Date: Sun, 17 Jul 1994 07:36:52 +0700

Date: Sun, 17 Jul 1994 07:36:52 +0700
From: [email protected] (Elliotte Harold)
Subject: New version of the misc faq

From: [email protected] (Elliotte Rusty Harold)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: Miscellaneous Macintosh frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.misc
Organization: Department of Mathematics, NJIT
Lines: 1202
Approved: [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected]
Summary: This document answers a number of the most frequently asked
questions about Macintoshes on Usenet. To avoid wasting bandwidth
and as a matter of politeness please familiarize yourself with this
document BEFORE posting.
Keywords: FAQ, Macintosh, Mac, macintosh, mac, misc, miscellaneous

Archive-name: macintosh/misc-faq
Version: 2.3.0
Last-modified: July 12, 1994
Maintainer: [email protected]

Miscellaneous Frequently Asked Questions
========================================

comp.sys.mac.faq, part 3:
comp.sys.mac.misc

Copyright 1993,1994 by Elliotte Harold
Please see section 5.8 of the general FAQ if you wish
to redistribute or revise this document in any way.

Archive-name: macintosh/misc-faq
Version: 2.3.0
Last-modified: July 12, 1994
Address comments to [email protected]

What's new in version 2.3.0:
----------------------------

This FAQ list now features URL's for a lot of software. See
the general FAQ list for details.

2.3 Why won't my PostScript file print on my mainframe's printer?

Most current software is compatible with the LaserWriter 8.1.1
driver. (If you know of any that isn't please let me know.)

6.5: What is SuperDoubler? SpaceSaver? More Disk Space? Now Compress?

AutoDoubler, Disk Doubler and Copy Doubler are now combined in the
single product SuperDoubler.

6.11: I'm greedy. Can I triple my RAM?

I've now added instructions for doing this with RAM Doubler 1.0.2.
This trick doesn't yet work with RAMDoubler 1.0.3.

I've added question 6.12: How can I edit a PostScript file?

Table of Contents
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I. Viruses
1. Help! I have a virus!
2. I think I've found a new virus. What should I do?
II. Printing and PostScript
1. How do I make a PostScript file?
2. How do I print a PostScript file?
3. Why won't my PostScript file print on my mainframe's printer?
4. Why are my PostScript files so big?
5. How can I print PostScript on a non-PostScript printer?
6. How do I make my ImageWriter II print in color?
7. Why doesn't PrintMonitor work with the ImageWriter?
8. Why did my document change when I printed it on someone
else's printer?
9. How can I preview a PostScript file?
10. Can I attach a LaserJet or other PC printer to my Mac?
11. How can I print grey scales on my StyleWriter I?
12. How can I edit a PostScript file?
III. DOS and the Mac
1. How can I move files between a Mac and a PC?
2. How can I translate files to a DOS format?
3. Should I buy SoftPC or a real PC?
4. Should I buy Executor or a real Mac?
5. Should I buy a DOS-compatibility card or a real PC?
IV. Security
1. How can I password protect a Mac?
2. How can I password protect a file?
3. How can I password protect a folder?
4. How can I prevent software piracy?
5. How can I keep a hard drive in a fixed configuration?
V. Sound
1. How can I copy a track from an audio CD onto my Mac?
2. How can I extract a sound from a QuickTime movie?
3. How can I convert/play a mod/wav/etc. file?
VI. No particular place to go (Miscellaneous Miscellanea)
1. Are there any good books about the Mac?
2. How do I take a picture of the screen?
3. How do I use a picture for my desktop?
4. Can I replace the "Welcome to Macintosh" box with a picture?
5. What is SuperDoubler? SpaceSaver? More Disk Space? Now Compress?
6. How do they compare to TimesTwo, Stacker, and eDisk?
7. Where did my icons go?
8. Where can I find a user group?
9. Where can I find the 1984 Quicktime movie?
10. Do RAM Doubler and Optimem work?
11. I'm greedy. Can I triple my RAM?
12. How do I run software that needs an FPU on a Mac that doesn't
have one?

RETRIEVING THE ENTIRE FAQ
=========================

This is the THIRD part of this FAQ. The first part is also
posted to this newsgroup under the subject heading "Introductory
Macintosh frequently asked questions (FAQ)" and includes a complete
table of contents for the entire document as well as information
on where to post, ftp, file decompression, trouble-shooting, and
preventive maintenance. The second, fourth, fifth parts and sixth
parts are posted every two weeks in comp.sys.mac.system,
comp.sys.mac.apps, comp.sys.mac.wanted, and comp.sys.mac.hardware
respectively and include many questions that often erroneously appear
in comp.sys.mac.misc. All pieces are available for anonymous ftp from

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/macintosh/

Except for the introductory FAQ which appears in multiple
newsgroups and is stored as general-faq, the name of each
file has the format of the last part of the group name followed
by "-faq", e.g the FAQ for comp.sys.mac.system is stored as
system-faq. You can also have these files mailed to you
by sending an E-mail message to [email protected]
with the line:

send pub/usenet/news.answers/macintosh/name

in the body text where "name" is the name of the file you want as
specified above (e.g. general-faq). You can also send this server
a message with the subject "help" for more detailed instructions.
For access via Mosaic use

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/macintosh/top.html

==============
VIRUSES (1.0)
==============

HELP! I HAVE A VIRUS. (1.1)
-----------------------------

90% of all problems reportedly caused by viruses are actually
due to mundane bugs in software (and 90% of all statistics are made
up :-) ). Check your system with the latest version of Disinfectant,
3.5 as of this writing, by the excellent John Norstad from
Northwestern University. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/Disinfectant.sit.bin

Disinfectant is absolutely free. It's easy to use and can completely
protect your system from currently known Macintosh viruses. Releases
to protect from new viruses are normally made within a day or two of
the first confirmed sighting and capture of a new virus, and make
their merry way around the electronic highways faster than any
Macintosh virus ever has.

I THINK I'VE FOUND A NEW VIRUS. WHAT DO I DO? (1.2)
-----------------------------------------------------

DON'T post a report to any comp.sys.mac.* newsgroup. 99% of
all suspected new viruses are merely mundane bugs in the system or
applications being used; and even if you really have found a new
virus, there's nothing we can do about it anyway. You'll only
generate a lot of panicked, follow-up reports from people who'll
blame every crash of QuarkXPress on the new virus.

If your system is protected against known viruses by
Disinfectant or one of the other anti-virus packages and you suspect
a new virus is causing you trouble, first consult with the most
knowledgeable local guru about your problem. Nine times out of ten,
he or she will identify it as a boring, ordinary, known bug in the
software. If you are the local guru and still think you may have
found a new virus, and have thoroughly checked out all other
possibilities, then, and only then, send a detailed description of
your problem to [email protected]. Check the Disinfectant manual
for procedures to follow before reporting a new virus.

Please remember that it is VERY unlikely you have actually
found a new virus. Around the world in all of 1992 only four
new Macintosh viruses were discovered. Of all the suspected
Macintosh viruses which were reported to Usenet before being
isolated by a recognized virus expert, exactly none were eventually
confirmed. One recent public virus report, the so-called M virus,
turned out to be the result of a boring, ordinary bug in a common
extension. The report which received the most attention, the
so-called Aliens virus, remains unconfirmed and was probably
the result of corrupt system software.

==============================
PRINTING AND POSTSCRIPT (2.0)
==============================

HOW DO I MAKE A POSTSCRIPT FILE? (2.1)
---------------------------------------

First make sure a LaserWriter driver is in your System Folder.
It doesn't really matter which one although LaserWriter driver 8.1.1
is the best. This driver is available from

ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/mac/sys.soft/imaging/laserwriter.8.1/

and works with System 6.0.5 and later. If you're using the System 6
driver, you'll need a Laser Prep file in your System Folder as well as
the LaserWriter driver and will also need to turn off background
printing. Once you've verified that there is indeed a LaserWriter
driver in the System Folder, select LaserWriter in the Chooser.
A dialog box will probably pop up informing you that the LaserWriter
requires Appletalk and asking if you want to turn Appletalk
on. Whether you have AppleTalk or not click OK. Then select
Page Setup... from the File menu to format your document
for the LaserWriter. Next select Print... from the File menu.

If you're using LaserWriter driver 7.0 or later, the Print
dialog box that appears will have a radio button for Destination
near the bottom. Click PostScript File. The Print button at the
top should change to a Save button. Click it and you'll get a
standard file dialog asking you what to name and where to save
the PostScript file.

If you're using LaserWriter driver 6.0.x or 5.2, the procedure
is more complicated. When the Print dialog box pops up, position
the cursor over the Print button and hold the mouse button down and
keep it down like you're going to click and drag. Then, with your
other hand, press and hold the K key. If you'll eventually print
the file on a non- Apple PostScript printer, especially one not
designed with the Macintosh in mind, also hold down the Command
key. Using Command-K instead of plain K includes some Mac specific
information non-Apple-oriented PostScript printers need to know
about. Now let the mouse button up. When you see a message box
that says "Creating PostScript file," take your finger off the
K key.

After you've gotten the message "Creating PostScript file" you
should find a file called PostScript0 in the same folder as the
application you were printing from. This is the file you just
printed. Rename it before you forget what it is. If you print to
disk (what this whole process is officially called) more than once,
the second file will be called PostScript1, the third PostScript2,
and so on. It really is much easier to use the System 7
LaserWriter driver.

HOW DO I PRINT A POSTSCRIPT FILE? (2.2)
----------------------------------------

On a Macintosh you'll need the LaserWriter Font Utility
available on the high density TidBits disk from System 7 or the
More TidBits disk from the 800K distribution. A more feature-rich
version called simply LaserWriter Utility is available from

ftp://ftp.apple.com/dts/mac/sys.soft/imaging/laserwriter-utility.hqx

Both utilities allows you to send files to the LaserWriter in such
a way that PostScript commands get interpreted as PostScript rather
than as text to be printed. If you're printing to a PostScript
printer connected to something other than a Macintosh, you'll need
to consult your local system gurus. A simple "lpr filename.ps"
works on my Sparc, but your mileage may vary.

WHY WON'T MY POSTSCRIPT FILE PRINT ON MY MAINFRAME'S PRINTER? (2.3)
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Moving PostScript files between the Macintosh and other
platforms used to be as dark an art as existed in the Macintosh
universe. With the recent release of the LaserWriter 8 driver,
it's no longer so complicated. You will need a PPD file
for your printer. Many are available in

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/PPDFiles/

While their names are unfortunately restricted by Mess-DOS's
braindead 8.3 naming convention, the file

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/PPDFiles/Filename.MAP

should tell you what PPD file your printer requires.

Be sure to select the options for PostScript Level 1 and ASCII
text PostScript files in the Print dialog box. Finally if you're
still having problems try using only genuine PostScript fonts, no
TrueType or bitmapped fonts; and don't include any fonts in your
document that already reside in the printer or on the host system.
Hugo Ayala's shareware control panel Trimmer will help with this
if host available fonts are other than the standard 13 which the
LaserWriter 8 driver has an option to omit. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/Trimmer.sit.bin

Unfortunately the LaserWriter 8.1 driver is incompatible with
older versions of most Aldus products, Canvas, and QuarkXPress.
Until you upgrade you may need to continue using an older version
of the LaserWriter driver. In this case you should experiment with
your combination of application software, LaserWriter driver, and
printer to see what works best. If you're using the System 6
LaserWriter driver, try using Command-K instead of K to create the
PostScript file in which the Laser Prep header is included. The
System 7 LaserWriter drivers include this header automatically
though Trimmer will leave it out.

More importantly Trimmer also lets you select which fonts to
include in your PostScript file. Try using only genuine PostScript
fonts, no TrueType or bitmapped fonts; and don't include any fonts
in your document that already reside in the printer or on the
host system.

The freeware DMM-LaserWriter Stuff can customize your pre-8.0
LaserWriter drivers in several different, useful ways. Among other
possibilities this package can modify a LaserWriter driver so that
the PostScript files it creates are more compatible with non-Apple
printers and printing to disk is the default. The upload to the
mainframe from which the PostScript file will be printed may also
make a difference. Normally you need to transfer the file in pure
Binary format, neither MacBinary nor ASCII. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/DMM_LW_7_Stuff.sit.bin

WHY ARE MY POSTSCRIPT FILES SO BIG? (2.4)
------------------------------------------

Versions 7.0 and later of the LaserWriter driver automatically
include all the fonts you use in your document plus the LaserPrep
information plus the TrueType engine (if you're using any TrueType
fonts) in the PostScript file. Thus a 3K document formatted in 90K
of fonts can easily produce a 300K PostScript file. If these fonts
are present on the system you'll be printing from, they don't need
to be included in the document. You can remove them with the
shareware control panel Trimmer or the free UNIX utility StripFonts.
If you're using the LaserWriter 8 driver, you can manually select
an option to leave out all fonts or just the standard thirteen
faces of Times, Courier, Helvetica, and Symbol though for more
control you'll still need StripFonts or Trimmer. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/Trimmer.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/StripFonts.shar

HOW CAN I PRINT POSTSCRIPT ON A NON-POSTSCRIPT PRINTER? (2.5)
--------------------------------------------------------------

You need one of the payware applications Freedom of the Press
or TScript. For most users who only want to print to common
print
ers like DeskWriters, StyleWriters, or Personal LaserWriter
LS's, the Light version of Freedom of the Press or the Basic
version of TScript will suffice. ($55 street for either). More
expensive versions of both products are available that work with
more esoteric printers, particularly very-high-end color printers
and imagesetters.

HOW DO I MAKE MY IMAGEWRITER II PRINT IN COLOR? (2.6)
------------------------------------------------------

Applications such as SuperPaint 2.0 and MacWrite II that
support the original eight-color model for QuickDraw graphics only
need a color ribbon to print in color. The shareware GIFConverter
can open and print a variety of graphics file types in excellent
dithered color. Jeff Skaitsis's $1 shareware CheapColor can also
dither PixelPaint and PICT2 files on an ImageWriter II. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/GIFConverter.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/CheapColor.sit.bin

If you have a Macintosh with a 68020 or better CPU, the
payware MacPalette II provides general purpose color printing
from any application that prints on a QuickDraw printer (e.g. NOT
Illustrator). MacPalette II is about $45 street. If you need
more information the publisher, Microspot, can be contacted
at (800) 622-7568.

WHY DOESN'T PRINTMONITOR WORK WITH THE IMAGEWRITER? (2.7)
----------------------------------------------------------

Ask the Apple Customer Assistance Center (20525 Mariani Avenue,
Cupertino, CA 95014, USA, (800) 776-2333) this one. Meanwhile
the above-mentioned MacPalette II provides background printing
on an ImageWriter under System 7 and a 68020 or better CPU.
SuperLaserSpool works with lesser Macs as well. These are fully
commercial products. There are NO freeware, shareware, or other
ftpable solutions that work under System 7 so get out your credit
cards. At $98 street price for SuperLaserSpool and $45 for
MacPalette but only $300 for a vastly superior DeskWriter or
StyleWriter II you may want to forgo the software and buy a
better printer instead.

If you're still using System 6 and have no plans to move to
System 7, there is a shareware product called MultiSpool from Italy;
but it is not System 7 compatible and prints only under MultiFinder.
See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/MultiSpool.sit.bin

WHY DID MY DOCUMENT CHANGE WHEN I PRINTED IT ON SOMEONE ELSE'S PRINTER? (2.8)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are many different reasons this can happen. Far and away
the most common problem is using the wrong printer driver. BEFORE
you start formatting your document, make sure you have a printer
driver for the printer you'll use for the final draft in your system
folder and have selected that printer in the Chooser. Then choose
Page Setup... from the File menu to let the application know what
sort of output it should try to match the display to.

The second most common problem is font confusion. Make sure
you know exactly which fonts are in your document; and, if you're
printing to a PostScript printer, make sure PostScript versions of
these fonts are available to that printer. On newer printers you
might also be able to use TrueType fonts; but PostScript is still
the standard, especially if you're eventually going to Lino for
camera ready output.

The third most common source of trouble is poor formatting,
especially in Microsoft Word. The Mac is not a typewriter, and
you shouldn't use it as one. Don't use tabs as a substitute for
indentation; don't force a page break with carriage returns; and
NEVER use spaces to position anything. If you're writing a resume
(by far the most common source of formatting problems for Word
users), give serious thought to using the well-formatted resume
template that comes with Word to help you avoid problems with
your final printout.

IS THERE A UTILITY TO PREVIEW POSTSCRIPT FILES ON THE MAC? (2.9)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Net godhood awaits the first person to write a working shareware
or freeware PostScript previewer for the Mac. The payware product
TScript allows viewing PostScript files on the Mac, but this is a
large package with other purposes and even the light version costs
over $50.

CAN I ATTACH A LASERJET OR OTHER PC PRINTER TO MY MAC? (2.10)
--------------------------------------------------------------

If your printer isn't a PostScript printer with an AppleTalk
interface, you need either PowerPrint from GDT Softworks or the
Grappler from Orange Micro. Both include the necessary printer
drivers and serial to parallel cable to connect a Macintosh with
any common PC printer including HP LaserJets and DeskJets and
Canon BubbleJets. If your printer is uncommon you can always
ask the vendors before ordering. Both packages have street
prices around $95.

HOW CAN I PRINT GREY SCALES ON MY STYLEWRITER I? (2.11)
--------------------------------------------------------

The StyleWriter II driver 1.2 works with the StyleWriter I
and will print greys. You can get it from

ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/Apple SW Updates/Macintosh/Printing Software/StyleWriter II (1.2).hqx

Updated versions of Print Monitor and Printer Share are also
available. See

ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/Apple SW Updates/Macintosh/Printing Software/PrintMonitor (7.1).hqx
ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/Apple SW Updates/Macintosh/Printing Software/Printer Share (1.1.1).hqx

When printing on a StyleWriter I with this driver, be sure
not to select the Clean Print Head option in the Print Options
dialog box. This damages the print head of the StyleWriter I.
The StyleWriter I+ patch will remove StyleWriter II specific code
from the driver including the option to clean the print head. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/StyleWriter_I+_patch.sit.bin

HOW CAN I EDIT A POSTSCRIPT FILE? (2.12)
-----------------------------------------

In the most basic sense PostScript files are just ASCII text, so
if you're familiar with the PostScript programming language you can
edit PostScript in any good text editor. However if you want to edit
the PostScript files graphically, you need Adobe Illustrator 5.5.
Use the bundled Acrobat Distiller to turn the PostScript file into
a PDF file which Illustrator can import and edit.

======================
DOS AND THE MAC (3.0)
======================

HOW CAN I MOVE FILES BETWEEN A MAC AND A PC? (3.1)
---------------------------------------------------

The simplest way to move files between a PC and a Mac is with
a null-modem cable and a reliable communications program. You can
get a null-modem cable from any good electronics store. Make sure
the cable you buy has the appropriate connectors for the Mac and PC
you'll be connecting. Hook one end of the cable to the printer or
modem port on your Mac and the other to a serial port on the PC.
This should work just like a very high speed (57,600 bps) modem
connection except that you'll probably need to turn on local echo
in your communications program.

If the computers aren't within cabling distance, you can either
upload the files to an intermediary mainframe or put them on a
floppy disk. The Superdrive sold since the introduction of the
IIx is capable of formatting and writing to 3.5 inch PC floppies.
Apple includes Apple File Exchange, a minimal program capable of
doing this as part of the system software. Apple File Exchange
is difficult to use and violates at least half of Apple's user
interface guidelines. (Can anyone explain why no other software
company violates as many of Apple's user interface guidelines
as Apple itself does?) For details on its use please Read the
Friendly Manual.

If you frequently need to use DOS floppies and you have a
Superdrive, you may want to invest in a more transparent solution.
The three currently available are AccessPC from Insignia Solutions,
DOS Mounter from Dayna, and Macintosh PC Exchange from Apple, all
of which automatically mount and format 3.5 inch DOS floppies in a
Superdrive without requiring you to run a separate program before
you insert the disk. Macintosh PC Exchange requires System 7. If
you use DOS Mounter be sure to increase your Disk cache (RAM cache
in System 6) to at least 256K. This will substantially improve
its performance.

HOW CAN I TRANSLATE FILES TO A DIFFERENT PLATFORM? (3.2)
---------------------------------------------------------

With the increasing popularity of cross-platform development,
many Macintosh programs like Adobe Illustrator 5.0, Adobe PhotoShop,
and Microsoft Word 5.1 are able to save directly to a format readable
by DOS or Windows programs. You'll still need to mount the DOS
floppies in the Mac drive using one of the products discussed above
or do a default translation from within Apple File Exchange.

Although translators for Apple File Exchange could theoretically
be designed to translate files made by applications without these
capabilities, AFE has never really caught on. The best solution is
a payware product by DataViz called MacLink Plus. MacLink Plus,
about $70 street price, can translate over 1000 DOS, Windows,
Macintosh, and NeXT formats back and forth. For $25 more the Pro
version comes bundled with a copy of Macintosh PC Exchange.

SHOULD I BUY SOFTPC OR A REAL PC? (3.3)
----------------------------------------

The various versions of SoftPC will run most DOS software on a
Macintosh as advertised; but even on the fastest Quadras, SoftPC
will be at most as fast as an original AT. This may be adequate
for text based software, but graphics-oriented programs like most
games will slow to a crawl. On any Mac slower than an LC III,
performance will be at best twice the speed of an original XT.
More likely it will only equal the speed of an original XT. For
today's software like WordPerfect 6.0 that's S...L...O...W. On
the other hand SoftWindows on a PowerMac 6100 can achieve speeds
equivalent to a 20 MHz 386. For Windows that's comparable speed
to an LC and somewhat faster for DOS. This is tolerable if not fast
by today's standards. (For much better performance buy the optional
$299 cache card.) A PowerMac 7100 or 8100 may even reach speeds
approaching a 25 MHz 486 which makes for an acceptable if not
spectacular Windows machine.

Of course slow is relative. I've seen an Amiga running a Mac
emulator running SoftPC running a CP/M emulator. That's slow. As
part of testing the 486 chip design, Intel ran DOS on a simulation
of the 486 chip running on an IBM 3090 mainframe. It took them
TWO WEEKS to get to the C> prompt! That's slow. SoftPC on a
Classic is actually about as fast as the original IBM PC from
ten years ago.

SoftPC comes in three versions for 68040 Macs (SoftPC 3.0,
SoftPC Professional 3.1 and SoftPC 3.1 with Windows) and one
version for PowerMacs (SoftWindows). All versions of SoftPC emulate
an 80286 with an 80287 math coprocessor, support extended memory,
and let you copy and paste between DOS and Mac programs. SoftPC 3.0
($99 street) supports 16 color EGA graphics. SoftPC Professional
3.1 ($185 street) requires a 68030 Mac, adds support for 256 color
VGA graphics and expanded memory, and includes Netware client
software. SoftPC with Windows 3.1 (68040 version: $300 street,
native PowerPC version $200 street) requires a 68040 or PowerPC Mac
with at least 10 megs of free RAM and fourteen megs of free hard
disk space (plus any disk space you want to allocate to DOS and
Windows files). It includes all of the above plus Windows 3.1 and
is optimized to make Windows performance tolerable (if not exactly
speedy) on a fast Mac. If you already have the necessary hardware
and disk space, it actually may be cheaper at current street prices
to buy SoftPC than an equivalent PC clone. For someane with a
68040 Mac and a lot of memory and hard disk space plus only an
occasional need to run DOS or Windows, SoftPC is a
reasonable choice.

SHOULD I BUY EXECUTOR OR A REAL MAC? (3.4)
-------------------------------------------

ARDI's $99 Executor/DOS 1.2 allows some Macintosh applications
to run on a PC. It also lets a PC read and write Mac formatted high
density floppies and hard disks, and at only $99 Executor's doesn't
cost much more than a dedicated utility to do this alone. That this
works at all is nothing short of amazing and a tribute to the talents
of ARDI's programmers, especially since they've received no help from
Apple. However the limitations on what it will run are decidedly
non-trivial. For instance it won't run the Finder, System 7,
HyperCard or many other applications and does not support color,
extensions, serial ports or printing. Version 2.0 which is due
out sometime this summer will remove some of these limitations
and add support for color and printing. Upgrades will be $59
for Executor 1.2 owners.

Executor requires a 386 or better processor, a VGA monitor,
five megabytes of disk space, four megabytes of RAM and a mouse.
Given the limitations of the current version you're probably better
off buying a cheap Mac than Executor. If you'd like to see for
yourself you can ftp a demo copy from

ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/msdos/emulator/

A NextStep version for both Intel and Motorola machines which
does support printing and the serial ports is also available, but
it's more expensive: $499 commercial, $249 educational. You can
retrieve this from

ftp://ftp.cs.unm.edu/pub/ardi/Executor_NEXTSTEP

SHOULD I BUY A DOS COMPATIBILITY CARD OR A REAL PC? (3.5)
----------------------------------------------------------

The Apple DOS Compatibility Card puts a genuine 486SX/25 PC with
DOS 6 inside your Mac. This is a real PC, not an emulator, and can
run any software you can run on a stock 486SX PC. Windows is not
included but can be added by the user. DOS shares your Mac's RAM and
hard drive with the Mac system and applications. However the card
does contain a slot for an optional 72-pin SIMM. If this SIMM is
present then the DOS card will use it instead of borrowing memory
from your Mac. COM and parallel ports are mapped to the Macs modem
and printer ports. Networking is questionable, and there's no
SoundBlaster support or means of adding ISA cards.

This NuBus card is supported only on the Quadra 610 though it
is reputed to work in the Centris 610 and the Quadra 800 as well. If
your desk space and funds are limited and you've got the extra hard
drive space to spare for DOS applications and files, this is a solid
value at about $400 street, half the price of the cheapest stand-alone
486SX PC's.

==============
SECURITY (4.0)
==============

HOW CAN I PASSWORD PROTECT A MAC? (4.1)
----------------------------------------

A number of payware, shareware and freeware products exist
for the purpose of preventing a Mac from being accessed without
a password. Some of the more easily defeated products, mostly
shareware, use a system extension or startup application to display
a splash screen that doesn't go away until the proper password is
entered. Most of these can be bypassed by any of several methods
including booting off a floppy or a different SCSI device,
disabling extensions with the Shift key at Startup, or even
dropping into the built-in debugger.

Products that are more difficult to defeat (mostly payware)
don't allow a hard disk to be mounted until the proper password
is entered. Most of these can be defeated by loading a different
driver with a hard disk formatter like FWB's Hard Disk Toolkit
after booting from a floppy. No program of this type provides
hacker-proof security. Nonetheless the better programs do provide
a minimum level of protection from cas
ual snoopers or intruders.

Art Schumer's MacPassword is the cheapest ($35) program
worthy of consideration in this category. A demo version which
expires after sixty days and isn't quite as secure is available from

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/MacPasswordDemo.sit.bin

Some hard disk formatters also offer optional password protection.
Notable in this category is FWB's Hard Disk Toolkit Personal Edition,
about $50 mail-order.

A number of payware utilities are capable of this and much
more. My choice of commercial products in this category is Citadel
from Datawatch ($60 street). Citadel is a complete Macintosh
security program that provides password protection for hard disks,
file and folder protection via DES encryption, screen locking, and
the best protection I've ever seen against accidentally locking
yourself out of your hard drive while still keeping intruders out.
It's not totally intruder-proof, (No such product is.) but it does
provide more reliable protection and more value for the money than
any similar product I'm aware of.

HOW CAN I PASSWORD PROTECT A FILE? (4.2)
-----------------------------------------

The best (and in many ways only) means of protecting a
sensitive file from prying eyes is encryption. Many encryption
utilities are available on the net and as part of various payware
products. Most will keep out the casual snooper, but fail miserably
when faced with a knowledgable and determined hacker. All but one
fail in the face of an attack by an organization with the resources
of a large corporation or government.

For basic protection I recommend using DES encryption. Several
payware and freeware products do this including the above mentioned
Citadel and J. Clarke Stevens' $10 shareware MacEncrypt.

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/MacEncrypt.sit.bin

DES is not unbreakable, but a the only known attack requires
an investment in the seven figure range. The DES algorithm has
withstood the test of time, and it's unlikely that any "holes"
exist in the algorithm which would allow a cheaper or faster
attack provided reasonable intelligence is used in the choice of
passwords. (i.e. don't use any variant of a proper name or any
word which can be found in a dictionary as a password.)

If you truly are worried about an organization with seven
figure resources trying to break into your files, you need an
encoder that uses a more secure version of DES with a larger
keyspace. Currently there is exactly one such product for the Mac,
CryptoMactic from Kent Marsh, about $56 street. Its Triple-DES
encryption is the most secure protection you can buy off the shelf.

HOW CAN I PASSWORD PROTECT A FOLDER? (4.3)
-------------------------------------------

A first line of defense would be to use ResEdit, FileTyper, or
a similar tool to set the invisible and locked bits on the folders
applications, and documents you want to protect. If there are
files in the protected folder that need to be accessibled, you
can put aliases to them in the Apple menu items folder or use an
application and document launcher like Apollo to grant access to
them. This won't stop a knowledgeable or determined hacker, and
protecting the system folder in this fashion may cause problems
under System 7; but it will cure 95% of your
random-user-moving-things-around problems.

If you want to lock out more sophisticated users, you may want
to consider Empower II from Magna ($155 street). Art Schumer's
MacPassword ($35 demoware) can also protect folders but only allows
one password for all the folders it protects. Thus you can't
grant different access levels to different people. You might also
consider David Davies-Payne's $10 shareware SoftLock, a utility
that can make a disk read only. However this can cause problems
with some applications that can't run from a read-only disk. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/MacPasswordDemo.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/SoftLock.sit.bin

HOW CAN I PREVENT SOFTWARE PIRACY? (4.4)
-----------------------------------------

Novice pirates may be stymied by simply storing an application
on a server and only granting read privileges to it. However anyone
who's been around Macs for more than a week knows that StuffIt,
Compact Pro, or any of a dozen other utilites can copy read-only
files. However for a stand-alone Mac that's used by multiple
individuals this may be the best you can do.

For more reliable protection of software on networked Macs
consider KeyServer from Sassafras Software. KeyServer installs
special code into each protected application so that it won't
run without a key obtained from a server. Thus a pirate may
be able to copy an application but won't be able to use it.
KeyServer asymptotically costs about $20 per protected Mac which
may seem a little expensive just to prevent piracy, but KeyServer
also works as a license manager. The number of available keys can
be set at the server so that only as many keys for a given package
as you have legal licenses will be passed out. Therefore you anly
need to buy as many copies of applications as will actually be in
use at any given time, not as many as you have Macs. KeyServer will
more than pay for itself the next time you upgrade or purchase new
software. You can get a demo version of KeyServer and various
sales propaganda and pricing info by sending E-mail to
[email protected].

HOW CAN I KEEP A HARD DRIVE IN A FIXED CONFIGURATION? (4.5)
------------------------------------------------------------

Steve Jobs designed the Macintosh with the implicit philosophy
(which became explicit when he founded Next) of "one person, at
least one CPU." A Mac is intended to be easily customizable and
configurable. While fun this capability does not readily lend itself
to reliability in a lab based environment where users love to
install their favorite TrueType fonts to crash your color PostScript
printer, pirated applications to annoy the SPA, RAM hogging
extensions that play the 1984 Quicktime movie in a continuous loop
as wallpaper and two megabyte System beeps illegally sampled from
Star Trek. On stand-alone Macs you probably can't do better than
setting the locked bit of files and folders you want to protect and
praying. If you have a Syquest or Bernoulli drive, store a copy of
the hard disk the way it ought to be on a cartridge and use that to
restore the disk to the desired state.

If the Mac is attached to a network, however, then Purdue
University's freeware RevRDist can automate the process of
restoring the hard drives of any number of Macs to desired
configurations at specified times. It can replace modified files
with original copies, delete unwanted files, install new software,
replace old software that may have been disabled, reset preference
files, and in short take care of just about anything that depends
on the presence, absence, location or contents of specific files
(which is almost everything). RevRDist is completely configurable
and even comes with source code so you can modify it in the
unlikely event it doesn't do exactly what you want. RevRdist
does not offer specific protection against destructive users, but
it does make provisions for running off a floppy so in a worst
case scenario a hard drive can be rebuilt automatically after
booting off a specially prepared floppy. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/RevRdist.sit.bin

============
SOUND (5.0)
============

HOW CAN I COPY A TRACK FROM AN AUDIO CD ONTO MY MAC? (5.1)
-----------------------------------------------------------

First you must have a CD-ROM drive that supports this feature.
Currently this means an Apple CD-300, CD-300i or CD-300+ or a
drive built around one of the following mechanims: the Chinon 535,
Hitachi 6750, NEC 3x, Sony 561, and Toshiba 3301, 3401 and 4101. If
you have a non-Apple drive you'll also need FWB's CD-ROM Toolkit
software, about $55 mail-order, since the driver software bundled
with non-Apple drives don't yet support this feature. Next you need
Quicktime 1.6.1 or later and an application that can play Quicktime
movies such as Simple Player. See

ftp://ftp.support.apple.com/pub/Apple SW Updates/Macintosh/Supplemental System Software/QuickTime (1.6.1).hqx
ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/infosystems/www/ncsa/Mac/Apple/SimplePlayer.sit.hqx

Turn virtual memory off, put the CD in the CD player, and choose
Open... from the File menu of Simple Player. Open the audio track you
want and click Convert. Type a name for the new movie, choose a place
to save it, and click save.

HOW CAN I EXTRACT A SOUND FROM A QUICKTIME MOVIE? (5.2)
--------------------------------------------------------

Movie2Snd is a freeware program available from all the usual
places which will extract sounds from a QuickTime movie and save
them in Mac sound file format. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/Movie2Snd.sit.bin

HOW CAN I CONVERT/PLAY A MOD/WAV/ETC. FILE? (5.3)
-------------------------------------------------------

Balthazar 1.0 will play Windows .wav files and convert them to
System 7 sound files. Brian's Sound Tool 1.3 is a free drag and drop
sound conversion utility which converts to and from Mac sound files
and Windows .wav files. It also converts Soundblaster .voc files,
UNIX .au files, and AMIGA AIFF files to Macintosh sound files.
MacTracker 1.00 and SoundTrecker 2.0 will play and convert Amiga
MOD files. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/Balthazar.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/BriansSoundTool.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/MacTracker.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/SoundTrecker.sit.bin

=============================================================
NO PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO (MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANEA) (6.0)
=============================================================

ARE THERE ANY GOOD BOOKS ABOUT THE MAC? (6.1)
----------------------------------------------

While there are a number of excellent books covering specific
software packages, there are not many books that are generally
useful to someone familiar with the net. The Mac is Not a
TypeWriter by Robin Williams and The Macintosh Bible, by Arthur
Naiman, Sharon Zardetto Aker and a cast of hundreds are two
exceptions. Both are published by PeachPit Press and are
available in finer and seedier bookstores everywhere.

The Mac is Not a TypeWriter should be required reading for
anyone using a Macintosh to produce printed matter. It teaches
the differences between typing and typography and shows you how
to avoid looking like a moron in print.

The Macintosh Bible is a reference book that's surprisingly
enjoyable reading. It's comprehensive enough to cover most
questions that appear in this newsgroup including the not so
frequent ones. It also includes lots of information you
probably need but didn't know to ask.

HOW CAN I TAKE A PICTURE OF THE SCREEN? (6.2)
----------------------------------------------

The Command-Shift-3 FKey that's built into all Macs will take
a picture of the entire screen. This won't work while a menu is
pulled down and always includes the cursor in the picture. In
System 6 Command-Shift-3 only works with black and white monitors
on compact Macs. The results are stored in a PICT file on the
root level of your System disk.

Nobu Toge's Flash-It, $15 shareware, will handle almost all
your screen capture needs. It works in black and white and color
under both System 6 and System 7, exports images to the clipboard
or to PICT files, captures pictures when menus are down, and can
capture either a user-selectable region or the entire screen. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/FlashIt.sit.bin

Baseline Publishing's Exposure Pro ($78 street) covers all the
basics and throws in a host of editing tools besides. Sabastian
Software offers Image Grabber ($35 street) whose features include
timed capture, capture of the entire screen, one window, or a
particular rectangle, and scaling of the captured image. If you
order Image Grabber please note the spelling. It's two words,
spelled correctly. Apparently a grammatical product name is so
unusual that three out of three mail-order companies were unable
to find Image Grabber in their database until I spelled it out
for them including the space between Image and Grabber. You can
also order it directly from the manufacturer at (206) 865-9343.

CAN I REPLACE THE "WELCOME TO MACINTOSH" BOX WITH A PICTURE? (6.3)
-------------------------------------------------------------------

First you need an application capable of saving documents
in Startup Screen format such as the freeware XLateGraf or the
shareware GIFConverter. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/GIFConverter.sit.bin
ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/XLateGraf.sit.bin

Open the graphics file you want to turn into a startup
screen and select Save As... from the File menu. Then select
Startup Screen as the format to save into. Name the new document
"StartupScreen" (no space between Startup and Screen, both S's
capitalized) and put it in the System Folder. The next time the
Mac starts up you should see the happy Mac, followed by the picture.

HOW DO I USE A PICTURE FOR MY DESKTOP? (6.4)
---------------------------------------------

If you have a Macintosh with Color QuickDraw in ROM (Mac II
and later machines) get the init DeskPict

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/DeskPict.sit.bin

A slightly improved and less buggy version called FunPictures
is part of the payware Now Fun. Users of compact Macs (Plus's,
SE's, and Classics) can pick up BackDrop instead.

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/BackDrop.sit.bin

All of these will replace the normal Macintosh desktop pattern with
a picture of your choosing saved in startup screen format. (See the
previous question.) Before saving your picture in startup screen
format be sure to convert it to the default application palette,
or your Mac may display color combinations distorted enough to
induce flashbacks to that Grateful Dead concert in 1976.

WHAT IS SUPERDOUBLER? MORE DISK SPACE? SPACESAVER? NOW COMPRESS? (6.5)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Symantec's SuperDoubler ($80 street) is a utility that
automatically compresses and decompresses most files on your hard
disk so that you can store more files on it than you'd otherwise
have room for. As well as transparently compressing files
SuperDoubler can also make self-extracting and segmented archives
for transmission via modem or floppy disk. Ideally you won't know
it's present once you've installed it which also means you won't
have much control over which files are compressed. SuperDoubler
is a bundle of what was previously known as AutoDoubler, Disk
Doubler,and Copy Doubler, which are no longer available separately.
The consensus of the net is that SuperDoubler is fast and safe.
The only common, known conflicts are with GateKeeper, the Find
File function in Microsoft Word 5.x, and A/UX. If you use
SuperDoubler, use Disinfectant rather than GateKeeper. SuperDoubler
is completely incompatible with A/UX. Don't use SuperDoubler on
an A/UX formatted partition. Word's Find File will work on an
autodoubled volume, but you need to set it to find all files, not
just certain types.

Alysis Software's More Disk Space ($39 street) is a competing
product similar in functionality to SuperDoubler. More Disk Space
has several unique features that make it more suitable for use on
a network than competing products such as a freeware init that
allows all Macs to use files previously compressed by More Disk
Space as transparently as if More Disk Space itself were installed
and the ability to create a "compression server" that can compres
s
files for all Macs on the network on demand. Thus a network of
several dozen Macs could use one $39 copy of More Disk Space.
More Disk Space uses the fastest compressor/decompressor on the
market, but MDS also saves substantially less space than the other
products. More importantly More Disk Space relies on undocumented
features of the system which will go away in future system software.
I recommend against using More Disk Space.

Now Compress ($44) is the latest entry into the increasingly
crowded compression arena. It offers automatic and on-demand
transparent compression plus archiving compression that's on a par
with StuffIt's. Now Compress is fast enough that I don't notice
it's installed (as are SuperDoubler and More Disk Space) which is the
point where I decide it's not worth my effort to run detailed timing
comparisons. Now Compress does compress tighter and thus save more
space than any of the competing products. Furthermore it's the only
file-level program that will transparently compress almost anything
in the System Folder. This is important for those of us with five
megabytes of indispensable After Dark modules. :-) I myself use and
recommend Now Compress. It's as fast or faster than its competitors;
(except for More Disk Space which has too many other problems to be
seriously considered) and it frees up more space on a typical hard
drive than any competing product. The recent 1.0.1 release has
fixed all known incompatibilities.

At 70% of the price of Now Compress SpaceSaver ($35) from
Aladdin Systems is also a good value, especially since it can
create and expand net standard .sit files thus serving both
archiving and transparent compression needs. The compression is
fast although it's not as tight as the competition's. SpaceSaver
does give up some speed by decompressing applications onto disk
rather than straight into RAM like other compressors. This may
improve compatibility with future systems but slows decompression
and contributes to file fragmentation, especially on very full
disks. Documents normally need to be decompressed onto disk
regardless of compressor, and SpaceSaver is faster than most for
compressing and decompressing documents. However since any form
of compression reduces redundancy in data and makes corruption
of files more likely, I don't compress my document files. Since
application files don't change nearly as often and since I'm
therefore a lot more likely to have multiple backups of them,
I feel much safer only compressing applications. But if you
do compress your documents, SpaceSaver is quite competitive.
SpaceSaver's only known major incompatibilities are with Norton
Utilities' Directory Assistance II, MacPassword, Empower II, and
SuperATM. Symantec has promised to fix the Directory Assistance
Conflict in the next upgrade to the Norton Utilities, and a ResEdit
fix is available on request from Aladdin. The incompatibility with
SuperATM can be cured merely by renaming SpaceSaver ~SpaceSaver so
it loads after SuperATM. MacPassword and Empower II are just not
compatible with SpaceSaver.

HOW DO THEY COMPARE TO TIMESTWO, STACKER, AND eDISK? (6.6)
-----------------------------------------------------------

Golden Triangle's TimesTwo ($83 street) is a unique hard disk
driver backed by a misleading advertising campaign. Unlike the
file-level compressors discussed in the previous section TimesTwo
is not an init that patches the file system. Rather it is a hard
disk driver similar to Drive7 or HardDisk Toolkit. After a disk is
formatted with TimesTwo the Finder will report the disk as twice
the size it actually is; e.g. a forty megabyte disk will seem to
be an eighty megabyte disk. TimesTwo then uses compression to try
to fit eighty megabytes of data into the forty megabytes that's
really there. If it can't compress well enough to fit the eighty
megabytes of data it promises (and it generally can't), it creates
a phantom file to take up the space it overestimated. All data
written to the disk will be automatically compressed. This is
the exact opposite of the marketdroid promises that TimesTwo works
without compressing anything. In fact it compresses everything.

Stacker ($95) and eDisk ($62) work similarly to Times Two, the
main difference being that they are added on top of your current
hard disk driver rather than in place of it. This may allow you to
retain the partitions and other features of your current driver if
it's one Stacker or Edisk is compatible with. However both are
incompatible with a number of other driver level programs including
several disk formatters and security programs, most notably the
latest Apple driver for asynchronous mode on the 68040 Macs.
Alysis has made a very functional demo version of eDisk available
with the only restriction that it compresses at most three to two. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/EdiskDemo.sit.bin

Driver level compressors allegedly increase disk savings
by compressing everything whereas file level compressors exclude
certain frequently accessed files like the desktop file, most
things in the System Folder, and the hard disk data structures
from compression. However the existing file-level compressors use
more efficient compression algorithms than existing driver level
compressors so they normally save you as much or even more space.
Furthermore the exclusion of frequently accessed files from
compression vastly improves the speed of file-level compressed
disks. Under driver level compression since every file needs to be
decompressed when read or compressed when written, a driver-level
compressed disk is noticeably slower than the same Mac with a
non-compressed disk or even a Mac whose disk has been compressed
with a file level compressor. As one Apple VAR put it, "installing
TimesTwo is like dipping your drive in molasses." Stacker and
eDisk have equally high coefficients of virtual viscosity. Driver
level compressors are more popular in the PC world where its common
to find a fast 486 CPU driving a slow IDE hard disk so that the
time savings from reading fewer physical blocks outweigh the time
lost doing decompression. In the Macintosh world the opposite
situation, a fast SCSI disk coexisting with a slow 68000 CPU,
is more common so driver level compression doesn't work as well.

Using a file-level compressor on a disk already compressed
by one of these products will gain little if any space and will
probably cut your disk access speed in half again so you should
use either driver-level or file-level compression, not both.

All the transparent compression programs have had a number of
bugs and incompatibilities in their initial releases; and TimesTwo
Stacker, and eDisk are no exceptions. Unlike the file-level
programs, however, there have been a number of reports that the
first releases of all three of these utilities have caused data
loss and even corruption of entire hard disks. It is as yet unknown
whether these bugs are fixed in more recent versions. Given the
known incompatibilities, guaranteed speed loss, and significant
risk of data corruption associated with driver level compression, I
recommend that you do not use any of these products at this time.

WHERE DID MY ICONS GO? (6.7)
-----------------------------

Your icons have passed on to a better place, but with a little
magic it's normally possible to resurrect them. Several utilities
including Norton Utilities for the Mac and the freeware drag-and-drop
utility Save-A-BNDL should retrieve your icons. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/SaveABNDL.sit.bin

Rebuilding the desktop (Question 4.3 in the Introductory FAQ)
should also restore your icons.

WHERE CAN I FIND A USER GROUP? (6.8)
-------------------------------------

You can contact Apple's user groups liason office at
(800) 538-9696, extension 500. They'll be happy to provide you
with contact information for a local Macintosh user group.

WHERE CAN I FIND THE 1984 QUICKTIME MOVIE? (6.9)
-------------------------------------------------

Try ftp://csc.ucs.uwplatt.edu/Quicktime/1984/ between 8 P.M.
and 6 A.M. Central Standard Time. The total file is 13.9 megabytes
though it's split into five StuffIt segments of about 2.9 megabytes
each. Be sure to ftp it in Binary mode, not the usual default of
ASCII. This site has several other popular Quicktime movies
including a recent Saturday Night Live "Newton" commercial.

DO RAM DOUBLER AND OPTIMEM WORK? (6.10)
----------------------------------------

Connectix's RAM Doubler ($50 street) uses the PMMU on 68030 and
68040 Macs to fool the system into believing the Mac has twice as
much memory as it actually has. RAM Doubler provides the extra
memory through a combination of compressing data in RAM, letting
applications borrow memory from other programs that aren't using
their full allotment, and storing data that would normally be in
RAM on the hard disk. RAM Doubler requires System 7 or later. It
performs as advertised, providing more RAM for your applications.
RAM Doubler does this more efficiently and with less speed penalty
than virtual memory (which can't be used at the same time as RAM
Doubler) though most Macs do slow down by 5-10% when using it. RAM
Doubler works better with multiple applications than with a single
memory hog like Photoshop. Rule of thumb: For best performance
the memory used by the system plus the largest application
partition should be less than or equal to your physical RAM size.

Ideally RAM Doubler will be transparent to your system, but
there are incompatibilities between it and some applications and
extensions. In particular you should watch out for extensions like
CopyDoubler or SpeedyFinder which can slow your system to a crawl
when they try to use all the extra RAM they think they have (but
really don't) for caching files. RAM Doubler is also incompatible
with FAXstf 3.0, UltraShield, Times Two and the various development
versions of MacsBug. It works with MacsBug 6.2.2. If you must use
a development version of MacsBug, use 6.5d4 or later and RAMDoubler
1.0.2 or later. In general if an application works with virtual
memory, it should work with RAM Doubler. Finally RAM Doubler
doesn't yet work on PowerMacs.

The Jump Development's Group Optimem is a more expensive
($80 street) competing product. Optimem doesn't increase available
memory like RAM Doubler does. Instead it forces applications to
make more efficient use of the memory they have. Optimem doles out
RAM to applications only as they need it rather than allocating
fixed size partitions at startup like the Finder normally does.
Go to the Finder and look at About this Macintosh... in the Apple
menu. All the light blue (or white on a black and white monitor)
space in the bar beside each application is RAM that application
has been allocated but isn't using. Optimem makes that memory
available to other applications. In effect it forces them to share.
If you have a lot of white space in your memory bars, then Optimem
can help you. If you don't then RAM Doubler is certainly a better
choice. OptiMem and RAM Doubler may be used together. However this
is going to turn RAM Doubler into little more than another version
of virtual memory since it does its RAM compression tricks using
allocated but unused space while Optimem eliminates that space.
Since Optimem is less transparent than RAM Doubler, Optimem is
incompatible with more applications. Optimem can, however, be
disabled on an application by application basis.

I'M GREEDY. CAN I TRIPLE MY RAM? (6.11)
-----------------------------------------

You need RAM Doubler 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 for this trick. You can't
do this with either RAM Doubler 1.0 or 1.0.3. Turn RAM doubler off
and reboot your Mac. Then open RAM Doubler with ResEdit. Open the
"Main" VCMD resource and use ResEdit's Find command to find the hex
digits A868. Just before these digits are the hex numbers 0002 0000.
This is a hexadecimal fixed point number that tells RAM Doubler how
much to multiply the RAM by. Change it to 00030000 for a RAM tripler,
00040000 for a RAM quadrupler, and so on. Then restart twice. You
will now have even more RAM. Of course the the more RAM you ask for,
the more likely it becomes that RAM Doubler will need to use virtual
memory to meet your RAM demands thus slowing down your Mac. For large
quantities of RAM Apple's virtual memory is faster than RAM Doubler.

You can also use fractional multipliers as long as you remember
that the number you're changing is a hexadecimal fixed point
number with the "hexidecimal point" between the second and third
bytes. For example two and a half would be 00028000 which would
make a "RAM Double-and-a-halfer"

This trick is even easier with RAM Doubler 1.0.1. Instead of
opening the VCMD resource open the 'pref' resource. This resource
contains several fields. The one you want is called "multiplier
value." This field contains one hexadecimal fixed point number,
00020000. Change it to 00030000 for a RAM tripler, 00040000 for
a RAM quadrupler, and so on.

HOW DO I RUN SOFTWARE THAT NEEDS AN FPU ON A MAC THAT DOESN'T HAVE ONE? (6.12)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Neil's $10 shareware extension Software FPU will emulate
a floating point coprocessor on an FPUless 68020 or 68030. See

ftp://rever.nmsu.edu/pub/macfaq/SoftFPU.sit.bin

This will let most (though not all) software that requires
an FPU run, albeit slowly. Software FPU does not work on 68000 Macs.
Version 2.44 will let some programs work on a 68LC040 Mac like the
Quadra 605, but due to a bug in the 68LC040 chip many programs may
crash. You'll need to test each program you use for compatibility.
Motorola may release a fixed version of the 68LC040 sometime in
the second quarter of 1994. Software FPU is MUCH slower than a
real FPU. It will not improve floating point performance for
applications that do not absolutely require an FPU. Finally note
that an earlier version of the same program called "PseudoFPU" is
still available at some archives. This is inferior to the current
version of Software FPU and should not be used.

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold Department of Mathematics
[email protected] New Jersey Institute of Technology
[email protected] Newark NJ 07103
.