europe is their Internet set- top box. According to Peter White, CEO of Metabox International, open- ing a subsidiary in Austin is strategic in more ways than just the upgrade market. "Austin is recognized around the world as a hotbed of high-tech activi- ty, and we realize there are many resources and potential partnerships in Austin that can help us get a Microsoft submits remedy proposal Submitted by Tom Ostertag Staff Report, email@maccentral.com May 10, 2000, 6:15 pm ET Microsoft has submitted their version of proposed remedies to the judge in their antitrust case. According to a Reuters report, the temedies proposed by Microsoft are as follows: Prohibits Microsoft from cancel- ing Windows license agreements because a personal computer maker ships non-Microsoft software that can Sixty percent of Americans play video ga Submitted by Tom Ostertag by Peter Cohen, pcohen@macgam- ing.com May 10, 2000, 12:30 pm ET Sixty percent of all Americans age six or older play video or computer games, reports the Interactive Digital Software Association, or ISDA. The Teport, created by market research firm Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc, was done by polling phone respondents earlier this year. If the figures are correct, that totals about 145 million people in the United States. Unreal Tournament Submitted by Dave Peck Overview: Unreal Tournament thunders forth into Mac gaming as the next rung in the First Person Shooter (FPS) evolutionary ladder. For neophytes, the First Person Shooter has always been a story based on solo play, whose premise gives you an excuse to SS TS mini’app’les Newsletter serve as a "platform" on which to run other software. It would also permit computer makers to hide Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser icon. Prohibits Microsoft from trading pro- motion of a firm's services on its "desktop" in return for the company's agreement to limit distribution of non-Microsoft platform software. Requires Microsoft to provide ade- quate technical information to soft- ware writers so they can design soft- ware that runs on Windows, without conditioning access on their agree- ment to limit distribution of non- Microsoft platform software. Prohibits Microsoft from conditioning the Preconceived notions about gamers specifically as children and adolescents are outdated, says IDSA president Douglas Lowenstein. Lowenstein explains that video and computer games are played by every- one from school-aged kids to profes- sionals to senior citizens. "The new face of gamers is a major reason why interactive entertainment is a growing and influential force that's shaping our culture, redefining entertainment, pushing technology forward, and helping to power the high tech econ- omy of the 21st century." Lowenstein says that entertain- ment software sales topped US$6.1 billion in 1999. More than 215 mil- shoot the place up! Usually it's an invasion by aliens. And from a first person perspective, your character's mission is to progress through levels wiping out the fiends and saving humanity. It's a dirty job, but some- one has to do it. This game genre requires quick reflexes and good situa- tional awareness. The secondary fea- ture, but primary attraction in many gamer's minds has been the ability to 8 foothold in the exploding internet set-top market,” he says. "Metabox AG has leading technology and experi- ence when it comes to Web via Interactive television." release of software running on non- Microsoft products such as Apple products, in return for an agreement to limit its distribution or promotion of non-Microsoft platform software. Requires Microsoft to license older versions of Windows without increas- ing the price after newer versions are released. All of the proposed remedies would expire in four years. mes, says IDSA lion computer and video games were sold last year, according to data pro- vided by the NPD Group -- that's a 100 percent increase since 1996. According to Hart Research Associates, 43 percent of all computer and video game players in the United States are female, and 61 percent of gamers are aged 18 or older. The Interactive Digital Software Association owns the E3 Expo, which tuns this week in Los Angeles, California. We'll be bringing you more news from the show continu- ously throughout the week. network arena-style death matches with real people, over a Local Area Network (LAN), a modem, and/or the internet. The sharp shooter with the most kills or (politically correct term)- frags, rules the arena. I'm ashamed to admit that I never finished Marathon II solo levels or even started Infinity! +But I've been DeathMatching-it every chance I get. A major shift has occurred in the June, 2000 my newest shooters, where online multi- player competition has become the primary feature and the heck with the (solo story. It's predecessor, Unreal, is still impressive. But Unreal Tournament (UT) leaps ahead by pro- viding a great solo practice environ- ment for multiplayer tournaments, either solo or online. How does one play a solo-tournament?......All will be revealed. iBook is not as fast as the Rage 128 that's comes in iMacs. And because of the limitations of the iBook screen, it's not very pretty. For pretty and fast, the better choice would be the Graphite iMac I saw in action at our last gaming meet. The standard install on my G3, took up 93 MB of hard drive space. This leaves all of the maps and most of the texture on the CD. The full install requires a whopping 512 MB, Hardware Demands: The publisher's minimum hard- ware requirement is a PowerPC with 200MHz 603 processor, 64 MB RAM, MacOS 7.6, 120 MB hard drive space, and CD-ROM drive. Recommended hardware is a G3 or faster, 96 MB RAM, MacOS 8.0 or higher, 120 MB hard drive space, CD-ROM drive, and a Rage Pro or better 3D accelerator. 3D acceleration is highly recommend- ed, but not required. Unreal Tournament runs smooth- ly on my 300 MHZ Blue & White G3, using a standard ATI Rage 128 card. With audio and video options turned down, Urano tk on my Powerbase200 upgraded with 138MB RAM, a 233 MHZ G3 card, and 3DFX Voodoo 3/2000 card. My iBook with 160 MB RAM also did ok, but I could tell it's resources were being tested with slower frame rates and some pauses. The Rage Mobility chip that comes with the and it still asks for the CD to run. That's fair as this is primarily a "net- working" game. The game's "Get Info" box lists the minimum RAM requirement as 8 MB. I was puzzled at first until the explanation arrived from Westlake. I would like to 6 thank Mark Adams for his assistance in gathering info for this review. The real minimum RAM figure is more like 80 MB. Westlake decided to label the minimum as 8 MB so when the novice iMac user cranks up the game for the first time, and they don't have enough RAM, including Virtual Memory, they don't get a cryptic error message. Instead they will get a message asking for more memory. I've always looked at the mini- mum RAM figure to really know what the game needs. This decision defeats that purpose. My suggestion would be to have the Get Info's Memory win- dow display accurate information and add an explanation for novices in the game's setup documentation. The rec- ommended 105 MB of RAM is a more realistic figure for optimum perfor- mance. If using a iMac with 64 MB RAM, you'll be relying on a hefty dose of Virtual Memory. My experience is that relying on a little Virtual Memory with a fast processor (G3) works f °ine. But the more VM you need, the slower any game will run. Background: The warriors filed in, Macs in tow, for the January meeting of the Minnesota Apple Computer User Group's Gaming Contingent. Excitement was tempered with a hint of sadness as this was the first meet- ing where no Marathon would be played. New kings were to be crowned. They're names? Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena. If you don't know, Marathon by Bungie Software, is the beloved FPS that exploded on the Mac gaming scene in 1993. There were others before it like Wolfinstein, but Marathon took over, despite the then hefty requirements of a PowerPC processor. Unbelievably, we've been playing Marathon for 7 years. That's one heck of a run for a game that runs on a PowerPC 601, 66 MHZ processor. In contrast, the PC side of the world was dominated by Doom, the car- toon. What better way to differentiate the Mac and PC gaming crowd? Bungie, by the way, has a couple of hotly anticipated projects underway for release this year. After a long dry spell for Mac FPSs, the heat was turned up a big notch last year when Unreal was brought to the Mac by MacSoft and Quake II arrived, courtesy of Id Software. This year, a blow torch focuses on Mac gaming with the near simultaneous releases of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena. Graphics and game play have reached a point not thought possible a few years ago. Both games are beautiful, delivering great visuals. And most importantly, they soar to a new level of solo and multiplayer game play. My focus is on Unreal Tournament. Game Synopsis: Here's the story. About 2200 (past tense) there was trouble with violence in the deep space mining colonies. The New Earth Government decided that no-holds-barred fighting tourna- mini’app’les Newsletter 9 June, 2000 ments would be a great way for the miners to let off some steam. The Andrews Mining Corporation, who sponsored the events, charged admis- sion and quickly £ discovered that the tournaments were very profitable. Bla, bla, bla, bottom line, you now have an excuse to kick the virtual stuffing out each other in FPS tourna- ment play! Ooo-rah! Shane Caudle #8 Players = The Game: Unreal Tournament provides the environment and structure to get yourself into fighting shape and con- duct knockdown, drag-out fire fights with 16 of your closest enemies or all by yourself. The environment consists of 50 outstanding levels from dingy urban environments to the reaches of Outer Space. More maps are sure to come from independent map makers. UT's greatest achievement is a game structure using the Unreal engine, that allows for solo practice and tour- nament play using UT's cool Artificial Intelligence (Al) characters known as "bots". They seem almost human. And they are a huge improvement over the schizoid things that bounced around the landscape in the original Unreal bot matches. Practice Sessions (solo play) access all of the levels using up to 16 bots in free-for-all DeathMatches and the team games listed under tournament play. You can practice against or with them, independently or as teams. Bot skill levels are set before the session starts. Make them dumb or God-like. At the lower settings they are really easy to frag. I'm too scared to try God- like. To keep you on your toes, a handy game preference allows your bots to improve as you do. UT prac- tice allows you to independently find your skill level and steadily improve without the frustration of getting your butt handed to you online. I'm not saying that's never going to happen, because real humans are still the most dan- gerous and sneaky opponents out there. And it's defi- nitely an adjust- ment when you finally go online. The Unreal Tournament solo game allows you to progress up the Tournament Ladder, fighting bots in the differ- ent game types li 2sted below. A ton of fun! Tutorial levels introduces each category with some basic instruc- tion. In tournament play, the bot's skill levels can't be altered, but the early levels start off with a small num- ber of them at low skill settings. Game Types DeathMatch- A free-for-all. The most frags win. Domination- Two teams fight for possession of several control points scattered around the level. Points build for time in possession. Capture the Flag- Two teams, each with a flag. Score points each time you steal the other teams flag and return it to your base. Assault- Two teams, one defend- ing an objective and one assaulting. After the objective is taken, roles switch and the former defenders are now the assault team who try to take the objective in less time than their competitors did. Challenge Ladder- The final Tournament challenge. A free-for-all Deathmatch against the hardest bots in the tournament. Multiplayer games can be play Aed over LAN and the internet as DeathMatch or any of the team games. I tried Unreal over the internet a couple of times and was sorely dis- appointed in the frame rates. In com- parison, UT's networking code was given a kick in the pants so that it sends less information, is more toler- ant of lost packets, and uses less sys- tem resources for servers. The overall effect is a much better internet experi- ence. Multiplayer choices are mostly identical to practice sessions where the map, type of game, max number of players, spectators, bots, and their skill levels can be set. The host can configure the game so that it starts with bots and as humans join in, bots are automatically removed. Preference settings allow for the same map to be played multiple times or for auto switching of maps after each matcl For internet games, I do miss the abili- ty to take a short break between matches and gossip a little. Stopping to send messages during game play is hazardous to y four health. My wish list includes a Bungie.net-like set up where between matches, you can chat a little and decide which map to play next. UT Weapons will be familiar to those who play Unreal with some variations and new hardware. I don't have much in the way of criticism. Having recently played the Quake 3 Arena demo, | heartily recommend both UT and Q3A. One very nice fea- ture that UT would benefit from is Q3A's handicap system. It's the great equalizer and does a great job of reducing the frustration level of chal- lenged players. Q3A also has the abili- ty to zoom-view all weapons. Is that fair? UT has SO some maps to Q3A's thirty-some maps. i The Interface: A windows affair, but I'm getting used to it. Game preferences (video, audio, etc) are not as many as in Unreal, but they are adequate. The onscreen Heads Up Display is conven- tional in appearance with important info around the edges. Besides stan- dards such as health and armor level, it nice to know your rank and score in mini’app’les Newsletter 10 June, 2000 the current competition. Two new preferences: Instant Respawning- when a play- er is fragged in multiplayer he/she is instantly respawned back into the competition without hitting the "fire" button. I suppose this is to keep some- one from camping on a lead. Dodging- When enabled in the preferences, a double tap of the _ jleft or right move button jerks you side- ways. I like it! OBug Report: None noted, but check at MacSoft's web site for the latest. Conclusion: Unreal Tournament is an out- standing FPS worthy of your pur- chase. Its got great levels and beauti- ful graphics. Its improved Artificial Intelligence provides for maximum fun offline, while sharpening those necessary skills, to deal with those nasty hum ans you'll eventually tun into online. With bunches of new maps and a strong emphasis on team play, I can't imagine a better way to spend my Winter gaming day. Please have a blast with this great game! Copyright © 1999 The Macintosh Gamer's Ledge. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from MGL. This reprint has been condensed from the original article. To see the original html article with pretty graphics visit: http://www.macledge.com/Reviews00 /UT/UT.chtml 26 Facing Worlds edric ‘Inoxx' Fioyentino 4-101 a ay ens i ty Beas ‘Non-linear’ word processor aimed at creative types Submitted by Bryan Lienke Z-Write 1.0 from Stone Table Software is described as "a revolution- ary word processor for creative writers and researchers." Written in REALbasic, Z-Write is purportedly the world's first non-linear word proces- sor. According to the folks at Stone Table, Z-Write lets you store unlimit- ed documents in a single file. With Ten reasons why gra Macintosh Submitted by Bryan Lienke Life in the Mac Lane By Scott Kelby, Mactoday About once a week, | get an email from a professional graphic designer who's in an absolute panic because support for unlimited Sections of information, users can organize infor- mation any way they want. You can move, combine, and print out just the Sections needed. Or you can manage multiple versions of chapters, export a completed book as linked HTML files or Rich Text Format, and even view multiple Sections at the same time. Z-Write costs U.S. $20 for an indi- vidual license and is available for pur- chase and download from the Stone Table Software Web site. Z-Write may phics professionals someone in their corporate IT depart- ment wants to replace their design department's Macs with PCs. Not because it will make the designer's life easier, but because the IT person mis- takenly thinks it will make his/her own life easier because they already maintain a bunch of PCs for the rest of the company. Now, I'm not even be previewed for free with no limita- tions for two weeks. After 30 days without registering, Z-Write reverts to a demo version. Check it out at http://www.designwrite.com/sts/z- write.html. It requires a Power Macintosh running System 7.5 or bet- ter, 1OMB of free memory, and QuickTime (any version). Staff Report, email@maccentral.com May 8, 2000, 3:00 pm ET need to use going to go into the whole "why are people in the IT Department, which couldn't be more removed from the creative process, deciding which tools the creative staff should use” issue - that's a whole editorial unto itself. So instead, I'm going to give the IT departments ten solid reasons why professional graphics designers mini’app’les Newsletter 11 June, 2000 absolutely need to use Macintosh. #1. Macintosh computers are faster for graphics Apple has proved this time and time again in front of thousands, using head-to-head tests putting both G3s and G4s against the fastest Intel Pentium IIIs made. Because of this, some PC magazines conducted their own speed tests, showing that under certain conditions a 600MHz Pentium Ill PC can play the video game "Doom" faster than a Power Macintosh. But you don't ever see a PC magazine running a test that shows a PC, no matter what the megahertz, beating a Macintosh G4 at Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, or any other graphics application. In fact, Apple bases all of its speed tests on real-world Adobe Photoshop tests for two reasons: (1) This is typical of the type of application used by people who use Macintosh. That's why PC magazines do their tests using games, because that's typical of what PC users tun on their machines. (2) It's easy for Macs to win these types of tests because the Macintosh was designed to be a graphics machine - plain and simple - and it's going to easily beat any machine designed for business or for playing video games without breaking a sweat. But don't just take our word for it. John Warnock, CEO of Adobe Systems, recently commented about the speed of Apple's new G4 systems. He said, "Currently, the G4 is signifi- cantly faster than any platform we've seen running Photoshop 5.5." Significantly faster. Bottom line: Graphics pros need the fastest machine possible to be as productive as possible; and for graphics, it's clear- ly Macintosh. #2. There's more graphics soft- ware for macintosh Although you'll find vastly more game titles on the PC, you'll find vast- ly more graphics applications, plug- ins, and XTensions on the Macintosh platform. In fact, many of the high- end QuarkXPress XTensions, dedicat- ed trapping software, and Photoshop plug-ins aren't available to the PC platform at all. And when it comes to color calibration (one of the hottest topics for graphics professionals), the options for any PC are very limited, mini’app’les Newsletter and for Windows NT, it's virtually non-existent. What will the IT people say when their graphic designers put in a requisition for a specific plug-in or Xtension they need, and the IT learns it's only available for the Mac? Bottom line: It would be a huge mis- take to limit the tools for creative pro- fessionals, and switching to PCs sim- ply takes many of these tools away. #3. Windows NT lost the graphics war Earlier this year, the independent gtaphics marketing analysis group TrendWatch released their 1999 Creative Atlas Guide. According to TrendWatch, this annual guide is "a comprehensive market and product development resource used to identify market and revenue opportunities in the U.S. creative markets." The results of this nationwide survey showed that out of 17,000 creative firms, only 1,600 were planning on buying Windows NT machines in the coming year, and Apple will outsell not only Windows NT but all Windows and Windows NT machines combined by a margin of three to one. In the report, TrendWatch said it better than we can, "Apple continues to dominate the creative markets." Bottom line: More creative firms choose Macintosh than all the others combined. There must be a reason. #4. It's a creative machine by design I'll never forget something that Apple V.P. Clent Richardson told me when I relayed to him how we receive these letters from readers complaining that their IT departments are forcing them into switching to PCs. He point- ed to the fact that the Macintosh is a computer designed from the ground up to be a graphics machine, and he said "I have to wonder why anyone would risk their business on a plat- form that is not optimized, architec- tured, and engineered for graphics professionals." Bottom line: Graphics is a very competitive business. Why chance it using a non-standard tool? #5. Cutting-edge graphics applica- tions appear on macintosh first Did you know that Adobe Photoshop wasn't even available on the PC platform until it was version 2.5? It's true. And look at Adobe PageMill; it's the number one selling 12 Web-design app on the Macintosh platform and number tsvo bestseller on the PC, but the PC version wasn't available for nearly a year after the Macintosh version. Adobe Illustrator was stuck back at the Mac's version of 3.0 (although it was called version 4.0), and wasn't upgraded to add all the features of the Mac version until Hlustrator 7.0 was introduced. There are still applications like Final Cut Pro that haven't made their way to the PC at all, and some never will simply because there's not enough demand. Plus, look at QuickTime, the Web and digital video standard for motion graphics, another Apple technology that appeared on the Macintosh years before Windows. Bottom line: Most graphics applications appear on Macintosh first because it's the com- puter that graphics people use most. #6. The Macintosh graphics lega- cy Walk up to anyone in your office and ask them, "What are Macintosh computers best at?" Even if they're a PC user (in fact, especially if they're a PC user) they'll tell you, "Oh, they're just used for graphics." They're right - Macintosh has the worldwide reputa- tion as a computer for graphics, because that's what it is - a graphics computer. Regardless of what has happened to Apple during the past few years, the one segment that always boomed (and kept Apple in business during all those rough years when they were trying to capture some of the business market) was the gtaphics segment. Bottom line: Even PC users know that Macintosh is the platform for graphics. #7, Industry wide support by ser- vice bureaus Try this test: On a PC, create a graphic (using Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.), and take it around to the local prepress bureaus in your area, and ask them to output color separations to film negatives. You'll find that (a) some won't be able to take your PC file at all, (b) some will actually charge you a surcharge for working with PC files because they are consid- ered "non-standard and are harder to work with, or (c) they'll take your file, but you'll see them wince as you're handing over your disk. That's because the prepress industry was built around Macintosh. At Mac June, 2000 Today, we use three different prepress houses. All three are packed with Macs. Two have only one PC and the other doesn't have a PC at all - they insist on having the client create PostScript files on their PC and then converting them to Mac files before imaging them. One of the biggest problems prepress houses have with PC files is font compatibility with their systems. The TrueType font technology (which was, ironically, created by Apple) is the standard on the PC platform, but it's NOT the standard for professional design. Adobe Type 1 fonts are the standard; so many service bureaus have to con- vert all TrueType PC fonts to Type 1 just to get them to print properly on their high-end imagesetters. Bottom line: If you don't use Macintosh, your design staff may encounter more problems, delays, and extra charges every time they output film or do color separations. #8. New graphics technology is designed at Apple, not Microsoft The hottest thing in digital video and graphics right now is FireWire. It lets you transfer digital video directly from a digital video camcorder in real time - like a simple file transfer - at speeds that blow SCSI and USB away, and since it treats it as a file transfer, it requires no rendering time. It comes standard on every Power Macintosh. FireWire is changing the entire indus- try and taking high-end graphics to a new level. It's no big surprise that Apple invented this new technology, because they're the graphics innova- tor. Quick, name one graphics inno- vation or technology that Microsoft, Compag, Dell, or Gateway created that's used by graphics professionals. Gotcha. Luckily, you can buy an extra FireWire add-on card for certain mod- els of Compaq, Dell, and Gateway computers, so they can use FireWire, too, but you have to spend more money and get someone to install the card that comes standard on Macs. Bottom line: If you really want your graphics department to stay on the cutting edge, they'll have to use the platform where cutting-edge graphic technologies are developed - Macintosh. #9. Macs are easier to maintain Iman a Photoshop Help Desk, and I answer hundreds of Photoshop questions from Mac and PC users every week. Nearly every single ques- tion I get from Macintosh designers is on how to create a particular effect or for an easier way to accomplish a Photoshop task. However, most of the questions I get from PC users using Photoshop are for help with a techni- cal issue. Either their copy of Photoshop is crashing or locking up or they can't get it to launch at all. The most common problem is when they've installed a new version of Photoshop on their PC. Literally, all hell breaks loose, and often they tell me they've gotten so frustrated that they go back and reinstall the old ver- sion because (in their words) "at least the old version worked." I so rarely get a Mac tech question that I honestly can't remember the last one I answered. Ironically, most people I answer questions for are Macintosh users. I could mention the numerous studies that show Macs are easier to maintain and dramatically more trou- ble free than PCs. I could quote edi- tors from PC magazines complaining about constant crashes and PC prob- lems attributed (mostly) to Windows and Windows bugs; but honestly, my own personal experience answering these Photoshop help desk questions speaks volumes. Bottom line: Designers will spend more time creat- ing and less time troubleshooting on Macintosh. #10. It's the tool the pros use worldwide Last issue, we showed the results of Print magazine's "Digital Design and Illustration Annual" (Print is "America's Graphic Design Magazine") where they chose winners from a vari- ety of design categories. Not only did Macintosh dominate every category but 100% of the winners in the Photography, Illustration, Package Design, Architectural and Environmental (signage), and Print graphics were designed on a Macintosh. This contest was open to, and entered by, designers using just about every computer platform on earth (including UNIX, SGI, Flint Workstations, Quantel Harry Paintboxes, etc.), but Macintosh blew every other platform away in every category. I felt this was one of the best burdens of proof that high-end award-winning professionals use Macintosh, But this proved not only that these professionals use Macintosh but it also proved that they use Macintosh almost exclusive- ly. Bottom line: If the best in the busi- ness are all using Macintosh, what would you have to gain by forcing your design staff to use something else? This is what it comes down to: professional designers not only want to use Macintosh, they need to use Macintosh. They're going to be happi- er because you're giving them the tool they want to use, the tool that won't tie their hands and limit their creative options, and the tool they need to stay on top in a highly competitive market. If you really want to help your graphics department, don't force them to use a non-standard tool that they clearly don't want. Instead, con- tinue your support for both platforms, and I promise you - that will be doing something to really help your compa- ny's bottom line. Apple Computer (AAPL) announced stock-split Submitted by Denis Diekhoff A number of investors have inquired about Apple's recently announced stock-split. Given that this is the first AAPL stock split in 13 years, let us review the mechanics of this process and clear up some of the confusion investors have had. These transfers are handled by the brokerage automatically, and the investor does- n't need to do anything. As you can see, there is no need to worry about missing out on a stock split. Even if you were to wait until June 20 to buy, say, 100 share of the stock at the pre-split price, you would still end up getting 200 shares a day later but each share would be worth half as much. Essentially, it would be the same as buying 200 shares at half the price on June 21. Stock Splits and Volatility In the- ory, the stock split is really a non- mini’app’les Newsletter 13 June, 2000 event. It doesn't alter the fundamen- tal valuations. Share count is doubled while price is halved. Price and EPS are both cut by half, so P/E remains the same. However, the lower share price attracts more individual investors who feel that the stock is now more "affordable". As AAPL's share price has soared over past 2 years, so has the percent- age of Apple shares held by institu- Aspyr and Westlake Submitted by Bryan Lienke Original article by Peter Cohen, pco- hen@macgaming.com April 27, 2000, 1:00 pm ET One of the most frequently requested games we receive e-mail about is Maxis’ The Sims. Developed by the same company and the same game designer responsible for the perennial favorite "SimCity" series of games, The Sims models human behavior on a much more detailed scale than its predecessors. The Sims has made a huge splash with the PC gaming community since its release, receiving rave reviews from the game press and gamers alike. It's been obvi- ous for some time that The Sims would be a hot seller with Mac gamers, and thanks to the efforts of Mac game publisher Aspyr Media and game conversion studio Westlake Interactive, Mac gamers will have a chance to play The Sims for them- selves. Aspyr announced today plans to publish the game for the Macintosh. While the SimCity series has focused on the development and maintenance of entire metropolitan areas, The Sims focuses instead on the minute details that make up a per- Road to Mac OS xX: Submitted by Bryan Lienke April 27, 2000, 7:00 am ET (This weekly column looks at features and products that may appear when Apple's next generation operating sys- tem, Mac OS X (10) appears this year. tions. Currently it stands at around 60% -- which is quite substantial. Some investors feel that the trading pattern and volume generated by these institutions may have increased the volatility in Apple's stock. Thus if the stock split is able to attract more individual investors, it would help to buffer some of the price fluctuations and decrease the volatility. to bring The Sims to son's life. Players are left to build indi- vidual homes for their Sims, populate them with furniture and appliances, follow individual career paths, and experience all the choices that make up what life's about -- having friends, falling in love, having children. The Sims has been quite a phenomenon on the PC since it was released earlier this year -- more than a million copies of the game have been sold. With The Sims, it's not cookie- cutter production, either -- the tools are there to allow you to customize each Sim's lifestyle to however you want it. An array of advanced archi- tectural tools will enable players to create and decorate dream-homes — even the landscape itself can be culti- vated to your specifications. The inside of the house can be populated with more than 150 different objects from billiards tables to big-screen tele- visions to hot tubs. You can have con- trol over your Sims themselves -- how they look, what their careers are, what they do for recreation. Ultimately, though they're autonomous What else can you do with The Sims? The game's Web site features an area where gamers can upload and download each other's files from -- you can use other Sim families created by other players. Since the game's ini- Sippin’ a little ROM If you aren't familiar with terms like "Rhapsody" and "OpenStep," check out our explanatory "Note" at the end of this article before proceeding.) Mac OS X is supposed to eliminate the need for on-board ROM (Read- Only Memory) chips, replacing them. with files on disk that contain the ROM images. This may be a moot point, however, as we'll explain in a AAPL Investors | Featured Articles | Investor Resources | AAPL Statistics Sector the Mac tial release this past winter, Maxis has also released a host of add-on files as well. For Aspyr Media, this is the latest in an ongoing series of deals the com- pany has struck with PC game giant Electronic Arts. Aspyr's first Mac game publishing effort with EA was last year's release of Madden NFL 2000, the spectacular football game. It con- tinued earlier this year with the publi- cation of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. This is the first Sim game that Aspyr has published, however -- previous installments of Maxis’ SimCity series of games were published directly by Electronic Arts. Aspyt Media's Web site has been updated with a special section for The Sims. Gamers who are anxious to get their hands on this new title can place a pre-order today. Other information about The Sims is available from the game's official Web site. Neither Aspyt nor Westlake have announced when The Sims for Mac will ship, but Westlake informs us that the game is nearing its Alpha milestone, which indicates they've already gotten the game playable. We'll provide you with more details as they become available. moment. Traditionally, ROM chips have pro- vided all the low-level graphics rou- tines that give the Mac its look and feel. If the elimination of onboard ROM does happen -- and remember, Mac OS X is a long way from a com- pleted state -- this will simplify upgrading the ROMs, but it will, theo- tetically, make it more difficult for mini’app’les Newsletter 14 June, 2000 Apple to control the systems that can actually run the Mac OS. Ditching the dependency on ROM could open the doors for other ven- dors to manufacture hardware that will run the Mac OS. A revival of Mac clones? That seems possible, but I find it difficult to believe that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would approve of such a move based on his past dislike of clones. And he's always been an advo- cate of Apple controlling both the hardware and software that makes the Mac unique. Developer Shak Asad says there are several companies that sell 7200, 9600 (Tsunami), G3, and "Yikes" mother- boards with a little "No ROM includ- ed" notation. It will be just as easy to buy these motherboards, or the POP designs being introduced by IBM (intended for use with LinuxPPC) and install Mac OS X on them - if it in fact will not require a physical ROM, he says. "Will this bring the Mac into the same arena with PCs whereby systems will be thrown together? Will end users forsake the iMac in the hopes of building a better, cheaper system?" Asad says. "LinuxPPC has Mac-on- Linux which theoretically allow Linux users on a variety of PPC platforms ranging from Be-Boxes to CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) to run the Mac operating System -- albeit with no graphics acceleration. Is this a boon or bane for the Mac platform? No physical ROM requirements can very well determine Apple's future." However, the elimination of onboard ROM chips may not change much at all. Abe Skolnik says the current Mac OS already does this on "New World” machines, where Open Firmware isn't completely broken. There is no Mac OS code in the real ROM for these machines. On "Old World" machines, the Mac OS portion of ROM will sim- ply never be loaded by OS X. Skolnik explains: "It was the long-ago (in computer business time) introduc- tion of the iMac (rev. A) that gave the public access to a computer that could Tun the Mac OS (unemulated) without having some important pieces of the OS in question (the so-called ‘Toolbox;,' or at least part of it) in real ROM. The iMac's technology for doing so is referréd to by Mac tech types (such as myself) as 'New World’, and by people writing for the masses as 'ROM-in-RAM'. This way of doing things was continued in the Blue G3 (not the beige one) and the Lombard (.e., bronze) PowerBook. Confusingly, the PowerBook G3 Series (a.k.a. ‘Wall Street! and ‘Main Street’) are not New World-based, even though they came out after the iMac. They were also the last machines to be introduced to the public with 'Old World’ architecture. I suspect that was the result of those PowerBooks having already been, at least mostly, enginecred before the iMac intro, such that Apple didn't want to throw away an at least almost-ready design without even having used it, settling instead to delay the NewWorld-ization of the PowerBook line for later. "Background and history in place, here is the scoop on the situation as it relates to Apple‘s NeXT-generation OS: the whole discussion is moot; it's all irrelevant. The ROM in beige Macs is basically the core of the real Mac OS; please do not allow yourself to be fooled by Apple’s marketing-based decision on what to call the OS that Apple now owns the rights to; a well- chosen name (based on technology, not marketing and hype) would be "NeXTstep S.0' or 'OpenStep 6.0' or something along those lines. The moral of the story: the so-called 'Mac OS 10' will not need the part (a big part it is, too) of the ROM of beige G3s that contains the Mac Toolbox. The OS in question not only ignores that code on the beige machines (it is not present on {Macs/blue G3s/G4s/USB-equipped PBs), it also eliminates that code from the boot sequence! In other words, if, in theo- ty, that code were on separate chips (in reality, it's not), you could remove them from your system, and you would still be able to boot 'Mac OS 10', although you would have, in all likelihood, crippled your machine so as not to be able to boot the 'real’ Mac OS. (In even more theoretical theory, you could still boot a version of the teal Mac OS intended for a New World-based machine, but that is a whole other story.) "The ‘files on disk that contain the ROM images' that you referred to are included in all versions of the real Mac OS that are meant for New World machines, and can be seen very plain- ly by looking inside the System Folder; the file's name is usually 'Mac OS ROM', not that it matters; Apple might be using a different filename on the ‘localized’ versions of the Mac OS, because the boot-loader searches for the file by type code, not by name. Regardless, Mac OS 10 doesn't have those files, nor needs them, nor would it have any use for them, even if you forced them down its throat. On the other hand, if you have a machine to play with, and a bootable CD to fix the same, you can prove to yourself the importance of the file in question to the real Mac OS (when running on a NewWorld machine) by moving that file out of the System Folder and restarting. Once you have witnessed the machine not booting, you may boot from CD and put the file back where it belongs, no harm done." Whew. Okay, now on to some com- ments from last week's column. Last week we explained that one result of using the Mach kernel in Mac OS X is the elimination of extensions, at least when you're outside the Classic envi- ronment (also known as Blue Box). Gordon Henriksen, developer, sends us the following info: "Extensions live on in Mac OS X, but they are not extensions as we know them from System 7, and they extend only the kernel; thus, they are properly called ‘kernel extensions.' Kernel extensions are distributed as bundles with names ending in '.kext.' The kernel itself does not interact with the user in any way; the kernel does not so much as pro- vide the drawing routines Mac OS X applications use. Thus, kernel exten- sions provide significantly less visible services than do Mac OS extensions. Kernel extensions can be loaded at any time and a well-implemented ker- nel extension can be unloaded, later, as well. Mac OS X kernel extensions cannot 'patch' the kernel, which is a good thing. Mac OS X kernel exten- sions export functionality through more well defined interfaces than patches. "The functionality many Mac users expect from extensions is going to be mini’app’les Newsletter 15 June, 2000 implemented in OS X using a combi- nation of kernel extensions, applica- tions, libraries, and plug-ins, which all will behave much as we know them to behave today. Plug-ins which do not provide an image filter but rather extend an application (such as the OS X Finder) in a general way are some- thing less familiar, but certainly not a difficult concept for a user to wrap their mind around. "Daemon processes under OS X and faceless background apps under OS 9 provide rather similar services, though daemons are used much more exten- sively in Mac OS X and provide much more robust services. Device drivers are implemented with an interface called IOKit and packaged as kernel extensions. IOKit is not BSD-like AT ALL,; it's a C++ driver model where developers subclass drivers from generic model drivers. Non-ADC members can look at IOKit by exam- ining the IOKit-based Darwin 1.0 ker- nel source at Apple's CVSWeb inter- face. Not all Mac OS X drivers present themselves in /dev, and the preferred way to interact with most drivers is not through /dev at all, but rather through other interfaces." Now a final comment on another item from last week's Road to Mac OS X (which you should read at http://www.maccentral.com/news/00 04/21.macosx.shtml for background info.) Scott Anguish, the force behind the Stepwise Web site writes: "RPMs cer- tainly aren't the only situation similar to the traditional Mac OS installer. dpkg works in a similar fashion. These are being used somewhat for Darwin (the prep is there anyway). dpkg is nice because it can specify dependen- cies on other packages as well. "Mac OS X Server uses pkg’s which are of the same sort of capability... the use of PAX as the archiver causes problems (read my articles on Stepwise about Installer). So there are lots of options. Personally, I'd like to see Apple put a front end on dpkg (As a matter of fact Fred Sanchez did this for WWDC last year, but the demo gods were against him showing it)." The Users’ Group is proud te announce the engagement of Us, Lisa Huston & Wr. Yohu Huuhins, Yr. Their wedding (2 planned for May, 2001 (Note: Mac OS X is the upcoming, "next generation" operating system from Apple, due in the first half of 2000. Mac OS X will include compo- nents of the traditional Mac OS, as well as components of the Rhapsody project. Rhapsody was once planned as Apple's next generation operating system. It's still around as Mac OS X Server, and parts of Rhapsody tech- nologies will become part of Mac OS X. Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server is par- tially based on OpenStep technologies that Apple obtained in the purchase of the NeXT company. Carbon is the modified version of the Mac OS API, allowing applications to be rewritten with relative easy for Mac OS X. Cocoa (also known as the Yellow Box) is a set of cross-platform APIs that will allow the development of applications that run under Mac OS X and other operating systems.) mini’app’les Newsletter 16 June, 2000 = on 4 = my , New & Renewing Members- 4 mini app les Specify your level of support: Handy Form — $25 (One Yeas ____ $45 (Two Years) . ____ $60 (Three Years) a —— 7 ___ $15 Student"(One Year) ompany (it mailed to): ____ $100 Corporate (One Year) Address: Thanks! . a * must be a full-time student City, State, Zip: at an accredited institution Phone (Home): (Work): Make Checks Occupation: — SS sS7> Check if this is a Payable to Member ID# (if applicable):___________ address change. “mini‘app'les" Which personal computer(s) do you use? Please list the five software . packages you use most often: ( Power Macintosh model(s) ( Macintosh models) @s Oaeal () Apple I! model(s) () Other What peripherals or What are your areas of O Check if you want your I'd like foja. al attachments do you use? _ special interest? name withheld from ) Printer () Business Applications commercial and other . Q Laser Printer ( Household Applications non-club mailing lists Ifthisisanew Quo O] Educational Applications (] Check if you are membership or a O) Scanner ( Desktop Publishing intereeien (aivolanicer renewal, please (AMICI ecuroc QO) Programming pporits enamine [| Drawing Tablet QO) Networking () Check if you were Mg [Voice Mail O) Games referred by a club member. Please give questionniare im wie) QO) Other their name. QO) cp-rom QO) other Disk Size | eDOM # Title or Description | Qty.| Price @| Total Macintosh & Apple Il eDOM Orders Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery Disk Prices Total Merchandise Members NonMembers Add $1/Disk for Shipping ($4.00 Max) 5.25” eDOM or System Disk: $1.00 $2.00) 3.5" eDOM: $5.00 $10.00 GRAND TOTAL Mac System 7.0.1 (9 Disks): $15.00 NA. GS/OS 6.0.1 (6 Dickey ! $10.00 NA. Make Checks Payable to “mini‘app'ies” 3.5" System Disks(All Other Systems): $2.00/Disk N.A. (Price includes 6.5% MN Sales Tax) (QNonMembers cannot buy System Disks Last Fold — Seal with Tape Attention: OMembership Director OSoftware Director | | | | Mini’app’les P.O. Box 796 Hopkins, MN 55343-0796 2nd fold PIO} IS}. VadsdocTafeaaDfcatuatoalb Hassles feleretbedall Joe1g eemyos O Joe diysiequeyy O +OU} O} SIU} JOIP BSBBIq se},dde,juiw 1e0q New Computerized Investing SIG qnmubmitted by Bet Persson For some time now we have had a discussion on our Bulletin Board (BBS) about starting a Computer Investment Special Interest Group (SIG). This has finally come to fruition and begin- ning Monday June S$ at 7:00 P.M. we will have our first official meeting at the Washburn Library (downstairs meeting room). We will have access to the Internet so if you have any sug- gestions about financial sites to visit or other financial strategies of invest- ing, please come to this meeting and For Sale by Members Macintosh computers, monitors, Apple Ie’s, Image writers. PC printers, hard drives, modems, PC's for sale. Bert (612) 861-9578 or post message DISCOUNT SOFTWARE 7617 Brooklyn Blvd. Brooklyn Center Mn. In the Village North Mall (612) 503-8680 Now under new management We Sell Macintosh Software & Hardware 11-7 Weekdays 10-4 Saturday Come in and check us out! share those with us. Washburn Library is located at 5244 Lyndale Ave So, Minneapolis. For more information contact Denis Diekhoff (612) 920-2437 on our BBS, bpersson@isd.net 591 N. Hamline Ave. —= — 651/646-4326 Tuesday-Friday 9am - 5:30pm ‘Saturday 9am - Noon Closed Monday & Lunch (1-2pm) Following over 75 years of tradition in the Midway area USFamily.Net y: p 1st month free! Internet Services oe WAIN, e-mal, ete. Premium Twin Cities Intemet Service © Any speed. No ads, for business and personal use. “er No gimmicks. No risk. All digital all the time. & ‘Simple satup. ISDN or 56k are no extra charge! Ka Friendly support, Over 2 year of excellent local ‘service, Unlimited Access. No busy signals, Only Call now! $7.99 697-0523 a Per month wwwusfamily.nel lnfo@usfamily.net — — ——— — _ mini’app’les Newsletter June, 2000 Benefits of your mini’app’les membership include: A one year subscription to our monthly Newsletter A free account on the mini’app’les BBS (45 minutes/day) Communicate with other mini’app’les members plus get up to date information on mini’app’les events and meetings. Get assistance from other members. Download freeware and shareware. Eligibility for frequent drawings of free equipment, software, and books. Just a few of the many items given away free in the past include: Connectix QuickCam, Microsoft Encarta, Alps Printer, Books from Peachpit Press , MacMillan, RamDoubler, SpeedDoubler, Lind PowerBook battery Conditioners , Rechargers, Microsoft Art Gallery, T-shirts and software including Apple OS 9.0 Discounts on book orders 40% off Peachpit Press, 40% off MacMillan family of book companies (Hayden, Adobe Press, Que, Sams, Brady, NRP, and Alpha) Periodic special User Group discount offers on equipment and software. In the past year, Apple, Hayes, Broderbund, and APC Power Protection (Business Security Products), among others, have offered mini’app’les members significant discounts. Plus, you’re supporting all of mini’app’les’ special interest group (SIG) meetings that you can attend each month. It’s easy to recoup your cost of membership with the above benefits. Ul ’ Non-Profit Org. =e y : miniapp'les U8 Foto newsletter Ries Box 796 ental Hopkins, MN 55343 Permit 2537 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED Qminioppies membership card EXPIRES: Life 1D# 160 2601 WOODS TRL BURNSVILLE MN 55337 4 1 H H DAN B BUCHLER i | H 1 ' | H H 1 | caeteieieisisiaieaaeieiaiats | mini’app’les Newsletter June, 2000