AppleLink
APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
July 4, 1989 10:00 p.m. eastern time
Topic: 8-Bit Programming
Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
Coach101 Does everyone run with the machine's cover in place?
AFL Scott Yes.. I do!
AFA Gary J I do, Coach. I have a Kensington System Saver, though
AFL Scott System saver here, too!
AFA Gary J It works well enough
AFL Scott Wish it had a filter, tho..
AWGS Marty system savers here also
Coach101 Mine goes top-less..... You can almost tell what is going on by
Coach101 sound from the power supply
AFL Scott Ever listened to a TWGS, Coach? The thing whistles!
Dave Lyons Lid in place, fan inside. 911 errors sometimes on this machine
(at home), but
Dave Lyons none at work.
AFA Gary J Yes, me too, Dave.
Coach101 I take a close listen when my TWGS gets here this week.
AWGS Marty My 911 errors have disappeared since I installed the system
saver.
AFA Gary J I USED to say that I've never had a 911 since I got my System
Saver, but since
Richard LT brb
AFA Gary J I moved I've had a few. Must have something to do with the Air
conditioning,
AFA Gary J or ventalation. (Of course we had a high temprature of 117 today
which didn't
AFA Gary J help :)
AFL Scott When the AC was out here, I had a couple of complete stalls, but
no 911 errors
AFL Scott here... it was 90+ inside, tho.
AWGS Marty It was rather nice here :)
AFA Gary J How nice was it???
AWGS Marty Wasn't no 117 degrees :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J That would be nice :)
AWGS Marty I'm glad I don't live in the desert :)
AFA Gary J Ok...Dyfet will be along in a moment... I'll start here without
him..
AFA Gary J Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum. Tonight's topic is
8-bit programming.
AFA Gary J We'll be using forum protocol to maintain order in our discussion,
so if you
AFA Gary J have a question, type a "?" on a line by itself. If you have a
comment on the
AFA Gary J current topic, type a "!" on a line by itself. I'll keep track of
who's up
AFA Gary J next and call on you when it's your turn.
AFA Gary J Do we have any questions to start off the evening? (Besides how
to survive a
AFA Gary J 117 degree day??? :)
Dave Lyons !
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Dave Lyons Thank you all for coming tonight....
Dave Lyons Seriously, don't all yell at once. No questions on Technotes,
things you'd
AFA Gary J (Yes :)
Dave Lyons like to see, or anything like that?? ga
AFA Gary J I hear this batch of technotes is going to be a biggie...
Matt DTS Fewer stupid beards in Apple II DTS? <just a thought>
Dave Lyons Yup.
JohnS344 when will gsos 50 ship
Matt DTS Version FIFTY? GEEZ!
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons GS/OS 3.0 will ship with System Software 5.0.
Dave Lyons :)
AWGS Marty (That's GS/OS 3.0)
AFA Gary J GA with your question, Richard..
Coach101 You left out "Summer" Dave
AFA Gary J :)
Richard LT Is there any good assembl language routines floating around Alink
or assemblers
AWGS Marty He also left out 'RSN' :)
Richard LT :)
AFA Gary J Routines or assemblers?
Richard LT either
Richard LT can't speell...
AFA Gary J There's lots of sample source code, if that's what you mean.
Look in our
AFA Gary J source code library, or in the Apple Computer Releases section of
our Software
AFA Gary J Library. There's a section on Sample Source Code (as released by
Apple) there.
AFA Gary J We used to have a demo of LISA 8/16 here, but I don't think we do
anymore.
Richard LT Thanks, signed on recently and just now getting my bearings.
AFA Gary J (I may be wrong)
AFA Gary J GA Dave
Dave Lyons Richard, are you looking for anything in particular, or just any
sample
Dave Lyons code?
AFA Gary J (Hi Dyfet!)
Richard LT Well, I'm starting assembly programming. So anything would be
helpful.
AFA Gary J What machine are you using?
Richard LT 2e
AFA Gary J Ok...that makes a difference. All of the sample source I
mentioned that is
AFA Gary J supplied by Apple is for the IIGS.
Richard LT I thought this was 8-bit discussion...:(
AFA Gary J There are some 8-bit type source code samples in our source code
library.
Richard LT :)
AFA Gary J It is, but sometimes we get off of the track :)
Richard LT heh heh
AFA Gary J sorry :)
AFA Gary J Anything else, Richard?
Dave Lyons Try back issues of magazines I guess, and ask if you have specific
questions.
Dave Lyons (ga)
Richard LT nope, I'll nose around after the conf.
AFA Gary J What other languages do you know?
Richard LT thanks...Basic (don't laugh:)
AFA Gary J BASIC is still a good language (not laughing :)
Richard LT wheew:) I neew a little speed for my "planned" applications.
Matt DTS So is English - it's a shame more people don't use it correctly
Richard LT neew=need
AFA Gary J In fact, if you program long enough in BASIC, you will find lots
of reasons to
AFA Gary J learn assembly language :)
AFL Dyfet :)
AFA Gary J GA, Coach
AWGS Marty (good manners is better than correct English)
Coach101 With the upcoming arrival of system 5.0 for the II-GS will there
be a
Coach101 new ProDos-8 that goes along with it and (if there is a new one)
what
Coach101 will it mean/do for the 8-bit world? GA
Pest II Matt Developer question of the month: how do you pronounce your
last name?
Matt DTS There is a new version of P8, and it's got a few bug fixes in
it.
Matt DTS No significant new features - DESTROY won't trash the volume if it
gets an
Matt DTS error while in progress; it can open subdirectories that the
ProDOS FST put
Matt DTS as lowercase, and a few other little things. GA
AFA Gary J (Jump in, Dyfet.. this is YOUR forum!! :)
AFL Dyfet Okay, this is more a question snuck in, but I recall that when P16
was first
Coach101 What will a ProDos-8 application think a "forked" file is?
AFL Dyfet introduced, a sneaky little repath call was added to the ProDOS 8
kernal. Is/
AFL Dyfet will anything ever be done with this call, or has it been removed
since the
AFL Dyfet avent of GS/OS?
Matt DTS P8 still doesn't deal with extended files - it doesn't support
that storage
Matt DTS type. There is no mechanism in P8 equivalent to GS/OS's
"ChangePath" call.
Matt DTS GA.
AFA Gary J Has anything been changed in BASIC.SYSTEM on System Disk 5.0?
Matt DTS Yes.
Matt DTS Next question?
AFA Gary J What?
Matt DTS Ah. Quick tonight, aren't we?
AFA Gary J :)
Matt DTS The CHAIN/STORE problem where it wanted one branch to do two
different things..
Matt DTS ...has been fixed; the bug where the old length of a file was
retained when a
Matt DTS file was BSAVEd over itself has been fixed, and a new command
"MTR" was added
Matt DTS for those of us who can't type "call -151" right on the first
three tries.
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Matt DTS Note that complete change histories for both P8 and Basic.System
are coming...
Matt DTS ...in the July TN batch.
Dave Lyons BSAVE now truncates a file to the length you just saved if and
only if you
AFA Gary J ...which is due out...in July??? :)
Dave Lyons don't use the B parameter. It worked the way it used to on
purpose, but it
Dave Lyons wasn't always the behavior you wanted. This way you get the best
of both
Dave Lyons worlds. ga
Matt DTS (Dave disagrees with me on that one - I just think it was a
bug.)
Matt DTS (Maybe deliberately done but still *wrong*, IMHO.) GA
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons (Deliberate and *useful*. :-)
Matt DTS <pbhbhbhbhbh>
Coach101 Round - 2
JohnS344 h
AFA Gary J Did you have anything else, Coach?
Coach101 Nope..
AFA Gary J GA, Marty
AWGS Marty When will the July technotes ne available on ALPE?
Coach101 Good ?
AFA Gary J As soon as we get them :)
AFA Gary J ..which will be...?? (my question... :)
Matt DTS There's 150+ pages on paper, and someone has to convert them all
by hand into..
AWGS Marty Would someone be so kind as to venture a guess as to the date?
Matt DTS ...ASCII TEXT files, including all of Jim Luther's Pascal-style
syntax...
Matt DTS ...diagrams for Installer scripts. It could take a while.
Dave Lyons How 'bout "Summer"? :-)
Mick11 july 4(?)
AFA Gary J ugh
AWGS Marty I don't want a life story, just a date.
Matt DTS I don't care what you want. You got the truth. Problems?
AWGS Marty You have a definite attitude problem. If you don't know, just say
so.
AWGS Marty (done for now, gary)
AFA Gary J GA, Pest
Pest II The Mac and the GS have some nifty tools...are there any in the
works for
Pest II the classic 8-bit machines
Mick11 'classic'?
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Dave Lyons What sort of tools do you want?
Pest II Well, I just got the window interface toolkit from APDA
Pest II twould be nice if there were a completed version
Dave Lyons Various people have written their own windowish tools for their
ProDOS 8
Dave Lyons applications--don't know if any of them have donated the things to
the
Dave Lyons public domain or not.
Dave Lyons (ga)
AFA Gary J There are a couple of things in our library related to that.
Can't remember
AFA Gary J specifics off hand.
Pest II I guess that's all for now...except I want my Dogcow!
Richard LT You mentioned a new version of ProDOS 8. Can it be downloaded from
AppleLink?ga
Matt DTS Fear not, the Dogcow thrives.
AFA Gary J GA, Richard
AFA Gary J It WILL be available here, when system disk 5.0 is released.
AFA Gary J But not yet :)
AFA Gary J RSN
Dave Lyons (System SOFTWARE 5.0.)
Richard LT Thanks, that's all...
Mick11 how long do you think it will be?
AFA Gary J ..er, yeah, System SOFTWARE 5.0.
AFA Gary J About 1600K
Coach101 Geez, you are as picky as Matt now Dave....
Matt DTS (I'm not picky about things that don't matter to me. You should
see my house!)
AFA Gary J This summer, officially, Mick.
Mick11 i thought it was prodos 8...
AFA Gary J GA, Dave.
Mick11 1600k?......isn't that a little big?
Dave Lyons System Software 5.0 for the GS *includes* a new version of ProDOS
8. It's
JohnS344 how will we know when 50 is released my dealer says fall
Dave Lyons the P8 file in the System folder. You can take that file to
another disk,
Richard LT nope, ga
Dave Lyons rename it to PRODOS, and >presto<, you've got a new ProDOS 8.
ga
AFA Gary J Ok, you're up, Scott.
AFL Scott Does GEOS have an application callable toolkit for their
environment?
AFL Dyfet I believe they have a complete developers package including an
assembler and
AFL Dyfet some other tools for constructing GEOS packages. At least they do
for the 128
AFL Dyfet Version, from what I recall in trade literature.
AFA Gary J Anything else, Scott?
AFL Scott Nope, I'm done... Thanks!
AFA Gary J GA, Coach
Coach101 Back to a previous issue, if I create a file with a resource fork
in it
Coach101 will a ProDos-8 program be able to get at the non-resource fork?
Will
Coach101 ProDos-8 even tell me the file exists? GA
AFA Gary J GA, Dave
Dave Lyons No, ProDOS 8 will not be able to get at the resource fork.
Commands like
Dave Lyons OPEN and DESTROY will return "unsupported storage type" (error
$4B, I think),
Dave Lyons and things like READ and WRITE are unusable because you can't open
it. Last
Dave Lyons I checked, you *can* use GET_FILE_INFO and SET_FILE_INFO (so you
can change
Dave Lyons the filetype (not the storage type), lock/unlock the thing, etc).
You may
Dave Lyons be able to rename it--don't remember. The file *will* appear in
your
Dave Lyons directory listings. P8 applications can get at the data in the
resource fork
Dave Lyons only by using block-level commands (READ_BLOCK and WRITE_BLOCK),
and this
Dave Lyons is not recommended. ga
Coach101 Bear with me,
AFL Dyfet Or with AppleTalk on an AppleShare volume, you can get to the
resource fork
Coach101 From a ProDos-8 point of view, is a forked file one or two
files?
AFL Dyfet through the extended AppleShare services.
Coach101 Dyfet: Cute!
Dave Lyons Whoops--above, I should have been more clear. P8 calls can't get
to *either*
Dave Lyons fork of an extended file. Not even the data fork.
Dave Lyons Dyfet speaks the truth w.r.t. files on AppleShare servers.
Coach101 Done, thanks for the info.
AFA Gary J Good question, Coach.
Dave Lyons From a ProDOS 8 point of view, forked file don't exist at all,
except for
Dave Lyons SPECIAL_OPEN_FORK for AppleShare files. ga
AFA Gary J Ok, anymore questions out there?
Coach101 When does summer end?
Matt DTS September 23rd, according to my calendar <groan!>.
JSchober (hiyuz!)
AFA Gary J That's not TOO far off (time has been flying..)
Coach101 Only a nearly "whole" quarter!
Matt DTS Next time they want to announce a product before it's finished,
THEY...
Matt DTS ...should come on-line every week and answer the "Where is it?"
questions!
Matt DTS <the infamous THEY - responsible for all our problems. It's THEIR
fault.>
AFA Gary J :)
JSchober Are we talking about System 5, maybe?
AFA Gary J I appreciate them announcing it. I realize it is a real headache
for you
Coach101 Once THEY have made the announcement, THEY should give some status
reports!
AFA Gary J guys, but it's nice to know something is coming.
Coach101 FOR SURE!!!!!!!!!!!!
AFA Gary J Do you know if Apple is planning to put out another press release
announcing
Pest II Oh no...not THEM!
Coach101 Not complaining, just anxious
Matt DTS I should change my screen name to "ThisSummer"
AFA Gary J the SHIPPING of System SOFTWARE 5.0?
JSchober hehehe
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J (I'm just wondering how I'll know it is officially released when
it DOES
AFA Gary J happen)
AFA Gary J GA, Marty
Coach101 Careful about those specifics (THIS) Matt
AWGS Marty Then again, there _is_ something to be said for dates and
deadlines...
AWGS Marty without them, very little would ever get done.
AWGS Marty (done)
Coach101 This evenings fire works displays DO NOT herald the arrival of
5.0
AFL Dyfet :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J Too bad.
JSchober :)
