Sep 91 Mousehole
Volume Number: 7
Issue Number: 9
Column Tag: Mousehole Report
Background Processing and 7.0 
By Larry Nedry, Mousehole BBS
From: Atom
Re: MPW, MacApp, and ETO
Why are Apple’s MPW and MacApp releases getting less and less frequent? Very few
beta versions are available to regular APDA customers any more, and even some
post-final products are only available on ETO, to wit MacApp 2.0.1 -- and this after
much of MacApp 2.0 final was actually beta stuff. Outrageous, if you ask me.
Things appear to be getting worse, not better. The C 3.2 beta distributed with MPW
C++ 3.1 is buggy, but Apple kept usable betas of MPW 3.2 (including CFront
3.1-compatible C compilers) in the hands of the ETO elite for months. Now I’m told
MPW C++ 3.1 is incompatible with MPW 3.2, and C++ 3.2 is still a couple of months
away at best. MacApp 3.0 is supposed to have full support for all the new System 7.0
features, but it’s barely on the horizon unless you have ETO. More and more it seems
that Apple really targets the MPW product line for its ETO subscribers, and the rest of
us just get a few scraps here and there.
I’m not holding anything against the people who have ETO, mind you. Honestly, my beef
is with Apple alone. Adding value to the ETO package to make it more attractive is one
thing, trying to force people to subscribe by making it the *only* source of current
and mutually compatible tools is quite another.
P.S. - To be fair, APDA has been promising a free upgrade to MacApp 2.0.2 (instead of
2.0.1) for purchasers of v2.0, claiming there were “some problems” with 2.0.1.
Well, there ARE problems with 2.0, and 2.0.2 is just talk so far. If 2.0.1 is good enough
for the ETO folks, why hold it back?
From: Atom
Re: MPW 3.2 prices
APDA just released pricing info on MPW 3.2 today. Update prices haven’t changed
much since 3.1 -- the C (or Pascal) Bundle Update actually went down to $50, and the C
and Pascal Bundle Update is $100 on floppies, $50 on CD. I’m told everything in the
package is System 7.0-compatible, including a beta of SADE 1.3. For C++ users there’s
still a catch: C++ 3.1 is not compatible with MPW 3.2 (no explanation given), and
C++ 3.2 isn’t due out until “at least August” (you know what that means).
From: Mrteague
Re: prices
Hmmm. I don’t know about the C++ 3.1 being incompatible with MPW 3.2 - as far as I
know, this is the version of C++ I use all the time with MPW 3.2 and MacApp 2.01 to
produce a large program, without any undue problems.
From: Atom
Re: MPW 3.2 prices
I thought it sounded strange too, since I’ve tried CFront 3.1 myself with the C
compiler from a colleague’s ETO #3 which I think is 3.2b6, and it worked fine. But I
heard this from at least 2 different APDA reps, so I gave it enough credence to mention
it. BTW, do you have MPW 3.2 final?? I thought this hadn’t shipped yet.
From: Atom
Re: MPW 3.1 and System 7.0
Does anyone know why MPW 3.1 is incompatible with System 7.0? The Finder in the
new system software refuses even to launch it. The “Compatibility Checker” says you
“must upgrade” to MPW 3.2, which isn’t even available yet. Same with SADE 1.1. MS
Word 4.0 has been out for ages and I understand it’s 7.0-compatible. Why couldn’t Apple
avoid this problem?
From: Mrteague
Re: MPW 3.1 and System 7.0
I don’t know for a fact, but there are several possibilities I can think of - 1) the MPW
Shell and all it’s tools are NOT 32 bit clean; 2) the MPW Shell probably patches some
traps for its memory management, and maybe some changes were needed; 3) MPW 3.1
did not execute tools in the background too reliably, and with System 7.0 coming up,
this was going to be important; 4) there are probably enhancements in it for System
7.0 etc.; 5) as always, it is a maintenance release that fixes (and adds some new ones
Of course, MPW 3.2 is now released, and you should be able to get it from APDA. But
betas of MPW 3.2 have been available to developers for probably a year now, on the ETO
CD-ROM.
Also, I forgot to mention the other important reason for MPW 3.2 - it adds all the
Interface files and Libraries for all the System 7.0 stuff.
From: Atom
Re: MPW 3.1 and System 7.0
Yes, MPW 3.2 is out. Unfortunately, it seems like APDA is the last outlet to get it. I’ve
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