Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site uw-beaver Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!edsel!bentley!hoxna!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!info-mac From: info-mac@uw-beaver Newsgroups: fa.info-mac Subject: INFO-MAC Digest V2 #10 Message-ID: <893@uw-beaver> Date: Mon, 4-Mar-85 22:18:25 EST Article-I.D.: uw-beave.893 Posted: Mon Mar 4 22:18:25 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 02:56:39 EST Sender: daemon@uw-beaver Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 395 From: Moderator John Mark AgostaINFO-MAC Digest Tuesday, 5 Mar 1985 Volume 2 : Issue 10 Today's Topics: Administration of Usenet postings Re: getting xlisp.rsrc to work XLISP and .CON Object Pascal, Smalltalk Information on Xerox NoteCards C Compiler Evaluation: A CORRECTION RAM Serial Drivers MIDI 31.25 baud rate on 8530? Mac-Zap ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon 4 Mar 85 15:25:05-PST From: John Mark Agosta Subject: Administration of Usenet postings We posted some programs twice to Usenet last week. To avoid this in the future, I suggest that people mention in their message if they will post their own stuff to Usenet. This is perhaps the preferable way to do it. If I don't see a mention of Usenet postings in the message, I will repost them as a matter of course. The place I post Macintosh sources on Usenet from the arpa net is post-net-sources-mac@uw-beaver.arpa -jma ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Mar 85 02:12:29 EST From: winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler) Subject: Re: getting xlisp.rsrc to work Programs running under the Manx shell normally use the .CON console driver in the Manx system file. Some of the stdio functions, such as printf, rely on this. The reason for having the .CON driver in the system file is, of course, to save the overhead of including it in every application. But when I compiled XLISP, I had to copy the .CON driver into XLISP's resource fork so people could use it on their Mac's which wouldn't normally have .CON in the system file. The problem with the Hyperdrive was that GCC's HDDriver driver had the same resource id as Manx's .CON driver. John Mark, I can't imagine how you managed to get a .hcx file with the .CON driver and a .rsrc file without it. I think it was only the hcx version that I uploaded and then used xbin to get a .rsrc version on Unix as well. They should have been identical. Have people been using XLISP? David was inspired by the warm reception it got and is hard at work on version 1.5. Has anyone got it running in windows yet? Last summer, Marty Chavez (chavez@harvard) took version 1.1 and implemented an elegant solution for binding file descriptors to Mac windows using the refcon field so you could fprintf into a window. I think he ran into problems though because he was using textedit to make all the text editable. Dan. (winkler@harvard) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Mar 85 02:24:21 EST From: winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler) Subject: XLISP and .CON John Mark, You must have meant that you found the .CON driver in the older .hcx file but not in the new .rsrc file. Those two are slightly different versions and were uploaded independently so I probably forgot to copy .CON into the newer one before uploading (I'm a somnambulist too). If you just paste in .CON from the old .hcx version into the current .rsrc version, [e.g. with Resource edit] things should be fine and I'll put the command to do that automatically in the Makefile so the problem never happens again. I can't believe noone noticed this before. Dan. (winkler@harvard) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Mar 85 23:51:35 EST From: winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler) Subject: Object Pascal, Smalltalk Here's the latest word on Object Pascal and Smalltalk from our inside man at Apple. (I'm going to translate Simutree (MacTree) into Object Pascal when it arrives and I'll let you know how that goes.) Dan. (winkler@harvard) From mark%apple.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Fri Mar 1 23:30:10 1985 Received: from csnet-relay by harvard.ARPA; Fri, 1 Mar 85 23:29:58 EST Received: from apple by csnet-relay.csnet id ac02047; 1 Mar 85 23:17 EST Received: by APPLE.ARPA (4.12/4.7) id AA09610; Fri, 1 Mar 85 18:00:35 pst Date: Fri, 1 Mar 85 18:00:35 pst From: Mark Lentczner To: winkler%harvard@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Object Pascal Status: R -=- Hello there Dan, We're all really happy here at Apple: Object Pascal/MacApp & Smalltalk-80 just went out the door. Here's the scoop: 1) Clascal is for writing Lisa programs on the Lisa... it's the same as always. But I suspect that this is not what you want. 2) Object Pascal is what you want. It is a descendant of Clascal, only now it has the N. Wirth seal of approval on it (honest!). It is used to write Macintosh programs on the Lisa (and eventually the Macintosh itself). 3) MacApp is what comes with Object Pascal. This is the long awaited Generic Application. It is a null-application that is written in object-o oriented style. Hence, it does all an application wants to do except the algorythm (the windows, scrolling, re-sizing, undo (!), menu mgt., printing,...). You simply write what your application is supposed to do, and over-ride anything you want done differently (saving files for example). Tada! Instant application. 4) Smalltalk-80 is not out for the Macintosh XL (i.e.: you need 1Meg RAM and 2.5Meg free Hard Disk). It is an un-supported version that is taken from Xerox Version 1 of the Smalltalk-80 system (Version 2 is what the books are written about, but the differences are minor). 5) Clascal & MacApp were just sent to Harry! Have fun.... 6) Smalltalk ordering info is on the way! Have twice the fun.... Hope that answers your questions. How is good 'ole Aiken these days? Say hello to harry for me. -Mark P.S.: Unfortunatly, Object Pascal & MacApp run under the Lisa Workshop, while Smalltalk runs under MacWorks.... Do you have two Lisas? ------------------------------ Date: 1 Mar 85 17:41 PST From: Halasz.pa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Information on Xerox NoteCards This description of the Xerox NoteCards system is a response to inquiries that have recently appeared on several Arpanet discussion lists. A. Background: NoteCards is part of an ongoing research project in the Intelligent Systems Lab at Xerox PARC investigating "idea processing" tasks, such as interpreting textual information, structuring ideas, formulating arguments, and authoring complex documents. The NoteCards system provides an on-line environment for carrying out this research. The principal reasearchers involved in this project are Frank Halasz, Tom Moran, and Randy Trigg. NoteCards is implemented in Interlisp-D and runs on the Xerox 1108 family of Lisp processors. B. The System: NoteCards is intended primarily as an idea structuring tool, but it can also be used as a fairly general database system for loosely structured information. The basic object in NoteCards is an electronic note card containing an idea-sized unit of text, graphics, images, or whatever. Different kinds of note cards are defined in an inheritance hierarchy of note card types (e.g., text cards, sketch cards, query cards, etc.). On the screen, multiple cards can be simultaneously displayed, each one in a separate window having an underlying editor appropriate to the card type. Individual note cards can be connected to other note cards by arbitrarily typed links, forming networks of related cards. At present, link types are simply labels attached to each link. It is up to each user to utilize the link types to organize the note card network. Within a note card, a link is represented by a small, active icon. Clicking with the mouse in the icon, retrieves the target card and displays it on the screen. NoteCards includes a filing mechanism built around a special type of card called a FileBox. In each FileBox are filed (i.e., linked by a Filing link) zero or more note cards as well as zero or more other FileBoxes. FileBoxes serve as a kind of categorization hierarchy for filing note cards by "topics". Browser cards contain node-link diagrams (i.e., maps) of arbitrary pieces of the note card network. Each node in a Browser's node-link diagram is an active icon that can be used to retrieve the indicated card. Spatially organized information is also available in the form of Sketch cards that allow the user to lay out line drawings, text, and link icons in an arbitrary, zoomable 2-D space. NoteCards is an environment that integrates several packages already available in the Interlisp-D system, e.g., TEdit, Grapher, and Sketch. NoteCards has a full programmer's interface. All of the functionality in NoteCards is accessible through a set of well-documented Lisp functions, allowing the user to create new types of note cards, develop programs that monitor or process the note card network, and/or integrate new Interlisp packages into the NoteCards environment. C. Research directions: NoteCards was designed primarily as a research vehicle. The following are some of the research topics that we are pursuing using the NoteCards system. 1) User tailorability -- a system description language that a non-programming user could edit in order to tailor the system to his or her task and/or interaction style. 2) Argumentation -- use of a "truth-maintenance" mechanism to help users develop and manipulate alternative argument structures. 3) Psychological issues -- investigations of the ways in which NoteCards does or does not support real-world tasks. 4) Visual summaries of large networks -- investigations of other ways to display network maps, including fish-eye graphs, trimmed graphs, 3D graphs, indented outline, etc. 5) Multi-window management -- investigations of various abstractions for building general multi-window management tools that take advantage of inter-card dependencies. 6) Querying networks of cards -- design of a querying interfaces that allow users to ask questions about the contents and structure of a network. 7) Multiple user, interlinked NoteFiles -- providing distributed/shared NoteFiles with links between different NoteFiles. 8) Alternative documents -- explore alternative document concepts, such as guided tours (i.e., suggested paths through a network of cards). 9) Text retrieval -- investigate several methods for doing text retrieval based on full-text search and statistical matching. 10) Object-oriented implementation -- we are investigating the possibility of rewriting NoteCards in Loops. D. How to get more info: A technical paper on Notecards is in progress. For information about the research issues surrounding NoteCards contact Halasz.pa@Xerox or Trigg.pa@Xerox. NoteCards is not at this time a Xerox product. However, Xerox Special Information System's Vista Laboratories offers a limited licensing agreement aimed at distributing NoteCards to groups doing related research (Contact: NoteCardsInfo.pasa@Xerox) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Mar 85 23:24:52 pst From: hamachi%ucbkim@Berkeley (Gordon Hamachi) Subject: C Compiler Evaluation: A CORRECTION Mike at Megamax called me concerning my recent compiler evaluation. He pointed out one outright error, and one misleading piece of information in one of my previous messages concerning the Megamax compiler. He is concerned that this might damage his company's reputation. If you had decided not to buy their compiler because of some negative things I said, please read this message and reconsider. First, I was just plain wrong when I said that there was an error assigning a long to an int. I forgot to use "l" as in "%ld" in my printf statement, so the value my test program printed was in error. I fixed this and everything now works fine. Second, I found the stack overflow problem in the OLD version of the Megamax compiler. The folks at Megamax were aware of the problem and have fixed it in their new (just released?) version. If you have the old version, simply avoid arithmetic expressions within WHILE loops, of the form: while(tickcount() <= delay*60+startTime) { } As far as I know, all of the other things I said about the Megamax compiler are true. It compiles the fastest, produces the smallest binaries, and loads and executes very quickly. The Megamax employees are very friendly and helpful. I would not hesitate to recommend this compiler to anyone, particularly if you need floating point right now, and you would rather not use a unix-like tty interface. In fact, a friend of mine purchased the Megamax compiler several weeks ago after asking for my advice. On the other hand, I have not had very much experience with any of the compilers. If I did, I probably wouldn't make embarassing snap judgements about certain of them! I still hope to get evaluation copies from Megamax, Manx, Consulair, Hippo, and Softworks so I can do a more careful (!) comparative evaluation. - -Gordon Hamachi ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 85 17:36:26 est From: Adam Beguelin Subject: RAM Serial Drivers A few weeks ago I posted an article asking how one might use the RAM serial drivers. I got a lot of replies but they were from people who also would like to use the RAM serial drivers. Has ANYONE ever really used these drivers? If so could you please post some information about how one actually does it. It seems I am not alone in wanting this information. I am using SUMacC but others seem to be using stand alone C compilers. I did not recieve any mail from anyone using a Lisa. Perhaps the drivers exist on the Lisa systems. A SOLUTION: If you just want to use the RAM drivers to handle the Xon/Xoff then you can get by using the ROM drivers by just checking the fullness of the buffer every once in a while and sending a ^S if it gets too full. Later when you have read the buffer remember to send a ^Q to start things back up again. This is a hassle but it seems to work. Hopefully this will be eliminated if we can figure out the RAM drivers. Adam Beguelin Emory University Dept of Math and CS Atlanta, GA 30322 {akgua,sb1,gatech}!emory!adam USENET adam@emory CSNET adam.emory@csnet-relay ARPANET ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Mar 85 02:42 GMT From: HAMMON%LLL@LLL-MFE.ARPA Subject: MIDI 31.25 baud rate on 8530? From: Randy Hammon To: info-mac@LLL.MFENET I am seriously considering building a MIDI interface for the MAC. The circuit is trivial, but one unresolved point for me is the easiest way to get the odd 31.25k baud-rate required by the spec. The data sheet for the 8530 showed 2 registers for the timing constant. I was able to figure out a constant for 31.20k baud from that sheet. The serial driver documentation gives completely different ( 4 as opposed to 104 ) values that are only 10 bits long. I know those data sheet values are for a 3.99XX MHZ clock. Finally my question. Is it possible to somehow get to those registers to set the baud rate, or will I have to have a BR generator on my MIDI board and clock it in as an external clock. Also, let's have a cheap MIDI interface for the MAC and start cranking out PUBLIC DOMAIN music software. Thanks, -Randy- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Mar 85 3:06:40-CST (Sat) From: Canas%ukans.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Mac-Zap I have used Mac Zap for about 6 months now. It is very reliable, and excellent for file recovery. It is a complete disk editor. Reads blocks or tracks (1.2 version) and you can edit ad write back to disk. Not very reliable for copy protected programs but will indicate where the tracks with errors are. Also yopu can change data and track headers. Overall I'm very satisfed with the product. EXCELLENT SUPPORT. Daniel ------------------------------ End of INFO-MAC Digest **********************