America Online APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG Tuesday, February 2, 1993 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Topic: Open Topic Forum Leader: Gary Jacobson (AFL GaryJ) AFL GaryJ Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum! AFL GaryJ Tonight, we have an OPEN TOPIC, which means we can talk about anything we AFL GaryJ want to that is Apple II Development oriented. AFL GaryJ Maybe this week we CAN stay on topic? :) Sheppy Prolly not, Gary. :) AFA Andy I called yesterday to upgrade to ORCA C. Patty said there was a 4 week backlog Sheppy That's about what Mike said last week. DanP18 backlog, or shipping delay for bugs? AFL GaryJ Backlog Sheppy Mike says they're shipping. AFL GaryJ Mike was here last week, and said that they are only to the end of the AFL GaryJ December orders now. Sheppy I should be getting mine pretty soon, then. I mailed in my order, like, Sheppy January 2. :) DanP18 Well, I called in my order the day I got the upgrade notice, and I don't DanP18 have mine yet. AFA Andy I didn't get the notice till yesterday. AFL GaryJ When did you get the notice, Dan? DanP18 December Sheppy I waited two weeks because I wanted to be sure I was home from vacation when Sheppy it arrived. :) Sheppy (Silly me) AFL GaryJ :) Sheppy At this rate, I'll have gone on summer vacation before it shows up. AFL GaryJ Beginning or end of December, Dan? (or middle?) DanP18 middle, I think. Barnabas December of what year? Sheppy :) AFL GaryJ :) Barnabas (and is that A.D. or B.C ?) Barnabas In order to get orders out on time, Westerfield had to push the project start Barnabas date so far into the past... Barnabas ...that eventually, computers hadn't been invented yet, and the whole thing Barnabas was scrapped for lack of floppy disks... Sheppy How Adamsian. AFL GaryJ Mike's exact words (in regard to ORCA/C shipping) were: AFL GaryJ "We don't sell as many of a particular program... AFL GaryJ as we used to, and that's caused us to change our production techniques. We're AFL GaryJ still getting the kinks worked out. Basically, we're roughly up to mid-Dec. AFL GaryJ in shipping orders for C 2.0, and expect to finish Dec. in a week or so. Right AFL GaryJ now, if you order, expect a 3-4 week delay. That should drop to 1-2 weeks by AFL GaryJ mid Feb. if we continue to work things out at about the curretn rate. That's AFL GaryJ about what we've always had for a delay." AFA Andy I guess he got caught with pants down this time on C 2.0 :) AFL Marty Could catch cold that way. Sheppy Sounds just like what happened when System 6 came out. AFL GaryJ So Marty, did you get the snow you have been wishing for yet? :) AFL Marty No :( AFL Marty A perfectly good snow storm wasted. AFL GaryJ That's too bad. AFL GaryJ We had a dud storm over the weekend too. AFL GaryJ (Of course, we *never* get snow out of them here :) AFL Marty Plenty of cold though... went down to 6 degrees last night. AFA Andy We haven't had any snow this year...yet. Sheppy We've been a little on the cool side (for this area), but sunny. AFL GaryJ Brrrr. AFL GaryJ It was back into the 70's here again today. AFA Andy Same here, Eric. AFA Jay 6 Marty, we were down to -5 :) AFA Andy 57 here :) AFL GaryJ Have to pull weeds and mow my lawn :( Sheppy We haven't seen 70 in, oh, maybe a week. ;) AFL Marty No fair figuring wind chill. AFL GaryJ :) AFA Jay Marty, -5, no wind chill :) AFL Marty woah AFL GaryJ So, anyone doing anything fun in their programming time? AFL GaryJ Guess not :) Sheppy Well, I've been writing software to control America's nuclear arsenal, but... Sheppy aside from that, nothing special. :) AFA Andy I'm still trying to learn :) AFL Marty Everything must hinge on ORCA/C shipping :) Barnabas I've been disassembling the FutureSound support software... (shudder!) AFL GaryJ Still trying to find all the bugs, Sheppy? :) Barnabas I've never seen such awful code in my life... it's no wonder it crashes so much Barnabas under 5.0 and later... the miracle is it ever worked at all... Sheppy Yeah. Well, there are a few crashers, but with all the budget problems, the Sheppy thing's going on line tomorrow anyway. :) AFL GaryJ I have a FutureSound. Are you trying to "upgrade" the software? Barnabas Yep. Barnabas (to make it machine code, i.e. fast) AFL GaryJ Any idea what language it was written in? Barnabas Of course, you know it was written in C... and you know it was a pretty early C Barnabas You can probably even guess the idiot that designed that C... to do things like Barnabas say, use one byte past the end of the stack, and to pass the low word of the Barnabas SANE DP's handle as the pointer to its DP... ugly stuff like that... AFL GaryJ Yeah, it gets really messy to disassemble compiled code. Sheppy Eeewww, that's scary. Amazing it never killed anything major. AFL GaryJ I hope you have some success. What are you planning to do with it? (Use it? :) LL AndyW Too bad you don't have the OBJ files.. Barnabas True. But at least I have ORCA Disassembler now (I did the Zip CDev using Barnabas Merlin's Sourceror... (!)) LL AndyW Ugh!! AFL GaryJ Have you tried contacting the authors? Anyone at all willing to give up the code? Barnabas I dunno... don't know who wrote it... LL AndyW Have you figured out what to NOT do when using ORCA/Disasm?? Sheppy It's still probably the most stable BW product I've ever used... LL AndyW (Wondering if Dave will be dropping by tonight.. Got a GSBug problem).. AFL GaryJ I hope Dave shows up. LL AndyW Like, don't have a (START or ENTRY) and a DATA at the same place!! LL AndyW Easy to do when you use the option keys a lot.. Barnabas Why, what does that do? LL AndyW CRASH! Sheppy Good thing I never did that, then. LL AndyW Aparently, it can't figure out which one to use.. Barnabas Really? You know, maybe it's time to turn ORCA Disassembler on itself! Reff We have a user with a GS and his keyboard won"t work in prodos 8 but 16 is fine AFL GaryJ That's strange, Reff. What kinds of programs (in ProDOS 8) has he tested it AFL GaryJ with? AFL GaryJ And, has it only been tested with desktop style programs under 16 bit code? AFL SandyB Gary, this is a guy who is BANANAS about his new //gs, can't get enough of it--512K, arrrggggh. Reff Gary, it just won't do anything in prodos 8 AFL SandyB He brought it to our last meeting and found the keyboard wouldn't work at all in ProDOS 8. AFL SandyB Reff and I were amazed. AFL GaryJ I'm amazed too :) AFL SandyB Changed keyboards, no luck. AFL GaryJ How old is the machine? AFL SandyB Not the keyboard. AFL GaryJ Oh, you tried changing keyboards. AFL SandyB 512K, ancient. AFL SandyB But looks brand new. AFL SandyB He got it, IW2, 5.25, 3.5 for $200 at garage sale. Reff I can't imagine that the operating system could have anything to do with it AFL GaryJ Dave, or anyone else.... did you see Ref's question? The user who's keyboard works with 16 bit AFL GaryJ programs, but not P8 software? AFL SandyB Only works in P8. AFL SandyB Damn. AFL SandyB No. Barnabas Gary... Sandy... which is it? AFL GaryJ Yeah, which way is it? AFL SandyB Works in 16, does NOT work in 8. AFL GaryJ That's what was stated to begin with, Ok. Barnabas OK. Is this a ROM 00? LL AndyW Sounds like a trashed ROM to me.. Sheppy By 16, do you mean event-driven programs? AFL GaryJ That's what I was wondering. Sheppy Hmm... scratch that. Maybe a bad key glu? AFL SandyB Sheppy, I don't know. I didn't see what he was trying to run, others were helping him. Barnabas Sandy? Reff? ROM 00? AFL GaryJ Has the machine been tested with 16-bit software that is not a desktop environment? Sheppy Does the mouse work in 8bit mode? AFL SandyB I'm sure ROM 00. AFL Marty Sandy said it was an old 512K machine. Sheppy Could be a general ADB problem. AFL GaryJ ROM 00 is a problem. Sheppy ROM 0's came with 256K. :) Sheppy Yeah, first thing to do is upgrade to ROM 1. :) AFL GaryJ Won't work with newer system software. Barnabas ROM 00's had bad ADB's. Sheppy Yes, they did. Barnabas (Mine did) AFL SandyB I'll cut out all your comments/questions and take them to next meeting... AFL SandyB Ahh, good point. AFL GaryJ You could try upgrading the ROM and see if that helps (since he needs a new ROM anyway) AFL SandyB Can he still upgrade anywhere? Sheppy If it still doesn't work, then ask around again. At least he'll have the Sheppy ROM he needs. Barnabas Matt, is the free ROM 01 upgrade still available from Apple (hahaha)? Sheppy Theoretically, Sandy. AFL GaryJ I haven't checked that in a LONG time. Not sure if ROM 00 -> 01 upgrades AFL GaryJ are still around. AFL SandyB How can I find out, call who/what? Reff Might they still be free Barnabas You could ask DTS (if he's listening)... AFL GaryJ I know a dealer who could tell me. AFL SandyB Gary, would you find out and mail me on that? Sheppy Give it a shot, Sandy. Contact a few dealers and see what they say. If Sheppy nothing else, you'll be annoying them. :) AFL GaryJ Do you know any good local Apple dealers? (Especially ones who are or used to AFL GaryJ be good Apple II supporters?) AFL SandyB We don't have a few dealers. AFL GaryJ Yes, I could, Sandy. AFL SandyB LOL Sheppy. A few of our members do that... AFL GaryJ (I'll check on it tomorrow) Barnabas When I was working at TLC, we needed a ROM 01 upgrade and couldn't get it from Barnabas Apple (even as a Developer). We had to get it from this company, I forget the Barnabas name... Reff We don't have any Apple // dealers Matt DTS Greg: I don't know why. I have a tube of ROM 1 chips in my office just for stray developers... Matt DTS ...who are so slow that they haven't figured out to upgrade the machine FIVE YEARS after the program Matt DTS started. AFL SandyB This guy isn't yet a stray developer, he just bought the machine and he wants everything, every- AFL SandyB thing made for the //gs. He's gone ape over the machine. Sheppy Might try contacting Alltech, if you have no luck elsewhere. Sheppy Good for him. It's worth going ape (or bananas) over. :) AFL GaryJ It is very conceivable to find a machine in that condition (no upgrade, ever), especially AFL GaryJ now, when people are selling off their old equipment. AFL SandyB Marty, will you sell your body for a Rom 01 if it comes to that? AFL Marty It's not worth that much, Sandy. AFL SandyB LOL Marty AFL SandyB In fact, we had TWO new //gs users with 512K machines, and about 10 others equally excited. AFL SandyB It was a 'bring your //gs and learn how to use it' AFL SandyB meeting... Barnabas This ones for Dave Lyons. (DAVE! Dave! where are you?) Barnabas It's about a Tech Note you wrote once, Dave... a long time ago... Dave Lyons I'm here.... Barnabas Tech Note #40. Barnabas It says: "On the Apple IIGS, the $C019 signal differs from the IIe..." Barnabas "On the IIGS, the screen is blanked when the most significant bit of $C019 is Barnabas _high_ ..., while on the IIe, the screen is blanked when the bit is _low_." Dave Lyons Yeah, I modified it; don't remember which part is my mods & which part was old. Barnabas Now... (looking for IIe manual...) Dave Lyons So, is it wrong? Barnabas ah... there it is, under the P8 Tech Ref... Dave Lyons My change is the "changes since November 1988": "Noted that vertical blanking does not begin when Dave Lyons you might expect on the GS, and removed references to the Apple IIc." Barnabas OK... so Rob Moore and Rilla Reynolds aren't here tonight... :) Barnabas The IIe Tech Ref., on page 175, says that the VBL occurs when the bit is LOW Barnabas (which is what the Tech. Note says). However, tests I made long before the GS Barnabas was even a gleam in Woz's eye indicate, as is written here in my IIe manual Barnabas from almost a decade ago, "It's when [$C019] is high (bit 7=1)!" Barnabas That would make sense, because the GS designers would be unlikely to change Barnabas an important signal like that. But if you want to check it out, you'll find Barnabas that the IIe ref (and Tech Note) are wrong, and the IIGS behavior is universal. Barnabas (Which I guess should be Matt's problem and not Dave's...) Dave Lyons Okee dokee, we have some IIe's around here. I'll make a note to investigate that (in our copious Dave Lyons free time :-). AFL GaryJ :) Barnabas Matt? Did you hear that, Matt? LL AndyW Easy enough to do.. Sample it, and see which way it is for the longest time.. Barnabas (This has been bugging me for 8 years) Sheppy And you just had to bug Dave with it tonight, huh? :) Dave Lyons (You could have mentioned it earlier. :-) AFL GaryJ Welcome to the Apple II Development Therapy Room! Barnabas (I kept forgetting...) Barnabas :) Barnabas It was one of those repressed memories from my childhood... ;) Sheppy So tell me, Greg. What caused you to bring this up tonight? Was it the Sheppy phase of the moon...? The weather? What? :) AFL GaryJ The pressure has been too much for him, probably :) Sheppy Some kind of strange Freudian thing...? Barnabas Of course, it had to be the couch and the loving, supportive atmosphere... Sheppy :) AFL GaryJ :) Barnabas (or the deafening silence...) AFL GaryJ Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest. Spottysoft (he just stored it in a flakey part of grey RAM for all that time. :) Sheppy Last week I managed to get 30 Apple II programming manuals and references Sheppy for $20.00 total. :) AFL GaryJ Neat :) AFL GaryJ You can get some good deals nowdays. Sheppy Yeah! Got lots of cool stuff from a former developer. Barnabas Well, they were gonna charge him $50, but he agreed to take the Fischer manual Barnabas if they knocked off $20. :) Sheppy I get to go look at hardware RSN. AFL GaryJ I have seen some strange manuals in unusual places. (for sale) Spottysoft Where was this Shep? Sheppy Right here in Santa Barbara. The guy used to be a forum leader here, I Sheppy believe. :) Spottysoft <-- lives close enough to Sheppy to be interested :) Spottysoft Hmmm.... Parik used to be at UCSB.... :) Sheppy That's him. Sheppy He's in several of my classes. Spottysoft Ahhhhh..... Sheppy I bought almost his entire Apple II book collection. Spottysoft Shep... you can take over his ATLT series.... :) AFL GaryJ Haven't seen Parik in ages :) AFA Andy He didn't give you any of his SRC did he? SOme of his stuff can use some AFA Andy updating. Sheppy No source... Barnabas Sheppy, you oughta push him on that... Sheppy My head is spinning now. Who? What? What source? Huh? :) AFL GaryJ Parik Rao's source. Spottysoft Yeah.... tell him to fork it over or face being tied down on the airport runway AFA Andy He is the creator of Background Sound, Eric. Barnabas Buy HD's from Parik. Undelete source files. Sheppy What kind of source? I can ask him, I suppose. AFL SandyB LOL Spot. Sheppy Heh. Yeah, his GSes are in the closet. I get to look at 'em next week or Sheppy two (supposedly). Spottysoft I always knew Parik was a closet programmer... :) Sheppy Ah. I've got Background Sound. No wonder his name sounded familiar. :) LL AndyW I wouldn't even want to look at Parik's source code. I'v heard it's worse LL AndyW than Greg S's.. Sheppy I'll ask Parik about the source (I'll email him this evening). KermitL Andy, I just down loaded A2FX from the library. Do you know where I put the KermitL icons? LL AndyW What computer are you using Kermit? AFA Andy In the icons folder, Kermit. KermitL AIIGS LL AndyW Are you using System 6? KermitL Yes. LL AndyW You don't need A2FX.. Sheppy True. Just drop HFS.FST into the boot volume's System:FSTs folder.