America Online APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG Tuesday, January 7, 1992 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Topic: Beginners Programming (general questions also) Forum Leader: Gary Jacobson (AFL GaryJ) AFL GaryJ Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum! It has been a long AFL GaryJ since we met last (seems like forever!). Tonight is our Beginners night. AFL GaryJ You're welcome to ask any questions you'd like, and we'll give special AFL GaryJ preference in questions to beginners. AFL GaryJ Does anyone have anything they'd like to start off with....(since I don't AFL GaryJ (scratch that last part :) YarkoT Doese anyone here have GNO/ME AFL GaryJ Jay, you do, don't you? AFA Jay Yes, sorry... AFA Jay I do :) AFL GaryJ :) AFL GaryJ Do you have a question about it, Yarko? YarkoT What is it useful for background compilation..and the like? AFA Jay Well, I made a nice new discovery last night with a little help from Tim AFA Jay Meekins... AFA Jay I hooked up a terminal to the GS modem port... AFA Jay and actually was able to have TWO GNO's (gsh's) running at the same time... AFA Jay I was in the finder on the "GS Side" and in the shell doing ls (catalog) AFA Jay and compiling. AFA Jay on the terminal side. AFA Jay But, if you just have a GS... AFA Jay you can set any task to run in the background...compilation with errors going AFA Jay into a file, maybe a big directory copy or backup? in the background. AFA Jay Can't edit in the background though :) AFA Jay and you can bring processes to forground operation or put them to background AFA Jay operation. AFA Jay make that "foreground" :) YarkoT By edit do you mean manually edit or have a script that edits. AFA Jay edit, I mean with an editor...don't try to run an editor in the background.... AFA Jay it doesn't work, I've tried :) AFA Jay anything you do under Orca... AFA Jay scripts, compiling, copying, any orca shell utilities...can be done AFA Jay like usual in the "foreground" or in the "background" so you can do other AFA Jay things while they're doing whatever they do. AFA Jay in theory, you can have up to 32 processes... AFA Jay but I think 5 or 6 slows things down enough :) AFL GaryJ How many have you tried at once? AFL GaryJ (maximum) AFA Jay Well, there's this thing called "sleep" ...you tell hit how many seconds AFA Jay to just wait and count... AFA Jay I had about 10 or so sleeps in the background with the shell in the AFA Jay foreground...and a ps (process status) took about a minute to execute... AFA Jay the sleeps were eating up all the CPU time :) AFA Jay Again in theory, you could have about 15 or so users on the system... AFA Jay each running one process (two including themselves) YarkoT Did the sleep install a heartbeat task or use a loop? AFA Jay It looks like it just counts the seconds in a for loop. AFA Jay BTW-All the shell utilities in GNO come with source code in C :) YarkoT Well no wonder it slowed things down. AFA Jay Right...well...the main idea of the sleep utility... AFA Jay is to have it sleep for x time then DO something... AFA Jay so you can have a definite delay time before doing something else... AFA Jay they're just easy to type in and put in the background...they give no output.. AFA Jay so I used them. YarkoT Wait could you have 1 GS control 15 and then have 255 users on the system? AFA Jay You can have 32 processes...each "user" would need one process I believe... AFA Jay one copy of "gsh" -- the shell, running. AFA Jay so if each user wanted to run one process besides their own... AFA Jay you could have 16 users. YarkoT I meant ! GS ciontrol 15 GSs AFA Jay I don't think that's possible...It would just use another computer... AFA Jay Jawaid used a //e, I used a dumb terminal, for output and input... AFA Jay it doesn't actually use another computer's CPU. AFA Jay basically all you're doing is redirecting input, output and error output to AFA Jay a different device. AFA Jay but doing this while retaining the original input and outputs on the .CONSOLE. YarkoT Well I think I'll get it to mess around with. AFL GaryJ Did anyone write any spiffy new software over the holiday? AFL GaryJ We had two weeks of no Tuesday night chat for you to have extra AFL GaryJ programming time. (yeah... right :) YarkoT I wrote MoonStriker it in AGM new files. AFC DYAJim I got a lot of T2 more functional :) KevinGross How is T2 coming Jim? AFC DYAJim Very well, despite a few setbacks AFC SteveB I wrote Encode-816. (File encryption/decryption NDA) AFL Marty You did that NDA for me too, Steve. AFL GaryJ Anyone else have a programming question this evening? There are tons AFL GaryJ of knowledgeable Apple II types here just dying to answer a question or two. LL AndyW Anyone know of any IW 1 GSOS drivers out there?? AFL GaryJ ImageWriter 1? AFL GaryJ I don't LL AndyW Yeah... The IW2 drivers don't work right with my IW 1.. LL AndyW I guess I'll have to get the device drivers manual and write one.. Matt DTS It should work right with the IW I, but not the wide-carriage stuff. AFL GaryJ I guess nobody else has any ideas either. AFL GaryJ Go ahead with your question, Steve AFC SteveB Thanks. I'm interested in knowing why when I use a custom get file dialog box... AFC SteveB (_SFPGetFile2) in my NDA the system tends to ack weirder than with just a standard _SFGetFile2. I've AFC SteveB checked all my parameters to the custom call, and I copied the dialog template right out of TB 3. AFC SteveB Anyone else experience this? AFL GaryJ Define "act weirder" AFC SteveB Ok...Hmmm... AFC SteveB For one thing, it'll hang every so often when the dialog is being drawn... AFC SteveB And one one users system the dialog would never come up, ever, despite any INITS/DA's installed... Jim Murphy Since this is custom, what changes have you made to the dialog? AFC SteveB I added a checkbox to it. AFL GaryJ Just a checkbox? AFC SteveB Yep. AFL GaryJ It works fine when you try a _SFGetFile2? AFC SteveB Yep. AFL GaryJ You might try posting some code in the message boards. It's AFL GaryJ hard to tell what might be wrong from your description alone. AFC SteveB Ok I will. This happens on some other NDA's that use _SFPGetFile2, too. AFC SteveB (At least on my system :) AFL GaryJ Other NDA's of yours, or NDA's that you obtained from somewhere else? AFC SteveB NDA's from other authors. AFL GaryJ Well, I would be more suspicious of your system, rather than your code. AFC SteveB It's not just my system this happens on, tho. Matt DTS There's not enough information here for me to even hazard a guess, sorry. AFL GaryJ Post on the message board, Steve. AFC SteveB I'll continue to look onto it...and post some code. AFL GaryJ (See if you can dig up some similarities between the systems) AFC SteveB What type of info would you like, Matt? AFL Marty The NDA Steve is talking about hangs up on my system as described... AFL Marty but only when I try to use it from within HyperCard IIGS. AFL Marty It seems to work well with all the other applications I've tried it on. Matt DTS "It hangs" isn't enough to go on by remote control...I'd need to know where in the DA it hangs. Matt DTS For example, what was the last thing you did that sent the system into the weeds? AFC SteveB Ok. Often, it'll crash on a BRK... AFC SteveB And every so often it'll die in an endless loop someplace in STDFile. AFC SteveB _SFPGetFile2. AFC SteveB I do a SFStartUp before that if needed. AFL Marty The dialog window and the volume button will draw. At that point it just AFL Marty stops Matt DTS I'd need to see the thing to know any further -- this isn't something that can be resolved this way. Matt DTS (Unfortunately, the time I have to spend on things like this is pretty minimal these days, but we can Matt DTS try.) AFL Marty I'll send you a screen snapshot if it'll help. AFC SteveB I'll email it to you if you'd like. AFL GaryJ Marty and is Poloroid camera? Dave Lyons This is under 5.0.4, right? AFC SteveB I know you guys are busy, that's why I don't want to hazard you down with my stuff. AFC SteveB Yeppers Dave. AFL Marty Right. System 5.0.4. Dave Lyons Does anybody know if the problem still exists under 6.0 betas? AFL Marty If you will send me System 6 beta I will tell you. :) Dave Lyons (Some Standard File bugs have been fixed; one would sometimes hang with the window mostly-not-yet- Dave Lyons drawn.) AFA Jay that sounds like the problem :) AFL GaryJ That could be it. AFC SteveB Dave, that could be the bug plaguing me, since that's what happens. AFL GaryJ Let's move on to the next question (lest we take all night with this one) AFL Marty Perhaps someone with System 6 beta could check it out. AFC DYAJim perhaps AFL GaryJ What DA is it? Is it one that is generally available? YarkoT I believe I've had the problem with the Synthlab Player NDA. In some Applicatns AFL Marty Don't go out of your way. AFC SteveB Yeah, GA, sorry to spend so long on this question. AFC SteveB (If any 6 beta people would like to help out, please email me. But, don't go out of your way.) AFL GaryJ KevinGross has the next question then. GA Kevin KevinGross (Not exactly a programming ? ... KevinGross Anyone know when Kansasfest is to be held again? AFL GaryJ Well, in the past it has been in the summertime :) YarkoT late July probably KevinGross (I need to know now to make arrangements...) Matt DTS Call A2-Central, at: AFL GaryJ I suggest you contact A2-Central Matt DTS (913) 469-6502. They may not have the dates set y et. AFL GaryJ Thanks, Matt KevinGross Will do ... (figured maybe they had already released dates? Guess not...) YarkoT 6502 cool :) AFL GaryJ Pure coincidence :) AFL GaryJ Amazing how the phone company just happened to give them that number. AFL GaryJ Any other questions this evening? (Anything else we need to follow up AFL GaryJ on your question, Steve?) AFL GaryJ Wait... GA Bruce BruceMusic Ok..I wanted to ask Matt something BruceMusic Matt -- You know my e-mail re ROM chips and building a GS clone.. BruceMusic Is anything coming down the pike at Apple? Or can you say? AFL GaryJ (clone? :) AFL GaryJ I can tell you what Matt will say :) Matt DTS Does someone want to sing the Unannounced Products Litany for me, please? Matt DTS Apple announced in 1990 that no future Apple II CPUs were forthcoming. Matt DTS That statement has not been changed. BruceMusic Ok, sorry, I'm new on AOL, and just wishing :) BruceMusic One other question.. BruceMusic How hard is it, then, from a technical standpoint... BruceMusic to do with a GS what Laser did with the IIe? Matt DTS Virtually impossible -- you'd have to engineer a set of ROMs and custom chips... Matt DTS ...such that Apple's software matched it at every possible entry point we wanted to patch... Matt DTS ...but yet you can prove in court that you did not copy it from Apple's software. AFA Parik JOC, why would you want to make a IIgs clone? (supply, demand, etc) BruceMusic Thanks, Matt -- if I had the bucks and the time, I might try; BruceMusic for now I'll just wish! Thanks again. AFL GaryJ Any other questions? DerekY Is it really "bad" to do p8 calls from a CDA? I know there's a problem with DerekY interrupts, but can this be minimized? AFA Parik make sure you're in p8. :) AFL GaryJ Yes, that's the first step :) DerekY thanks Parik :) actually, it will do GS/OS calls in GS/OS, then p8 calls in p8 Matt DTS It depends, Derek. You can't eliminate the problem; you can choose which memory to Matt DTS steal to minimize where you _think_ applications might put things they'd need at interrupt time. Matt DTS But you really can't guess, so you really can't get around the problem. DerekY any good guesses? what about $200-$300.. what that be basically safe? Matt DTS You can't tell! Some P8 programmer might think he's being really clever by... Matt DTS ...putting all that interrupt stuff there where it's out of the way. There's just no way to guess. AFA Parik what about the DP ($0000)? or the text page? DerekY ok, thanks. p8 uses the DP DerekY (some of it at least) Dave Lyons (Text page does not provide enough contiguous space to be much use. You need a 1K buffer to open a Dave Lyons file, and text page has screen holes in it.) DerekY I guess I'm ok with the answer.. thanks guys. Steve G123 Well, I don't think it fits in the discussion... Steve G123 Does anyone know the difference between a ProGrappler and a Grappler Plus? AFL GaryJ I have a Grappler Plus, but I don't have a ProGrappler. Matt DTS (Why not ask Orange Micro?) Steve G123 Excellent idea! AFA Parik you have to wait 12 hours. LL AndyW I think the Pro was a serial to parallel converter for the //c.. Steve G123 Not so excellent... Steve G123 Here's what I want to do: Steve G123 I want to use my IW II and the serial port... Steve G123 and a parallel card and a DJ 500 in slot 1. Steve G123 Should work, right? LL AndyW The G+ is both serial and parallel, so all you need is the right cable.. AFA Jay you have to change your control panel slot settings. Steve G123 G+ is a FingerPrint card? AFL GaryJ Grappler Plus is a parallel card. YarkoT Do you have parralel driver or DJ 500 driver installed? AFL GaryJ No serial (at least on the one I have) Steve G123 I'm using Harmonie and waiting for the DJ 500 to arrive. LL AndyW Hmmm.. I must have been thinking of the FingerPrint card.. Should work Steve G123 I want to be ready!