Oct 87 Mousehole
Volume Number: 3
Issue Number: 10
Column Tag: Mousehole Report
Mousehole Report 
By Rusty Hodge, Mousehole BBS
I’d rather Switch than Find!
From: Richard Clark
First, Apple *will* be sending MultiFinder / HyperCard to developers “as soon
as [they] get the disks duplicated”. However, Apple has changed the rules *again*!! I
have a really nice piece of software written that takes advantage of Switcher’s
“background tasks” (David Smith, are you interested?). So, just for kicks, I tried it
out on a beta copy of Juggler. No soap -- it bombed *big*. Apparently Apple has
produced a product which, from an application’s point of view, claims to be Switcher
but without Switcher’s handy hooks for developers.
The kicker is this: Apple has fully documented Switcher (via the “Switcher
Developer’s Kit” (aka “Inside Switcher”) from APDA), and some other developers
have taken advantage of Switcher’s special features. But, since MultiFinder gives all
of the same indications to a program as Switcher would, if you try to use these
features, La Bomba! (By the way, this kills part of Microsoft Word. Version 3.1.1
anybody?)
[Apple has indeed sent out System 4.2a4, Finder 6.0a6, and MultiFinder 1.0b6 to
developers for testing as of August 27, 1987. This includes developer documentation
on Juggler. The new system software is supposed to ship in September (which would be
after you read this). And yes, we are interested in background task articles, but only
for MultiFinder. Switcher is dead. To get these goodies, contact APDA about the Inside
Juggler package. When released, it will be listed as System Software 5.0. -Ed]
PRAM help
Brett
REMEMBER, if you don’t have a PRAM edit around and you want to get your Mac II
operational again after the enevitable mystery ‘hang’, hold down the option, command
and shift keys while opening the control panel to clear the PRAM. (if it will not boot
from the internal or SCSI, you can still boot from floppy to clear the PRAM.)
Defense of MultiFinder & PRAM Bugs
Jim Reekes
Richard, the new MultiFinder is an extention to the Switcher rules. The
Switcher-friendly resource (SIZE = -1) is compatible with MultiFinder. Anything
that works under Switcher should work under MultiFinder, as with any other
properly written software program developed to Inside Mac guidelines. If you don’t
have the documentation on Inside Juggler, then I don’t think you should complain to
Apple about your program bombing under MultiFinder (and what version did you
try?) Switcher was a total *hack* and I personally never trusted it on my system.
Brett, the point that Tom Thompson was making about the PRAM bug in the Mac II
was that *EVEN AFTER THE OPT-CMD-SHIFT* procedure it didn’t work. The “ZAP
PRAM’ dialog doesn’t always work. I have zapped it numerous times and with no luck.
I believe that there are some versions of the control panel with this bug. And I’ve had
the bug mentioned in the MacTutor report for the last two issues. Yes, I hope it
continues to get reported until it’s fixed.
Switcher/MultiFinder & Word 3.01
Lsr
I forwarded the comment about Switcher vs. MultiFinder to a Multifinder person,
and he said that the problem has been fixed. The very first version of Multifinder used
the same Switcher globals, so applications that explicitly checked for Switcher would
get confused.
Later versions don’t use those globals, so this should not be a problem.
Multifinder does not implement Switcher’s background task feature, since
Multi finder’s background processing capabilities are more powerful. (The Switcher
bg task did not switch in the application, for example, because Andy H. couldn’t figure
out how to make the switching fast enough.) The lastest Multifinder also implements
the quickswitch features of Switcher 5.1, and works fine with Word 3.01.
I hope this answers the question.
Time to stir up the muck!
Macowaco
Yawnnn.. Gosh it has gotten quiet. Okay how about this. Anybody out there hacking
away on HyperCard? Hey, I’ve gotten deep inside and I like the nifty Atkinson-like
stuff I see, but (big but) why all the fuss! According to Scully, Hypercard is supposed
to be to SW what the II was to HW. Sorry, but I don’t think so. Hypercard is a more
complex version of SlideShow (of course I’m being simplistic) and it’s great for
HABACRAP kinda stuff and for inexpensive laser disk access, but big press
releases??? Hit of the show???? AWWW come on maybe there was alittle too much
MAC enthusiasm in Boston. Maybe, this is actually all a snow job to pull the public’s
attention away from other more damaging things like..... A-UX? NAAWWWWWWW!
HyperHype
SpUd PoTatO
Hear, hear for Macowaco’s last post; I remember Apple saying that FileVision
would “revolutionize...”. And what happened to Telos?!?
I think that the term “stackware” is a lousy term to use for Hypercard
“ applications”. Let’s coin a new term for this; we here on the Mousehole represent a
good portion of Apple’s developer base, so if we start using “Hypeware” “Cardware”,
“Warecards”, or something else, it’ll catch on...
Hyper Docs
Richard Hyman
I just called APDA, and the HyperCard Tech Ref Manual (#KMSHTL) and the
MultiFinder Tech Ref Manual (#KMSMFD) are available for ordering. These items
appear to be very new - the individual at the order desk had a new memo as of
yesterday, without prices, although she was pretty sure they are less than $25 each.
HyperCard and Mutlifinder are not available; these are just the ref manuals.
Regarding the hypercard hype, Sculley et al must be assuming that it will be
important because most people buy Macs to process information. Word, Excel etc are
the heavy sellers. A/UX will be important to just a small portion of the market.
*Rick*
Stackware
Pete Harbeson
I vote for cardware. Think of the possibilities...”Didja get the latest cardware?”
“I dunno where the card is.” “Not card WHERE, cardware!” “You could try
ServiceStar or Joe’s Plumbing Supply on Main street...” “No, no, not HARDware,
CARDware!” “No thanks, I like checkers better.”
Hyperware isn’t nearly as good; it just sounds like a line of sportswear put out
by Jeff Goldblum. Or we could pay homage to the original WildCard title and call the
stuff WildWare (hmmm... there’s a Van Halen song in there somewhere...)!
Stack Overflow Revisited
Fred Reed
There are times when ID = 28 does not indicate stack overflow.
I kept getting this error on a recent project, but prior to the error, there was
plenty of room on the stack and I wasn’t using any “piggish” calls. My investigation
revealed the following:
The stack sniffer routine which runs during interupt time (at about 60 times a
second) compares the then current address of the stack with the address of the highest
block in the application heap and reports ID = 28 if the latter is greater. The address
of the highest block in the heap (which is not necessarily the same as ApplLimit) is
stored in the first longword of the application heap zone header (i.e. the first 4 bytes
of the application zone).
Should the first 4 bytes of the application zone become corrupted with a value
higher than the current stack address you’ll get an ID = 28 error event though, in
reality, the stack is fine.
There are a number of ways that these four bytes could be overwritten, but in my
case it was a system heap overflow. This occured as follows :
To launch a document, I got the handle of the AppParm block in the system heap
from the system global AppParmH. I SetHandleSize of the document data and stuffed it.
It turns out that the Finder always locks this block, sets the handle size, but does not
unlock it (which I would call a bug). Thus, my SetHandleSize call failed. Of course, the
real problem was that I neglected to check for an error after SetHandleSize.
I suppose that there are more subtle ways of getting a system heap overflow, and
it probably pays to check the first four bytes of the application zone if you get an ID =
28 error that is otherwise unexplained.
Byte Benchmarks Rebuffed
Jack Howarth
We just got our Mac][ and MPW last week and decided to test those benchmarks.
The results show Byte is guilty of sloppy journalism and biased reporting. The float
benchmark on a Mac ][ w/ MPW Pascal using the align words, 68020 and 68881
compiler options gave a 10 sec benchmark. Our IBM AT with 9 MHz 286 and 8 MHz
287 gave 35 sec. Now half the AT value to correct for the clock speed difference and
you have the Mac ][ running 1.75 times faster which is not surprising. What about
those benchmarks in Byte though? They show an IBM Model 80 doing 0.48 sec for the
float while a Compaq 386 does only 4.41 sec. Although the Compaq is only running the
287 at 8 Mhz that correction will only bring the benchmark down to 2.2. What gives?
Bogus benchmarks, thats what. If you look at the Motorola Apples vs Oranges booklet it
notes that bogus benchmarks are often cited for floats where a calculation like:
a := b/c; a := a*c; d := a/b; d := d*b;
because they are using optimized compilers which drop out useless calculations like
the above to d := a; Not a very fair comparision is it! By the way, the IBM AT float
benchmark was done in Microsoft Pascal. TurboPascal gives a benchmark which is
twice as slow for the AT.
MultiMac
Frank Henriquez
Remember MultiMac? That was probably one of the most mysterious programs
ever; it appeared without warning, actually did multitasking (not well, but the
frequent crashes were no worse than those on an Amiga, with it’s “multi-tasking”
operating system/joke) and then, quite suddenly disappeared. No one seemed to know
who the author was, nor what happened to it since it’s disappearance. Unlike
MultiFinder, it ran on a 512K machine (with the old Roms, no less) and did
multitasking. How come it’s taken Apple 18 months (or more) to come out with a
program that does less? And what was the true story about MultiMac?
On Bill Atkinson & Andy H.
Deirdre L. Maloy
Err... Don’t you mean “canonize”? “Cannonize” would be blowing someone
apart....
Frank - I heard from a friend who talked with Andy Hertzfeld about MultiMac.
Turns out Andy was quite impressed by what the European author (whose name I
forget) managed to get a Mac to do, and this idea later worked out to be
Servant/Juggler/MultiFinder. In fact, MultiFinder LOOKS an awful lot like MultiMac,
including the menu trick (but MultiMac had the menu on the right of the menu bar
instead of on the Apple menu).
Copyright violation is the sincerest form of flattery...
[Please note that Apple is very sensitive about the suggestion that Switcher or
Servant in any way impacted MultiFinder. The official line is they did not; it was a
seperate development entirely. Of course, once someone shows you how -Ed]
Fullwrite Worries
Pete Harbeson
I just heard some disturbing (well, to me) news about Fullwrite. Although they
were showing it at MacWorld and even posted “hours to shipping”, supposedly that
Microfilm-based electronic magazine (sorry, can’t remember the name) claims that
what was being shown was early beta, the program has big problems running under
newer systems and finders, and probably won’t be available when they said it would be.
That program looked like *exactly* what I need, and all this is BAD NEWS!! But...is it
true? Anyone heard the same/different? [FullWrite is all it claims to be and more, and
will ship *soon* and be great! Don’t worry. -Ed]
Hypercard visual effects
Lsr
The visual effect in Hypercard should work on a Mac II, but you have to be in 1
bit per pixel mode. Hypercard writes directly to the screen to perform the effects, but
does check if the screen is not B&W before doing so. If the screen is not B&W then it
doesn’t use any effects at all.
Greg Kostello
Just got HyperCard. Went to bed at 3:00 A.M. playing with it. Gad I hate new
software. Say, does anyone know if it is possible to import data. I already have lots of
information on other databases. I surely do not want to type the information in all over
again.
Also, the manual that came with the software is pretty worthless. Does anybody
know where I can purchase a copy of the programmers manual? Do I have to go thru
A.P.D.A? Thanks in advance. Greg
Hypercard Import
Lsr
Look in the button ideas stack. There should be a button for importing text. Look
at the button’s script to see what it does; you should be able to customize it for any
kind of input file.
Luke Van Wontergh
Just picked up Hypercard at the Home Computer Store - 17th & Tustin in Santa
Ana. They have about 15 more copies. I was disappointed in the manual also.
Byte Benchmarks
The Atom
An interesting note on Byte’s latest 68020/80386 benchmarks (sept. 87
issue):
If you take the top machines with best test results (DSI-780 and Compaq 386 @
16 mhz), when you calculate the average percent difference from each of the 6 tests
and standardize each, you come out with the 68020 running 4% faster on average(for
those 6 benchmarks). Of course that didn’t stop Byte from saying the 386 was faster
than a 68020.
Mac II Command-shift-3
David Holmgren
Our Mac II now refuses to capture the current screen to disk. I had done this
successfully twice before. Now it just beeps at me (on the first try after startup, it
accesses the disk momentarily, then beeps). I tried running from floppy, replacing
the system file, reseting PRAM; none produced results. There are no invisible Screen
X files. It behaves as though there was insufficient disk space for the screen dump.
Mac II Screen capture
Maxbug
If you want Command-shift-3 to work on your Mac II, set the Control Panel
MONITOR: Black & White and to 2 colors.
80MB disaster- What to do when your drive dies
Jim Reekes
First, run a bad block scan. If you get *any* bad blocks, you’ll need to reformat
the drive. I’m not too up on the Jasmine software, but it should include this utility.
Next, try Disk First Aid’s test, DiskExpress’ verify or Apple’s SCSI Setup test option.