Mar 86 Mousehole
Volume Number: 2
Issue Number: 3
Column Tag: Mousehole Report
HFS and the MacExpo 
By Rusty Hodge , Mousehole BBS
It has been another exciting month at the MouseHole, but then again, aren't they
all? This month was exciting because of the San Fransisco Mac Expo, which I wasn't
able to attend due to a previous engagement. Even without me, the "MouseHole Pizza
Fest" did take place again at Roundtable Pizza. They made it real nice for all the
'Holers, and if you are ever in the area you should drop in and say hello to them. Their
pizza is teriffic and the service is great.
A few predictions for the coming months are in order. Expect to see a glut of used
512k Macs on the market. (Wow, breath-taking prediction here!) Macs and external
drives are already selling used for under $1400, but with all the "Certified
Developers" out there getting Mac+'s you can expect this to fall to under $1000 soon. I
also expect the Mac to be the defacto standard for high-end (read: professional) music
applications. Mac and MIDI are a powerful combination, and as witnessed at the Winter
NAMM convenention (a trade show for the musical instrument industry), everyone it
seems is coming out with MIDI software for it.
Finally, to get a password for the MouseHole, send a SASE to us at Post Office Box
2323, Orange, CA 92669. Currently there is about a 30 to 60 day lag, and we haven't
forgotten about you (hopefully!). If you don't have a modem but you have something
great to tell us, write! We enjoy all the cards and letters that just say hello. And
thanks to everyone else who has written in the past. (You should see some of the great
post cards we have gotten from overseas!) See you next month- Rusty.
HFS & the FINDER
From: KATZ
I got curious what would happen with a lot of files on an HFS volume.
Files in Root Time: Finder to boot
10 3 secs
60 10 secs
110 16 secs
160 21 secs
250 56 secs
400 3.5 mins
I put them into a folder and was back to 3 secs. If the folder was open it took
about 10 secs for the FINDER to come up. So I guess the moral of the story is keep the
root directory as close to empty as you can unless your in no hurry. [Hard to do with all
the buggy programs that don't work with HFS yet, and require various files in the root
directory! -Ed.]
Also I tried it with 1000 files and 30 minutes later the watch was still there!
With 6000 files I got a message that said there wasn't enough memory to add another
disk. I only had the one hard disk on line. All of the above times are with files 2K in
length and all were in the root directory.
FAST MAC & SCSI ROMS
From: BOB DENNY
I was talking to this guy from (name withheld) yesterday and he casually
mentioned that HE didn't see the need for that darned 2 MIPS Mac they showed him...
Uh, the Tecmar guy who wrote the Apple SCSI ROM code... well, seems that he
%#^$@# it up royal. On "blind" transfers, he didn't test it with very many periphs and
turns out it's got timing bugs. To the tune that disk vendors have to put a special patch
resource in RAM for their disk type. I dunno what the implications are concerning
multiple mixed device types on SCSI. [Note: a SCSI hard disk rep confirmed this to me,
that Apple's impementation only works for the particular hard disk controller
hardware with which they tested the thing, due to the "blind write" transfer. If you
have anything other than that particular vanilla brand controller, you've got to patch
the code. In effect, the SCSI disk developer's are currently debugging Apple's code on a
day to day basis! -Ed]
Faster than a speeding scrapbook....
JIM REEKES
After using the standard 512k Mac with the HD20, I noticed a BIG slow down
with the scrapbook. Well, after using the new Mac+ and the HD20 I noticed a BIG speed
up with the scrapbook. In fact, now I can flip through the clippings faster than my eyes
can read! Wow. Its unbelievable!
From: STEVE BRECHER
I'm sure Erich is a fine fellow, but as noted by Bob, the 128K ROM SCSI Manager
is far from optimal code. I suppose you could consider the problem with "blind" writes
as a timing problem; I see it as a logic error. "Blind" reads should work OK, except
slower than they could be.
The MicahDrive (an internal hard disk, software by yours truly) uses exactly
the same SCSI interface chip as the Mac+ external SCSI, and transfers data 2-4 times
as fast as the 128K ROM SCSI Manager.
I doubt the MacDrive is faster than a HyperDrive -- probably what was
measured was HFS vs. MFS. Benchmarking Mac disk hardware is tricky.
128K ROMs
From: MAC SPY
Here are some measured ratios of old drawing speed to new drawing speed.
Paragraph of Text ‰1.50
CopyBits Aligned ‰1.35
CopyBits (region -> rect) ‰2.30
CopyBits Stretching, General 1.30
CopyBits Stretching, selected ratios 1.30
FillRect ‰1.44
InvertRect ‰1.32
Slanted Lines ‰2.29
Verticle Lines (region -> rect) 4.98
PaintOval ‰2.19
FrameOval ‰2.14
PaintROval ‰1.71
FrameRRect ‰1.58
The trap dispatcher has been modified to use unpacked long words instead of a
packed format so of course the trap table was expanded to 2 tables. The OS table is at
$400 - 7FF and the Toolbox table at $C00 - 13FF. The ROM now uses bit 11 as the
definitive way to distinguish between OS and Toolbox traps. This means that there are
now 256 different OS traps (Ax00 thru AxFF, where x varies depending on parameter
bits) and 512 different Toolbox traps (A800 thru A9FF).
The 128K ROM includes many system resources that were RAM-based in the
original system.
DRVR 2 (.Print), DRVR 3 (.Sound), DRVR 9 (.MMP), DRVR 10 (.ATP), SERD
0 (serial drivers), CDEF 0 ( button), CDEF 1 (scroll bar), MDEF 0 (text menus),
WDEF 0 (standard window), PACK 4 (SANE), PACK 5 (Elems), PACK 7 (BinDec)
From: DON L
Try this one. Create a small graphic image in Draw or Paint. Copy it to the
Clipboard and go to ResEdit. Edit an ICON or ICN#, (CURS and maybe some more) then
do a Paste. Also, when editing an ICON hold the shift key down and drag the mouse to get a
selection rectangle to cut or copy from the ICON.
The version of ResEdit used was 1.0 D5. Don't know which older versions may
have that capability.
Disk Cache
From: KATZ
I haven't seen any documentation for this but if you have the new ROM's, and the
new control panel, the disk cache will work but only for an applications resources. All
you have to do is set the applications cache bit with Fedit 3.5 and set the size of the
cache with the control panel. Seems to work pretty smooth. [Note: Fedit 3.5 may have
problems on Mac Plus systems. Try ResEdit 1.0d5 by selecting a file and doing a "Get
Info" within ResEdit. You can then set the cache bit for the file. -Ed]
MacExpo
From: BOB DENNY
I had a whirlwind day at the Mac show yesterday. Wish I'd stayed, but ... Odesta
is showing their "Double Helix" and "Multi-User Helix". Both of these products
knocked my socks off. Object-oriented databases are here to stay. General Computer is
showing their HyperDrive 2000, a 20-mb internal disk with 1.5mb RAM & a 68881
hardware floating point chip.
Consulair has a bunch of new stuff, including a rev of their development system
which runs under HFS, the only one that does at present. Bill Duvall has set up a really
nifty "path manager" which allows you to define various folders for libraries, "H
files, etc. It makes the HFS environment really go to work for you as a developer. Plus,
Consulair's compiler emits code that supports the HyperDrive 2000 hardware floating
point ( instead of slow SANE), as well as another memory upgrade's FP chip (I forgot
the name). I can't WAIT to get my amber replacement CRT, also seen at the show.
"Studio Session" is a RAD radio/tape with VU meters for each of channels ... it looks and
sounds GREAT. "Orbiter" from the folks who brought you GATO, also fascinated me. It's
got a data base of mission pro files, and carries you through a complete mission from
launch to landing.
On the APPLETALK front (near and dear to my heart)... I mentioned Multi-User
Helix, a VERY slick adaptation of their "Run-Time" Helix where folks on various
AppleTalk nodes can "visit" a database on one of the nodes, opening windows (forms) and
viewing or updating the information. It has a cute record-locking mechanism that beeps
the lock holder when another user wants the record, and the "Help" dialog tells the
appropriate story ... Hayes unveiled a "half bridge", which allows you to connect two
AppleTalk nets via an RS-232 link, up to 9600 baud. Dial-in LaserWriters... We are
looking at implementing the half-bridge protocol on our VAX so you can dial in and join
an internet. There were the usual gaggle of wimpy disk servers, with one exception ...
General Computer had their HyperNet there. It looked to be VERY well designed,
supporting multiple accessors to a single volume/drawer. Anyone can "export" a
volume, and EVERYONE else can use the files on it, including applications. Remote
volumes act exactly like local ones. This product does NOT depend on Hyperdrives. It
works with most any disk, floppy or hard. Oh, yeah, only one "write" path can be open to
a given file... multiple readers, single writer.
At the AppleTalk developers conference a few days ago, there was a STRONG
statement made that AppleTalk will be in ALL future Apple Products. Whew! [Good! -Ed]
Desktop Reorganization
From: GARY VOTH
For all you HD 20 owners out there: It is a good idea to periodiclly reconstruct
the Desktop file on the hard disk. The Macintosh Finder stores program icons and other
information in this file long after specific programs have been deleted from the hard
disk. (Ever wonder why a program will sometimes appear on one startup disk with an
old icon? It's because the Finder uses the icon resource stored in the Desktop file
instead of the current one stored in the program's resource fork. To see the new icon
on that disk you must rebuild the Desktop file.)
To "shake loose" this excess bagage from your disk and optimize the time it takes
for the Finder to build the desktop, hold down the Command and Option keys
simultaneously when booting up the system with the HD 20 Startup disk. The newest
versions of the Finder now legitimize this command with a dialog: "Are you sure you
want to rebuild the Desktop File on [volume name]? (This might take a few minutes.)
There is very good news indeed for HFS volumes: the Finder retains the names of
all of your subdirectories ( folders). You need never fear having to reconstruct all of
the folder names on your HD 20. (This is not the case, however, on standard MFS
formatted volumes -- you still get folders with Unnamed#n, etc.)
I've had my hard disk less than a month and I brought the Desktop file down from
48k to 33k in one fell swoop!
To get an idea of how nicely constructed the new operating system is, take Fedit
(versions 3.2 and later) and peek at the volume header information for the HD 20.
Check out all of the volume caching fields. With RAM disk caching implemented on the
Mac+ control panel, it seems Apple has gotten very serious about optimizing the
performance of their little graphics workstation. Good show!
Finder 5.1 Features
From: DAVID EDWARDS
This was a new one on me, while sleeping with my finger on the OPTION key, I
closed a window and next thing I knew all the open windows on the screen started closing
up... Boy was I surprised or had I missed something! It works on finder 5.1d4 with
either a close box or using the file menu.
From: GARY VOTH
I discovered a really nice feature of Finder 5.1... When executing under
Switcher, the Shut Down command changes to Quit! Simply pull down the special menu
and choose Quit when you want to exit. It also is "Switcher aware" in that it contains
the parameter resource showing its optimum configurations; just double-click for a
192K Finder!
Even newer Finder
From: DON
Personally, I think the most exciting thing I saw at MacExpo was not the new
Mac, the MC68881 upgrades, amber monitors (remember mood watches anyone), or
even that new paint/draw combo from the Silicon Beach boys. It was Andy Hertzfield's
new Finder. Remember when he was down in Santa Ana two months ago talking about
starting another project after Switcher? Well, he did.
And remember Multi-Mac? Well, forget it. Andy took about 6K of his Switcher
code and has built a new multi-tasking Finder around it. He had MacWrite, MacDraw
and another program all up at the same time on a 512K Mac with his Finder peeking
through in the background. The new Finder has a lots of nifty features too besides
multi-tasking. And it's fast.
Andy figures he'll be finished with the thing in mid-Summer. I asked him if he
was under contract with Apple for the project and he said no. However, Apple (blue
pin-stripe three-piece suits and all) will probably buy it anyway. They would be out of
their minds not to.
By the way, Andy also showed off his patches to MDS and the system file which
allow it to work properly under HFS. This patch is really bizzare and actually has more
to do with the system file than MDS.
I think the man is some kind of mutant (in the good sense of the word), but if he
keeps writing software like this, maybe we should ask the federal government to
declare him some kind of national monument.
By the way, if your writing an application now to run with background tasks
under Switcher, it will work correctly under his new Finder.
Amber Screen
From: DAVID ROBINSON
Who ever asked about the Amber screens here is the info straight from MacExpo:
ORANGE DROP (S.A.S. ELECTRONICS INC.) 1-800-331-8133. They only want $99 to
swap your tube (could be worth it for novelty sake!)
Just a quick word, a friend of mine set me straight on the Green/Amber/ Black
& White debate. He says that Green is the optimum in low light conditions, Amber is for
High Light conditions. BUT>>>> It seems that everybody defeats the purpose by turning
up the brightness so high that no matter which tube they have it hurts there eyes!
ANSWER, don't bother changing your tube, just keep the brightness down to a
reasonable level and allow your eyes to adjust to it. Take breaks every 15 min. and
focus on something far away to relax the muscles in your eyes.
Apple rumor
From: BRETT
A VERY misinformed Macintosh owner at a local user group meeting told me in
the STRICKEST confidence, that he had it from a source very close to Scully that Apple
will be using a 8086 in the new Mac+. Where do these wild rumors start? ... I wonder,
.... nawwwww.