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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, March 5, 1991 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Topic: Operating Systems
Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
Z Factor help help please
ShanoJ What's up, Z
AFL Dyfet GA Z...
Z Factor what is the complete syntax for random access text file writing in
prodos 8???
Z Factor including parameters?
AFL Dyfet Do you mean from Basic or the MLI?
AFA Gary J Yes, under what language?
Z Factor basic, but it doesn't really make a diff because prodos is by
itself
Z Factor (i suppose i could use RWTS tho)
Z Factor is it WRITE FILENAME,Rr,Ff or WRITE FILENAME,Rr,Bb???????
AFL Dyfet You need an open first :)
Z Factor (fields or bytes)
Z Factor :)
AFL Dyfet As in OPEN FILENAME,Rreclen
AFA Gary J That's the whole key.
Z Factor yes but if inside the record there are fields, can i access them
separately?
Z Factor or do i have to use bytes?
AFL Dyfet And then you can do READ FILENAME,Rrec# and WRITE FILE,Rrec#.
Applesoft does
AFL Dyfet not use fielded file buffers like some basics's do :)....You can
only read the
AFL Dyfet record as a line.....the B parameter is for byte offset, which you
can use
AFL Dyfet in place of record number to move around the file....
Z Factor but there are fields inside!
Z Factor there is another parameter, what is it???
ShanoJ non OS ?
Z Factor but can i use the B parameter inside the Record?
Z Factor as in READ FILE,Rrecord,Bbyteoffset?
AFL Dyfet It's been a long time since I've played with Basic.System :)
WinkieJim David, there is a F parameter....
WinkieJim the F param let's you count the number of carriage returns... 0 is
the
WinkieJim start of the record, 1 is the first CR, 2 the 2nd...
Dave Lyons (You could do a READ filename,Rr and then do a series of INPUTs,
but you'd always have to read
Dave Lyons the sub-fields sequentially starting with the first one, inside
each record.)
Z Factor listen to jim. there is a field parameter i'm sure of it...
AFL Dyfet The F parameter is to skip lines in a (really text normally)
file...
Z Factor but can it be used to skip fields within the record using
CR's???
Z Factor (i know this is a long question but it's very important)
AFL Dyfet Okay, I do not recall for certain, but I believe ,F is relative to
the current
WinkieJim Z left...
AFL Dyfet Oh well....
AFL Dyfet This is going to be one of those nights :)
ShanoJ Winkie can go before me... Mine's kinda unrelated... :)
AFL Dyfet GA Winkie...it seems we are at you again :)
WinkieJim Mine's not even close to that last question...:)
WinkieJim Ok, I've installed a Heartbeat task and it's being called with no
problem...
WinkieJim With it just trying to find a key combination it works fine, but
when I
WinkieJim stuck in a _GetName call to see what program's running it will
bomb after
WinkieJim being called 3-5 times...
WinkieJim I made sure that the system isn't busy by checking the busy
flag...
WinkieJim Any ideas?
Coach101 Testing....
AFL Dyfet You called _GetName from within your HeartBeat ISR, though?
WinkieJim David, right
AFL Dyfet GA Jonah...
ShanoJ Isn't there ANOTHER flag that says when GSOS is busy? And, if I
remember
ShanoJ correctly, a whole other queue for tasks like that (ie. interrupt
type tasks
ShanoJ that call GSOS)....
AFL Dyfet GA Dave :)
Dave Lyons The OS -has- a busy flag of its own, but it also increments
Dave Lyons the system busy flag during a call, so there should be no problem
there.
Dave Lyons Even if you called GS/OS while it was busy, all that would happen
is you get back error $0007,
Dave Lyons which means "GS/OS is busy." It doesn't do any harm (unlike
calling P8 while it's busy).
Dave Lyons I suspect something is going wrong--maybe unrelated to the call,
or maybe something's wrong with your
Dave Lyons parameter block. Are you *providing* a pointer for the result
string? If you expect it to fill in
Dave Lyons the pointer for you, you'll be trashing memory--it uses the one
you provide.
WinkieJim Well, the same exact code without the _GetName call functions
fine...
WinkieJim putting the )GetName call in crashes after 3-5 times
Dave Lyons And the call returns with no error?
WinkieJim Dave, no I'm giving it a nice 36 byte buffer to stick the name
into
WinkieJim Yup, no error
Dave Lyons Well, beats me...send some code. ga
WinkieJim Is there any good text on writting interupt tasks?
AFL Dyfet I guess we had better move to Jonah's question then :)
ShanoJ Okay... I just wanna know if anyone here has seen/heard of the SDE
Shell from
ShanoJ SEA software... It's supposedly a massively cool replacement for
APW. Comments?
AFL Dyfet GA Matt...
Matt DTS I've seen/heard of it. If you're the guy who wrote it, it's
perfect for you. It doesn't function the
Matt DTS same way as the ORCA shell does, which isn't necessarily bad, but
Apple disagrees with some of the
Matt DTS author's practices (i.e., getting new user IDs for every file he
edits, not purging or disposing of
Matt DTS files in memory when you quit the editor), but it does have some
nifty menu-script driven capabilities
Matt DTS and an assembler the author swears is the cats pajamas. End of
opinion. GA.
ShanoJ Anyone else? :)
AFL Dyfet I guess not, Jonah...only heard about it myself...
ShanoJ Okey doke, I'll be quiet then... :)
AFL Dyfet Okay, Sting, you have the floor now...go ahead...
StingRay63 A GS/OS question. Does anyone think it will become a multitasking
os in
StingRay63 the future?
AFL Marty GA Dave
Dave Lyons GS/OS is unlikely to ever be pre-emptively multitasking, which is
probably what you're
Dave Lyons asking; but as I understand it, neither is Unix(tm)! Just because
you can't yank control
Dave Lyons away from an OS call doesn't mean you can't do -cooperative-
multitasking (whether partly
Dave Lyons interrupt driven or not).
JWankerl (Yah, the Leapfrog program demonstrates that bit)
Dave Lyons Many parts of the toolbox already support multitasking to a cool
enough degree, but then
Dave Lyons again other parts don't. It's hard to predict. ga
AFL Dyfet Bumped :(...What Dave points out is very true...I have written a
simple
AFL Dyfet scheduler without a single pre-emtive interrupt :)....
AFL Scott (Is there such a thing as post-emptive? :))
WinkieJim Scott it's called a crash :)
AFA Gary J :)
StingRay63 Just asking because am presently on a //e and would like to
upgrade in the
StingRay63 near future. Thanks for the info. ga
AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead Winkie...
WinkieJim Okay, assume the memory manager, misc tools and QD have been
started up...
WinkieJim Would starting up the event manger with a different memory ID be
ok?
WinkieJim Or do the toolsets like to use the same memID that is given to
them?
AFL Dyfet GA Matt...
Matt DTS Different as in a different auxiliary ID, or different as in a
totally new user ID?
WinkieJim totaly new ID
Matt DTS In reality, the tools currently don't care too much, but they
might in the future. It's also not
Matt DTS a nice thing to do (trying to fool the system). Why do you want
to do it?
WinkieJim I need to use the event manager from a interupt rouine and am
trying to start i
WinkieJim it up if it's not active...
Dave Lyons Eh? What can you do with the Event Manager from inside an
interrupt?
AFL Scott (become recursive:))
Dave Lyons (Or what do you -think- you can do? :-)
AFL Dyfet :)
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons (And what interrupt?)
WinkieJim heartbeat task...
WinkieJim as to what I want to do....
WinkieJim ...don't think I want to go into that...it's probably won't
work...just wondering
WinkieJim what the event manager would recact to being started and
shutdown within a
WinkieJim heartbeat task
Dave Lyons Okay, then for the record
Dave Lyons I'll just point out that using the EM entirely from inside an
interrupt routine wouldn't be very
Dave Lyons helpful, since no key-down or mouse-down events would occur (they
get posted during interrupts),
Dave Lyons and the tick count would not advance. Oh, and the mouse location
would not change. ga
AFL Dyfet Other than that...:)...An eventless event loop :)
WinkieJim hmmm, ok, I think that answers my questions...
Dave Lyons But,
Dave Lyons if you want to -start- and -stop- it from a hearbeat, I suppose
you could--although it seems
Dave Lyons like you'll mostly just confuse the foreground application
big-time. In that case, I'd recomment
Dave Lyons you post a GS/OS SIGNAL to do the startup/shutdown, rather than
actually doing them from inside the
Dave Lyons heartbeat task. ga again
WinkieJim GS/OS Signal?
AFL Dyfet GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Signals are described in one of the GS/OS reference
books...probably the Driver reference, as MD will
Dave Lyons probably confirm. You can call the SIGNAL service to post one;
it's somewhat like calling SchAddTask
Dave Lyons to make the Scheduler dispatch to your task later, only it doesn't
depend on the Busy flag being
Dave Lyons nonzero, and it's a much zanier dispatching mechanism.
WinkieJim Did you guys add a feature without telling me! :)
Dave Lyons (The GS/OS Driver Reference is an APDA thang.)
Matt DTS Coach101 can give you more information on it, but the
documentation reference is indeed GS/OS Device
Matt DTS Driver Reference. It's a System Service call, so you can't make
it from a high-level language without
Matt DTS glue.
ShanoJ (see, told you that existed... :)
Dave Lyons Oh, and interrupts are generally enabled when a signal gets
dispatched; this is not necessary
Dave Lyons true for SchAddTask tasks. ga
Dave Lyons (Or without imbedded assembly code.)
Dave Lyons (BTW, you can make OS calls from a signal,
Dave Lyons and EMStartUp might just need to do that, when loading the key
translation resource.) done
AFL Dyfet Okay, I guess Parik can have the floor now :)...GA Parik...
AFA Parik does anyone have the # for Kfest reservations handy?
JWankerl something 6502
WinkieJim 913-469-6502
WinkieJim I like that phone number! :)
AFA Parik thanks, done
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J That was quick.
AFL Dyfet Okay, does anyone else have a question for tonight?
WinkieJim That didn't even make matt or Dave sweat...let's get another tough
one
AFL Dyfet Ga Wankerl...
JWankerl How come my fmdEditMenu call isn't working properly?
Matt DTS Because you're not holding your tongue properly.
Dave Lyons What's it doing?
ShanoJ :)
AFA Gary J :)
Matt DTS Because your edit menu items don't have the standard menu item
numbers.
Dave Lyons (250..254)
Matt DTS Because ... yeah, what _is_ it doing?
JWankerl Well... it does its stuff when a NDA is front - so my menu items
*are*
JWankerl numbered correctly.
JWankerl But when something with a LineEdit or TextEdit control in it is
front,
JWankerl the edit things are all dimmed.
Dave Lyons Is there some text selected? Is there anything text on the
clipboard?
Dave Lyons If not, they will be dimmed.
JWankerl I think there is something in the clipboard - didn't think to
select
JWankerl something, though. :-)
Matt DTS Note that FMD will not enable edit items if there is no target
control, either.
Dave Lyons Well, no selection explains everything but Paste; if there was no
text on the clipboard that
Dave Lyons explains Paste too (or if the target Text Edit control was
read-only). Yeah, or if you have no
Dave Lyons target control at all.
Matt DTS Quoting from the manual you should have picked up at KansasFest:
Matt DTS "If the current target control is a LineEdit control, fmdEditMenu
enables cut, copy and clear if
Matt DTS any text is selected. Paste is also enabled if a text scrap
longer than zero bytes exists."
JWankerl Okay. And one more FMD question -- is there a way I can change
the cursor to
JWankerl an I-beam in my main event loop (not using the fakeModalDialog
call) by
JWankerl using the FMD tools?
Matt DTS "If [target is editable TE control], fmdEditMenu enables cut, copy
and clear, and Paste if a >0
Matt DTS text scrap exists." (For read-only TE records, cut paste and
clear are disabled.)
JWankerl (automatically when it passes over a TE or LE control, that is)
Dave Lyons Isn't there a fmdSetIBeam call?
Dave Lyons One of them thangs does it.
JWankerl Yah, there's a call, but I want to change it only if it's over a
TE or LE
JWankerl control.
Matt DTS Sure - use...
Matt DTS ...fmdGetIBeamAdr. This gives you the address of FMD's IBeam
cursor so you can do stuff with it,
Matt DTS although, I don't know why you don't just use fmdIBeamCursor
instead of SetCursor(fmdGetIBeamAdr).
Dave Lyons Okay, so call fmdFindCursorCtl to see what control you're over,
and check the control's procID field
Dave Lyons to see what kind of control it is.
JWankerl It'd be nice if FMD did that for me since it has to do it itself
anyhow.
Matt DTS Joe - it does!
AFL Dyfet GA Matt...
Dave Lyons Matt, he means for windows other than modal dialogs.
Matt DTS As long as you have bit 3 of the flags word set, FMD automatically
does that over LE and TE controls.
Matt DTS Oh...you want FMD to work for non modal-dialog windows? Yeah,
you'll have to do that yourself.
Matt DTS FMD wasn't supposed to be the "complete user-interface-in-a-box
tool", just a step in the
Matt DTS right direction. GA.
AFL Dyfet Okay, Coach, go ahead....
JWankerl I'm done -- for now.
Coach101 What is FMD?
ShanoJ Fake Modal Dialog.
Coach101 Thanks....
AFL Dyfet Okay, Gary, Ga...
AFA Gary J Is there anything that could cause an ACE $1D08 error other than
the obvious
AFA Gary J source and destination areas overlapping in memory? If not, is
there any
AFA Gary J outside occurance that could cause the overlap to occur (such as
low memory, or
AFA Gary J just a bogged down system :)
AFA Gary J GA
AFA Gary J (I've seen this happen, out of the blue, on a program that has
been working
AFL Dyfet GA Dave...
AFA Gary J for months.... ) GA
Dave Lyons Gary, weren't you having this same problem last year? :) If it's
reproducable, I'd like to
Dave Lyons see it.
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J The trouble is, it only occurs on very strange circumstances -
while I'm in the
AFA Gary J ORCA shell, and after I've
run/assembled/linked/run/assembled/linked for many
AFA Gary J times.
JWankerl Well that's the problem right there - the ORCA shell!
AFA Gary J It could be, but that's what I'm wondering.
Dave Lyons Well, can you modify your program so that on getting the error it
displays the source and
Dave Lyons destination parameters, along with the addresses & handle sizes of
the handles?
AFA Gary J Yes, that was going to be my next plan, since it has me real
curious.
AFA Gary J The trouble is, I have to catch it in the act. I spent 30
mintutes prior to
WinkieJim I always get curious when my programs crash too...
AFA Gary J this conference this evening trying to get it to do it again (so
I could take
AFA Gary J a good look with Nifty List), but I couldn't get it to do it. Oh
well. I may
AFA Gary J be doing something wrong something wrong, I'll just look harder
:) GA
AFL Dyfet GA Coach...
Coach101 Gary, do you ever have problems with other programs, tools,
compilers after a whole bunch
Dave Lyons :), :)
Coach101 of edit, compile, link, execute iterations in ORCA?
AFA Gary J Well, sometimes Coach, but I'm not sure if I can attribute it to
ORCA in every
AFA Gary J case.
Coach101 To attempt to exonerate ORCA (or blame your program) you could
change the program to an S16 and
Coach101 repetively execute it from another launcher to see if the same
problem ever appears. ga
AFA Gary J Well, it IS an S16 program, but it returns to ORCA each time
(with most shell
AFA Gary J info intact)
AFL Dyfet Prizm I'd be more quick to judge harshly than ORCA shell...you
could use
AFL Dyfet Nifty to see if anything strange is happening with avail memory
between each
AFL Dyfet Orca invokation, Gary :)...
AFA Gary J Ok, thanks. I'll see what I can figure out.
James S WI Where can I get DUPLICATE or any utility to copy a resource onto a
regular file
AFL Dyfet (James, you can try APDA for the APW tools update...I do not know
of a pub.
AFL Dyfet domain 'duplicate)...
AFL Dyfet (though it would not be hard to write one :)
Matt DTS Bryan Pietrzak's COPY command copies files with resource forks.
Part of ZakPak, should be online
Matt DTS here somewhere.
AFA Parik (email BRYAN ZAK for info on ZakPak.)
ShanoJ I'm gunna upload ZakPak as soon as I get a minute...
AFA Gary J (Great, Jonah! )
ShanoJ (Even have it all packed, ready to go... :)
WinkieJim Just checked... There's a program called ResLin that does resource
moving and
WinkieJim copying...
ShanoJ LLRE Is better, Winkie... :)
James S WI Do they work from the ORCA shell?
WinkieJim Well I use GeneSys mostly myself..
ShanoJ They're both dekstop applications....
James S WI I mean are ther exe or s16?
James S WI That answers it.
WinkieJim ResLin is sys16
AFL Dyfet Okay, Jim...go ahead, you have the floor...
DYA Jim1 Ok; I think I found a little bug in SF. When the open button is
dimmed, in
DYA Jim1 a getfile dialog box, OA-down arrow still works and enables and
flashes the
DYA Jim1 open button. It doesn't cause any damage; just a cosmetic thing..
anyone
DYA Jim1 else see this?
AFL Dyfet GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Yup, I did. :-) Don't be surprised if that eventually doesn't
happen any more. As I recall,
Dave Lyons the button is left enabled after that little trick, but you're
right, it's just cosmetic.
Dave Lyons (BTW, please *do* report stuff like that (to me, for example)--we
can't have found them all)
DYA Jim1 Ok.. thanks Dave.. GA
AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead Wankerl...
JWankerl That reminded me of a quirk I just found with SF - when you click
on the
JWankerl Volumes button when you're in some directory that's not the root
and then
JWankerl you click on the 'Select Volume:' string above the list (or
whatever it's
JWankerl titled) you will be taken back one directory from where you
clicked on the
JWankerl Volumes button.
Dave Lyons Really?? Hmmm, hadn't heard of that one. (scribble....)
JWankerl Actually it's kinda neat if you didn't want to hit the Volumes
button. :-)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet Okay, do we have any more questions for tonight?
Dave Lyons (Besides that one?)
AFL Dyfet That was a question, alright :)
ShanoJ Okay, I'll take a shot... :)
AFA Gary J Both of them.
Dave Lyons ("Sir; may I ask a question?" "Data, I think you just did." "Yes
sir. Then, may I ask another
Dave Lyons after this one?")
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet Data follows ADV protocol :)
ShanoJ First: What would people like to see in the way of new programming
utilities?
ShanoJ Next: What would people like to see in the way of new NiftyList
modules (I'm
ShanoJ kinda getting into them... :)
JWankerl I'd like to see a NL module that does GSBug Templates. :-)
Coach101 A post associated source level debugger....
AFL Dyfet :)
Dave Lyons How 'bout one that will tell me what next week's Apple stock price
will be? That would be cool....
JWankerl Nifty List -- programmer aid and stock broker.
ShanoJ Would that be a shell utility or a NiftyList module, Dave? :)
Coach101 Geez Dave, they just lowered your option point for you last summer
:)
AFL Dyfet Or one that picks winning Lotto numbers :)
AFA Gary J I'd like to see one that would identify bit flags (i.e. event
flags, etc.)
Matt DTS (We don't give Dave options. That requires him to actually decide
something.) <ducking>
AFA Gary J or something like that.
AFL Dyfet Hmmm...
Dave Lyons (Yes Matt, you make a nice duck.)
ShanoJ I thought a cool idea would be something like Templates, but for
FILES. It'd
ShanoJ load in a file and label all of the parts for you. Particularly
useful if
ShanoJ you're trying to make files for some other program (say AWGS). You
have your
ShanoJ program save them, then the module load 'em up, so you can make
sure that
ShanoJ everything got into the proper position...
ShanoJ Then again, I also thought that a MiniAssembler module for
NiftyList would be
ShanoJ nice, so what do I know... :)
Matt DTS Of course, you'll have to make it modular enough so that others
can add their own file descriptions.
Coach101 Thats a neat idea Jonah!
ShanoJ Of course, Matt. That's the whole idea (notice the reference to
Templates).
JWankerl Of course it's work for both data forks and resource forks. ;-)
JWankerl (Reference noted - one brownie point awarded)
ShanoJ So, I take it from the overwhelming response that the GS is a
mature computer
ShanoJ and needs no more utilities?
AFA Gary J Ha! :) (I think every programmer in the world is constantly
asking himself the
AFA Gary J quesion, "What is the utility that everyone needs?" :)
Matt DTS Jonah, people think of utilities that are needed when they can't
get something done, not while sitting
Matt DTS in a conference (unless there's a recent frustration memory).
ShanoJ Or that because you're all programers yourselves, you wanna keep
your ideas
ShanoJ to yourselves... :)
Dave Lyons (Jonah, maybe they're saying it needs more menu-driven utilties
and fewer weird-command-line
Dave Lyons syntax utilities....)
ShanoJ I didn't say it had to be command line... Desktop utilites count,
too.
Dave Lyons (Oh, I thought the question was still "What Nifty List modules do
people want?" Sorry....)
AFA Gary J Are you gonna write my Integer Math calculator CDA? If not, I'll
write it :)
AFA Gary J (I just want to use it)
Coach101 Though there is always room for another utility, I do think that
the IIgs native development
Coach101 environment is fairly mature.
Coach101 Now, the hot area may be "development" utilities for developing
HyperCardIIgs stacks...
Coach101 Much bigger marketplace I suspect :)
ShanoJ Oh, has anyone gotten Prizm to work under 5.0.anything?
JWankerl I didn't use Prizm 10 minutes after I got it. I really dunno.
ShanoJ Ya, me either... The other day I wanted to play with it a bit (did
you know
ShanoJ it does window PANES?!) but it wouldn't boot any more... :(
JWankerl window panes? Ain't that a new technote somewheres?
AFA Gary J :)
ShanoJ Naw, that's "Aren't windows a Pane?"
AFA Gary J Yeah, that's it.
ShanoJ BTW, Dave, could you explain Mr. Tangent and Of Course I Trust
You, I'm Just
ShanoJ Checking?
JWankerl (and also explain Dave "Eh?" Lyons ;-)
ShanoJ Or do I have to send EMail to Mike Opitz for that, too? :)
Dave Lyons Sure,
Dave Lyons anyone spending significant time near me while I'm supposed to be
getting work done finds that I
Dave Lyons frequently go off on tangents. All of them, if possible.
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons ("Whoa! Now I see why it's crashing, it's doing a BlockMove by 5
bytes across all the softswitches;
Dave Lyons Gee, I wonder exactly what effect that has & why...." :)
Dave Lyons And I would make a good diplomat when it comes to arms control or
something: Trust and verify.
Dave Lyons I have to actually try it out or look it up (or preferably both)
before I believe it (anything
Dave Lyons relating to the GS, that is).
Dave Lyons "Mr. Tangent" is on my business cards.
Matt DTS (He's been known to irritate people by listening to their
explanations and trying it in Nifty List...
Matt DTS ...even though they just told him how it works.)
Dave Lyons And even though they weren't quite right half the time.
JWankerl You shoulda seen him track down a bug in Transfusion at Kansas
last summer...
AFA Gary J :)
JWankerl out of the blue "Oh, you didn't do a setport"
JWankerl From god knows where inside the toolbox - code that didn't mean a
thing he
JWankerl exclaims this.
ShanoJ That's why he works for Apple and we don't, Joe... :)
Dave Lyons (Elementary, my dear JW...as soon as it crashed -inside
quickdraw-, that was an easy guess. :)
Dave Lyons I can do better than that, I found a bug at lunch just talking
about a guy's code...he didn't realize
Dave Lyons a handle had to be unlocked and non-fixed when grown with
SetHandleSize to be sure it will work.
Dave Lyons (Didn't even know there was a bug.... :)
Dave Lyons (Gee, I've bored everyone to death again. :(
A2Evanglst Dave Lyons, The "Black Flag" of Apple Computer... Kills Bugs Dead
;)
JWankerl So... anyone know any good IIGS references for AppleTalk *besides*
the
JWankerl Inside Appletalk and AppleShare PRogrammer's Guide for the Apple
II?
Matt DTS Joe: No, that pretty much covers it all. What more do you
need?
Nuzz Is the special price on CD drives still in effect?
Matt DTS Nuzz: Call the hotline and ask.
Dave Lyons (Yeah, call...I believe there's an ongoing special price for new
partners and associates, but beyond
Dave Lyons that I don't know.)
JWankerl I need something that tells me what to do!!!!!!!
JWankerl Both those books are cryptic.
Matt DTS They're not network primers. You might want "AppleTalk Network
System Overview" for a technical
Matt DTS introduction to the network. Developer University also has an
introductory AppleTalk class.
Dave Lyons ("It was hard to implement; it should be hard to use!" <--joke
:)
ShanoJ That's why there aren't any OTHER references, Joe... :)
Dave Lyons (BTW, this might make a good DTS sample some year: real live
working examples of all the calls.)
JWankerl Exactly. Go thru each protocol and give examples of what to do.
JWankerl Examples are really what I need.
Dave Lyons (Along with comments saying when & why you'd want to use each
call.)
Matt DTS Would you like French Fries with that?
JWankerl Yes, but not too much salt - it's bad for the heart.
Matt DTS (Dave is the same one who, every time I report a bug, says "fix
it" but thinks DTS exclusively gets
Matt DTS to write all the sample code.)
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons I didn't say DTS had to write it; I said it would make a good DTS
sample. Anybody you can get to
Dave Lyons make time to do it, go for it.
Matt DTS You volunteering? :)
Dave Lyons (I am not volunteering at this time.)
AFA Gary J Well, I'm gonna go and see if I can get my program to crash :)
ShanoJ Gary...
AFA Gary J Yes, Jonah?
ShanoJ The idea of programming is to NOT make your programs crash....
:)
AFA Gary J :)
JWankerl Unless, of course, you're writing GSBug or something.
ShanoJ That might be what's slowing you down here....
AFA Gary J Yes, but I've had a particular bad time with the ORCA shell.
It's the problems
AFA Gary J that have "gone-away" that I used to have that worry me the most
:)
AFA Gary J All the problems have only occured (as far as I know... I do have
a few beta
AFA Gary J versions of my program sprinkled around) under the ORCA shell,
during
AFA Gary J development.
ShanoJ Well, then as long as you don't distribute the source you don't
have to worry
ShanoJ about it... :)
AFA Gary J :)
JWankerl Don't write for GS+, then.
Nuzz What does GS+ pay for programs?
JWankerl Nuzz: Depends on the program - no less than $50, I believe.
That's a low
JWankerl bottom end, though.
AFA Gary J Somehow, the most annoying problem (of having to COLD re-boot in
order to
AFA Gary J re-edit ANY source file after running my program) has gone
away.
AFA Gary J (The problem with the "Invalid Text Data")
ShanoJ Have you ever used MAX/Edit? Their choice of stealing a system
toolset was
ShanoJ REALLY stupid, because you have to boot with a system disk that
has that
ShanoJ toolset on it in order to get into the editor... :( For people
writing things
ShanoJ like Twilight that have boot parts that sometimes don't work,
meaning that you
ShanoJ have to boot from floppies instead of the HD, that can be REALLY
annoying. :(
JWankerl Man, it only takes 3 lines of code to use a user toolset and
install it. :-(
Matt DTS The author of MAX/Edit felt his stolen system toolset was "too
ingrained in the design" to change,
Matt DTS whatever that means.
AFA Gary J I've never tried that, Jonah. I actually like the ORCA editor
well enough.
AFA Gary J I'd just like it better if it could (1) edit more than one file
at a time - and
AFA Gary J (2) edit files larger than 64K.
ShanoJ Gary: Try MAX/Edit--except for a few little flaws, it's GREAT. I
couldn't
ShanoJ believe how wonderful it was until I tried it!
ShanoJ Matt: here's one time when I'm completely on your side: a system
toolset theft
ShanoJ was a BAD idea. :(
Matt DTS I use EdIt-16, now shipping from SSSi (got mine today).
Completely modifiable, up to 9 files
Matt DTS open at any time. EXE or S16, uses command line or message
parameters, every command is configurable.
ShanoJ Uggh... I have EdIt-16, but I didn't like it to much. I think
MAX/Edit is a
ShanoJ LOT better... (In fact, I installed EdIt-16 on MAX/Edit as a
Min/Shell
ShanoJ utility... :)
Matt DTS Only flaw is that it has 64K file limits. <sigh>
Matt DTS Jonah: "uggh" is not useful in software review discussions.
ShanoJ I think that SSSi should have done a little more work on
EdIt-16... One thing
ShanoJ that I really don't like is that you have to refer to language
types by auxType
ShanoJ rather than by name. _I_ sure never remember the auxTypes... :(
JWankerl LINKER is 265... I think.
Matt DTS Jonah: A good point, but building in a table of auxtypes requires
an update to add new ones.
ShanoJ Matt: MAX/Edit uses FTD files.... :)
AFA Gary J As to the 64k file limit, I could live with that (I don't think
source files
AFA Gary J should be bigger than that), BUT, there's always the one time
when you need to
AFA Gary J break down a large file that you've created/obtained from
someplace else that
AFA Gary J makes it all worthwhile.
ShanoJ Gary: Macgen can only handle 64K files, so you're right that
that's not too
ShanoJ useful.... :)
JWankerl Macgen - "Scanning opy can't be opened" or something like that.
Matt DTS MAX/Edit has a good interface in many cases, but for me the design
flaws are not worth messing up
Matt DTS my system for.
Matt DTS I don't want to crash in some other program because it used up all
the user IDs and wouldn't purge
Matt DTS memory when not in the editor.
ShanoJ Well, I think the preservation of workspaces around editor uses
AND the built
ShanoJ in shell can't be beat!
ShanoJ Then again, I EXPECT my system to crash regularly (and I'm not
disappointed...)
ShanoJ so I guess we come at it from different angles... :)
Matt DTS Well, to each his own. You probably use unreliable screen
dimmers, too.
ShanoJ Ya, that I do... In fact, I WRITE them and force them on others,
too... :)
ShanoJ And, truth be told, I DO do it all just to make Matt's life a
living hell... :)
AFA Gary J :)
