Jul 88 Letters
Volume Number: 4
Issue Number: 7
Column Tag: Letters
FaceIt-- User Interface for all Compilers 
By David E. Smith, Editor & Publisher, MacTutor
Announcing
Steffanie Sheets
Steve and Patricia Sheets are very, very pleased to announce the birth of their
daughter, Steffanie Virginia Sheets. Steffanie was born Monday May 30, 1988 at
11:55 AM. The blond hair, blue eyed girl weighed 6 lbs., 12 oz at birth, while the
labor lasted just under 6 hours. The mother, the daughter and the panic stricken
father are enjoying each others company for the next 2 weeks at home.
Hope to talk to you all when I get back! [Steve Sheets is a contributing editor of
MacTutor and responsible for nearly all the articles on color and the Mac II in the last
year. We wish him and his family well. -Ed]
Credit For Tear-Off Menus
Mike Boich
President, Radius Inc.
We were flattered by all of the references to the Tear-off Menu feature of our
Radius Two Page Display in your April, 1988 C Workshop. This feature is indeed both
flashy and useful, and greatly appreciated by our customers.
The primary author of the software, however, is Ted Cohn, of the Radius
engineering team. I’m sure Ted would be the first to acknowledge Andy’s advice and
support, but I’m equally sure that he was chagrined to see all of his work attributed to
somebody else. I know I’m always upset when people confuse me with Tom Selleck
$50 MatLab & FaceIt Revealed
Dan Kampmeier
FaceWare
Urbana, IL
As a developer of a Macintosh programming tool (FaceIt - see this or a recent
issue of MacTutor for ad), I naturally keep a close eye on related products and reviews
in major Macintosh magazines. Unfortunately, many reviewers seem to have had
limited exposure to the wide range of available Mac programming tools, and the
resulting reviews are full of “Mac-hype”.
One of the most hype-ridden reviews of recent date was that appearing in the
April 26 edition of MacWeek. The 1-page review entitled “Prototyper:
Build-it-yourself software” might have been more appropriately entitled
“Proto-Hype”. When the reviewer finally did address potential problems with the
product, he abruptly ended the discussion by saying that a call to the developers
revealed that “all our wishes had already been anticipated”. I called MacWeek to find
out who this reviewer was (maybe we could get him to do an equally naive review of
FaceIt!). Their response was that they really didn’t know much about the review (they
read it while we talked).
What’s bad about such reviews is that they ultimately do a disservice to both the
developers and the users (in this case programmers). In the above case, for the
example, Prototyper from SmethersBarnes is a great product for certain types or
phases of development. The reviewer should have made it clear under what
circumstances the use of the Prototyper is warranted and what its limitations are. In
our opinion, it is best suited for the first 10-30% of program development where one
is creating a basic event loop, menu handling, and window resources. It can generate
source code ( currently limited to Pascal) to which the rest of the program code is
added (the 70-90% of a program that does something). [Can’t you just see those Apple
reps carrying around a copy of Prototyper to demonstrate that all you have to do to
write programs on a Mac is point and click! Get real.]
Thus Prototyper, unlike many other programming tools does not relieve you
from having to dig through hundreds or thousands of lines of interface-related source
code, it just helps you get started creating such code. A call to SmethersBarnes not
only confirmed this overall impression of the limitations of Prototyper (they are
more open about this on the phone than in their advertising), but also resulted in their
disclosing a revealing bit of information: one of the companies using Prototyper asked
for a special version which did not generate source code since they already had
programmers who could do that! Thus it was the non-programmers who were being
given Prototyper as a means to let the programmers know what they wanted in an
interface. This conflicts with the reviewer’s claim that Prototyper was “designed
primarily for developers”.
This brings us to MacTutor. Although generally a happy camper, the recent
review of MatLab from Math Works by Paul Snively (both from Massachusetts) in the
May 1988 issue of MacTutor caught my eye. This product retails for $895, but there
is a competing product called “MacMatLab”, based on the same original Fortran
program which retails for just $50 [yes, that’s an $845 difference]. In fact, after
reading this review, I find very little difference between these products, although no
mention of MacMatLab is made by Paul in spite of the fact that it has been advertised in
MacTutor! It is hard to believe that Paul was unaware of the existence of MacMatLab.
Anyway, before you run out and spend a whopping $895 for MatLab, you might want to
try a $50 version of a very, very similar-functioning program!
Which raises an interesting question: Why can QED Associates charge just $50
for their version of MatLab? The answer is that they used our product, FaceIt
($50-$100), to add the Mac interface to an existing program. FaceIt is a collection of
preformed resources which can be used by programs created with almost any language
and compiler. It “instantly” adds a Mac interface that handles such things as editing of
text and pictures, file handling, and printing. One copy on disk can even be used by
multiple programs at the same time. It is well-suited for the conversion of existing
programs for use on the Mac, and is also useful in cases where a programmer does not
have the time or resources to write every little program he/she creates. In July a
version will be released which includes “instant” spreadsheet-like windows which
can be linked to any array in memory.
So, contrary to what is often heard in MacTutor, there is a fast way to add a Mac
interface: FaceIt. Moreover, our sample programs cover text editing, plotting,
drawing, animation, and background processing. The current $100 version includes
sample programs for 10 or more different compilers on 5 disks (or $50 for one
compiler on 1 disk). FaceIt is not for everyone, but if it fits your needs then we are
confident that there is no better value when it comes to development tools. The biggest
criticism we get from users is that it should be priced higher so we can afford fancier
advertising and increase its perceived worth. [Translation: Buyers are ignorant, so
run only full-page color ads full of hype, don’t be afraid to charge a ridiculous price,
and most importantly, always subtract 5 cents from the price before putting it in
print.]
Conclusion: Someone needs to take a careful look at the range of Mac developers
tools and compare them with respect to price, ease-of-use, and functionality. There’s
just too much hype out there for the average programmer to see through. [Actually,
the opposite may be true: there is not nearly enough information out there for
developers to know what is available. -Ed]
Mac Power Supply History Reviewed
Dr. Ray A. Gaskins
Hampden-Sydney, VA
It could be argued that 1987 was the year of the power supply (analog board)
problem. Don Ritter, writing in MACazine, mentions the power supply in seven out of
twelve of his M.U.G. WRESTLING columns. MacTutor, in six of its monthly issues,
devotes more (and useful) words to it than any other publication. The Active Window
(Boston Computer Society publication) mentions something about the power supply in
three of its monthly issues. Perhaps not surprisingly, MacUser and MacWorld
mention the power supply in only one issue each.
The earliest reference to the power board problem that I have seen is one
mentioned by Ritter in MACazine (Jan 87, page 61). He references an article by
Howard Upchurch which appeared in the July/August 1986 issue of Apple Gram.
Upchurch blames the problem on two underrated capacitors and on the flyback
transformer. Other 1986 articles referenced by Ritter are a “bad power supply
board survey form” in which Apple admits to a power board problem with Mac Plus
upgrades. However, MACazine itself makes no mention of power board problem in
1986 (nor, for that matter, do MacUser, MacTutor or MacWorld).
Apart from recommending the removal of the heavy aluminum RFI shield mounted
across the top of the power supply board as a means of increasing air flow and reducing
heat, Ritter has little to suggest short of suing Apple. Instead he tells an endless string
of horror stories about multiple power board failures.
In my own fixed population of just over 100 Macintoshes, I have the full range of
Macs (1984-1988). I can remember two Macs out of this population that seemed like
characters out of Ritter’s horror stories. In both cases, replacing the video tube fixed
the problem. Therefore, my advice to anyone whose mac eats power boards (say, three
boards in six months) would be to replace the video tube (along with the third or
fourth power board). A symptom of this problem is a discoloration due to heat of the
four-pin connector that connects the video tube to the J1 connector on the power board
and a history of eating power boards.
I believe that there is some truth to the rumor that Apple felt that part of the
power board problem was due to the procedure being used to discharge the video tube -
you know, two crossed screw drivers. I have lost a couple of power boards because of
this and began not discharging the video tube for doing routine things not involving the
power board (e.g., replacing the logic board). My failure rate declined. Now there is a
neat tool for discharging the video tube that meets Apple’s approval and I use it
religiously.
In the 15 months prior to July 1987, I replaced 13 power boards. In the 9
months since then, I have replaced only 4. I attribute this to three things: Loy
Spurlock, Chuck Rusch, and Mysteray. MacTutor published long and detailed letters
from Loy Spurlock (March 87, page 4) and Chuck Rusch (June 87, page 13)
concerning the power board problem and what you could do about it (short of suing
Apple). Mysteray (July 87, page 17) wrote two long comments in MacTutor’s
Mousehole Report concerning the J1 connector on the power board - why it tended to
develop a cold solder joint, how to detect it and how to fix it. I am grateful to these
three people for their words of wisdom.
Since July 1987, I have had 10 power board problems that, prior to reading
Spurlock, et. al., would have meant 10 power board swaps. However, applying their
advice, I was able to save 6 of these boards by resoldering. The symptoms were varied:
(a) three had the classic thin vertical white line in the center of the screen,
(b) two had the shakes (screen jitter), occasional spikes and expanding/contracting
screen,
(c) three had horizontal lines across the top and/or bottom of the screen, and
(d) two had a faint vertical line just to the left of center.
Resoldering the four pins of the J1 connector fixed two (a)’s , one (b) and two
(c)’s. Resoldering two other joints that appeared dull under close inspection fixed the
other (b).
Resoldering had no effect on one of the (a)’s , one of the (c)’s nor on either of the
two (d)’s. (Rumor has it that the faint vertical line means that the power supply will
fail within six months.) Fixing six out of ten power boards by simple resoldering
isn’t bad. These Macs range from 128K to Mac Pluses. None had fans.
Using a jewelers eye piece (10X), I also examined the joints at J2 (9 pin
connector) and J4 (11 pin connector) on each of these boards. More often than not,
one or two solder joints on each end showed cracks. Resoldering these, although good
pr eventative maintenance, is usually not as critical as resoldering the four joints at
J1.
I looked at a couple of the replacement power boards and noticed that some of the
connections had been resoldered by hand, including the four pins of the J1 connector. I
couldn’t tell their resoldering from mine. The only difference was that they put on a
new paper backing with new double-stick pads. If you are careful in peeling back the
double-stick pad (use a plastic video alignment tool with a screw driver blade to help
peel it back), you won’t have much residue to clean off before resoldering and you can
restick the pad without applying additional glue.
What caused the cold solder joints? I believe that the explanation given by
Mysteray (loose video yoke connector) is probably correct. Therefore, I always
tighten this connector whenever I resolder the pins at connector J1. For a thorough
explanation of this, see Mysteray’s comments in MacTutor (July 87, page 17).
As far as voiding your warranty is concerned, after 90 days you are on your own