Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Path: news.uiowa.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!amd!amdahl!netcomsv!netcom.com!lunatic From: lunatic@netcom.com (Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex) Subject: GEnieLamp A2, September 1993 Message-ID: Summary: Posted by request, since it never made it here Keywords: GEnieLamp,A2,A2Pro,newsletter Organization: DOG San Francisco / LunaTechnology Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 21:40:29 GMT Lines: 5341 _ (_ __)omeone told me that the September issue of GEnieLamp never made it here to comp.sys.apple2, and requested that I post it. So, here it is. Some info may be a little dated, but there's still a lot of good stuff, here, like a new interview with Joe Kohn, another installment of the Apple II History, and other original articles not found elsewhere. |||||| |||||| || || |||||| |||||| || || ||| || || || || ||| |||| |||||| || |||| Your || || || || ||| || || |||||| |||||| || || |||||| |||||| GEnieLamp Computing || |||||| || || |||||| RoundTable || || || ||| ||| || || || |||||| |||||||| |||||| RESOURCE! || || || || || || || ||||| || || || || || ~ WELCOME TO GEnieLamp APPLE II! ~ """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" ~ BEGINNER'S CORNER: Polishing Green Apples ~ ~ PD_QUICKVIEW: GIF.3200 ~ ~ APPLE II HISTORY: DOS 3.3, PRODOS & BEYOND ~ ~ HOT NEWS, HOT MESSAGES, HOT FILES! ~ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////////////////////////////// GEnieLamp Apple II ~ A T/TalkNET OnLine Publication ~ Vol.2, Issue 18 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Editor....................................................Douglas Cuff Publisher.............................................John F. Peters Copy-Editor...........................................Bruce Maples \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////////////////////////////// ~ GEnieLamp IBM ~ GEnieLamp ST ~ GEnieLamp [PR] ~ GEnieLamp TX2 ~ ~ GEnieLamp A2Pro ~ GEnieLamp Macintosh ~ LiveWire Online ~ ~ Member Of The Digital Publishing Association ~ GE Mail: GENIELAMP Internet: genielamp@genie.geis.com ////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ >>> WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE APPLE II ROUNDTABLE? <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ~ Septemember 1, 1993 ~ FROM MY DESKTOP ......... [FRM] HEY MISTER POSTMAN ...... [HEY] Notes From The Editor. Is That A Letter For Me? HUMOR ONLINE ............ [HUM] REFLECTIONS ............. [REF] Fun & Games On GEnie. Online Communications. BEGINNER'S CORNER ....... [BEG] NEWSBYTES ............... [BYT] Polishing Green Apples. PC Prices: How Low Can They Go? PD_QUICKVIEW ............ [PDQ] CowTOONS ................ [MOO] GIF.3200 More Mootations. THE ONLINE LIBARY ....... [LIB] PROFILES ................ [WHO] Yours For The Downloading. Who's Who In Apple II. SEARCH_ME ............... [FUN] CONNECTIONS ............. [CON] Yours For The Downloading. Online Thoughts. COMMUNICATIONS .......... [COM] APPLE II ................ [AII] Apple II History, Part 14. Apple History, Part 15. LOG OFF ................. [LOG] GEnieLamp Information. [IDX]""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" READING GEnieLamp GEnieLamp has incorporated a unique indexing """"""""""""""""" system to help make reading the magazine easier. To utilize this system, load GEnieLamp into any ASCII word processor or text editor. In the index you will find the following example: HUMOR ONLINE ............ [HUM] [*]GEnie Fun & Games. To read this article, set your find or search command to [HUM]. If you want to scan all of the articles, search for [EOA]. [EOF] will take you to the last page, whereas [IDX] will bring you back to the index. MESSAGE INFO To make it easy for you to respond to messages re-printed """""""""""" here in GEnieLamp, you will find all the information you need immediately following the message. For example: (SMITH, CAT6, TOP1, MSG:58/M475) _____________| _____|__ _|___ |____ |_____________ |Name of sender CATegory TOPic Msg.# Page number| In this example, to respond to Smith's message, log on to page 475 enter the bulletin board and set CAT 6. Enter your REPly in TOPic 1. A message number that is surrounded by brackets indicates that this message is a "target" message and is referring to a "chain" of two or more messages that are following the same topic. For example: {58}. ABOUT GEnie Effective July 1, GEnie's non-prime time connect rate drops """"""""""" to $3.00 per hour, a reduction of 50% from the current rate. The monthly fee has been restructured, and moves from $4.95 to $8.95, for which up to four hours of non-prime time access to most GEnie services, such as software downloads, bulletin boards, GE Mail, an Internet gateway, multi-player games and chat lines, are allowed without charge. To sign up for GEnie service, call (with modem) 1-800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH. Wait for the U#= prompt. Type: XTX99014,DIGIPUB and hit RETURN. The system will then prompt you for your information. Need more information? Call GEnie's customer service line (voice) at 1-800-638-9636. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" /////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "true story: I was downloading a file the other day when / / my phone line was hit by lighting. Just before it died / / my modem said "*&^%$#@!" / ////////////////////////////////////////////// G.MARON //// [EOA] [FRM]////////////////////////////// FROM MY DESKTOP / ///////////////////////////////// Notes From The Editor """"""""""""""""""""" By Douglas Cuff [D.CUFF] THE OTHER NEW YEAR Perhaps you are always acutely of what day it is, but """""""""""""""""" I personally was astounded to realize that it's September already... the beginning of the academic year. The thought brings a smile to my lips. Do you realize that many teachers returning to school are just now learning about TheWorks, the supercharged AppleWorks project? TheWorks isn't due for release until later this fall, but its features have been a hot topic since the project was announced last month. Some people have been lucky enough to see demonstrations of pre-release versions of "Quadriga", to use the project's code name, and they all rave about how you can't appreciate the program from cold lists of features. Despite the fact that it wasn't live, even the demonstration of Quadriga that I saw on the _II Alive_ video, "Apple II Review", was enough to make me enthusiastic about the program. We have a real treat in store, it seems! KANSASFEST Of course, it must be fall, since KansasFest has come and """""""""" gone. For the first time ever, I wasn't in a geographical position that required me to banish all thoughts of attendance from my mind, and yet I still couldn't attend. Not to worry, many of the A2 Gang did attend, and they weren't shy about reporting what went on, as you'll read in our THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE section. Best of all, KFest organizer Tom Weishaar was heard to remark that he'd like to do it all again. While this isn't a commitment for a sixth KansasFest, it's more encouraging than the rumblings about this Fest just past being the last. Perhaps the organizers found the trimmed-back schedule more manageable. Let's all hope that we can meet in Kansas next year! THE POOR MAN'S TRADE SHOW I was keening over being unable to attend """"""""""""""""""""""""" KansasFest when my copy of the _II Alive_ videotape, "Apple II Review" arrived in my otherwise empty post box. Aside from the exciting Quadriga preview mentioned above (and a brief engagingly shameless promotion of Quality Computers), this videotape features footage from Apple Expo West, which took place last April in San Francisco. While by no means a substitute for attending, the video did console me and intrigue me. So *that's* what Lunatic looks and sounds like.... SYSTEM 6.0.1 RELEASED TO THE PEOPLE Not long after the Apple II version """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" of "hordes of people" had returned from KansasFest, IIGS System 6.0.1 was made available on GEnie. Of course, System 6.0.1 was really released about a month before, but was only generally available through Resource Central. Now that it's more widely released, expect to hear the raves (and gripes) rolling in. IS THAT A LETTER FOR ME? NOPE, GUESS NOT! All right, so I've pinched the """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" subtitle of the HEY MISTER POSTMAN column. The point is that the cards, letters, and E-mail *haven't* been rolling in. I'd really like to hear what you think of GEnieLamp A2, and you haven't said a word to me. You don't love me any more! I don't think you appreciate what a chance you're throwing away. This is only my second month on the job. I'm not set in my ways yet. (That comes the month after next... we editors acclimatize quickly.) Let me know what sweeping reforms you'd like to see. Let me know what parts of GEnieLamp A2 I can't touch without starting a full-blown riot. Let me know there's someone out there! These days, it's important to know that you're not alone. GEnie Mail: D.CUFF Internet: d.cuff@genie.geis.com >>> NOTES FROM THE PUBLISHER <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ~ By John Peters [GENIELAMP] ~ AND THE BIG NEWS THIS MONTH IS... For over a year now, Atarians have """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" enjoyed graphics with their GEnieLamp ST thanks to David Holmes and his revolutionary text reader, TX2. On the Macintosh side, Jim Flanagan has been releasing a graphics issue which has drawn nothing but praise for his efforts from everyone who has seen it. But for the IBM folks, the ability to show graphics in GEnieLamp have been noticeably absent. That situation is about to change. I am happy to announce that are now offering graphics support for the IBM platform with a new viewer called HyperRead by David Leithauser. Like the ST/TX2 and Macintosh graphics issue, HyperRead uses keypresses or a mouse to quickly jump to various articles in the magazine. Also, like the ST/TX2 viewer, HyperRead allows graphics to be incorporated within the text. Next month we will be offering screenshots of the PD_Q and Mini_Byte reviews for the IBM issue just as we do in GEnieLamp ST/TX2. If you're interested in checking out GEnieLamp IBM / HyperRead you can get your copy of GEnieLamp IBM with the HyperRead viewer from the GEnieLamp menu located on page 515. Until next month... John Peters GEnieLamp/DigiPub RoundTable /////////////////////////////////////////// GEnie_QWIK_QUOTE //// / "BTW, I recently realized that at $3.00/hour, or $.05/minute, / / GEnie now costs less than a local pay phone call, which is / / $.20 or $.25 for three minutes. Wild, huh?)" / /////////////////////////////////////////////// A2.LUNATIC //// [EOA] [HEY]////////////////////////////// HEY MISTER POSTMAN / ///////////////////////////////// Is That A Letter For Me? """""""""""""""""""""""" By Douglas Cuff [D.CUFF] o BULLETIN BOARD HOT SPOTS o A2 POT-POURRI o HOT TOPICS o WHAT'S NEW o THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE o MESSAGE SPOTLIGHT >>> BULLETIN BOARD HOT SPOTS <<< """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" [*] CAT5, TOP2 .............. Buy Apple stock? [*] CAT5, TOP2 .............. License Apple IIgs System Software? [*] CAT5, TOP3 .............. Favorite IIgs text screen colors [*] CAT6, TOP10 ............. X-10 home automation on your Apple II [*] CAT6, TOP15 ............. Flatbed scanner for IIgs? [*] CAT10, TOP6 ............. Built-in dumb terminal in IIgs [*] CAT42, TOP29 ............ Quadriga [*] CAT44, TOP2 ............. KansasFest reports >>> A2 POT-POURRI <<< """"""""""""""""""""" NO FILES IN ROOT DIRECTORY Because of the way ProDOS is designed, files in """""""""""""""""""""""""" the root directory are almost impossible to recover. This is why it's always a good idea to use folders. -Bryan (SOFTDISK.INC, CAT35, TOP7, MSG:45/M645;1) PASSPORT HOUSE LETTER I guess everyone knows by now that """"""""""""""""""""" "Incider/A+" has ceased publication. And current subscribers are being offered a choice of having the balance of their subscription filled with either "// Alive", the new Apple // magazine put out six times a year by Quality Computers or with "MacComputing". But today, I received in the mail a letter from the Alliance International that said they were shutting down operations because of a lack of support from Apple // owners and developers. But the letter also announced the existence of still another new Apple // publication called "The Passport House Letter". Which publishes monthly at $24 a year (12 issues). They can be contacted at: The Passport House Letter P.O. Box 145 Miles City, MT. 59301-0145 Is any one familiar with this magazine? This is the first I heard of it. (R.ROEHNER, CAT4, TOP11, MSG:87/M645;1) >>>>> I receive it and I'm very pleased with it. Its a 12-14 page """"" newsletter about the Apple II development, product reviews, new product reports, and articles like 'The Great Disk Drive' which went into detail with just about everything you wanted to know about Disk Drives of all sorts. I recommend it! Thanks Paul (P.PAVLICKO, CAT4, TOP11, MSG:92/M645;1) DEFEATING APPLEWORKS MAIN DICTIONARY > I'd really like to create a German """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > _main dictionary_. Here in Holland some people have developed a Dutch dictionary for AppleWorks. You do not have to replace only the Main Directory, but within the program itself there is also a small directory with words that will occur the most. The makers of the Dutch directory did also replace this short directory. If you want I can send you the disk, that will change AppleWorks. Maybe you can learn from this. If you want I can email you the names and maybe the addresses of the users that made this program (I believe they are no longer Apple // users but few of them still visit the quarterly Apple Day). I do have two versions of AppleWorks on my hd. One with the English directory and one with the Dutch directory. This Dutch version has also been patched (patch made by the famous John (UltraMacros) Tegelaar) to make it all Dutch ; so Dutch menu's and alerts and so on. So where are the secrets? Peter van Dongen / Netherlands / Europe {Co-Pilot 2.1.1 + PT 3.1} (P.DONGEN1, CAT17, TOP4, MSG:138/M645;1) >>>>> Here is a patch for Europeans who do not want to wade through """"" 80,000 English words to check Spelling. It allows them to have a very large Custom Dictionary in their own language as the primary means for spelling tests. Macro: a:! // Check Spelling, Custom dictionary only Permanent Patch: Get into Block Warden and F)ollow SEG.WP to byte $8385. Go into E)dit mode and change the $F0 to $80. Write the block to disk and exit. Thanks once again to Wally Bradford for giving us these locations. Please tell anyone who's interested that you heard about it in -- TEXAS II. (B.CADIEUX, CAT17, TOP4, MSG:151/M645;1) I'VE HEARD THIS BEFORE > Joe Kohn (publisher of SSII) purchased a HP """""""""""""""""""""" > LaserJet 2P the same time I purchased this one. I > shouldn't speak for him, but I have read his posts saying he is also > pleased. Actually, I got the HP LaserJet IIP Plus, and I'm more than just pleased with it; I'm thrilled with it. And, little did I think, when I purchased it, that I'd be using it to print out a newsletter that would elicit comments like "You did that on an Apple IIGS?" and "Which Mac did you use to print that?" -Joe Kohn (J.KOHN, CAT12, TOP13, MSG:106/M645;1) NO UPGRADE FOR TIMEWORKS PUBLISH IT The response from Timeworks' Bob """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Johnson.... > We have to write programs for (almost) the lowest common denominator. > Most Apple users do not have much more than 128K of RAM - we get calls > every day from users who don't even have IIe Enhanced machines. We have > to start explaining what "Enhanced" means and how to get it done. > There's only so far the program can go, and it's about there now. > We can see the trend of Apple II hardware sales from our Apple II > software sales - the trend isn't up. A lot of time, effort & money goes > into a new piece of software - the developer has to see some potential > of gain in order to invest in new products. While there are still quite > a few Apple II's out there, I think you will agree that it isn't exactly > a growing market. > As a sidebar - about a year ago, we had some questions about the new > GSOS. We called Apple & couldn't find ANYONE to talk to about the II's. > Nobody could even tell who to speak to. They might have still been > making IIGS's in December, but Apple was done with them long before > that, if our experience was any indication. > We appreciate your loyalty and I wish I did have something new to sell > you, but I also don't want to get your hopes up for something that > probably isn't going to happen. > Bob TTS Oh, well, I tried. <<>> (L.DEVRIES, CAT8, TOP18, MSG:56/M645;1) >>>>> I posted the last few posts concerning Publish It updates (?) to """"" the AzApple BBS in Phoenix, AZ. Here's a response from Jerry Cline, of InTrec software, publishers of Proterm 3.1: The guy is a good politician. He articulated the problems well and he is accurate in what he is saying. Hypothetically, here is another way to look at it. Perhaps another way the situation could be stated is to say: We can make the drivers available but engineering costs will be $15,000 (or whatever it would cost to take a top flight engineer off of a paying project where that person is earning their way) and split the costs (plus a slight profit - $3000 - to the company) to however many users would like to make a bid. They would have to develop, test and market the project. Say they sold 100 drivers, then each person would only have to pay just under $200 for the driver. If it’s justified, then maybe there is a case, but I doubt anyone will be paying anywhere near that for a printer driver on an Apple II. But the situation is more realistic. But when a successful organization has a known active and highly competitive market to pursue (and a lot of engineers, marketing and management personnel to pay for) where just Apple Macintosh alone is 11 percent of an 11 billion dollar market (that is a one-billion-dollar-plus market if your math is rusty) that already encompasses 12 million homes and offices with 4 million being added every year, it makes the Apple II market look bleak. If PublishIt were making a profit on Apple II products, they would support it actively, they are just doing what any business does, following the profit margin. It’s the name of the game. If they did any differently, their investors would get a rope. Apple Computer is in the same boat. Think about it. The part about the lowest common denominator (128K) is the killer and the RAM is not all as usable as it is on Macintosh. That 128K figure is a "hard" number. Consider the Apple IIgs, (which isn't all that different from the Apple IIe), if you write for the GS, you narrow the market from the 6 million Apple II's that were sold (includes Franklin and Laser), to about only 1.25 million Apple IIGS sold and according to Roger Wagner Publishing, about 70% + of those are still in the education market. That leaves about +/- 50,000 in user's hands and a lot of those users are not active and are looking to other platforms (you should see our mail requesting ProTERM Mac). It does not take a rocket scientist's mathematics to understand what market to concentrate on if you are a business and don't want to go broke. As far as the statement about the Apple IIe being sold in schools? While it is still on the price list, I don't imagine sales are brisk -- Do you? Would you buy a new Apple IIe or how about a bridge in Brooklyn or perhaps some nice Moon property with "Earth-rise" and "Earth-set" exposure. The choice is yours, check it out! Let's see now, how does a user go about making a hardware buy? Apple says, an enhanced Apple IIe with a composite (cheap) color monitor, disk drive, drive controller card, 128K memory, 80 column capability, is only about $1300. Wow, what an earthshaker! See the Apple product catalog and order yours now! 800/795-1000 - To top off this wild bargain Appleworks, a $239 value is included on a floppy disk -- What a DEAL WHOA!! -or- a few pages hence in the Apple catalog... A Mac Classic with a color Trinitron color monitor, 4 megs of RAM, built in 3.5" drive, an 80 meg hard drive and expandable to vistas beyond... $1173. Which one are you gonna to buy? Gee that's a hard decision! ... Uhmmm... could I see them choices again -- Huhm? Jerry (C.KERN1, CAT8, TOP18, MSG:63/M645;1) APPLE COMPUTER CO. IN EDUCATION Afraid so. In the business/home/whatever """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" market, they've sold a tremendous number of machines and are continuing to snap at IBM's heals. Though IBM is still #1, and the host of clones is huge, giving IBM and IBM compatibles something like 80% of the market, if you combine ALL of them. Still, Apple is doing all right. In education they're losing fast, and they deserve it. The unfortunate reality is, though, that it's hard for them to feel any pain because they're still profitable and secure. Sure, they threw away billions, but since they also made billions, it's hard to make them realize they made a mistake. ("What do you mean we threw away billions? We made billions!" Saying "You could have made billions more" just doesn't sink in as well as if they were HURTING.) The only question is, will they figure out why they're losing the education market, and, is it too late for them to do anything about it? It may be that if they threw everything into the Apple II for education right now, they wouldn't be able to recover what they once held. Maybe. Or maybe not. We won't find out unless they or someone else tries. Dean Esmay (A2.DEAN, CAT15, TOP11, MSG:21/M645;1) >>>>> If they made a GS with internal 40 meg, internal FDHD and 2 megs of """"" memory, and sold it to the schools at approx $700 (which they COULD do), they would sell a ton. (GARY.UTTER, CAT15, TOP11, MSG:22/M645;1) PROSEL AUTHOR GLEN BREDON TO MOVE I will be moving permanently sometime """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" around Nov. Watch this space for new address. (BREDON, CAT30, TOP2, MSG:138/M645;1) IBM APPLETALK NETWORK? I recently read of a new IBM-compatible networking """""""""""""""""""""" method that uses a proprietary protocol and inexpensive phone cable. The cards and connectors run about $150 a machine. What got my attention was the mention at the end of the review that the "proprietary protocol" was a version of Appletalk. The reviewer went on to mention that if you wanted to hook up a Mac to the PC, all it took was a $29 connector. Called the company and asked about hooking up Apple II's. After the initial explanations, the tech people became quite intrigued, particularly when I told them I thought this was a potentially large market for them. They called back later and said that the Appletalk on the II end would need to be AFT 1.1 or backwardly compatible with 1.1, since that's what they used. Also, the II would not be able to be a server, only a client. I know Appletalk is built into the GS. What version is it? Also, I have a IIe, and have been looking for a way to hook it up to my PC. If anyone out there has a workstation card and software for the IIe they would be willing to part with temporarily/permanently, I would like to borrow it to try this out. (I'll pay shipping.) If it works, then I'd be looking to buy one. Any info on version? This has the potential to be a a very interesting development. (B.MAPLES, CAT12, TOP22, MSG:1/M645;1) INCIDER AFTERMATH I just read that MacComputing, the rag that was supposed """"""""""""""""" to replace InCider was killed before it was even able to get its first issue on the stands. Seems the IDG was afraid that the fallout from the Apple layoffs and problems in the computer world made them decide to can the project because they could not get advertisers to advertise. Maybe they should have stayed with their 65,000 (?) subscribers who own the dead II. Hmm..Apple drops the GS and then has to layoffs thousands, IDG drops the II and folds on a Mac rag. That will teach them to fool around with the Apple II gods! II INFINITUM-----------------------------> Ron (RON.ROYER, CAT5, TOP3, MSG:63/M645;1) >>>>> Tom Abrams - I guess that I was unofficially maintaining the """"" inCider/A+ category here in A2, and it was for that reason that I (Shareware Solutions II) inherited category 28. Facts... - inCider/A+ ceased publication with the July, 1993 issue. - A+ Publishing printed a single issue of Mac Computing. - A+ Publishing had planned for Mac Computing to be a monthly publication. - As of today, A+ Publishing will cease to exist. ---Joe Kohn ------------ (J.KOHN, CAT2, TOP4, MSG:92/M645;1) >>>>> More Facts - """"" - Cameron Crotty and Dan Muse now both work for MacWorld in San Francisco. - Joe Kohn is publishing inCider: The Next Generation (well, sort of) - Joe Kohn has just secured the rights to all his inCider/A+ articles. - The first edition of Mac Computing is now a collector's item. - The first subscription copy of Mac Computing was sent to the printers one hour before the entire staff of A+ Publishing was informed that they were going to be laid off. - HangTime's real name is Bruce. ---Joe (whose real name is Joseph) Kohn (J.KOHN, CAT2, TOP4, MSG:94/M645;1) APPLEWORKS GS AND SYSTEM 6 Claris _did_ release a new "Install" script for """""""""""""""""""""""""" AWGS and System 6.0. I called the 800 number (or spoke to someone online, I don't remember) and they promptly shipped it to me. Works like a charm. Jeff - Delivered by Co-Pilot v2.1.1 and TIC (J.CARR20, CAT17, TOP17, MSG:157/M645;1) ___ COPY II PLUS HARD ON HARD DRIVES |he problem with Copy II Plus is that it """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" doesn't check the storageType of files when copying -- it just assumes that all files have a data fork and nothing else. I'm sure it also uses direct block reads and writes, with the end result being that when you tell it to copy a file with a resource fork, it looks at where the data fork is and copies that block by block, totally ignoring the resource fork. Luckily, the blocks used by the data in a resource fork are marked as "used" in the volume allocation map, so it won't copy any data fork-only files over on top of them. I suspect that its "zero disk blocks" function doesn't respect those "used" blocks, though (since it can't see what file uses them, it'd kill them), so that could possibly zap your files that have resource forks. ][n the end, I (like many others) just say DON'T USE COPY II PLUS ON A IIGS (unless you're trying to back up copy protected software, or are working with DOS 3.3). There are simply too many ways that you could accidentally damage or destroy important files. -= Lunatic (: (A2.LUNATIC, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:284/M645;1) >>>>> Using the "undelete" function of Copy II+ is one of the KNOWN ways to """"" make your hard drive disappear. Sometimes, when you use that option, C2+, for an unknown reason, will trash block 0 and/or block 1 of your hard drive. This is a Bad Thing. This refers to Copy 2+ v9.0, by the way (the most current version, so far as I know). Older versions don't do this, but they STILL shouldn't be used on or around a GSOS hard drive. The program is flaky, it is not really meant to work on hard drives. (It doesn't know, or care, that a HD is not a floppy.) Actually, I have Copy 2 installed on MY hard drive, and I run it from there, but I ONLY use it on floppies. I NEVER use it on the hard drive, for anything. (In fact, come to think of it, I haven't used Copy 2 at ALL, haven't even launched it, in at least 2 years.) Gary R. Utter (GARY.UTTER, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:296/M645;1) WHO WROTE RESCUE ROVER? If Bill Heineman did this game, why does his name """"""""""""""""""""""" not appear on the credits that show up when you press the down arrow at the dog house, and go down into the hole where the bones are stacked? Exactly what did he do on this game? Steve Weyhrich --< (S.WEYHRICH, CAT34, TOP6, MSG:62/M645;1) >>>>> Bill took the IBM PC code and ported it to the IIgs. Then he tweaked """"" it to make it playable on the IIgs. If you ever play the PC version you'll notice a difference. Thanks to John Carmack we can play Rescue Rover on the PC. Thanks to Bill Heineman we can play it on the Apple IIgs. Jay Jennings (PUNKWARE, CAT34, TOP6, MSG:63/M645;1) CMS HARD DRIVE REPAIR For those of you that are looking for repairs or data """"""""""""""""""""" recovery from CMS drives, I do them. Generally its worth repairing the drives, but if you have a CMS card that has gone bad it is generally more cost effective to replace it with an Apple DMA SCSI card. For those of you out there who would like to contact me about repairs or just information I can be reached at: Larry Beyer ADD ON II/B&D Computer Repair 6115 S. Massasoit Ave. Chicago, IL 60638 1-312-735-9010 between 9:30 am and 1:00 pm Central time. (ADD.ON.II, CAT21, TOP5, MSG:23/M645;1) LOST CLASSICS ADDRESS Should you wish to contact the Lost Classics Project, """"""""""""""""""""" save the following information: Timothy Tobin Lost Classics P.O. Box 4641 Redondo Beach, CA 90278 Internet: a2.tim@genie.geis.com GEnie: A2.TIM Timothy Tobin Lost Classics Coordinator (A2.TIM, CAT7, TOP1, MSG:9/M645;1) DEACTIVATING HARDPRESSED I think it was mentioned earlier that the best way """""""""""""""""""""""" to go when doing backups is to inactivate HardPressed when backing up and when restoring. It turns out that there's a very good reason for that... I was playing around with Apple's Archiver program, and discovered that it doesn't correctly set the filetype when restoring files. It creates it with the wrong auxtype, extracts the data, and then sets the auxtype to what it's supposed to be. Well, guess what. If you extract a file compressed with HardPressed, and the auxtype is wrong, HP won't be able to tell that it's one of its own files. So, it'll try to compress it again. Depending on how it was compressed originally, it might succeed. The result is a file that's been compressed twice, which tends to get real confusing real fast. If you set HardPressed to "inactive", it won't try to compress the files being extracted, thus avoiding the problem. So, the original advice was good: turn HP off before backing up (to save space) and before restoring (to save your files!) Hopefully Apple will fix Archiver someday... - Andy (FADDEN, CAT37, TOP3, MSG:202/M645;1) >>>>> BTW, don't forget that you can totally inactivate HardPressed by """"" hitting 'H' while the system is booting... easier than marking it as inactive from the Finder or ProSel-16. - Andy (FADDEN, CAT37, TOP3, MSG:222/M645;1) FINDER TIP Loren - """""""""" > if it's not the one you wanted to > have show up, you have to go digging with the mouse after all. Nope--once you have established a letter by hitting it (e.g., "M"), you can bicycle through all the icons ("M's") with that initial with TAB. (But it IS an additional key used...Prosel IS still better, in that respect.) Kirk Hollingsworth (HOLLINGSWRTH, CAT2, TOP21, MSG:37/M645;1) BRUNNABLE GAMES Seeing some of these BRUNable games gave me an idea. """"""""""""""" I first wrote a program that will load and run them as a SYS file that ProSel can pass the name of the BIN file to. Works! I'm adding parms to it so you can slow a GS or //e down to 1MHz. Maybe a few other options too. Kind of like SWCP for games. The other program I wrote will turn any BIN file to a SYS file. And I don't mean it will just change the filetype. It sticks my header on it and relocates the code into the right place and jumps to it. Also works dandy. Any interest in these? Other ideas for them? (G.TOLAR, CAT7, TOP15, MSG:45/M645;1) RAMFAST SCSI TIP FOR SMALL-CAPACITY DISKS Get into the RF utility and format """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" a disk but DO NOT PARTITION THE DISK. This will give you the maximum capacity. Now exit from the utility and when finder asks you to format or eject go ahead and format it from finder. Now pop the disk out and back in. It should go away and come back as the 1.44m or 720k disk. If you partition the disk then we use up 32k for a partition map. Drew (CV.TECH, CAT11, TOP16, MSG:152/M645;1) A2 REAL-TIME CONFERENCES A2 RTC's Are Growing! """""""""""""""""""""""" With the new, lower rates, more and more people are stopping into the RTC for help with a all types of questions, or just to visit with the A2 Staff, and with each other. Because of this, we're expanding our scheduled RTC's. The changes take effect on Monday, 8/16. We'll be open nightly from 2100-0100, and don't be surprised if you find us there even later. We're also open Sunday afternoon 1200-2000, and all night on Friday! Susan Day Time Topic Host GE-Mail --- ------------ ------------------------ --------------- ------------ Sun 1200-2000 ET Bewitched, Bothered Gena Saikin G.SAIKIN or Bewildered Jeff Rash GS.OZONEMAN Sun 2100-2300 ET II Speak Don Arrowsmith D.ARROWSMIT1 2300-0100 ET Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters Dennis Doms WIZARDS.MUSE Mon 2100-0100 ET A Walk on the Wild Side Tara Dillinger TARA with Tara & Co. Tue 2100-2300 ET Formal Guest Dave Ciotti A2.BEAR 2300-0100 ET TBC Forum Mike Garvey TBC Wed 2100-2300 ET Apple Working Susan MacGregor A2.SUSAN 2300-0100 ET Education Adrian Vance A.VANCE Thu 2100-2300 ET Ellen's Room Ellen Rosenberg RC.Ellen 2300-0100 ET TBC Forum Mike Garvey TBC Fri 2100-0100 ET Telecommunications Jim Zajkowski JIMZ Sat 2100-2300 ET Games Dave Ciotti A2.BEAR 2300-0100 ET More Games Susan MacGregor A2.SUSAN (A2.SUSAN, CAT3, TOP19, MSG:70/M645;1) FONT LIBRARY CLEARINGHOUSE CHANGES I have recently been asked to take over """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" the duties of the Resource-Central Font Clearinghouse. As part of this I have been going over all the old uploads and all the old messages posted here in the BB. Some of you will be getting e-mail from me in an attempt to resolve old issues which appeared to not be satisfactorily completed. In the meantime, I have noticed, in my downloading and study of the existing A2 fonts, that there are some errors. A few fonts apparently did not have the proper Filetype/Auxtype combination, and were thus not properly recognized by the Font Manager. In others, some fonts were packed with other fonts but not identified as such. Others were called the same font but were really different. Still others were assigned improper ID numbers, which will create conflicts for some people. I am in the process of trying to clean up these problems, but it will take some time. When I am done, I will presumably have every available font installed on my system. Some will have to be re- packed and re-uploaded to the library. My question to you is: In what format would you like the fonts? Should I upload an entire family as one archive (Times, Times-Bold, Times-Italic, etc., as one file) or should each font style have its own archive? Or should we go the other way and have each archive contain several related fonts? If so, what criteria should we use to group them? Also, what kind of information should be in the description for each upload? I planned to include the actual font name, sizes, # characters defined, Font ID, type (bitmap/TrueType), and alphabet (Roman, Cyrillic, etc.). Do a search on keyword FONT and uploader A2.TIM for a couple samples. Is this acceptable? Would you like something else? If so, what? Please keep in mind that this project I am undertaking will be a long-term project. New IDs will be assigned within a few hours to days, depending on circumstances, but clearing up old discrepancies can take up to a week or more per font, depending on the research needed. There are a couple hundred fonts (out of several thousand) for which I have questions, and I will likely need the Apple II community's help in resolving many of them, so please bear with me. :) There are currently two topics for discussions of Apple IIgs fonts. This topic is one, and Category 23, Topic 11 is the other. To assist me, I would like to have this topic be used for general font questions, font uploads, etc., and reserve Cat 23, Topic 11 for official Clearinghouse traffic. What this means is that if you want an ID, please post the request in Cat 23, Top 11. If there is an ID conflict, or some specific font identification problem, it should be raised in Cat 23, Topic 11. If you want to know how a particular font looks, this topic (Cat 8, Top 17) is a good place for things like that. I don't want to be authoritarian about it, but it would really help me get this under control that much sooner. :) The sooner I get this under control, the more of my limited time I can devote to Lost Classics, and getting a Postscript Font utility for the IIgs. :) Thanks for your help, and all your patience, as we finally get a responsive system for Font IDs in place. :) By the way, the official mail address for the Resource-Central Font Clearinghouse is: Timothy Tobin Font Clearinghouse P.O. Box 4641 Redondo Beach, CA 90278 Internet: a2.tim@genie.geis.com GEnie: A2.TIM Please feel free to pass this information on. Also, if you own Font Factory GS, please cross out the old name and address in the manual for the Clearinghouse and write this in its place. :) Timothy Tobin Resource-Central Font Clearinghouse (A2.TIM, CAT8, TOP17, MSG:96/M645;1) IMAGEWRITER CUT SHEET FEEDER Bill, I have a cut sheet feeder for my """""""""""""""""""""""""""" ImageWriter II. I bought it at my local Apple dealer. LET ME TELL YOU and others, it is one of the best computer investments that you can get -- and most people don't know about it. Mine paid for itself in a year and one-half. I can use all sorts of paper, even colored, and change at will without any delays. My big saving is that I used the OTHER side of used sheets for printing out information that I am not sending anywhere. This re-cycled paper saves me a bundle (pun intended). Every sheet, ALWAYS, feeds to the same spot. It is also perfect for printing on previously printed forms. I can't say enough about it. Go get one --- YESTERDAY! Gary Hayman -- (in printer's heaven) (G.E.HAYMAN, CAT26, TOP6, MSG:180/M645;1) GOOD DEALS ON SCSI HARD DRIVES I hope this is a good place to let Apple II """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" users know about a good deal on a SCSI hard drive. In MacWeek, La Cie (a Quantum company) is offering a 170 meg Quantum ELS hard drive with a 5 year warranty for $199 (internal mount) or $249 for an external setup that includes a case and cable. The external model includes switchable "active" termination. The phone number is 1-800-999-1386. I did some checking and there are a few caveats to be aware of. The case and its power supply are covered by warranty for 2 years, not 5. Also, the case is fitted with 25 pin DB-25 connectors instead of the more standard 50 pin Centronics type connectors. This should not present a significant problem, as they supply a 25 pin cable which can be used to connect the drive directly to any Apple II SCSI card or to a Mac. Other devices could be hooked up with a standard 25 to 50 pin cable, especially the cable that may previously have attached other devices directly to the SCSI card. -= Bill Shuff =- (W.SHUFF, CAT11, TOP10, MSG:121/M645;1) >>> HOT TOPICS <<< """""""""""""""""" SYSTEM 6.0.1 NOW ONLINE ][t's here! It's here! It's here! System 6.0.1 """"""""""""""""""""""" is now available for download in the A2 libraries! Just so you didn't miss the banner (and for those GEM and CoPilot people who may find it easier to pull file numbers and names out of BB messages than out of banners), here are the files: 21163 SYSDISK.601.BXY X A2-CENTRAL 930811 606336 Desc: Main SYSTEM DISK for System 6.0.1 21161 SNTHLAB.601.BXY X A2-CENTRAL 930811 534400 Desc: SYNTHLAB disk for IIgs System 6.0.1 21160 FONTS.601.BXY X A2-CENTRAL 930811 296448 Desc: FONTS disk for IIgs System 6.0.1 21159 STOOLS2.601.BXY X A2-CENTRAL 930811 521984 Desc: SYSTEM TOOLS disk 2 for System 6.0.1 21158 STOOLS1.601.BXY X A2-CENTRAL 930811 536192 Desc: SYSTEM TOOLS disk 1 for System 6.0.1 21157 INSTALL.601.BXY X A2-CENTRAL 930811 520576 Desc: INSTALL disk for IIgs System 6.0.1 ___ |he three files that you MUST HAVE for a complete System 6.0.1 installation are INSTALL.601.BXY, STOOLS1.601.BXY and STOOLS2.601.BXY. If you don't have a hard drive then you probably want SYSDISK.601.BXY, the self- booting floppy system disk. It's missing a lot of files that you may want to customize your system, though, like extra FSTs, drivers, Control Panels, etc. If you want those extras, you need to download the three main system disks anyway. A self-booting floppy system disk CAN be constructed from the three main system disks, but unless you have four 800K drives or equivalents (RAM disks, etc.), it's a real pain and it takes a lot of disk swapping. |\|ow, in case you're wondering "Should I upgrade? Are there likely to be any problems with System 6.0.1 on my system?" here's the lowdown on most of the reported problems: Font Manager bug & Pointless - Fixed with FixFontMgr, file #21061, FIXFONTMGR.BXY, in the A2 libraries System folder "Magic Routing" bug - Not serious. Keep your System folder on the desktop and you'll never see it. The folder/disk you just opened becomes deselected - Not a bug, just the way things work in System 6.0.1 When you close a window your icon selection changes to that folder/disk - Again, not a bug, just the way it works, now. Bill Tudor's CDev Alias NDAs no longer work - Third party problem. (: ___ |hat's about it, folks! There have yet to be discovered any really major bugs in System 6.0.1 that don't have simple workarounds. _ (_ __)o why should you update your system to 6.0.1? Here's a few good reasons: The MS-DOS FST, Aliases and keyboard navigation in Finder, more bug fixes, a new fast RAM disk driver for /RAM5, and a whole bunch of extra little new features and tweaks. ][ say it's definitely worth the upgrade. Figuring out the cost to you, each disk other than the self-booting system disk should take well less than 45 minutes to download -- at $3.00/hour, that's less than $2.20 each! How can you afford NOT to upgrade? (BTW, I recently realized that at $3.00/hour, or $.05/minute, GEnie now costs less than a local pay phone call, which is $.20 or $.25 for three minutes. Wild, huh?) -= Lunatic (: (A2.LUNATIC, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:351/M645;1) >>>>> And just a reminder -- if you already have all the disks from """"" System 6, you DO NOT need to download the System 6.0.1 Fonts or SynthLab disks. There were NO changes to Fonts and the only change to SynthLab was that it was linked with a different linker (no changes to the actual program code were made and the program behaves exactly the same as the 6.0 version). (QUALITY, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:352/M645;1) 6.0.1: FONT MANAGER BUG DETAILS As some of you may know, System 6.0.1 and """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Pointless 2.0.1 don't work together too well in some cases (specifically when you select Choose Font for a font that has no bitmaps.) Well, Nathan Mates (our summer intern) found that the problem had nothing to do with Pointless and could be duplicated even without Pointless installed. The problem will crop up anytime you do a ChooseFont for a font that is not installed in the System. For example, say you create a document in AWGS using a font called "DingDong". If you then open this document on a different system that doesn't have DingDong installed ChooseFont will crash. Nathan has written a patch program that is very simple and very cautious. It will only work with Font Manager v3.4 (which is what ships on System 6.0.1). I'll be uploading it to the A2 library in just a few minutes.... Bryan (BRYAN.ZAK, CAT9, TOP10, MSG:1/M645;1) >>>>> (And we'll have another patch program available shortly once we get """"" confirmation from Apple... ;-) Bryan (SOFTDISK.INC, CAT9, TOP10, MSG:3/M645;1) >>>>> No, this bug is only in Font Manager 3.4 -- which is part of """"" System 6.0.1. The patch program is VERY cautious. First it checks for Font Manager 3.4, and then it checks a series of bytes to make sure it hasn't already been patched. And, the patch is only in memory -- not on disk, so nothing is permanent. Bryan (SOFTDISK.INC, CAT37, TOP4, MSG:218/M645;1) 6.0.1: FINDER MAGIC ROUTING BUG Unfortunately, yes, this is a bug. It was """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" discovered shortly after 6.0.1 went final and it was (as usual) non-trivial to fix. The simple solution is to not route files from the desktop. Urgh. Jim "who was really annoyed when this one was found a few months ago" Murphy (MURPH, CAT9, TOP3, MSG:209/M645;1) 6.0.1: COMMON INSTALLATION PROBLEM There is also a problem (not a bug) """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" with the SCC.Manager. If you use "Easy Update" all the AppleTalk files are also copied to your system disk. When you boot, the SCC.Manager checks to see if AppleTalk is active and if slot 1 or slot 2 are set to "Your Card" and slot seven is set to "AppleTalk." If not you will get a message stating that AppleTalk is not active. If you are not using AppleTalk all you do is hit return. The problem is that each time you boot you will get this message and you will have to hit return every time you boot. Fix 1. If you do not use AppleTalk and do not anticipate using AppleTalk, remove SCC.Manager from your Driver folder and stick it in the trash. Fix 2. If you are like me and use AppleTalk only during printing to my LaserWriter and Postscript, move SCC.Manager out of the Driver folder when you are not printing. Just remember to move SCC.Manager back into the Driver folder as part of your printer setup routine. It works for me. -Mel (MelSoft) Fowler (MELSOFT, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:353/M645;1) ___ >>>>> |his error message is usually caused because at some point in the """"" past you installed the SCC.Manager file in your Drivers folder. This file now generates "The selected AppleTalk Connection could not be found" error message in System 6.0.1 if you don't have AppleTalk. Simply remove the SCC.Manager file from your Drivers folder and this error should go away. If you want to be more sure and do it the official way, or if removing the SCC.Manager file doesn't get rid of the error message, simply launch the Installer, hit the "Customize" button, select the "Network: AppleShare" script from the list, and then hit the "Remove" button. -= Lunatic (: (A2.LUNATIC, CAT9, TOP14, MSG:1/M645;1) 6.0.1: THIRD-PARTY BUG You missed the bug in AppleWorks GS, where the """"""""""""""""""""""" Save As dialog does not remember which volume and directory the file was loaded from. It will result in files being stored on the wrong volume (and being "lost") unless one realizes the path is wrong and resets it. My workaround is to use Kangaroo to get back to the original directory. Glenn (G.W.HOFFMAN, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:356/M645;1) ___ >>>>> |hanks, Glenn! I think that's another third party bug, though, """"" especially since I haven't heard any reports of it showing up in other programs. The only reason I included the third party bug in CDev Alias is because that's more of a system-wide problem (happens in all desktop programs) and people may have thought that it was actually a system bug because of it. -= Lunatic (: (A2.LUNATIC, CAT9, TOP6, MSG:357/M645;1) _ 6.0.1: 5.25" DRIVERS GLITCH (_)k, I understand your problem, now. What's """""""""""""""""""""""""""" happening is that whenever GS/OS detects the FIRMWARE for a 5.25" drive in a slot, it then assumes that there are two drives connected to it. It does this because there is no way for it to reliably be able to tell if you actually have one or more drives connected in that slot. So you don't actually have to have a drive connected. With your system, GS/OS _always_ see the firmware for a 5.25" drive in slot 6, whether the slot is set to "Disk Port" or "Your Card." The only way you can keep those 5.25" drive icons from showing up in Finder on you system is to do as Udo suggests, and deactivate your 5.25" drive driver. -= Lunatic (: (A2.LUNATIC, CAT9, TOP10, MSG:16/M645;1) >>>>> Note that this will ONLY affect GSOS. Your 5.25 will still be """"" available to all P8 applications, so you can easily drop into something P8 to copy files from/to the 5.25. (GARY.UTTER, CAT9, TOP10, MSG:17/M645;1) >>>>> >Do you have a better suggestion? """""_ /-\ctually, yes. Buy an adapter cable for your 5.25" drives so you can plug them into the SmartPort on the back of your GS (or into the back of the 3.5" drives you may already have plugged into the SmartPort). Remove the 5.25" drive controller card from slot 7 and move your RamFAST to that slot. Now, your GS will run cooler, you'll be able to disable your 5.25" drives from ALL programs by setting slot 6 to "Your Card," and you could even sell your 5.25" drive controller card and get back more money than the adapter cable cost you. ]-[mm. In your later messages I see that you're using AppleTalk. You can set your slot 7 to "AppleTalk" and slot 2 to "Your Card" and you should then be able to plug your RamFAST into slot 2. (I know this works with the Apple SCSI cards, I'm not so sure if the RamFAST supports slot 2 as well as 5, 6, and 7, though. I'm sure there are plenty of RamFAST owners here who can clarify this, though.) If you're using ProTERM 3.x, it will ignore the actual setting of slot 2 and continue to work fine with a modem plugged into the modem port, as long as you tell it that you're using that modem port (it talks directly to the port hardware). Most other telecommunications software (including the AOL software, I'm sure :) won't do this. (A2.LUNATIC, CAT9, TOP10, MSG:31/M645;1) >>>>> Tim, why don't you try this instead: """"" Fm: Matt Deatherage 76703,3030 To: Ray Merlin 71435,1071 (X) > Maybe it was decided that it's better that two icons appear > instead of none at all. That's exactly correct, Ray. There is no reliable way to detect 5.25" drive presence, so now 6.0.1 doesn't try at all. Every slot looks like it has two drives, so that's how many the driver reports. If you only have one, changing the low nibble of the driver's auxtype to $1 should prevent it from trying to find a second one. Ken Lessing (K.LESSING, CAT43, TOP8, MSG:193/M645;1) 6.0.1: MINOR BUG? I just found what looks like a minor bug in System """""""""""""""""" 6.0.1. If you use the slots control panel and set slot 1 to be modem, and then go to the printer port control panel, the mode still says printer though it appears that the mode is in fact modem. Is this a bug or a change in the way the cdev is supposed to work? I thought, in prior versions, that the printer port cdev always referenced slot 1 and the modem cdev always referenced slot 2 the way the CDA's do. Don Elton (delton) or delton@pro-carolina.oau.org (DELTON, CAT5, TOP5, MSG:35/M645;1) 6.0.1: ALIASES I've also used the idea of putting a single Alias folder on """"""""""""""" the desktop so that I can open folders and launch apps easily. However, instead of having the Alias folder itself be located on a ProDOS partition, I have it located on my HFS partition. This allows me to name the aliases within the folder with more useful and descriptive names than ProDOS allows. It is very nice to have all of the items displayed in a nice list (like in name order), but to actually have them being displayed in small icon format. One trick to doing this is to open the folder, display in name order, select all items and drag them onto the desktop, then change the view to small icon, then select all of the desktop items and drag them back into the folder window. Now they will be displayed in small icon format, but lined up in one nice column, just like viewing by name, except that the whole name should be visible. Also, I am noticing one perhaps minor bug in 6.0.1. I have two 3.5" disk drives. If I have a disk in each and select both disks and drag them into the trash, Finder SHOULD eject both disks. Under 6.0.1 (on my system anyway) if the disk in drive 1 has an open window, then the second disk will not be ejected. Also, any open windows that the second disk may have will not be closed. closed. This is hardly earthshaking, but I'm curious if anyone else has seen this. Brendan Bellina (B.BELLINA, CAT9, TOP15, MSG:149/M645;1) >>>>> I have, I just went and tried it, and you're right, the second disk """"" doesn't eject, or close windows. :) (GARY.UTTER, CAT9, TOP15, MSG:150/M645;1) >>>>> Brendan: Why are you dragging files in and out of windows to """"" alphabetize them? Just use "Clean up by Name": leave the View set to Small Icon, and hold down the Option key while you select Clean Up from the Special menu. (QUALITY, CAT9, TOP15, MSG:151/M645;1) MORE ABOUT EASYMOUNT AND ALIASES Easymount allows you to make Mac style """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "aliases" of applications, directories, and volumes (and if you have Appletalk, it will easily mount those Appletalk volumes). It is a Good Thing. Keep it, learn to use it.:) Gary R. Utter (GARY.UTTER, CAT2, TOP21, MSG:15/M645;1) >>>>> 1. With EasyMount installed in the FinderExtras folder, you have """"" access to its capabilities. 2. When you select the icon for an application, a folder or a volume, you can go to the Extras menus and select EasyMount, which will make an Alias of the item. You can also hit OpenApple M to make an alias. (And that is easier. :) 3. An Alias can be opened just like the original item, be it folder, file, or volume. (but again, only application files). 4. An Alias has the file type E2 FF. You can use an Icon Editor to set icons to match a particular Alias just as you can any other file (and you don't need to set an "application pathname"). 5. You can put an Alias anywhere; when you click on it the file, folder or volume it represents will open, no matter where it may be (as long as it is online). I don't know what else to tell you, but someone will probably have more. :) Gary R. Utter (GARY.UTTER, CAT2, TOP21, MSG:25/M645;1) >>>>> I was able to install SYSTEM 6.0.1 with no problems at all (so far). """"" I have a ProSel-16 screen item called FINDER, which takes me there. Once there, open the SYSTEM folder and highlight your ProSel.16 or START, depending on how you setup ProSel-16 (in other words, highlight the file name that is your ProSel-16 main program). Then go to EXTRAS and open EasyMount. This allows you to ALIAS your ProSel-16 module. Save it, find it, drag it to the desktop and you have your easy way back to ProSel-16 from FINDER. Chuck Charlie's AppleSeeds Distributor, ProSel-16 v8.84 (A2.CHUCK, CAT30, TOP2, MSG:208/M645;1) MORE ABOUT QUADRIGA'S FEATURES Hello people. I finally got around to """""""""""""""""""""""""""""" joining this topic. As Quadriga project manager, I'm excited, stressed out, enthusiastic and bummed all at the same time. Excited to see my vision becoming reality, stressed due to all the time and effort involved, enthused to see the interest, and bummed that it's not ready to ship yet. Of course, it's not late yet, either, but it's been an obsession since early in 1993, and there's still a lot to do. As for the name, it will always be "Quadriga" to me, just as AppleWorks 3.0 is still "Spike" in my mind, and resides in "/HD/SPIKE" on my hard drive. A few tweaks to the feature list are in order. The alarm clock likely won't make it into this version. Some other features to add to the list include: - three clipboards (separate one for each app- WP, DB, SS) - full editing of all three clipboards - mouse support included - screen blanker included, with fancy screen saver disk to follow later - file lists (Add/Delete...) support arrange by size, date, type, name - file lists support OA-D to switch desktops, OA-Y to eject 3.5 disk - WP special codes are unique to each printer instead of being global - WP find and replace can be restricted to whole word matches - DB records can be 2560 bytes instead of 1024 - DB sorts can be case sensitive - DB can list matching categories in another DB file - DB categories can all be formatted for decimal places, justification, etc. - DB single record layout can have multiple pages per record, and can include background text along with category data - SS adds exponential notation formatting - SS now supports OA-R Replace text or numbers There are many more little features, such as displaying category widths when editing DB multi-record layouts and showing coordinates when editing single record reports. We don't have the patience to enter every single little "tweak" here, but your AW will improve as a result. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:23/M645;1) >>>>> > I am wondering is if the "older" TimeOut modules will """"" > continue to work? The old TimeOut modules still work great under The Works. Yes, we are already taking advance orders, and there is a perk for ordering early. Everyone who orders early will receive a video tape highlighting some of the excellent new things you can do with the Works. Walker (W.ARCHER2, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:33/M645;1) >>>>> How about importing TheWorks 4 files into programs like Publish.It! 4 """"" and GraphicWriter III. Will they work with the 'current' editions of those two programs? (I'm talking AWP files here) Will Sneeze 2.2 and File-A-Trix be able to still display them? Gary Hayman - Greenbelt, MD (w/GEM v 4.21) (G.E.HAYMAN, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:57/M645;1) >>>>> Hi kids! I'm back from KFest, and despite minutes of sleep since """"" yesterday, I'm trying to get caught up. It was great to see old friends whose names I can't list for fear of forgetting someone due to sleep deprivation. Anyway, on to the issues at hand. File Librarian is due to be included with Quadriga. Envelope Addresses likely will be automatically upgraded. Virtually all TimeOuts will have to be modified, although the installer will make it automatic and easy. re: sorting in German I'll probably provide some docs for someone to write appropriate sort routines for any languages. I believe a simple 2-string compare routine is all that will be needed. Thanks to Jerry for the idea. re: numbered categories The AppleWorks numbered menu bar routine is limited to 30 entries, hence DoubleData and Quadriga can't use it for accessing 60 categories. It shouldn't take long to get to a desired category considering you can use OA- 9, or OA-Up or OA-Down to get near in a hurry before finishing with Up or Down arrows. Someone could write a menu macro that could accept a numbered input and then move down to the write position. As for your 15,000 record DB file, you'll be able to find a sorted record in less than a second now. re: dates If you read the feature list given in this topic you should have noticed that the SS supports new Date and Exponential format options. The Julian math you referred to is possible in both the SS and DB now. The DB can display dates from 1000 to 9999 and sort them chronologically. Centuries are optional, so a date can be "Jul 24 93" or "Jul 24 1993". (Other dates are also possible...) re: WP backwards compatibility It's possible that some files will load, but that always makes it harder to add features. I'll try to allow bland files to be accessible by AW 3.0, but eventually those stuck in the past may have to settle for ASCII exchange. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:50/M645;1) >>>>> > sorting """"" You don't have to think in reverse order if you're using AW 3.0, only if you're doing multiple single sorts. As for expanding the SS edit area, it's a bit late for that now, but we'll put it on the "Possible 5.0 Features, If 4.0 Is Wildly Successful" list. TotalControl has been improved and included, except for the pop-up calculator which isn't around any more. Everything else is better. re: other programs importing Obviously other software will have to be modified to load any "4.0-only" files and will work the same as ever on files retaining 3.0 compatibility. re: DIF Greg, I basically don't have a clue about DIF and don't know why anyone would use it anyway, so you'll need to enlighten me on that one. re: Returns and Tabs in finds Udo, I'm trying to enhance the find capabilities of AW. One problem with Returns is that they aren't stored in the file as characters, making it a bit trickier, but we'll see what can be done. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:62/M645;1) >>>>> Quadriga allows you to insert or delete categories without destroying """"" the layouts. It will also offer a "pages" option in SRL (single record layout) in which not all categories have to be displayed. Report label formats are expected to allow up to 60 lines so that a maximum record could be displayed with one category per line. (BRANDT, CAT17, TOP9, MSG:122/M645;1) >>>>> Most TimeOut modules will need to be upgraded, but the Quadriga """"" installer will handle most of them, so you won't need to send away for a bunch of upgrade disks. Some are obsoleted, and some we just don't know about yet, but our goal is to make it a one-time installation. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:80/M645;1) >>>>> OmniPrint and Outliner will need to be updated to work with Quadriga- """"" modified AppleWorks. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:97/M645;1) >>>>> Good news for SEG.AM (aux slot memory) users. I just crushed the bug """"" which kept Delete and OA-Delete from properly killing carriage returns at the end of a line to pull up the following text line. Bad news for everyone: due to time constraints, we've had to abandon a couple of DB features. Single record layout will not have a pages/background text in this version. There will be some speed/cosmetic improvements, but a single scrolling page will have to do for now. If 4.0 is a rousing success, wild stallions couldn't keep us from implementing this in 5.0. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:78/M645;1) >>>>> >mouse support """"" The same as with Ultra. Scrolling and selecting menu items is supported, but no new pull-down menus at this time. Windowing would be nice, but not in this version. No time. DeskJet support is expected to be about the same as was available with SuperPatch, offering Landscape and Portrait printer definitions. (BRANDT, CAT49, TOP22, MSG:112/M645;1) >>>>> About 4-5 years ago, I got a disk from Don Aquilino (sp??) that """"" somehow added pull-down menus to AppleWorks Classic. I never quite got used to using it, but I know I still have it around here somewhere, and remember that Don was selling it at an AppleFest in San Francisco. At that time, Don was involved with Dave Gair and the AW Programmer's Association. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up with them in years. Is anyone else familiar with Don's AppleWorks add-on that added mouse driven pull-down menus? Joe Kohn (J.KOHN, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:117/M645;1) >>>>> > We're shooting for an October 1 release date for the Works. Ultra """"" > 4.3 should ship soon after (compiler, debug, options, samples, > etc.) If I were to buy The Works, would I still want to upgrade to Ultra 4.3? Ultra 4.3 is for AW 3.0, right? Wouldn't every feature Ultra 4.3 gives AW 3.0 already be in The Works 1.0.0.0? <<>> (L.DEVRIES, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:122/M645;1) >>>>> Wrong. Ultra 4.2 is for AW 3.0 and ULtraMacros 4.3 is for The Works """"" 1.0.0.0. All that the Works includes is a macro _player_. Ultra 4.3 adds a macro compiler, debugger, options and the ability to record macros. (BRANDT, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:123/M645;1) >>>>> Can this Ultra 4.3 upgrade be ordered now? Where? I've already """"" placed my order for Quadriga with Quality, and would prefer to do all the installing and learning at once rather in stages. I don't always get around to the next stage! I purchased Ultra 4 from JEM, but haven't gotten around to really learning it since 3.1 works so well. I planned to make the move this summer when I have time to read manuals and the lessons in Timeout Central, but Quadriga was announced. It seemed "inefficient" to bother!! (Inefficient sounds better than lazy or dumb.) Or should I be studying like crazy now so that I'll be properly prepared for Quadriga?? ** Marie Barry ** (M.BARRY2, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:124/M645;1) >>>>> Marie, there are several other things you can do besides the """"" Converter macro to prepare Ultra 3.1 macros for Q. Required: - Change Launch "Ultra.System" to Launch "um4.0.system" (required; but be prepared to change it again) - Change $0="Macro Compiler" to $0="U4 Compiler" Change $0="Macro Options" to $0="U4 Options" (but be prepared....) - Change & "Path" to .setdisk (required) - Change Onerr Stop to Onerr Endmacro (required) Optional (the old ways _still work_): - Add Titles for a SA-ESC list and Labels to name your project (optional; SA-ESC does not work in default macro set in Ultra 4.2, but it does in Q) - Change Down Down Down Down Down Down to (Down) 6 (optional) - Change Msgxy to .writestr (optional, msgxy still works) - Eliminate all msgxy 0,128's, if all msgxy's are converted to .ws's - Change { comments } to // Comments (optional) That should take care of it. (B.CADIEUX, CAT42, TOP29, MSG:127/M645;1) WHITHER GS/OS? Hmmm! It is illogical for Apple to continue to develop """""""""""""" GS/OS given that they no longer even officially SELL the machine that it runs on. Although development of GS/OS probably accounts for a very small portion of Apple's operating budget, none-the-less, it seems foolish to spend ANY money at all on it. Therefore, I've gotta ask the question, 'What does Apple get out of continued development of GS/OS?' Is it goodwill? Very doubtful. Is it a belief that GS/OS will ultimately turn GS users into MAC users? Hardly worth the cost anymore. Those who would be converted HAVE BEEN converted. Is it R&D? Any research and development for the MAC can be done ON the MAC, not on the GS. Is it a way to keep some people at Apple employed? Nope. If Apple had wanted to cut positions during the recent layoff, a logical place would have been in the Apple IIgs development group. Is it a bureaucratic oversight? Perhaps, but unlikely. Next question: Why bother to develop an Ethernet interface and MS-DOS compatibility for GS/OS? Is it because Apple, in their benevolence, wants to provide GS users with as much utility as possible before they abandon the platform altogether? Come on! Then why are these things being done? The only conclusion I can come up with is that Apple plans to license GS/OS along with the MAC system software. J-Bird <> (J.CURTIS8, CAT5, TOP2, MSG:233/M645;1) >>>>> Jay, I agree that's an interesting, and logical, conjecture. If true, """"" it would give a LOT of people in the A2 community a LOT of hope for the future. But, I submit to you: True enuf, System 6.0.1 came out as promised, but do we have any CONFIRMATION on System 6.1? Re: the Apple II Ethernet Card, has ANYONE heard of the current status of this product? Furthermore, has anyone heard of the current status of the Apple II group (whatever it's called this week?), esp. in light of the recent layoffs and the drop in Apple stock and the rumors that Apple's financial difficulties may force a cut in R & D? Inquiring minds need to know...... TTFN, Larry ;-)) (L.FAUST2, CAT5, TOP2, MSG:235/M645;1) >>>>> Apple will not license the GS System Software. Period. """"" (SOFTDISK.INC, CAT5, TOP2, MSG:236/M645;1) >>>>> RE GS/OS: actually, I got to thinking a few nights ago that as a """"" means of "porting" the Mac environment to other hardware, GS/OS is Apple's Great Experiment (a _successful_ one, IMHO). The Mac was built to support the interface concurrently, whereas the IIgs brought with it some of the Apple II (pre-GUI) baggage. What Apple will license, if anything, is the user interface as a portable environment. It won't be either the Mac or IIgs OS since both are somewhat synergistic with Apple-designed hardware. (WIZARDS.MUSE, CAT5, TOP2, MSG:243/M645;1) >>>>> Jay, """"" Good questions. The only reason I think they keep upgrading GS/OS is to be nice to us. At the financial and save-face level, it's probably the least expensive way to make sure Apple can refute any claims that it has dropped support of the Apple II. But, I'll bet there are also a few softies in upper management who cut their teeth on either using or marketing the Apple II and can't stand there watching it get axed. There are many people I know who work for Apple who have a lot of respect for the entire Apple II series. (MORGAN-DAVIS, CAT5, TOP2, MSG:244/M645;1) >>>>> From the "News" section of _Windows_ magazine, by Paul E. Schindler """"" Jr.; According to an Apple senior vice president, Dave Nagel, all of Apple Computer's proprietary software will be available under Windows as soon as possible... Nagel, who heads the Software Architecture Division and Advanced Technology Group, said that in the future, "there will be no more single-platform services. We will strive to make our releases near simultaneous on all platforms." ...In 12 to 18 months, AppleScript and QuickDraw will be available for Windows, Nagel said. Eventually, all Apple systems software - scripting, networking, and multimedia - will be available on as many platforms as possible, he added. Even Apple's crown jewel - the user interface it has so zealously protected in the courts and elsewhere - will be available on UNIX systems by year's end. (R.WINSLOW3, CAT5, TOP2, MSG:245/M645;1) WHAT ABOUT SYSTEM 6.1? > I don't remember the degree of certainty he used, """""""""""""""""""""" > but Matt definitely mentioned online the > possibility of 6.1. Sorry, but I don't know how many times I've said this, but Matt does not, and has never worked in the Apple II engineering group. He doesn't make the decisions on what gets done (and neither do I, for that matter). The only person who can be expected to make statements regarding what we're doing is Tim Swihart, my manager at Apple. He, to the best of my knowledge, has never mentioned that we will be doing a 6.1. Jim (MURPH, CAT5, TOP5, MSG:15/M645;1) ___ >>>>> |he only mention I recall from anyone at Apple about a "6.1" or """"" something like it was along the lines of "we'd _like_ to be able to do a full minor version change for the last version of the IIgs system software." People then started assuming things, and we all know what that turns us into.... -= Lunatic (: (A2.LUNATIC, CAT5, TOP5, MSG:16/M645;1) FLATBED SCANNER FOR IIGS? AppleScan.GS is a 320 mode GS/OS App. It has """"""""""""""""""""""""" digitizing ratio from 75 dpi to 300 dpi in grey scale, half tone, and line art modes. The version number is 1.0d1. It was written by the Apple II System Software development team in 1990 or 1991, I think. The only place I have seen it is on the Apple Developer Group System 6 CD-ROM. It looks pretty good to me. :) Our users group got the CD-ROM in the System 6.0 six-disk mailing. There are lots of other little goodies on the CD-ROM, but most are pre- release versions and betas. I'm sure that if you posted a message in the A2Pro area asking about the Developers CD-ROM, someone there could tell you where to get one for yourself. That is if there are any left. __ / \ GS.Ozoneman - IIGS Forever! \__/ 3 ---====> Delivered by GECopilot 2.1.1 & ProTERM 3.0 (GS.OZONEMAN, CAT6, TOP15, MSG:23/M645;1) >>>>> I too would be interested in buying a Flatbed Scanner if it had the """"" software support (OCR). My question is this, how does one hook up a flatbed scanner? I thought it hooks to the SCSI port on Macs. I remember seeing something in the CVTech area that the RF will not (ever) support anything other than a storage device. (B.HANDLER, CAT6, TOP15, MSG:27/M645;1) >>>>> There is a driver that comes with System 6.x that will allow you to """"" run an Apple flatbed scanner on the IIGS. It just becomes another device in your SCSI chain. At this point there is no OCR program written for the IIGS and a flatbed, as far as I know. There is however a graphic screening program that appears to make SHR graphics of whatever you scan in. I haven't seen this program work and have been told by a friend that the program has a saving problem, "it won't do it", or at least that's what he said. (GS.OZONEMAN, CAT6, TOP15, MSG:28/M645;1) WHEN THE MAC COMES IN THE DOOR, DOES THE GS GO OUT THE WINDOW? I'm on my """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" fourth Mac. I have tons of high dollar, high performance software, and every toy that I could want (except a good laser printer and maybe a tape backup), and I STILL do better than 90% of my work on the GS. I originally got the Mac because I needed a second terminal to do my automated online stuff while I did my REAL work on the GS. I didn't think that it made sense to buy another GS when I had an opportunity to expand my horizons, and I think that was an appropriate decision. Still it took me a year and a half, 4 Macs, and thousands of dollars to get a Mac system that can perform in the same ballpark with the GS, and the GS will STILL whip its butt when it comes to speed and ease of use. All of this is WAAAYYYYYY off topic, of course. :) Gary R. Utter (GARY.UTTER, CAT4, TOP14, MSG:125/M645;1) >>>>> Right on!! :) """"" I don't mean to bash MACs, or even PCs for that matter. In fact, I plan to add one of each to my GS collection. However, the GS is now, and always has been, a very misunderstood machine, especially by folks who didn't own them or didn't know how to expand them. J-Bird <> (J.CURTIS8, CAT4, TOP14, MSG:128/M645;1) >>>>> > You've mentioned before that you use your GS much more than the """"" > Macs for its speed and convenience. Would you go into specifics on > that, in an _appropriate topic_? I think a lot of folks here > (including yours truly) would be very interested. > The Orchard Lounge is a good place: Cat 2 Topic 7. I use the GS mostly for telecommunications and word processing. There are a number of no-nonsense applications available on the GS that (in my opinion) significantly outperform anything available on the Mac, at least in terms of speed and ease of use. Now, y'all are thinking that this means I am working with P8 applications, and comparing the speed of the GS text screen with the Mac GUI. That turns out not to be the case. I haven't used a P8 application in MONTHS, with the exception of Beta work with the next version of TIC. I use WriteAway as my main word processor, and Spectrum as my main telecomm application. When I need to do fancy fonts or complex layouts, I compose in WriteAway, then transfer the text file to the Mac and doctor it with WordPerfect, or perhaps Word 5, and then print it from the Mac. (While Pointless and Express make it as easy to print out high quality stuff from the GS as the Mac, the Mac is still faster, and less prone to glitches. PLUS, doing heavy print jobs on the Mac leaves the GS free for whatever I want. :) Gary R. Utter (GARY.UTTER, CAT2, TOP7, MSG:40/M645;1) USING YOUR IIGS FOR GEnie IN THE UK Well about a year ago I asked """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" people on GEnie about their opinion about moving to St. Louis. Everyone seemed to think that was a fine place and I did it. Now, however, I'm moving my family to London, England for a year or so. Does anyone have any advice on using a IIGS in England. Do I need a converter? Will it work on 50 cycles. How 'bout a Magnavox CRT? Modems, DeskJet, hard drives, etc. Any advice would be appreciated. Also how does one get on GEnie from London.? (B.MOSIER1, CAT2, TOP4, MSG:99/M645;1) >>>>> I think you'll need a voltage converter (240-120) but the GS will work """"" fine on 50 cycles...hold down Option-Control-Reset and choose "Set system standards and 50 hertz" or something like that... Getting GEnie from London is harder...type PHONE or something like that to find out the phone #...it costs a lot more though. (T.BUCHHEIM, CAT2, TOP4, MSG:100/M645;1) >>>>> 1. Check your email. """"" 2. A.LETCHFORD (who is here on GEnie), being a Brit, can answer questions about GEnie access. 3. About power... Your equipment should run fine with a 240 -> 110 transformer. Add up the wattage of everything that will be hooked up and buy the nearest size transformer available (i.e., if it adds up to 275, buy a 300 watt transformer). Don't buy a 50,000 watt transformer to run 500 watts worth of appliances - you'll burn them up! 4. Where to get a transformer? US military installation thrift shops are always good. There is a naval installation in London (HQ, US Navy Europe - tough duty...), airbases at Mildenhall and Lincolnheath, and I'll bet the embassy has a thrift shop too. Otherwise, you have to check with an electrical supply house. Obviously, as most Brits buy Brit electric / electronic kit, they don't need 'em. BTW, you haven't lived till you've seen a British washer. They make British showers look good! 5. Always, always, always, check polarity at the 110 end of the transformer with a 3 prong polarity tester. Always. 6. My GS ran fine set for 60 hertz on 50 hertz current. The screen output went to ca-ca when the control panel was set to 50 hertz. __ Mike ("Maj") Murley \-\________ o\__ ---------------\______________}I (M.MURLEY3, CAT2, TOP4, MSG:111/M645;1) >>>>> I missed Zorch's original post on this but I will be happy to help if """"" I can. Without knowing the questions asked, my advice would be to open a Mercury 5000 Dial account. Tel Customer services on (in UK) 081 914 2456. Costs: Standard Registration #40 plus #40 per year rental. (this is for one user name. Each additional user name is #10 registration plus #10 rental per annum - at the time of registration. Useful for groups to share the overall cost). Asynchronous usage charges per hour: 300-2400 9600 Peak (8:00am - 8:00pm Mon - Fri) -#1.75 #3:00 Off-Peak (8:00pm - 12:00pm Mon - Fri and 8:00am - 12:00pm Sat, Sun, Bank Holidays) -#1.35 #2.40 Night (12:00am- 8:00am Mon - Sun) -#0.85 #1.50 These charges are on top of GEnie charges but access is usually by a local call. Cust Service will give the nodes but not all have 9600 access. Once you have an account access to GEnie is a s simple as dialing the node and logging on through PAD. I use a modified CoPilot script and I would be happy to share this info if Zorch want to go down this route. >>Where to get a transformer? I use a site transformer 1500 watt (more than I need but hasn't burned my kit yet). Make sure the transformer can accept through grounding. I have a contact for that but I expect US sources will be cheaper. Hope this helps. Happy to talk voice: tel no by Email please. Andrew C Letchford ----- < Delivered by Co-Pilot and TIC > (A.LETCHFORD, CAT2, TOP25, MSG:14/M645;1) IIGS BUILT-IN DUMB TERMINAL Here is a copy of the original message I """"""""""""""""""""""""""" received. It was written by M.Aikens1 to A2.Help, where it was forwarded to me. I was reading the July/August issue of II Alive and in the article "Modem Nation - Making your first call" it says there is a dumb terminal program built into the //GS's firmware. Could you tell me how to access it because I'm interested in that kind of stuff. E - Mail me at M.AIKENS1 ....Sloanie - A2Pro.Help (A2PRO.HELP, CAT10, TOP6, MSG:1/M645;1) >>>>> This message was sent to me by Jerry Kindall of Quality Computers """"" (QUALITY) after I asked him what II Alive Magazine had written on the subject (see last post for the II Alive reference) It's accessed the same way as the built-in terminal program in the IIc and in the super serial card. First you do IN#2. Then you set up the baud rate, echo, linefeed handling, etc., using the usual Control-A commands (or just do nothing and the system will use the defaults in the control panel). Then do Control-A T (NOTE: Not Control-A Control-T, Control-A T) to enter the terminal mode. Enter Control-A Q to quit. ....Sloanie - A2Pro.Help (A2PRO.HELP, CAT10, TOP6, MSG:2/M645;1) >>>>> Regarding the IIGS terminal mode: On my ROM 03 IIGS I was able to get """"" this to work, just as was mentioned in the previous message. Get into Applesoft BASIC, type "IN#2", then Ctrl-A T (which changes the cursor from a flashing box to a flashing underline). Then I can type any command to the modem (such as ATDT 555-1212), and it will call that number and connect. Ctrl-A Q returns you to Applesoft. Problems with this method: No buffer, so anything that scrolls by is gone forever. The IIc worked this way also, except the first version of the Memory Expansion IIc, which had a bug in the built-in terminal program. The Revised Memory Expansion IIc fixed that bug. I don't think using the computer as a dumb terminal is worth the hassle, considering the number of inexpensive term programs available. You can't do anything except type and read with this dumb terminal. Steve Weyhrich --< (S.WEYHRICH, CAT10, TOP6, MSG:5/M645;1) >>>>> On my ROM 01 IIGS, I was not. Try as I might, all I could get was a """"" printed "?", followed by "SYNTAX ERROR". Jeff - Delivered by Co-Pilot v2.1.1 and TIC (J.CARR20, CAT10, TOP6, MSG:7/M645;1) >>>>> RE "terminal in the modem": no, it's in the _interface_, and more """"" specifically in the interface _firmware_. The modem is a box that accepts "AT" commands, but it's the _interface_ that gets the commands to the modem. And it's the _firmware_ that lets Applesoft send and receive the commands. I don't know if there's an easy way to explain the latter, but let's try this: Applesoft uses the monitor programs (firmware) built into the Apple, and the monitor programs really only know one place to send user output (the display screen) and one place to read user input (the keyboard). To allow for alternative input/output devices in the peripheral slots, the monitor includes the ability (supported by Applesoft) to change the location of the program(s) that output is sent or input is gathered from. Notice that since the Apple runs these programs, they have to reside in the _Apple_'s memory. (That is, they can't reside in a self-contained box like a modem.) The way this is done is by allowing each peripheral card to have a tiny slice of the Apple's memory for its specific program, which is normally contained on a memory chip similar to the BASIC and monitor ROMs in your Apple. The chip is on the card, and when you plug the card in the chip is "mapped" into the Apple's memory and the programs on it become available. The monitor (and Applesoft) can then be told to use the card's programs to send and receive data (this, if you haven't figured it out by now, is what "PR#" and "IN#" do). In this particular case, when we say "dumb terminal" program we are talking about the most _basic_ ability of the card's firmware to allow diverting the input/output flow between Applesoft and the card to connect it between the _display screen_ and the card. (That is, Applesoft no longer receives the input so you don't see '?SYNTAX ERROR', and your keyboard input is routed past Applesoft to the card so you just type 'Hello', not 'PRINT "HELLO"'.) Okay, are we straight on what the "dumb terminal" is? :) (For want of a better definition, it's the part that allows making the keyboard and screen appear to be connected directly to the communications port, bypassing Applesoft. You _can_ have more features, but that basic input/output capability is the root.) Many serial communications interfaces have some sort of "dumb terminal" built-in. The Apple Super Serial card does, and so do the IIgs and IIc serial ports. But rip the ROM chip off a Super Serial card and the terminal is "gone", yet the modem _hardware_ is still intact (and can, in fact, still be used to communicate with an external device _if_ a suitable program is available in the Apple II memory, probably loaded from disk). As an example, my Epic internal modem has _no_ (Apple II "mapped") firmware and therefore no "dumb terminal" capability, but is still perfectly usable with many software programs, including all the "AT" functions (the software just loads its own program to talk to the modem hardware). "PR#2" gets you "NO DEVICE CONNECTED" (from ProDOS BASIC), though; it can't find the required "programs" to talk to, so it doesn't think there's a modem interface there. The Hayes Micromodem, by the way, incorporates the _modem_ and the _serial interface_ (and firmware) on one card. That's why someone might think the "modem" has the terminal program in it, because the tendency is to refer to the integrated modem/serial card as only a "modem". "Smart" modems accept commands from the dumb terminal and interpret them for their own use. In fact, they contain their own "terminal" function that allows them to work their own serial interface so they can send messages back like "CONNECT" as if they were a remote computer. And that's exactly how the computer sees them; it sends 'AT DT555-FAKE' to what it thinks is a "remote computer" and the "remote computer" dials up and connects to _another_ remote computer, then more or less "hides" except for the modem function (translating between phone line data and computer data). And, yes, you _do_ run the modem using nothing but "AT" commands, plus the escape ("plus plus plus") sequence...except as far as the handshaking hardware goes (and even that is "AT" configurable). However...if you rip the (external) "smart" modems off two computers and connect them with a null modem cable, the "dumb terminal" programs can still be invoked to let the systems "type" back and forth. Obviously, the program isn't in the _cable_. :) RE things like downloading: that's actually a bit beyond what a "dumb terminal" is considered to do (that is, actually _storing_ data, even in BASIC strings, is a step up). It's possible to do, but not very practical. For one thing, I don't think Applesoft can keep up with anything much past 300 baud, if that. For another, you'd need to "bootstrap" the process in 2-3 steps to get to even a minimally capable communications program; the _time_ invested in learning (or explaining) how to do this and then implementing it is impractical versus buying an inexpensive but fully functional communications package (like Talk is Cheap, to pick one of the lowest-cost ones I know of). (Someone else might rather spend 10+ hours futzing with this as opposed to spending $40+ on a program. If your time is not more valuable than $4/hour, I have to ask why you have/use a computer in the first place. :) (WIZARDS.MUSE, CAT10, TOP6, MSG:17/M645;1) >>> WHAT'S NEW <<< """""""""""""""""" NOW SHIPPING!! The Parson's Engineering Focus Hard Card for the Apple II """""""""""""" series of Personal Computers. The Focus hard card is a self contained 2.5" IDE hard disk drive with controller card that plugs directly into either an Apple IIgs, IIe or Laser 128 system. It does not require any additional hardware or software to operate. All that is necessary to install and use the Focus hard card is to plug the card into the Apple II computer, replace the cover on top of the machine, and turn the power on. The Focus card is the same length, height and thickness of a standard Apple II full size peripheral card. It can be used with other cards without mechanical interference. It operates very quietly and also has a power down mode for extended periods of inactivity. (Perfect for BBS's) Hard Drive Specifications: * Small Internal hard card for the Apple IIgs, IIe and Laser 128 systems * Lower cost IDE 2.5" drive and controller * 40, 80 and 120 Megs sizes available * Price includes hard card and software, nothing else required * Easy to install, just plug it in and power up the system * Quiet Operation * Zip and Transwarp compatible (Both IIe and IIgs) * Uses standard Apple power supply, you do not replace you existing one. * 6 month warranty Technical specs: * <18ms access time * +5V @ 450ma power requirement at startup, 100ma for the rest of the time Contact Parson's Engineering for future information... Parson's Engineering 5010 Rimhurst Ave. Covina, CA 91724 Tel: (818)-966-5538 Fax: (818) 966-5701 Pricing: Focus 40 : $349 Focus 80 : $449 Focus 120 : $599 Controller without a drive $129 (BURGERBILL, CAT2, TOP27, MSG:17/M645;1) !!! EXPRESS VERSION 2.1 IS NOW AVAILABLE !!! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Express v2.1: - Fixes a bug where the spool file wasn't being written correctly in low memory situations (which caused printed output to go ugly). - When printing, forces Twilight II to use background blanking so Express can keep working. - The "Printer57600" port driver is now automatically recognized as a serial connection, so data is blasted through Express' serial output routine like other serial connections. - IPC inward-bound and outward-bound calls added so third-party applications can monitor Express' activity. If you own Express v2.0 the update is just $3.50 for s&h. If you own Express v1.0 or v1.1, UPGRADE NOW for $17.50+$3.50 s&h ($21.00 total). Express v2.1 is much faster than version 1, and has several new features (e.g. automatic multiple copies, user-selectable spool folder location, etc.). SPECIAL OFFER for our online customers: If you own Express v2.0 we can email Express v2.1 to you for free (you'll have to pay to download it, but it's pretty small). If you want us to email you a copy, send a private note to "SevenHills" stating "Please email Express v2.1 to me." We will verify that you are registered for Express v2.0, then upload Express v2.1 to you on August 9. All online upgrade requests MUST be received before August 9, 1993. (SEVENHILLS, CAT43, TOP10, MSG:177/M645;1) II.SYSTEM This year at KansasFest, Kitchen Sink Software took a little """"""""" different approach to the sessions that we presented. In the past, we have held sessions for the 8-bit guys who used their IIgs's as fast IIe's and the others who don't have IIgs's but still enjoy hacking around on the Apple II. We have presented sessions on the programs we have written, and just some general programming sessions. This year we announced a new development system for the Apple II. Imagine having access to Double Hi-Res graphics, graphical user interface, pull down menus, buttons, mouse support, and much more... Well, we demoed our beta version of System II - The Graphical User Interface for the Apple II. System II is an 8-bit development system which replaces BASIC.SYSTEM with a much smaller shell. System II gives you a more complete access of ProDOS from Applesoft. There are also quite a few entry points for machine language programmers. II.SYSTEM (That's the SYS file run by ProDOS or your favorite program launcher) handles the DOS stuff. A supplemental part of System II is the graphics packages. There are two packages, one for Single Hi-Res graphics, and one for Double Hi-Res graphics. These packages add on to the capabilities of II.SYSTEM giving you Applesoft commands to do things like play musical notes (not full MIDI, but one note melodies), add pull-down menus to your programs, do hi-res/double hi-res character generation, define buttons, do screen copying, inversing, combining, and much more. As I mentioned earlier, a beta version was demonstrated at KansasFest. The bugs that we knew about during the demo have all been fixed (I can't believe how some simple things cause so many problems). We are looking to have the machine language portion of the programming completed by the second week of August (since I am on vacation in Canada until next Wednesday... that's why it will take that long). The runtime version of the desktop environment for program launching is expected to be completed by the end of August. We are hoping to release the complete authoring system sometime in September or October (note: we do this just like Apple, we announce the month, but never the year :) Once we complete the runtime version of the code, we will probably be uploading a demo here to GEnie for your preview. There are several GEnie subscribers who attended the sessions at the conference and are already registered developers with System II. Once we complete the rest of the development system, they will receive all of the documentation, sample code, and machine language information. However, if you were unable to attend the sessions at the conference (not for sleep reasons, but because you weren't there :) we will be offering the development system at a reasonable price in our fall catalog. I will be on vacation until next Wednesday, but I will be happy to answer any questions once I return. I will also be adding a topic to the list of Kitchen Sink topics over in A2Pro for System II developers to have their questions answered. For now, hopefully, this post will bring people up to speed on the System II environment and we will certainly be bringing more information to the best on-line service in the business as it becomes available. Eric Bush, Kitchen Sink Software, Inc. (KITCHEN.SINK, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:31/M645;1) TALK IS CHEAP V4.00 After more than a year without an update, Talk is """"""""""""""""""" Cheap, version 4.00 is ready for release. This is a major update and includes the first printed revision of the documentation since version 3.10. The major new features since version 3.31 that was released a year or two ago are: A very complete (to the limits of the Apple text screen) VT-102 emulator that includes both keyboard and screen emulation. More great enhancements to the already most-powerful- on-the-market scripting language. For those of you that script, have fun; for those who don't, just wait until you see what creative minds can do with the new features. Full hardware handshaking is now fully supported for the IIgs ports and the super serial card clones so you can run your computer at maximum baud rate with those new high speed modems and not lose ANY data, even with Appletalk active. The IIgs modem buffer is now 64K to avoid overruns. Scripts can now access any data that is stored in the TIC.CONFIG file so they can better control and/or take advantage of the environment in which you run TIC. TIC now includes TIC scripts that guide the novice user through the software installation process and actually handle all the file copying and directory creation involved. TIC will ship in both 5.25 inch (2 disks) or 3.5 inch (1 disk) formats as requested by the purchaser (be sure to specify). Many, many bugs have been fixed (many of which I'm surprised no one else found before now). One feature hasn't changed... The update price for old users (who can provide a copy of the front page of their manual or trade in the master disk of a competing product) is $15 and new TIC users can still purchase the program for the inflation-busting $40 price of old. Orders will now be shipped within 7-10 days (as soon as the docs get back from the print shop) from my Orlando address. Dealers and schools etc. can still purchase quantities of 10 or more copies of TIC for a 50% discount (i.e. $200 for every 10 copies purchased). Checks or money orders should be made out to: Don Elton 14207 Glenhurst Way Orlando, FL 32837 Tech support BBS/Fax: 407-858-9937 Don Elton (delton) or delton@pro-carolina.oau.org (DELTON, CAT13, TOP3, MSG:130/M645;1) >>>>> Re: competitive upgrade... The only restriction is that the product """"" you trade in (by sending in your original master disk) has to be a currently shipping commercial product. Don Elton (delton) or delton@pro-carolina.oau.org (DELTON, CAT2, TOP6, MSG:108/M645;1) GNO/ME UNIX 2.0 August 8, 1993 (Littleton, CO) """"""""""""""" Procyon Enterprises announced today that they are now accepting orders for the new version of their GNO/ME UNIX system for the Apple IIGS. Jawaid Bazyar, Vice President of Procyon and head engineer of the GNO project, said "GNO/ME 2.0 represents a substantial improvement over the original, which was in its own right a ground-breaking work. In the past year since the original release, we've listened to customer's concerns and addressed most of them. We brought even more UNIX power to the IIGS by implementing the most powerful inter-process communication system available for the IIGS". UNIX is quickly becoming the de-facto standard among operating systems. Even operating systems which never claimed to be UNIX compatible are rushing to provide POSIX compliance interfaces for their systems. (POSIX is the International Standards Organization's UNIX standard). "This release reaffirms our commitment to the Apple IIGS, a very capable computer that many developers abandoned", said Matt Gudermuth, President of Procyon. "Some people ask if the IIGS is powerful enough to run UNIX, and many used to answer with a resounding NO!. We answer these people by pointing out that the first mainframe computers that ran UNIX were far less powerful than the Apple IIGS. The IIGS is here to stay, and we're going to keep supporting it with our powerful system software." GNO provides UNIX features in an application environment that runs "on top of" GS/OS, so that the IIGS software everyone enjoys is actually enhanced by using GNO. Included as standard with the GNO system are almost one hundred standard UNIX utilities and some IIGS-specific ones such as print spooling from text or desktop applications and a "shell-in-a-window" New Desk Accessory. Full support for remote access to a IIGS via a modem, and built-in ultra-high-speed serial communications means that GNO is the perfect system for writing communications programs. "Communications is one of GNO's strong points," remarks Derek Taubert, the individual responsible for the upcoming Internet access software for GNO. "Because GNO does all the low-level work for me, and gives me a simple interface to access it, I can concentrate on the task at hand instead of worrying about writing things like interrupt handlers". GNO comes with comprehensive documentation covering all aspects of the system, including programming the kernel, the shell, the C and assembly libraries, and utilities. For more information, including information on upgrade pricing, contact Procyon at: Procyon Enterprises Incorporated Apple IIGS Software Publishing and Development P.O. Box 620334 Littleton, CO 80162-0334 USA (303) 781-3273 (PROCYON.INC, CAT2, TOP27, MSG:14/M645;1) DRIVE-CHECK Summer Sizzlers from Vitesse, for Apple II Users! """"""""""" [this message heavily edited for inclusion in WHAT'S NEW -- Ed.] NEW!!! Just released!!! Drive-Check, our new floppy drive test software checks the condition of your 5-1/4" and 3-1/2" floppy disk drives for proper RPMs, proper head stepping through all tracks, heads and electronics for proper Write/Read of disks, and it verifies Header/Sector information written to floppy disks. Suggested Retail Price is $15.95. Special introductory offer -- $9.95 plus $3 shipping and handling. (Stock Number P022) Vitesse, Inc. P.O. Box 929 La Puente, CA 91747-0929 (800) 777-7344 FAX: 813-1273 (VITESSEINC., CAT40, TOP7, MSG:120/M645;1) >>> THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE <<< """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" KANSASFEST SCHEDULE A2-Central Summer Conference begins Thursday, July 22 """"""""""""""""""" The following sessions are confirmed & complete, but changes may be necessary. Programming in 3D. Mike Westerfield. The Byte Works, Inc. Beginner's Guide to Object-Oriented programming. Mike Westerfield. The Byte Works, Inc. The Apple II & Education - The HyperStudio Approach. Roger Wagner. RWP, Inc. Making HyperStudio YOUR Platform: Writing NDAs & Transitions for Fun & Profit. Roger Wagner. RWP, Inc. Adventure Game Design - The Internals. Jay Jennings. Softdisk, Inc. Intermediate Desktop Programming for the Apple IIGS. Bryan Pietzak. Softdisk, Inc. System II: The Complete Graphical Interface for the Apple II (8bit) & How to Program it from Applesoft & Assembler. Guy Forsythe & Eric Bush. Kitchen Sink Software, Inc. Free National Marketing for Apple II Products in the Education Market. J. Eric Bush. Kitchen Sink Software, Inc. A View of the II through the Eyes of a Scope. Larry Schneider. Fun & Easy: Writing Twilight II Modules & Savvy Modules. Jim Marecondo. DigiSoft Innovations. High Speed Data Compression - Andy McFadden. Maximizing Shareware Profits. Joe Kohn. Shareware Solutions II: The Newsletter. An Introduction to Digital Electronics. Chuck Kelly. ProDEV, Inc. Computer Peripheral Design. Chuck Kelly. ProDEV, Inc. Integrating Applesoft & Assembly. Jerry Kindall. Quality Computers, Inc. The Latest & Greatest Advanced Sound Techniques with the Ensoniq 5503. Nate Trost & Steve Gunn. An Avatar Update. Bill Heineman. Switched-On HyperStudio: Designing & Creating Switch Accessible Software for the Apple IIGS. Bill Lynn. Simtech Productions. The Hitchhiker Guide to Apple IIGS Telecommunication. Richard Bennett & Steve Gunn. The Still.A.Secret: The Mother of All Patch Disks. Randy Brandt. JEM Software, Inc. -------------- Days & Times for these sessions would be a helpful addition. (C.KERN1, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:18/M645;1) THE FIRST OFFICIAL KANASFEST REPORT The 5th annual A2-Central Summer """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Conference ("KansasFest") is off to quite a start! On Tuesday night all the GEnie Apple II sysops arrived, plus Richard Bennet and Linda Harding. Along the way, A2Pro sysops Dave Miller (JUST.DAVE) and Nathaniel Sloan (C.SLOAN, aka "Sloanie") were in a traffic accident, totaling Dave's car. Luckily they got away with only a few scrapes and bruises, and a few of the other sysops went off and picked them up. On Wednesday during the day we had our GEnie sysop meetings, working on ways to bring even more Apple II information to GEnie and make the Apple II RoundTables an even better place for Apple II people to be. Over the next few months you'll be seeing some of the results of our efforts, in all areas of the A2 RTs, and I think all the Apple II users here are really going to like what we've got coming up. Further details will be made available as we finalize each plan. Later on Wednesday the rest of the conference attendees showed up, and we all spent a lot of time hanging out and chatting and hacking, etc. late into the night (I got about three hours sleep, last night! I'm not sure where I fit it in, but it was there somewhere. About an hour of it was me missing breakfast.). There are about 100 attendees here, this year. I'm not about to type in all their names, but rest assured that everyone who is anyone in the Apple II world is here! Some of the companies that have representatives present are: Alltech Electronics, Big Red Computer Club, Bright Software, Byte Works, Inc., DYA/DigiSoft Innovations, Econ, GEnie Apple II RoundTables, GS+ Magazine, JEM Software, Kitchen Sink Software, Parsons Engineering, Procyon, Inc., Quality Computers, Resource Central, Roger Wagner Publishing, Sequential Systems, Shareware Solutions II, and Softdisk Publishing. There's also lots and lots of individual developers and users here. Today, Thursday, was the start of KansasFest proper. In the morning there was an opening talk by Tom Weishaar, Uncle-DOS himself. After welcoming everyone to the conference and saying a few opening words, Tom presented a few "awards" to the people who have been able to come to every single KansasFest yet held. Ken Kashmarek got a special award of recognition for being the only person to have come to all KansasFests so far who actually paid full price for all of them! Next, Tom actually went out into the auditorium with the microphone and went to each audience member in turn, asking them to introduce themselves and say a few words about who they were and why they had come to KansasFest. This was the first time anything like this had ever been done, and it was quite fun. Next we had the keynote address by Mike Westerfield, talking about "Amateur Programming for Fun and Profit." It was very informative, giving advice and suggestions to all the programmers, developers, and would-be programmers and developers in the audience. Following Mike Westerfield was Bill "Burger Bill" Heinemann, giving us all an update on the status of the Avatar project. Currently, the Avatar itself is stalled for lack of funding, since their major financial backer pulled out. Bill said that most of the design work has already been finished, especially on the hardware, and they're mainly waiting on some capital to get the whole thing rolling. In the meantime, they've been working on an Apple IIgs clone computer interface for Super Nintendo game systems! This would be a $299 to $399 plug-in device for the Super Nintendo that would turn it into an Apple IIgs clone computer. A beta or prototype is already working, according to Bill. It has not been named yet. The device would come with 2 MB of RAM on board, an "IBM style" floppy disk drive (720K and 1.44 MB only, no 800K support due to cost considerations), and an external interface port (it would be either a regular Apple II slot, or a PCMCIA slot -- an optional card cage could be added to give more interfaces). The keyboard would be a standard "IBM style" keyboard with Super Nintendo connectors, plugged into the joypad/joystick port(s). To use a mouse you would have to purchase Super Mario Paint and use the mouse included with that (Bill said there's no way he could include a mouse or sell his own and compete with the price). Alternately you could use the Super Nintendo's joypad, but he said that it was very awkward. The beta/prototype of this device uses the ROM code for GS emulation that Bill is developing for the Avatar. He has gotten some assistance from Laser Computer (like a sheet of around 50 memory entry locations), so this device will be at least as compatible in 8-bit Apple II mode with a real Apple II as Laser computers are. Bill said that he has been able to get HyperStudio to run on the beta/prototype just fine, but ran into problems with Teach from System 6.0, and again even more problems with Teach from System 6.0.1. One problem with this device is that the Super Nintendo screen mode resolutions are different from those of the Apple IIgs. It has four screen modes: 256x224, 256x448, 512x224, and 512x448. Emulating a IIgs, you either lose some screen real estate, or you use a "squeezed" mode which looks "really ugly," according to Bill. The speed of the device was reported to be about twice the speed of a stock unaccelerated Apple IIgs. The only Super Nintendo hardware features Bill reported using for the IIgs emulation were some DMA memory-moving routines and sprite animation for the cursor. In its original design, Bill reports the device would easily be able to copy Super Nintendo cartridges onto a floppy disk (in fact he said it already can). He is seeking approval from Nintendo for the device, though, which would necessitate disabling that feature in hardware, for copyright reasons. (Bill's written plenty of Super Nintendo games himself, so people could even be pirating his own works! :) No beta/prototype hardware or photos of such were available to actually be shown. There were no special activities at lunch on Thursday, but there is entertainment scheduled for lunch on Friday. After lunch the normal sessions began. This year, there are only two tracks of sessions, instead of the three or four of the past few years. Sessions on Thursday were generally organized into an "8-bit" track and a "16-bit" track. The sessions in one were: "System II: The Complete Graphical Interface for the Apple II (8-bit)," "Programming with System II from Applesoft and Assembler," "Integrating Applesoft and Assembly," and "The Apple II & Education: The HyperStudio Approach." The other track's sessions were: "A Dieter's Guide to Hi-Speed Data Compression," "The Latest & Greatest Advanced Sound Techniques with the Ensoniq 5503," "Fun & Easy: Writing Twilight II Modules," and "Intermediate Desktop Programming." On Friday the sessions are much less easily divisible. Thursday night in the cafeteria was the Creative Black Tie Celebration and Celebrity Roast. Part of the "celebration" was inspired by Roger Wagner's traditional unique ties -- a contest was held to see if anyone could match or beat Roger's taste in ties (I won the "Most Colorful" prize, for my black leather bow tie :). The "roastee" of honor after that was Tom Weishaar, head of Resource Central and all-around swell guy. The "roasters" were Dennis Doms, Dean Esmay, HangTime, Roger Wagner, and Matt Deatherage (with help from Tara Dillinger). Any description I could write here would simply not do the roast justice, so I'm not even going to try! I'm sure videotapes will be made available by the various groups taping the event, such as GS+ Magazine, Resource Central, and others, so you can just get the tape and see it all for yourself. Late Thursday night there were some rather amusing antics being performed in one of the dorm lounges, as a group of Apple II developers, including Roger Wagner, played a game were each person in turn had to grab and pick up a paper grocery bag in their teeth, while only touching the ground in one place. After everyone had made an attempt, the bag was shortened a few inches and they went around again. At the end it got down to just a single flat piece of paper with a few frayed edges sticking up. It was quite a sight. Around the time that was ending up, a couple of people pulled out Aerobee(tm) flying rings and started sailing them back and forth to each other down the tictactoe board-like halls (the lounge is in the middle). One was making a clockwise circuit and the other was making a counter-clockwise circuit. Everyone not involved dodged and ducked their heads as they went from room to room. (: -= Lunatic E'Sex (: Copyright 1993 LUNATIC@GEnie.GEIS.Com (This message was originally posted to the Apple II RoundTables on GEnie. It may be reposted and reprinted anywhere as long as the entire message including this notice and the copyright notice remain intact.) (LUNATIC, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:22/M645;1) UNOFFICAL KFEST REPORT #1 All of Kfest was more fun than is probably """"""""""""""""""""""""" legal, but here are a few of my more memorable moments from KansasFest: Dean Esmay and Jerry Kindall doing a very passable Beavis and Butthead imitation. Watching Bryan Zak and Jay Jennings program in a new language that they hadn't used before. Jay was open to a seemingly random place in Volume One of the manual and Bryan to a similar place in Volume Two, and they were having at it, using the "cut and try" school of programming. (These guys are professionals; don't try this at home, boys and girls!) Roger Wagner was gleefully videotaping Bryan and Jay for posterity and possible blackmail, I think. I finally threw all three of them out of my room because it was 3AM and they weren't making a whole lot of progress. I've never seen more error messages than program lines before. *8-) Rooming with Hangtime. I don't recommend that anyone try this who has feeble health or a pacemaker (or common sense). The roast of Uncle-DOS. Dean and Hangtime were FUNNY. We should all lean on them to upload their speeches. Having a long talk with Joe Kohn (one way-cool guy). The sight of the A2Pro gang, several of which shaved their heads at Kfest. The seminars on the nifty stuff coming out RSN for the Apple II. And lots more! TomZ (T.ZUCHOWSKI, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:26/M645;1) UNOFFICAL KFEST REPORT #2 The Funniest Scenes Awards: (as seen by me) """"""""""""""""""""""""" Funniest Sleeping positions: Sloanie & Jim Z (During a Session) Funniest Roast Routine: A tie between Dean & Hangtime Funniest Food: Slaw! (A mountain of it served at KC Masterpiece) Funniest Luncheon quote: Matt, you ignorant Slut! By Diz Funniest Comments: Everything by Hangtime..(Matt Deatherage: Honorable mention) Funniest Attempt at a song: Matt and Yours Truly in the Roast Funniest Game Name: Bite The Bag Funniest Hair: Tom W (Honorable mention: A2pro guys) Funniest Plot to confuse Diz: Jay Jennings, Hangtime & TomZ Funniest Prankster: A2PRO.Steve Funniest Nocturnal Activity: Roger Wagner attempting to climb the Dorm building wall Funniest Computer Sound: Arghhhh! (sp?) Funniest 5 Days in a Row That I've Had in a Long Time: KansasFest! -I laughed and laughed! (but don't I always...hehehe) Thanks everyone! Love you! Tara ;) (What makes you think this is funny?) (What makes you think this is funny?) (TARA, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:27/M645;1) >>>>> You forgot: "Don't play with HangTime, you don't know where he's """"" been" -- Matt. I am so happy to be remembered for my impersonation (with Dean's help) of Beavis and Butthead. To me, that sums up what KansasFest is all about. (QUALITY, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:30/M645;1) KANSASFEST -- OUR LAST REPORT Believe it or not I'm only just getting """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" back on-line from KansasFest. I didn't get home until something like 6:00 a.m. Monday morning and I slept the entire day away. I've been fighting some sort of low-level infection since just before KFest and it started hitting me pretty hard on the way home. Then I had to set my computer back up and had some personal stuff to take care of, so I'm just now catching up to messages from the last week! KansasFest was a lot of fun as usual. I actually slept most nights this year, which was a change from my usual routine. (Yes, some people actually DO sleep at KFest. It's not impossible. All you have to do is shut and lock your door. :-) This year there wasn't a whole lot of news. There was 3D Logo from Byteworks, and that looks mondo cool. Other than that, most of what went on was exploration of things we already knew about, as opposed to new announcements. Randy Brandt's presentation on the new Appleworks, for example, was awe-inspiring. Bill Lynn did a great presentation on using Hypermedia to make great software for the disabled. One significant bit of news from Jawaid Bayzar was that Sequential is planning to take over manufacturing, sales, and support of the RamFast SCSI card in the near future. I suppose we'll be hearing more about that soon. There was more but I missed a number of sessions - I hope others can fill us in on those that I missed! Especially on Thursday's sessions, where I was most busy of all and missed nearly everything. As usual most of the fun at KFest was after hours, wandering around meeting fellow Apple II users, talking about computers and everything else under the sun, and so on. KansasFest is THE social gathering of the Apple II universe. Those of you who keep skipping it simply DO NOT know what you are missing. Dean "Five year veteran, gunning for six" Esmay PS - And after his roasting, Tom Weishaar was heard to say that he sure would like to hold KFest again. Let's all pester him so we can nuke those rumors about this maybe being the last. (A2.DEAN, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:28/M645;1) FANTAVISION GS RESURRECTED Several months back I purchased a IIgs "hard """""""""""""""""""""""""" drive installable" version of Fantavision GS (formerly published by Broderbund). The company now publishing this program is: Wild Duck Software, 979 Golf Course Drive, Suite 256, Rohnert Park, California,(707)586-0728. The price at the time I purchased it was $59.00 + 3.50 shipping and handling (CA residents also pay State sales tax :-(. This version is System 6.0 compatible and includes a Hyperstudio XCMD that allows you to directly import Fantavision GS animations into Hyperstudio. The program itself works pretty much (from what I can tell) the same as that released by Broderbund but as mentioned, this version can be installed on any hard drive. Hope that this post is of interest to fellow "animationalists:-)... Also, I have one quick question... whatever happened to the animation program called "Animasia" that was supposed to be published this year for the GS... I recall downloading some of the pre-release info on this program but haven't heard anything about it for a long time... anyone got a clue??? -=Ron=- >>> via GEM v4.21 and ProTerm 3.1 <<< (R.HOCHEVAR, CAT6, TOP5, MSG:106/M645;1) PREVIEW WITH PAPERFREE... SOMEDAY >>Is there a desk accessory or program """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" which allows one to see what something looks like on a page before printing in a P16 program? Marie, Not yet but forthcoming 'Hot Products' from ECON Technologies list something called 'PaperFree' which 'allows you to preview and manipulate documents on screen before printing them out'. I'm quoting from ECON News and it goes on to say that it will work with any GSOS application that uses the print manager. This should therefore work with GWIII. Due for release mid- summer at a retail of $39.95. Don't know what the mail-order price will be. Andrew C Letchford ----- < Delivered by Co-Pilot and TIC > (A.LETCHFORD, CAT12, TOP5, MSG:157/M645;1) WHITHER C.V. TECH? I suspect that the RF will still be around in the apple """""""""""""""""" 2 market for another year or two. Drew (CV.TECH, CAT46, TOP6, MSG:82/M645;1) >>>>> One significant bit of news from Jawaid Bayzar was that Sequential is """"" planning to take over manufacturing, sales, and support of the RamFast SCSI card in the near future. I suppose we'll be hearing more about that soon. (A2.DEAN, CAT44, TOP2, MSG:28/M645;1) APPLENET 2.0 NEARS RELEASE Since I last posted that bit in topic 1 about """""""""""""""""""""""""" AppleNET being "close enough for release", I've gotten a couple of requests for me to release what I have now -- a "crippled" version of AppleNET v2.0, if you please. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with this idea, as two of the most important parts are still not implemented (i.e.: messages and files). But, if enough people would like to see AppleNET v2.0b1 released to the public, I think I'd be willing to let it go into GEnie's libraries. What do you think? Derek Fong ~~~~~~~~~~ Sysop of Eagle-Eyes' Emporium The official AppleNET support BBS! (514) 337-8844 (M.POTTER4, CAT41, TOP2, MSG:128/M645;1) STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT V2.0 Here's a bit of advertising for those """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" Apple II gamers of a science fiction bent... Star Trek: First Contact v2.0 is almost through its beta test. The game has been significantly improved. Some of the highlights: - More complex and detailed. Multiple landing sites on each planet. - Much smoother operation. All those repetitious command sequences have been improved. - New missions for the alien Intruder. - Fully Apple IIgs compatible (no crashes!) Release time (if all goes well) -- two weeks. -Jim. (J.ROYAL1, CAT6, TOP2, MSG:124/M645;1) QFAX GS As far as the modem goes....Check this out. """"""" The Qmodem v32.bis 14.4 modem with send/receive fax. The modem also features: Real baud rate of 14,400 bps. With v32bis compression you can achieve connections up to 56,600 bps. The modem has caller ID, send/receive fax, silent answer (automatically distinguishes between voice and fax or you can have it distinguish between fax and data). Currently, the fax features only work on the Mac and IBM, but we're working on Qfax GS which will work with the modem. Initially it will be send only. And for the price....hold on to your mouse:) $299.95. Quality Computers --- Power for performance (W.CARVER1, CAT24, TOP5, MSG:125/M645;1) >>>>> Bill, """"" Do you have any idea: 1) When Qfax GS may be available? 2) Whether it will be able to append scanned material, such as a signature? (M.TOLCHIN, CAT24, TOP5, MSG:130/M645;1) >>>>> 1> We don't have a release date as of yet. 2> Yes. If you use """"" GraphicWriter or the AWGS page layout, you can include a scan of your signature Quality Computers --- Power for performance (W.CARVER1, CAT24, TOP5, MSG:133/M645;1) >>>>> Sounds great. I don't suppose you can send a whole scanned page? """"" (M.TOLCHIN, CAT24, TOP5, MSG:137/M645;1) >>>>> As long as it's a 640 graphic. Basically, if you can print it, you """"" can fax it. Quality Computers --- Power for performance (W.CARVER1, CAT24, TOP5, MSG:139/M645;1) NEW COPILOT THIS FALL I have the new CoPilot scripts for TIC and Spectrum """"""""""""""""""""" about 99% completed. After a lot of essentially wasted work, I have come to the conclusion that it is simply going to be impossible to continue to support Point to Point or versions of TIC older than v3.31 so far as the enhanced scripts are concerned. To make this as clear as I can, CoPilot will continue to support PtP and older versions of TIC when it comes to uploading/downloading library files, RT messages and Email. However, the things we are doing with the enhanced scripts are as close to impossible as makes no difference with the older versions of TIC and with PtP. As of the next release of CoPilot, FULL support will only be available to owners of TIC v3.31 or greater, ProTerm v3.0 or greater and Spectrum. For those of you who have older versions of TIC your choice is to spend $15 for the upgrade or to be unable to use the "enhanced" features of the new scripts. NOTE TO PtP OWNERS: You might have missed it, but Don Elton is offering an upgrade path for YOU. Send him your original PtP disk and he will sell you the latest version of TIC (4.0 is now released), complete with new manual, for the same price as the upgrade to TIC owners. $15 for one of the most powerful comm programs around is NOT a bad deal. NOTE: Dons offer applies to ANY commercial comm program for the Apple II, so far as I know. So all you MouseTalk and Teleworks Plus owners (not to mention a lot of OTHER programs) should think about this real hard, it's a deal that can't be beat. :) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now, let me tell you a little about what the enhanced scripts will do.... 1. Allow you to cancel categories and topics, ignore categories and topics, and mark topics. (And this happens BEFORE you read messages. :) 2. Allow you to draw an INDex of a RoundTable and set you NAMe in a RoundTable. 3. Allow you to set up a library search while offline and have it run automatically when you go online. 4. Allow you to set up a m