Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!batcomputer!chow
From: chow@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Christopher Chow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Some Mac II Misc. ramblings.
Message-ID: <3148@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 87 07:06:48 GMT
Reply-To: chow@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Christopher Chow)
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 62


1.  Right now I have a few color pictures created by various color demo
	programs which I'd like to make into either startupscreens or
	backdrops.  Unfortunately, it appears that alot of the pictures
	which I have require special programs to display them, and don't
	support saving images as a PICT resource file.  In particular,
	I have images which are displayed by:

	a.  Giffer 0.96...I heard somewhere that there is a Giffer 1.0
            which does support PICT resource files, but I haven't seen
	    it anywhere.  It it exists, can someone mail me a copy of
	    it?

	b.  Image B3...apparently a program written at Apple for 
	    showing off the Mac II when it was first announced.

	c.  Render Display...apparently displays data done by some
	    commercial package.

	Any help in transfering these pictures from their internal formats
	to standard color PICT resources types is appreciated.

2.  This summer I was in Berkeley, and Mark Letzner (sp) of Apple, who
	had a major role in the sound aspects of the Mac II came in and
	gave a talk.  One of the interesting points was that the Mac II
	does a diagnostic when it boots up, and the chime heard upon 
	reboot/power-up indicates a sucessful diagnostic run.  Apparently
	different hardware problems detected during the diagnostic will
	trigger different tones.  Does anyone have a list of these tones
	and the problems which they point out?

3.  I've noticed that FKEY-3 and FKEY-4 don't like a Mac II in anything other
	than 2-color mode. FKEY-4 just prints strange things on my 
	Imagewriter I, while FKEY-3 is a bit more intelligent about things 
	and just beeps.  Wouldn't it be nice if FKEY-3 would dump the window
	image into a color PICT resource file instead of a MacPaint file if
	the screen depth is anything other than 1 bit?  Has anyone written a
	patch to do this?

4.  I have a few 'snd ' beep sounds which play at the wrong speed.  How do
	I play around with the sampling rate to get them to playback at the
	right speed.  Also, Apple decided to make the Mac II beepsound
	syncronous... which is a major pain since alot of applications 
	assume the standard beepsound (i.e., the beep on the Plus) and beep
	a few times...thus a somewhat long beepsound really slows things 
	down (e.g., Smart Alarms triggering).  Cheapbeep was kind of cute
	in that it would retrigger a unfinished sound if another sound
	follows it, kind of like when you hit the same key on a sampling
	keyboard quickly when the sample is long.  Has anyone patched
	the sound routines to do something like this yet?

5.  Is it safe to plug and unplug ADB devices when the machine is on?


Christopher Chow
/---------------------------------------------------------------------------\
| Internet:  chow@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (128.84.248.35 or 128.84.253.35)   |
| Usenet:    ...{uw-beaver|ihnp4|decvax|vax135}!cornell!batcomputer!chow    |
| Bitnet:    chow@crnlthry.bitnet                                           |
| Phone:     1-607-253-6699,  USPS: 7122 N. Campus 7, Ithaca, NY 14853      |
| Delphi:    chow2            PAN:  chow                                    |
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------/