Oct 85 Mousehole
Volume Number: 1
Issue Number: 11
Column Tag: Mousehole Report
Mousehole Report 
By Rusty Hodgee, Mousehole BBS
Pagemaker Boo-Boo
MacGeorge
Dave must have them pretty shaken up at Aldus with all his bug reports [during
beta testing -Ed.]. It seems Aldus has a batch of Pagemakers 1.0 shipped to dealers
which contain nothing but demo disks (I got 2). If you buy a pagemaker, check the
system disk at the store and make sure it's not a copy of the demo!
Long Beach Apple Fest Mousehole
Rusty Hodge
Okay, here goes: Sunday, 15 Sep, 7:30 pm the (and I quote)
"MouseHolePizzaFest" (yes, 1 word), is set for Me'n'Ed's Pizza. Bring your own power
strip. More later this week.
Apple's Hard Disk Rumors
Mac Scotty
I talked to someone at Apple today and was told that the new 20 meg hard disk
[from Apple] will be released sometime around Sept. 16. The price is around $1600!
The sales reps are going in for training on Monday!!
Helix versus OverVue
Bob Denny
Use Helix! OverVue is a distant 2nd for small jobs. By the time you get good on it,
version 2.0 (I am beta testing it now!) will be out with 25 new tiles, picture fields
and maybe some speed-up. You won't regret it.
Bizarre Occurrence
Fred Condo
Chalk this up to weird stuff: My internal drive suddenly decided that all disks,
formatted or not were unreadable, and that, futhermore, nothing could be formatted. In
a last ditch attempt to allude an Apple Dealership's inflated repair prices, I yanked the
battery, thereby clearing the parameter RAM. A MIRACLE! Yup. Fixed it! Now all I
wanna do is get my hands on the programmer whose program (I don't know which it
was) fooled with my sacred parameter RAM...
More on Data Bases
Deirdre L. Maloy
So far as I know, Omnis 3, Helix and MacLion are currently the only RELATIONAL
databases. Omnis 3 really isn't as powerful as it is billed to be; MacLion has a powerful
but frustrating programming language; Helix is very Mac like. I use MacLion myself
(c'mon, how many databases give you toolbox access??)
Japan Macs
MacGeorge
Next time you are in Japan, check out their Macs. In order to fit the Japanese
Kantana into the Mac, Mac's in Japan come with Hyperdrives from Apple!
Searching Resource Files
Burrill Smith
I have a resource file and I want to see if it contains a CODE resource with an ID
of 1. If I do an _OpenResFile(Filename) and then a _GetResource( Code, 1), the
resource manager searches all the resource maps. I can do a _HomeResFile and see if
the CODE 1 resource it finds belongs to me, but I'd rather restrict the search to just
my resource file. _UseResFile restricts the search, but since my resource file was
opened last, it gets eliminated from the search first. Is there a simpler way?
There is no simpler way. Why the concern about restricting the search (the maps
are all in memory)? Note that if you only want to know whether a certain resource is
in a file, but don't want to actually load it into memory, _SetResLoad(False) before
calling _GetResource and then _SetResLoad(true) when you want to return to normal
resource operations.
-Steve Brecher
Microsoft's Typographer
Tim Celeski
Typographer, for those of you that are interested is a new composition program
from Microsoft. I've been alpha and beta testing the program for some six weeks now.
Cost is a major difference between it and pagemaker as it is $195. It has unlimited
document size, whereas Pagemaker is limited to 16 pages. It has increased ability to
deal with headers and footers, automatic baseline jump, adjustable word spacing
(kerning though slightly limited in this release), footnoting capacity, indents, tabs,
search and replace and increased ability with hyphenization. I think it has a very nifty
way of re-fiting text, which is a little awkward with Pagemaker. It is as simple as
drawing a box; it fills with text - if you don't like it, you simply change the size or
shape of the box, and it re-fills it!
The real comparison is how is it different to use? From my own graphic
designer's point of view, Pagemaker is easier to design in. Typographer's text handling
is quite sophisticated (it doesn't use word wrap, rather it uses a much more
sophisticated technique common to real typesetting equipment - the author wrote
software for Allied linotype - consequently the whole line and each word in it is taken
into consideration in regards to spacing). Another advantage may be speed - it was done
entirely in assembly.
Draw Bugs
MacoWaco
When I group two boxes with some text and then move the group around, the text
shifts and changes position. I then have to ungroup and realign the text. Is this a bug or
what?
You aren't dreaming. I detest that text positioning bug. It's a crippling problem It
also shows up if you duplicate a group containing text objects several times (to place
multiple copies at evenly spaced locations, right?) The damn text drifts out of line. No
way to use grid either, as it doesn't seem to snap to it.
-Bob Denny
MacFest Boston Report
Steve Brecher
(via MAUG by Tom Dolby)
Here's a few things at Boston that cought my eye: Challenger showed a MacDraw
like program in 3-D that allowed stretching a whole side of a house from plane or
vertex of lines. Mac to midi interface with overlay of up to 32 tracks on the Mac with
perfect replay. Outrageous! Tpypographer from Microsoft that looks like
MacPublisher and Pagemaker fused together. Abatron was the hit of the show with a
conversion program that translates Apple 6502 assembly programs into Mac 68000
programs automatically. Only ten minutes to create a running Mac version of an Apple
game. Bill atkinson was sitting on the floor in front of me and was impressed as I.
Apple games Robotron and Sabotage were converted from scratch. Abatron also showed a
Scantron 300 for $2400 that scans at 300 dots per inch (like thunderscan) and
makes postscript, paint or pagemaker compatible output file for the laserwriter.
Microconversion has a four megabyte RAM board that is Hyper compatible! The new 20
meg hyperdrive was shown (20% speed increase).
Amiga Reaction
Rusty Hoge
What do you think of the Commodore Amiga?
(1) Commodore what???
(2) Sorta like a toy Mac - like it but not serious
(3) Love it!
(4) Don't like it (generic negative reaction)
Mousehole Voting record: 55 total votes to date: 1. 5% 2. 52%
3. 23% 4. 18%
Referenced by (2):