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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, June 26, 1990 10:00 p.m. eastern time
Topic: Open Discussion
Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
Matt DTS Anyone read the new folder in "Misc. Dev. Topics" yet?
AFA Gary J Matt: Great news about developer prices.
AFA Gary J Yes.
AFL Scott I have. Nice news.
Nuzz what news?
Matt DTS It just became cheaper to be an Apple II developer. (Partner =
$300/year)
AFL Dyfet And worth every cent :)
AFA Gary J That's for Apple II (ONLY) developer.
Nuzz Do I get a rebate :)
AFA Gary J Have to pay a premium if you develop on a Mac.
AFA Gary J FOR a mac, I should say.
Coach101 Good News !!
Dave Lyons (Nuzz, I don't know--give the hotline a call and fine out.)
Dave Lyons (Unless, of course, you didn't actually become a partner recently
:)
SPW hmm...anyone here know something about the SuperHires screen
memory and $C1
SPW file formats
AFA Gary J $C1 file formats? That's just a screen image.
AFL Scott Yeah, what do you need to know?
SPW ok- when I load a c1 file into screen memory starting at $E12000
with a
SPW smartport firmware call and then turn on the screen- it looks like
a
SPW bunch of garbled mess
AFA Gary J Could be a linearization problem.
Dave Lyons (Eh? There are *several* $C1 file formats...one of them is just a
screen image.)
SPW I haven't been able to figure out why
AFL Scott Why not just use GS/OS? And, how many bytes are you loading?
Dave Lyons Yeah, you *do* want to turn on bit 6 of $00C029 first--that would
explain getting garbage.
SPW I'm loading the whole thing- upon bootup of the disk- which means
I'm in;
SPW emulation mode and GS/OS isnt there- but I did set the
linearazation bit
SPW do I need bit 6 on BEFORE I load it?
AFA Gary J Yes
Dave Lyons Yes!
AFL Dyfet YES!!
AFA Gary J !!!!!
AFA Gary J :)
SPW hmm...haven't tried that
Dave Lyons :)
Dave Lyons :) :)
AFA Gary J :):):)
SPW I just set the bit when I turned the screen on
SPW I guess I'll try that next then....thanks
Dave Lyons (My $.02: Using SmartPort calls to load into $E12000 is pretty
limiting. What if the
Dave Lyons particular SmartPort device you're using doesn't support Extended
SmartPort calls, or what if you're
Dave Lyons booting off of a ProDOS but non-SmartPort device, like a Sider?)
SPW The program only runs on an Apple 3.5 drive on a GS with 1.25 M of
memory-
SPW just like FTA demos
SPW oh- which type of $C1 file is a screen image which can be loaded
straight into
SPW screen memory?
Dave Lyons (SPW, Ick! I wanna run it off my hard drive...WAAAAAAAH. (Whine,
whine.))
SPW Well, I bought the Firmware ref like you advised me and now I'm
doing some
SPW neat things with it
SPW Siders never were very 'compatable'
Dave Lyons Huh? My Sider works great with P8, it just isn't SmartPort.
AFL Dyfet Siders do what is needed to be compatible with ProDOS!!
Dave Lyons SPW, filetype $C0 with auxiliary type $0000 is a 32K image. Type
$0001 is more complex--see the
Dave Lyons File Type Notes (available for downloading).
SPW $C0?
AFA Gary J He means $C1
Matt DTS I thought it was $C1 (isn't $C0
Matt DTS "compressed")?
Dave Lyons OOPS. My mistake. $C1/0000 is the 32K image. I can't type
straight.
Dave Lyons ($C0/0000 is a Paintworks Packed Picture.)
SPW Is a Paintworks Gold Screen Image that type? How do I read the
auxtype
Dave Lyons (Yet another reason to get the real File Type Notes--that way my
typos won't screw you up.)
Dave Lyons How did you read the Filetype?
SPW Oh, why does the screen need top be linearized before loading if I
haven't
SPW even turned it on?
AFA Gary J Because that's what determines how the memory in that area is
addressed.
Nuzz FileType Notes are indispensable..
SPW I mean- can I read the aux type from Basic system or
something...
Dave Lyons Because "linearization" affects the mapping between addresses and
the memory locations they correspond
Dave Lyons to. If linearization is off, for example, the SCBs are NOT at
$E19D00. A big mess.
Matt DTS Turning on the display automatically turns on linearization.
SPW well, I'll try to linearize and if it doesn't work, I'll be back
AFA Gary J (My question is, why did Apple make the option for NON
linearization? Why
AFA Gary J use it..)
SPW be right back
Dave Lyons Beats me. Wouldn't want life to be TOO simple.
AFA Gary J I guess :)
AFL Dyfet There is also a linear bank 0/1 option (64K direct, no I/O stuff
except E0/E1),
AFL Dyfet but nobody uses that either :)
AFL Dyfet And, I believe, an option to turn on ramcard banking/I/O stuff in
ALL memory
AFL Dyfet banks :)
AFA Gary J At least the default should be to linearize. It just makes
things confusing.
Dave Lyons (Gary, I dunno...maybe there's some obscure benefit to NOT having
it linearized...something about
Dave Lyons interleaving the memory locations between different chips &
getting a slight speed benefit. But maybe
Dave Lyons not, since it's all slow RAM anyway. Ask Rob Moore if you see
him....)
SPW yes!! yes!!- Hey guys...it works now. Thanks a lot!
AFL Scott I have a question...
AFL Scott Why is the 320 mode system palette different from the Macintosh 16
color
AFL Scott system palette?
Dave Lyons (Ours must be better.)
Doctor Why :)
AFA Gary J It has to be, Dave :)
AFL Scott That's not true, Dave. The macintosh 16 color palette seems to be
made
AFL Scott explicitly for dithering colors.
Matt DTS The default 16-color palette and the IIgs stuff were decided about
the same time in different worlds.
Matt DTS In other words, the color Mac and IIgs teams were not working
closely enough together.
AFL Dyfet Yes, Jeffrey, GA...
JeffreyH11 I would think the linearized mode would give you the better speed,
just because
JeffreyH11 the code to use it is simpler.
Dave Lyons (I meant some *hardware* speed advantage to justify nonlinear
mode's existence, JH, but I was just
Dave Lyons guessing.)
AFA Gary J In some cases, that might make a difference, Jeff, but most
high-speed graphics
AFA Gary J use some sort of lookup tables for screen addressing, and either
way it
AFA Gary J wouldn't make any difference in that case.
Matt DTS Did I mention I'm holding (in my hands) the Addison-Wesley release
of Toolbox Reference Volume 3?
AFA Gary J Really??
JeffreyH11 Where can I get a copy???
A GibberFC ohhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh
JeffreyH11 :P
Matt DTS Yup. My advance copy came down last week the day after the
conference.
JeffreyH11 :)
AFA Gary J And it will be given away as a door prize this evening, right????
:)
Matt DTS They just got out of the bindery - we think they'll be in stores
in about 3 weeks.
Matt DTS About 1100 pages, including a full 5.0 toolbox example program in
Pascal.
AFA Gary J Neato.
JeffreyH11 How soon can they be ordered from A-W?
Matt DTS Write this number down:
Matt DTS ISBN 0-201-55019-9
Matt DTS Take it to your favorite bookstore and ask them to order it.
Matt DTS (Take it to several bookstores and ask them to order it, if they
don't ask for a deposit. :)
JeffreyH11 Thank You!!!!! =:)
AFA Gary J Cost? ($39 from store, $9.50 if you wait a year from A2-Central
:)
Matt DTS (Jeff = Jay Jennings clone?) The retail price i s $39.95, and I
believe it's in the summer APDAlog.
Matt DTS (A2-Central's book deals were made with the cooperation of AW and
Apple and are on books that have
Matt DTS been out since Spring 1988 latest. This book will be available at
KansasFest but will not be
Matt DTS heavily discounted.)
Matt DTS It is on good quality paper, is perforated and three-hole drilled.
It's an awesome book.
Matt DTS (Oh, OK. GA)
Andemar LOL :)
Coach101 Perforated?
Matt DTS The pages are perfed so you can turn it into a notebook if you
like. Also 3-hole drilled similarly.
AFL Dyfet Okay, GA Scott...
AFL Scott This is probably dumb, but is there any licensing fee to use the
Macintosh...
AFL Scott 16 color palette in a GS app?
Matt DTS No, but I'll bet if you suggest it often enough there will be.
Matt DTS <not smiling>
AFL Scott Thanks
Dave Lyons <smiling>
AFL Dyfet Hmm...okay, I see that Windrider has the next question and the
floor now...GA.
Windrider5 I am having some problems linking a fairly large program (APWC). I
have removed
Windrider5 all my DA's and purge memory before linking, leaving about 2 MB of
free RAM
Windrider5 but I still get the error message Terminal Eroor .. Output buffer
overflow
AFL Scott I never got that error message, but I have had the APW linker
freeze for no
AFL Scott reason at all and this was using a LinkEd script.. GA Done.
Windrider5 Will additional memory fix the problem and is there a difference
between the
Windrider5 error message Out of Memory and ...Output buffer overflow
AFL Dyfet GA Dave
Dave Lyons Well, I don't know if you're going to
Dave Lyons like this suggestion, but we don't recommend using LinkEd these
days...go for LinkIIgs, which comes
Windrider5 I have tried LinkIIgs and I get this error message
Dave Lyons in the "APW Tools" package (whatever it's called) from APDA. It
makes much better use of RAM. ga
Matt DTS Which version of LinkIIgs or the Linkers are you using?
Windrider5 "_somename extends past Bank size ($10004>$10000)
Matt DTS Aha.
Matt DTS Are you linking everything into one code segment?
Windrider5 yes
Matt DTS Your code segment has probably grown bigger than 64K. You can't
do that.
Matt DTS It's time to segment the program into multiple segments (static
and/or dynamic).
Matt DTS (code segments can't cross bank boundaries when loaded so the
Linker flags it as an error)
Windrider5 can this be done in APWC
Matt DTS Yes. Dave? (Have you ever done it in APW C?)
Coach101 I have...
Dave Lyons Haven't done it myself,
Dave Lyons but it can be done. It's in the manual. I'll let Coach say how,
since I don't remember the syntax.
Coach101 The syntax is totally different between LinkIIgs and the original
Linker
Coach101 but it is well covered in the manuals. Myself, I keep all the
object
Coach101 files for each segment in a file by itself and then use the linker
to
Coach101 specificy which object files (OMF files) go into which segments.
Note, there
Coach101 is not much you can do about the size of ~GLOBALS and ~ARRAYS.
~GLOBALS
Coach101 must also be kept under 64k, but I am not sure about ~ARRAYS. If
you want
Coach101 all the OMF in one file, there are options to both APW linkers
that allow
Coach101 you to select the material from an OMF on the basis of its segment
name
Coach101 (and there is an APW C statement to set the name, there is also an
ORCA
Coach101 #pragma to do the same thing, but it did not work in the early
ORCA-C
Coach101 releases and I have not tested it lately)... ga
Dave Lyons (I believe ~arrays can be humongous without problems. It can
cross banks.)
Coach101 I think you are right Dave (that would explain some of the "extra"
code
Coach101 you will see from APW-C from time to time). ga
Coach101 If you need an example, I can dig some LinkIIgs stuff up, not sure
if I still
Coach101 have a copy of the old LINKED jcl though...
AFL Dyfet Okay, Gibber has the next question and the floor now...Ga
Gibber...
A GibberFC Two questions.... 1) Are the beta drivers for the Scanner and
Tape backup
A GibberFC available yet? and where do you find the dang pinouts for the
internal
A GibberFC Modem jack inside the //c+?
A GibberFC ga
AFL Dyfet Ga Dave!
Dave Lyons 1) Not as far as I know. 2) I've never heard of an internal modem
jack inside the IIc Plus, but
Dave Lyons I have the APDA IIc+ reference manual here, and I'm looking....
Matt DTS (there is one)
A GibberFC Well... I sorta tore one open when they first shipped... and there
is one
A GibberFC clearly marked on the motherboard ;)
Matt DTS If the pinouts aren't in the book, write to AIIDTS the normal way
and we'll send them to you.
AFL Dyfet How interesting...
A GibberFC Great!!!!
Dave Lyons p406....
Dave Lyons Pins 1-7, 1 is at the top,
Dave Lyons 1=-5 volts, 2=receive data, 3=transmit data,
Dave Lyons 4=carrier detect, 5=DTR, 6=DSR, 7=ground. ga
AFL Dyfet A connector with a real live DCD?? :)
A GibberFC Thanks Dave :)
JeffreyH11 So? The connectors on the back of the GS have DCD; I always
assumed the
JeffreyH11 iic+ had it as well.
JeffreyH11 I used to have a iic - very strange serial ports. GA
AFL Dyfet The older IIc's only carried DSR in their cabling...
AFL Dyfet And flipped it to the DCD pin on some IIc-Hayes cables...very
strange...
AFL Dyfet My complaint with the old IIc serial ports only had to do with
what lines
AFL Dyfet they chose to take out of the machine...well enough of that...GA
Joseph, you
AFL Dyfet have the floor now.
AFL Dyfet While we're waiting on Joseph, is there anyone else who wishes to
get in the Q?
JosephI I have been having a problem with my Hardware
JosephI Let me explain
AFL Dyfet Okay...
JosephI When I first puchased the ||gs i Could not afford a Hard drive
JosephI I bought a ramkeeper
JosephI today i have a 40 meg drive and 2 memory cards on my rasmkeeper
JosephI I have been having many problems over the past year with programs
crashing
JosephI such as my managing your money and hyperstudio
JosephI after much wasted time checking everything, I removed my
ramkeeper
JosephI Plugged my 3meg gs ram plus memory card directly into the mem ex
slot
JosephI AND SO FAR NO PROBLEMS!
AFL Dyfet GA Matt
Matt DTS What hard drive interface do you have?
JosephI BUT KNOW I OWN A 1 MEG APPLE || MEMORY EX CARD AND a ramkeeper
JosephI Applied's Vulcan
Matt DTS I was going to suggest that perhaps the Ramkeeper wasn't DMA
compatible with the new High Speed SCSI
Matt DTS Card, which you aren't using. Never mind.
A GibberFC What version of the Ramkeeper are you using?
JosephI Should I try selling these expensive items or are they useful if
fixed properly
JosephI Version ? wait i'll check
JosephI How do I find a version #
A GibberFC go to your CDA menu... choose Ramkeeper....and hit return...
A GibberFC that will give you the rom revision...
JosephI I think version 1.4
JosephI I don't have it hooked up - it's in the box
AFL Dyfet GA Gary
AFA Gary J I'm not real familiar with the RamKeeper, but I have been
sucessfully using
AFA Gary J 3 megs on a CheckMate Memory saver with a 62 meg SCSI hard drive
for quite
AFA Gary J some time now. I like my setup, but I have encountered a few
problems every
AFA Gary J now and then, one related to the type of RAM I was using on one
of the cards,
AFA Gary J and the other was due to a loose jumper on one. As far as
whether you should
AFA Gary J keep them or not.... (assuming they work) it's up to you
depending upon
AFA Gary J what you are after. Speed was the main issue for having a "ROM"
disk, but
AFA Gary J some of the newer hard drive configurations have surpassed ROM
disks.
AFA Gary J GA
A GibberFC There will be a chip on the Ramkeeper that will give you the
version
JosephI Speed is about the same with the hard disk and the transwarp
JosephI I do believe the hard disk/ Ramdisk problems are related
AFL Dyfet Okay, Doctor Why, GA
Doctor Why Also, is the Ramkeeper less than a year old? If so, it's still on
warranty.
JosephI It was really a nightmare when my machine crashed - let me
explain
JosephI I had my system disk GS/Os Version 5.02 on my rom card and i
booted from here
JosephI This allowed me to remove all files from the hard disk that could
not be copyed
JosephI using The BAckup || Program Available on the vulcan
Doctor Why If you were booting from the ROM disk, did you check it for bad
blocks?
Doctor Why You can get strange errors with a bad block in the Tools folder.
JosephI No bad blocks
Doctor Why <---knows from experience.
JosephI Now say I selected Managing your Money fron Finder- Hard drive
listing
JosephI I would be using mym when I went to save Chapter 3 The program
would crash
JosephI And all work lost and not saved - ERROR MESSAGE PC=00
JosephI I thought I had A Problem with MYM software - So I sent them the
Disk
JosephI Teck support at Mecc told me it ran fine on their machine
AFA Gary J The trouble with battery backed up ROM disks is that they can
effect:
AFA Gary J 1) Your boot volume... 2) The rest of your memory.
AFA Gary J The problem could be related to either one of those. If your
boot volume is
AFA Gary J corrupted in anyway, you may have a flakey copy of ProDOS or
whatever. If
AFA Gary J it's the way your RamKeeper is supporting the rest of your
memory, things
AFA Gary J could be lost during a memory refresh in some area of memory that
could
AFA Gary J cause your program to crash in the manner you've described.
AFA Gary J Your best bet would be to try posting this question over in AE's
support
AFA Gary J boards here online. (In the industry connection). I think they
have a
AFA Gary J topic board on the RamKeeper.
AFA Gary J GA
JosephI Also when I Recieved the PC=00 error message everything froze so I
cold booted
JosephI And this is what happened- THE SCREEN BECAME DIAGONAL AND
DISTORTED
JosephI SOMETIMES I had to recopy info on the startup rom disk and
reinitialize
JosephI But I had to wait several minutes to correct the screen
distortion
JosephI All this started to occur after I puchaced the vulcan
AFA Gary J I don't know if the vulcan relies on DMA memory, but if so, that
might be the
AFA Gary J problem.
JosephI And I have talked to applied engineering many times by phone
JosephI they were also confused
JosephI Thanks gary probably right
JosephI Happy with the computer now but I have $500 worth of hardware
with no use-any
JosephI sugestions?
AFA Gary J Joseph: Ask AE. Both devices are their products. If they don't
work together
AFA Gary J , then they should have an answer.
JosephI They said that I should have my Apple memory card checked for bad
chips
AFA Gary J Joseph: That's a possibility, especially if the Apple memory
card is a new
AFA Gary J addition to the system, and came along about the same time as the
other
AFA Gary J problems.
JosephI I don't own appleworks || gs so I don't have the utility to do
so
JosephI The apple memory card was piggyback on the ramkeeper and there was
a slotmover
JosephI with the GS ram plus attached also to the ramkeeper
JosephI Think 01
AFA Gary J Vulcan is supposed to be fast, Joseph, and I think I've read it
does do DMA
AFA Gary J reads. (But only guessing)
