Apr 88 Mousehole
Volume Number: 4
Issue Number: 4
Column Tag: Mousehole Report
Mousehole Report 
By Rusty Hodgee, Mousehole BBS
The mousehole is a private technical BBS system run by Rusty Hodge. Posts on
the mousehole appear each month in MacTutor by special arrangement. To log on to the
mousehole, call (714) 921-2252 and type GUEST. To register for a permanent
account, type REGISTER. MacTutor is not responsible for the accuracy of these posts
and the reader relies on the information at his own risk. However, mousehole people
are the best sort of people and well informed about the Macintosh world! -Ed
From: rajohnson (Robert Johnson)
Subject: Inside Mac & Palette Manager
Well, I finally got my long awaited ‘final’ copy of Inside Macintosh V, and I had very
mixed feelings about the fruits of my waiting. On one hand,there was a lot of new
information not in my APDA pre-release, and for the most part it seemed finalized and
not contradictory (vs the aforementioned pre-release). But in no published documents
have I found the trap numbers for the Palette Manager routines. For the method that is
encouraged (almost at gunpoint) to access colors on the Mac II, the Palette Manager
should receive extensive coverage. Even in the equates files included on floppy with
the APDA pre-release, there is no mention of these trap numbers (I need trap
numbers because I program mainly in assembly). Luckily, there is a place that I do
have access to this information: MacsBug has a complete listing of all Macintosh trap
numbers. Unfortunately the only information MacsBug gives to ‘wh ’ is the
address of the routine patch in RAM.
Using the ‘f’ command, I was able to locate where in the trap table at $E00-$1E00 the
particular routines were referenced, and each entry in this table is easily related to a
trap number. In this way, I have compiled the list of unpublished trap numbers below.
Palette Manager Trap Calls
InitPalettes AA90 AnimateEntry AA99
NewPalette AA91 AnimatePalette AA9A
GetNewPalette AA92 GetEntryColor AA9B
DisposePalette AA93 SetEntryColor AA9C
ActivatePalette AA94 GetEntryUsage AA9D
SetPalette AA95 SetEntryUsage AA9E
GetPalette AA96 CTab2Palette AA9F
PmForeColor AA97 Palette2CTab AAA0
PmBackColor AA98 CopyPalette AAA1
PROCEDURE CopyPalette(srcPllt,destPllt: handle;
srcEntry,destEntry,count:integer);
is not documented anywhere that I have seen, but I deduced the preceding Pascal
interface by disassembling the RAM patch. The procedure copies count entries from
srcPllt starting at srcEntry to destPllt starting at destEntry. In the process of
disassembling the patch, I found a slight bug in the code (I guess it’s not that harmful
in a non-documented trap). When srcEntry+count > pmEntries in srcPllt, it looks like
the attempt to decrease count by srcEntry+count-pmEntries is botched because of a
sign error (they subtracted pmEntries-srcEntry-count from count rather than adding
it to count). If one is careful not to have srcEntry+count exceed pmEntries, all should
be fine. This is such a useful routine; I think Apple should document it (and correct
it).
Also, some other documented routines are missing their trap numbers in IM V,
although they are listed in the APDA equates files on floppy:
CloseCPort AA02 GetCTSeed AA28
OpenCPicture AA20 SetStdCProcs AA4E
Of these, CloseCPort has been included in ClosePort (A87D) and OpenPicture (A8F3)
will do the work of OpenCPicture when the current grafPort is color.
There is another trap I haven’t seen anywhere: UpdatePixMap (AA38). Upon
disassembly, it turns out to be just a RTS! Guess another system update is in order.
From: rick (Rick Boarman)
Subject: New ROMs
It seems that the new MacII ROMs cause several problems: TMON dies a horrible death.
Version 2.8.1 is supposed to fix this. Macsbug 6.0 also dies. Dimmer 1.0B2 bombs.
Anyone else have any problems yet?
From: thought.police (William Evans)
Subject: Wabash Computer Stores
About 14 months ago I was jerked around by Wabash. I wrote to Apple’s district sales
manager, then their regional sales manager, with no response. When I complained and
moaned in November, I got sage advice from Mark Murphy: “Try to write to Mr.
Scully... maybe he might crack a few heads!?” I took that advice, never expecting to
hear from Apple again.
About 12 days ago I got a response from the regional sales manager, John T. Rainey. In
a nutshell, he said:
(1) My letter had gotten lost, but they now found it;
(2) They value customer feedback and consider that unpleasant dealer dealings
“reflect poorly on Apple itself and must be corrected”
(3) I was not alone in complaining about Wabash;;
(4) They had discussed the situation with Wabash;
(5) They now believe that Wabash has corrected the situation.
The letter arrived in a well-packaged parcel via first class mail; also enclosed was a
_very_ nice Cross mechanical pencil (bearing the Apple logo, of course), by way of
appreciation of my experience. Would y’all please do me two favors?
(1) If you’ve had any bad experiences with Wabash since, say, the first of the year,
_please_ write Apple and tell them. I’ll give you names and addresses if you
need them -- just E-mail me.
(2) If you’ve had _any_ experiences with Wabash since the first of the year --
whether good, bad, ugly, routine, or insignificant -- please E-mail me and tell
me about it. Just experiences that you’ve had personally, though, please --
nothing passed on from friends.
From: adail (Alan Dail)
Subject: LaserWriter
Someone that I know has a Macintosh, a Laserwriter and many other computers of
many types. They want to connect the Laserwriter up to a PC and then send their Mac
output to the PC to be downloaded to the Laserwriter. They have created 2 files with
the print option. One with command-k to generate the postscript header and one with
command-f to generate the files themselves. When they transfer these files directly to
the Laserwriter, all of their output comes out backwards. Does anyone know what
they need to do to make their output come out right? [You only need to use the cmd-K
option, which creates both the file itself and the LaserWriter Prep header. That single
file can then be downloaded to the printer and it should come out exactly like it would
from the Macintosh. Something or someone is resetting something in the LaserWriter
or else the prep file is not being executed properly so that the page orientation setup is
being modified. -Ed]
From: ewer (Bill Ewer)
Subject: Display PostScript
Does Adobe expect anybody to get all excited about Display PostScript? My first
impression is that it’s deadly slow. I estimate its max drawing speed is about 3K
vectors a second. Does anybody know the exact drawing rate. How about QuickerDraw;
how fast is it? The reason I ask is in advising a client on what display drivers they
should include with their new color graphics app they are pushing for Display
Postscript and I’m telling them its a waste of time and money. Any thoughts out there.
[I used to think like you until I heard Andy Hertzfeld say at the San Francisco Expo that
Display Postscript is powerful and fast and that Apple should use it. That changed my
mind real fast. If Andy says it is fast, then you can bet it’s worth looking at. I saw it
and it looked pretty good to me. I think Apple should make it an option. QuickerDraw is
what Apple should have done in the first place if they had hired programmers who
knew assembly language like Andy does, instead of Pascal coders. -Ed]
From: powerhopeful (Power Hopeful)
Subject: Display Postscript
My hope is that it can be avoided. Regardless of its features, speed, or anything else, I
think that its owner’s licensing fees and behavior are ridiculous.
From: ericj (Eric Johansen)
Subject: Laserjet and Mac
To those of you who responded to my query regarding the Mac and the HP Laserjet,
thank you. Here’s the results. The goal was to find a solution to make the Laserjet,
Mac compatible, and put it on the Appletalk network, so everyone could use it.
There is a driver called ProPrint, by Creighton Development. They’re mentioned in
this month’s MacUser. I called them, the number’s been disconnected, with no new
number listed, i.e. they’re history. One down. [That was Chris Derossi’s old place of
employment! Chris is now at Apple Technical Support. -Ed]
There is another driver by Softstyle called Printworks for the Mac, Laser Version. It
kind of works, but I hate it. It was a pain to install. It uses 3 DA’s to control such
things as Font adjustment, Color Adjustment, and Spool adjustment. The Font
adjustment DA is for matching screen fonts with what’s available on the Laserjet.
There’s no postscript on the Laserjet, so it can’t build different size fonts, other than
what’s supplied in ROM, Font Cartridges, or downloaded into RAM via a PC. The Color
adjustment is automatically installed, even though on the “Laser” version, there is
obviously no color printing. The Spooler that is included uses RAM. Uh-huh. It is not
compatible with TOPS, both old and current versions, nor is it compatible with any
other spoolers. In short it is a real pain in the rear end. The good thing I can say for
them, is that their tech support people are pretty good, and more than willing to help
with any problems. Two down.
Another option was the QMS board that makes the Laserjet postscript compatible. It’s
expensive, (around $2500), and it’s not Appletalk compatible. Three down.
The Gr appler LQ. One of you mentioned it here on the board. I’d heard about it before
and they demo’ed it at MacWorld, but it’s not shipping until March. However, after
talking with the sales people and the tech support people at Orange Micro, this seems to
be solve the compatiblity issue. The Gr appler LQ enables the Laserjet to mimic the
Apple Imagewriter LQ. You use the Imagewriter LQ driver that Apple is shipping, and
Orange Micro’s serial to parallel converter. The Laserjet “smooths” out the 240 dpi
Referenced by (2):