[HEA]
    _____________________   ___                                   _
    |___   ______________| |   |                                 | |
        |  | _             |   |                                 | |
        |  || |            |   |                                 | |
        |  || |            |   |                                 | |
        |  || |            |   |   ____ _   _ _   _   ______     | |
        |  || |            |   |  / __ \ | | / \_/ \  | ___ \    | |
        |  || |__   ____   |   | / /  \  | |  /\ /\ \ | |  \ \   | |
        |  ||  _ \ |  _ \  |   | \ \__/  | | | |_|| | | |__/ /   | |
        |  || | | || |_||  |   |  \___/|_| |_|    |_| | ____/    |_|
        |  || | | || |__   |   |____________________  | |         _
        |__||_| |_|\____/  |________________________| | |        |_|
                                                      | |
         Lighting Your Apple II Path On Delphi        | |
                                                      |_|

                       >>> WELCOME TO THE LAMP! <<<
                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        FREEWARE FAVORITES: Hermes
                   WEB SLINGING 101: Apple II Web Sites
              AND THE BEST OF THE A2 AND A2PRO MESSAGE BOARDS

 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 The Lamp!             An Onipa'a Software Production       Vol. 1, No. 3
 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 Publisher & Editor.......................Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W., L.S.W.
 Internet Email........................................thelamp@delphi.com
 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

                             TABLE OF CONTENTS
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                              March 15, 1998


OPENING PITCH
     Life On The 'Net, A2 Style ------------------------------------- [OPN]

GOING POSTAL
     Letters To The Editor ------------------------------------------ [POS]

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED                                                [FOR]
     The Heat Is On ------------------------------------------------- [HET]
     Miscellanea                                                      [MSC]
     Rumor Mill ----------------------------------------------------- [RMR]
     Public Postings                                                  [PUB]
     Best Of The Best ----------------------------------------------- [BOB]

A2Pro_DUCTIVITY
     Checking out A2PRO on Delphi ----------------------------------- [A2P]

FREEWARE FAVORITES
     Hermes --------------------------------------------------------- [FRE]

WEB SLINGING 101
     Apple II Web Sites --------------------------------------------- [WEB]

EXTRA INNINGS
     About The Lamp! ------------------------------------------------ [INN]

                                [*] [*] [*]

READING THE LAMP!   The index system used by The Lamp! is designed to make
"""""""""""""""""   your reading easier.  To use this system, load this
issue into any word processor or text editor.  In the index you will find
something like:

EXTRA INNINGS
     About The Lamp! ------------------------------------------------ [INN]

To read this article, simply use your search or find command to locate
[INN].  There is a similar tag at the end of each article: [EOA].


         :: DISCUSSED ON DELPHI ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
         :                                                       :
         :           Death is just nature's way of saying        :
         :                     you're fired.                     :
         :                                                       :
         ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: GSWOMBAT ::::


[EOA]
[OPN]------------------------------
                     OPENING PITCH |
-----------------------------------
From The Editor
"""""""""""""""
by Ryan M. Suenaga, B.A., M.S.W., L.S.W.
                    [thelamp@delphi.com]

                        LIFE ON THE 'NET, A2 STYLE
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Is this proof positive that not only was _Castle Wolfenstein 3D_ the
most highly anticipated game in recent memory for the Apple IIgs, but the
Apple II is alive and well on the Internet?  Within the first two weeks of
its release, its author, Eric Shepherd, registered in excess of _two
thousand_ downloads from his World Wide Web page.  This doesn't include any
downloads from Genie, Delphi, or anywhere else, nor does it count copies
that have been or will be distributed by user groups or other Apple II
vendors.  Not only is this an unbelievable number for an Apple II program
in this day and age, it's an astounding number for any computer platform
for such a short period of time.

     It was exciting for me to be part of Sheppy's beta team as Wolf
approached completion, and absolutely thrilling to see the download count
rise and rise and rise.

     At the same time, the Apple II community was showing less vigor
elsewhere.  Renewals to the few remaining Apple II publications have looked
down so far this year, and one, _The Apple Blossom_ (to which I regularly
contribute) has decided this volume will be its last.  All around, it seems
shareware fees to our loyal programmers are down, and the spirit of
community seems to be lacking.

     The hard questions beg to be asked: if 2,000 Apple IIgs users on the
'Net can download the most highly anticipated game in recent memory, why
don't we have more subscribers to _Shareware Solutions II_ or _Juiced.GS_?
Why is _The Apple Blossom_ ending its run?  Why are our shareware authors
struggling to justify another Apple II project?  Sadly, while the Apple II
appears alive on the 'Net, its vital signs elsewhere appear weak.

     Still, two thousand downloads is an exciting number, and hopefully
those two thousand files translate into two thousand excited Apple II users
who will keep the faith well into the next century and do what they need to
do to keep Apple II support alive.

     In the meantime, I'll continue to check for vital signs from time to
time, and keep an eye out for other signs of Apple II Life on the 'Net.

                                [*] [*] [*]

     While Wolf was unquestionably the Apple II story of the month in
February, it was far from the only story.  The prodigious Apple II
Webmeister, David Kerwood, has initiated _The Apple II WebRing_, which
you'll learn more about in this month's _A FUNNY THING HAPPENED_ column.
What might be exciting for you is that _The Lamp!_ is now part of that
WebRing.

     If you're on another site on the WebRing, it'll likely be easy for you
to access back issues of _The Lamp!_  If you prefer to do that the old
fashioned way, remember that our URL is:

     http://www.sheppyware.ml.org/~rsuenaga

     I am doing what I can to keep this site updated, but remember that it
is a lower priority project for me.  Easiest way to access any of the
issues of _The Lamp!_ is simply to go to the _IIScribe_ Forum on Delphi (GO
CUS 11) and download issues from the Database there.

                                [*] [*] [*]

     This month, I'll close with my usual Blatant Plug:

     KansasFest 1998 registration is going on as I write this.  Join the
dozens of Apple II faithful who'll gather at Avila College in Kansas City,
Missouri in July for KFest 10.  Register before April 15 (Tax Day, for
those in the United States) and save $100!

     If you want more information, you can read _The Lamp!_ and find out
who to send email to, or better yet, how to join the KansasFest mailing
list.

     On that note, I'll excuse myself.  I need to use the World Wide Web to
find myself a plane ticket to Kansas City in July.

     Who said there's no Apple II Life on the 'Net?



Ryan
thelamp@delphi.com

ASCII ART BEGINS
_________  _                     _                                      _
|__   __| | |                   | |                                    | |
   | |    | |                   | |                                    | |
   | |    | |___     ____       | |       _____   __ ___ _   _ _____   | |
   | |    | ___ \   / __ \      | |      /____ \  | v   v | | v ___ \  | |
   | |    | |  | | | /__\ \     | |       ____| | | /\ /\ | |  /   \ \ | |
   | |    | |  | | | _____|     | |      / ___  | | || || | | |    | | |_|
   | |    | |  | | | |_____     | |____  | |__| | | || || | |  \___/ /  _
   |_|    |_|  |_| \______|     |______| \____^_| |_||_||_| | |\____/  |_|
                                                            | |
                                                            | |
                                                            |_|

ASCII ART ENDS


[EOA]
[POS]------------------------------
                      GOING POSTAL |
-----------------------------------
Letters To The Editor
"""""""""""""""""""""

Tonight at 7:19PM, Wednesday the 4th of March 1998, I logged on to Delphi
using PPP (PAP was also negotiated for logon). Today U.S. time it goes into
testing with my beta folks, and should be ready by the end of March.

Last week I completely rewrote the not yet tested PPP module which I
started late last year, as the old implementation wasn't flexible enough
for added network protocols like PAP and CHAP for example.

So, tonight was the first time an Apple IIGS has done PPP without requiring
GNO (I believe Derek had PPP working, but I have no proof).

Regards,
 Richard
richard_b@delphi.com

          Yowza!--RMS


[EOA]
[OPN]------------------------------
     A FUNNY THING HAPPENED. . . . |
-----------------------------------
Checking out A2 on Delphi
"""""""""""""""""""""""""
by Ryan M. Suenaga, B.A., M.S.W., L.S.W.
                    [thelamp@delphi.com]

       * The Heat Is On

              * Miscellanea

                     * Rumor Mill

                            * Public Postings

                                        * Best Of The Best

                              THE HEAT IS ON
                              """"""""""""""

     [*] Telecommunications     ....... Binary II For Forked Files?
     [*] Graphics and Sound     ....... SuperConvert 4 Problems
     [*] Entertainment Software ....... At Last--Wolf 3D
     [*] The Apple II Legacy    ....... All Roads Lead To Kansas City



                                MISCELLANEA
                                """""""""""

CHATTING AWAY WITH GENIE COURTESY OF SSII   Last Spring, Seven Hills
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   Software sponsored an online
chat that was conducted simultaneously on both Genie and Delphi, and at the
time, I was just in awe that it could be done at all. I had no idea how
Syndicomm managed to pull that one off, so when I went to KansasFest '97, I
had one burning question that I was determined to have answered: How?

As evidenced by the last two Monday nights, it's obvious that I got the
answer to my question. At 10 PM EST, Apple II users on both Genie and
Delphi entered their respective chat rooms, and were able to type to each
other, back and forth, holding aq conversation - in real time - despite the
fact that they were logged on to entirely different online networks.

My thanks go out to Dave Miller and Tony Diaz for making it possible, and
of course to Syndicomm for allowing it to happen.

As the official sponsor and host of these dual systems chats, I've really
enjoyed myself so far. And, just as I imagined, the atmosphere has been
quite freewheeling.

Since these chats will be on-going, taking place every Monday night (with
very few exceptions), I was just wanting to toss out for discussion whether
we should perhaps structure the chats a little.

What I'm thinking is that I have a lot of resources and contacts within the
Apple II world, and I'd like to perhaps use some of those to enhance the
chats and to, perhaps, arrange for guests that you usually won't find
hanging out in the chat areas.

I have nothing definite to suggest at this point, but, maybe you do.

Is there anything in particular folks would like to see happen at the SSII
chats, or do you prefer the 'anything goes' atmosphere?

Joe Kohn
                     (JOE_KOHN, 10179, GO COM A2 FOR)


THE MOTHER OF MAC/GS HARDWARE LISTS?   Is there a "list to end all lists"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   of GS compatible Mac hardware?

I'd like to know which Mac KB's can be installed on a GS safely and
reliably.
                      (SFAHEY, 10553, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Bradley P Von Haden made a quite nice list; if he wants to post it
"""""   here, that's fine, but it's also archived in section 4.9 of the
csa2 FAQ, found in the Delphi file libraries here, or by going to
http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/faq/csa2.html

Nathan "Blatant Plug" Mates
                      (NMATES, 10554, GO COM A2 FOR)


PROBLEMS WITH LARGE FONTS?   Anyone use independence printer drivers for a
""""""""""""""""""""""""""   HP deskjet?

I have been getting two point fonts (at a guess) when printing 60 point
fonts in complex documents (particularly in GWIII)

I use Pointless and Palatino TT font

Kevin Noonan
gswombat@delphi.com

Todays quote:
A cat will blink when struck with a hammer
                      (GSWOMBAT, 9999, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   The problem here is one I've tracked for awhile, which I believe is
"""""   not related so much to Independence in particular as much as
memory.  When you try to print a font to a high resolution (300 x 300 dpi)
printer via Pointless, what Pointless asks the Font Manager for is a font
four times the screen font (in this case 240 points), which is close to the
limit of what the Font Manager can do (255 points).  I've always had
problems with fonts over 50 point or so, and printing is one of the most
memory exhaustive things that the GS can do.  I can't say absolutely for
sure, but I believe that you've run out of memory (this can happen even
with an 8 meg GS). . .

Ryan
Think KFest '98!
Delivered by OLRight! scripts for ANSITerm
                     (RSUENAGA, 10001, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   I don't have PalatinoTT handy, but I did try printing a document
"""""   with a single line: 'This is a test' in New York, 64 points and
Bold.  Instead of the 2-point text that I sometimes get with Harmonie, I
got a little (OK - about 2-point) block for each letter (including the
spaces).

I used New York because it is a little on the big side, and bold to
presumably aggravate any problems.  Discussions about similar problems by
Harmonie users indicate that different fonts trigger problems at different
maximum point sizes.


 - Don (IronTooth)

Delivered by my ANSITerm off-line reader scripts...

                         They're OLRight!
                     (DZAHNISER, 10010, GO COM A2 FOR)


COMA-PROOF ZIP DRIVES   I read that the Tulin SCSI drivers would solve the
"""""""""""""""""""""   sleep problem with the Zip disks. Is it possible to
purchase these drivers and if so where or from who? I would really like to
get these as I fear one day I am going to inadvertently select initialize
rather than eject and then I will be a very sad camper.
                      (PBAUER1, 10332, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   From the Fall '97 issue of Juiced.GS (Vol. 2, Issue 4) ....
"""""
Tulin SCSI drivers are available directly from former Tulin associate Wing
Cheung. The software driver package is available for $20 plus shipping and
handling.

Contact Wing at wing_cheung@compuserve.com for more details, or to work our
the cost of shipping and handling before sending him a check.

His snail-mail address:

Wing Cheung
4901 Corona Court
Union City, CA  94587

Best of luck obtaining the drivers. You'll be glad you did...

 Max Jones, Juiced.GS
 http://users.ids.net/~kerwood/juiced.gs
 Delivered by Spectrum 2.1 and Crock O' Gold 2.3 (beta)
                     (JUICEDGS, 10338, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Yes, the Iomega Zip Drive problems we've been discussing involve
"""""   only the Apple HS SCSI Card using the Apple SCSI drivers, and occur
primarily when a disk is not inserted in the drive. (With a disk inserted
at all times, things work pretty well.)

I did not encounter the "sleep" problem, but I'm sure I would have
eventually. There are a number of problems that occur with the Apple SCSI
card and drivers, including some strange behavior in the standard file
dialog box and with disappearing menu items in programs and icons in Finder
windows.

With the Tulin drivers, these problems vanish, and that's well worth the
$20 for the custom drivers.

I don't think any of the serious problems we've described occur with the
RamFAST.

Max
                     (JUICEDGS, 10496, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   None of the problems documented with the Zip Drive/Apple High Speed
"""""   SCSI card combo are in evidence with the Zip Drive/RamFAST SCSI
card combination, based on my longtime use of the Zip with the RamFAST on
two separate Apple IIgs's.

Ryan
Think KFest '98!
Delivered by OLRight! scripts for ANSITerm
                     (RSUENAGA, 10500, GO COM A2 FOR)


TONY AND TONY'S DATABASE LISTINGS   Now that I think we have settled on a
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   format that will work well with COG,
Tony Diaz and I will be using it from now on. The only change is that the
topic name will now appear in parentheses next to the filename.

From this:

Name: GUPP107.BXY

to this:

Name: GUPP107.BXY (Apple Operating System)

This will allow COG (and other OLRs if their authors are so inclined) to
more fully automate the download process for A2 (and hopefully A2Pro)
files.

 -----------------------------------------------------
 Tony Ward, A2 Database Manager
 [Delivered with Spectrum 2.1 and Crock O' Gold 2.3b]
 --
 When in doubt, make it sound convincing!
                      (TONYW1, 10535, GO COM A2 FOR)



                                RUMOR MILL
                                """"""""""

BEST QUALITY ACCELERATOR CABLE COMEBACK?   I spoke to Bill Shuff around
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   October or November about making
ZipGS cables.  He makes the high quality cables with the thicker pins that
many people have used when upgrading their Zips (or troubleshooting
crashes).  He said he would be willing to continue making the cables but he
would need a group order to justify purchasing the parts.  If enough people
are interested I could post the estimated price for such cables and the
number of people he would like in order to justify his expenses.

-- James Keim
                       (JDKEIM, 9938, GO COM A2 FOR)


GS EMULATION, INTEL VARIETY   Clancy Paul Computers of Princeton, NJ, has
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""   announced "Et ][, PC?" --a software and
documentation package which allows Apple II, //c, and //e software to run
on 386 and 486 based PC computers.  It will also allow 16 bit IIGS software
to run on Pentium-based computers.

The package includes software and documentation supporting the creation of
3.5" IBM-PC format disks of Apple II programs from original disks of both
standard (ProDOS and DOS 3.3) and copy-protected (DOS 3.3) formats.

The package is targeted at the Education market where, in New Jersey,
schools can get 386 and 486 computers for free through local donations.  In
the PC world, the 386 and 486 computers are becoming obsolete and are
unable to run new software without expensive upgrades and, if then, at all.

Many schools already have a base of Apple II software and this package
allows a school to set up many classrooms of productive and inexpensive
PC's by running the Apple II software it already owns.

Site licenses are now available and a single-user package is currently
being developed.

For further information, email QWIKQUOTE@aol.com or telephone 609-278-4500
ext. 100.


Cindy
                    (CINDYADAMS, 10462, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Apple tried to woo Apple II, //c, and //e Education users to the
"""""   Mac, but did not do a very good job.

They first produced the //e card for the LC series, but that has fallen by
the wayside.

Then a group of dedicated ex Apple II enthusiasts write GUS in their spare
time. Apple have not seen fit to help them in that project, so it is not
yet publicly available. Bernie came to the Rescue, but with no support from
Apple...

Now with an emulation package that runs on a 386 or 486, it is clear that
schools will move to those inexpensive machines, than stay with the Apple
family.

A great shame, but one we have unfortunately come to expect from the
management challenged company...


 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                      (EWANNOP, 10471, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   Because of the assumed belief that an "older" computer is no longer
"""""   useful, schools can obtain them for very little cost, if any. This
will be a good thing for the schools that are hurting financially, but
still need to provide computers for the students. They can use this PC
emulator to run the old //e software they still have sitting around not
being used.

And very sadly, I was told that our district will be going to ALL
IBM-compatibles within the next few years. What a shameful waste of IIgs's
and Mac's, but that's another story and thread. :(

 Cindy


 Cindy Adams  --  cindyadams@delphi.com
  Automatic reply by ProTERM Message Manager (PTMM) 2.5
                    (CINDYADAMS, 10473, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Is it not possible/practical to keep tabs on the prevailing status
"""""   of schools and their computer status with the education contacts
available here at delphi?

Wouldn't the IIGS be good system to introduce to limited income and
"computer un-enhanced" families/environments?

Just thinking from the hip, again:)


Nick Heywood                                           _ --_|\
IIGS 'What in the world do you want to do today?'     /       \
Delivered By Spectrum 2.1, Crock O' Gold 2.1,        |   ___   |   about
Marinetti TCP/IP                                      \_/   \_/  <-- here
                          from an Apple IIGS.
                       (NICKH, 10487, GO COM A2 FOR)


HOW MUCH MAC DOES BERNIE NEED (DESKTOP EDITION)?   Hi,
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
can anybody elaborate how fast one can expect Bernie to run on a 160 or 180
MHz 603e? Is it tolerable?
I'm thinking of buying a Performa/Power Mac 5400...
Udo
Ceterum censeo, Microsoft esse delendam
                      (UDOHUTH, 10025, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   I've played with Bernie on my 100 mhz Duo 2300c and my 117 mhz
"""""   Powerbook 1400cs and it's more than tolerable.  Gus is still
faster, but Bernie's made a lot of strides in the last year, and it's
actively being worked on.

Ryan
Think KFest '98!
Delivered by OLRight! scripts for ANSITerm
                     (RSUENAGA, 10033, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Bernie also works well enough on my grayscale 5300 (100 MHz PPC
"""""   PowerBook), especially if I shift-boot the 5300 first. Very close
to my 11.5 MHz IIgs. (Imagine playing Tunnels of Armageddon while cruising
at 35,000 feet like I just did - a great way to pass the time traversing
flyover country :)

Of course, on my 300 MHz 8600, it's freakin' awesome. :)

 {<http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/> }David K.
                     (DKERWOOD, 10054, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   On my 120Mhz 8200 (7200 UK look-alike) Bernie runs at the
"""""   equivalent of a 20Mhz IIgs, Quite tolerable in my opinion...

> Gus is still faster, but Bernie's made a lot of strides in the last
> year, and it's actively being worked on.

With the recent speed improvements in Bernie, I would still put GUS at
about 50% faster than Bernie. With both of them, the actual speed you see
things happen depends on many factors. If you have hard disk caching active
on your Mac, the second time you run, things will speed up dramatically.

As an indication of speed, a shift-boot of GUS takes about three seconds to
get to the desktop on my Mac. A G3 Mac running at 266Mhz would probably do
that in just over 1 second. So Bernie might take 1.5 seconds to boot...

I think that is a pretty tolerable speed to run your IIgs at... :)

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                      (EWANNOP, 10061, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   It really depends on
"""""
- the machine you are using

- whether you're emulating sound

- color depth (256 colors is fastest)

- type of application

Low-end Macs (66Mhz, 601, L2) deliver emulated speeds of somewhat above the
original, usually between 3 to 6 Mhz. A 603e running at 200Mhz takes you to
around 18 Mhz, and so on. A G3 reportedly runs at 50Mhz core CPU speed
(i.e., just doing some fancy math without screen updates etc.) I hope
you'll get the picture.

You'll get the unique "Zip Chip" feeling on Macs starting at 100Mhz. But as
I said, it's all very ballpark.

Now a note that just came in from the damage control department: the
difference between GUS and Bernie is definitely below 50%. They do differ
in their behaviour when the CPU is getting faster. Bernie gains momentum as
the machine is getting faster, so the performance gap, if there is such,
will be marginalized towards the high-end. :-)

- henrik
                      (GUDATH, 10124, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   It's faster than a IIgs in some functions on a Performa 6320 with
"""""   120 MHz, so it would certainly be tolerable at 160 and 180, unless
by "intolerable" you mean "intolerably fast"!


 Jim Dwyer
 Bavarian Leprechaun
 Blarney delivered by IIgs, Spectrum 2.1 and Crock o' Gold 2.0
                    (PEACECHURCH, 10131, GO COM A2 FOR)


HOW MUCH MAC DOES BERNIE NEED (PORTABLE EDITION)?   All,
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
As I am not PowerBook literate, what would be the minimum PB one would need
to reasonably run Bernie?  I am not familiar with the various PB models.

Background:  My Better-Half would like a _minimum footprint_ system to have
available in the kitchen to check email, look up recipes, etc.  I'm afraid
my GS doesn't quite meet the minimum footprint requirement.  So that leads
me to a PB.  I would like to be able to run Bernie too, which means it
needs to be a PPC PowerBook.

Also I don't know how much difference color vs. greyscale screen makes. Is
greyscale tolerable or do you lose a lot of detail/hard to read, etc.

Are there any recommended places to purchase used PBs?  Sun Remarketing
seems to only have 030- and 040-based used PBs.  I'm really not looking to
spend a whole lot on a new IIGS peripheral.  Those new PBs are quite
pricey...

Is Bernie able to do telecom yet, such as run Spectrum/COG?  If not, what
Mac telecom program would you recommend for doing email?

Sorry for the bazillion questions but I know from experience the people in
A2 have all the answers.  :)

Thanks.

Mark Welte [Doc]
                      (WELTEM, 10114, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   What you would need is a PowerPC based Powerbook, and they are few
"""""   in number:

200 series (Duo) with PowerPC upgrade
500 series Powerbook with PowerPC upgrade
5300 series
1400 series
2300 series (Duo)
2400 series
3400 series
G3

> Background:  My Better-Half would like a _minimum footprint_ system to
> have available in the kitchen to check email, look up recipes, etc.  I'm
> afraid my GS doesn't quite meet the minimum footprint requirement.  So
> that leads me to a PB.  I would like to be able to run Bernie too, which
> means it needs to be a PPC PowerBook.

The smallest of those would be one of the Duos, followed by the 2400.
However, neither have a floppy drive. . .

FWIW, I have both a 2300 and a 1400 and I like them both :)

> Also I don't know how much difference color vs. greyscale screen makes.
> Is greyscale tolerable or do you lose a lot of detail/hard to read, etc.

I used to have a 520 with a grayscale screen and the screen was reasonable.
Nowadays, you can't find Powerbooks with anything but color screens,
however, except on the used market. . .

Ryan
Think KFest '98!
Delivered by OLRight! scripts for ANSITerm
                     (RSUENAGA, 10155, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   You must have a PowerPC version of the PowerBook to run Bernie. It
"""""   will not run on the 030-040 versions...

> Is Bernie able to do telecom yet, such as run Spectrum/COG? If not,
> what Mac telecom program would you recommend for doing email?

Not as yet, though it is promised some time in the future. On the Mac there
is no question, you should use ProTerm Mac for most comms use.

But if you mean a program for Internet E-Mail, then Netscape, MIE and a
host of other programs such as Eudora-Light will do it more easily, and
most of them are free...

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                      (EWANNOP, 10160, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Doc,
"""""
The absolute minimum PowerBook needed to run Bernie ][ The Rescue
(BTTR)would be the model I cited, the 5300 grayscale machine. Not that
you'd ever find one - the grayscale machines were relatively rare birds. By
the way, it's only grayscale on the built-in screen...attach an external
monitor to it and the standard display is 640x480 with 256 colors. The
grayscale display is actually more readable than the color screens of the
rest of the 5300 series, primarily because it is a lot brighter than the
color ones, even the active matrix displays.

Another low-end powerbook that could run BTTR would be the 500 series, I
believe, and then only if they had the PowerPC upgrade installed. These
were solid machines, and still command a relatively high price in the used
market.

PowerBook 3400 prices have fallen quite a bit in the last two months - keep
your eyes on these. The new thumping G3 PowerBooks command (and get) top
dollar, while the "entry level" 3400's can now be had in the mid-2k range
(new). But even the slowest 3400's will run rings around the 5300 series,
and will of course run Bernie ][ the Rescue without breaking a virtual
sweat. The only critical issue for these (or for any machine running
Bernie) is RAM. 16 megs and RamDoubler is the lowest configuration you can
have on any Mac and still have room for the Mac to do things like running
Finder in the background. This will let you run Bernie as a full-suite IIgs
with all your sounds, bells and whistles, print from AppleWorks GS (yes you
can!), play mods, run HyperCard GS (Color HyperCard on a Mac!), yadda yadda
yadda :)

 {<http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/> }David K.
                     (DKERWOOD, 10197, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   The only used PPC PB is likely to be the 5300 or another upgraded
"""""   model.  The 5300's are being sold as Apple-refurbished machines
through several outlets at the moment for about $1200.  I bought mine (my
daughter's) from MacResQ and was pleased with the service.


 Jim Dwyer
 Bavarian Leprechaun
 Blarney delivered by IIgs, Spectrum 2.1 and Crock o' Gold 2.0
                    (PEACECHURCH, 10256, GO COM A2 FOR)


NEW FEATURES FOR COG?   A suggestion for the future update of COG...
""""""""""""""""""""
When a person adds a new Forum, have a script check to see if a Topic list
already exists. If it doesn't, then have COG automatically generate a Topic
list and save it in the appropriate place.



Jeff Carr

Cruising the 'rainbow' path provided by:
Spectrum v2.1 and Crock O' Gold v2.1

 First pull up - Then pull down.
                      (LUMITECH, 9903, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Oh my...
"""""
I just discovered that COG doesn't include the CC's when you Reply to an
email. This, IMHO, is a mistake. :/

As an Assistant Manager here on Delphi, I get a LOT of inter-Staff-related
Email, and not being able to automatically reply to everyone in the loop is
going to be a problem for me... maybe for many of us?

I found this out quite by accident when my Forum Manager asked me why I
didn't CC everyone on a recent reply to her inquiry. :)

Is there a workaround for this, or is someone working on an option to allow
COG to include everyone in the CC list? I'd fix it myself, but I don't know
enough about the scripts yet.

Thank you.



 Hugs, Goldfische
 Conference Manager, New Age Forum (go rel new)
 Web: {<http://www.delphi.com/newage> Newage}

 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Renew ...
 The Earth Belongs To Our Children

 Sent by Spectrum 2.1 & COG 2.1 for the AppleIIGS

---

 Brain damage?  No thanks, I already have some.
                     (GOLDFISCHE, 9977, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   The simplest workround is to build an Address Book entry with all
"""""   the names you want to send a copy of your reply to. Then use the
nickname when you reply! If you are dealing with a regular list of people,
then I would have expected you to have done this already!

To pick up all the names from a message header, then present a dialog
asking which of them you want to reply to, is going a bit far I think.

I use Eudora on the Mac for my main email, and even it will not reply to
all the people on the CC list, you have to build an Address Book entry...

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                      (EWANNOP, 9992, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Ewen:
"""""
While this would work for my Staff Reply problem (thanks for suggesting
it!) it's impractical for those emails I get from friends where the names
of all the participants changes from email to email.

I guess I've been lucky in that every single OLR I've ever used, (Rainbow
here) did this by default, so I'd just assumed that such was a given.
Evidently I'm wrong. :)

While I disagree that having COG do this would be going a bit far, I can
see why you wouldn't want to take on the massive project of adding that
feature. I'll just start using New instead of Reply.

Thanks anyway.



 Hugs, Goldfische
 Conference Manager, New Age Forum (go rel new)
 Web: {<http://www.delphi.com/newage> Newage}

 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Renew ...
 The Earth Belongs To Our Children

 Sent by Spectrum 2.1 & COG 2.1 for the AppleIIGS

---

 The careful application of terror is also a form of communication.
                     (GOLDFISCHE, 9996, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Eudora can't respond to all recipients? That would seem to be a
"""""   pretty basic function. Pine can do it. In fact, if Pine sees a CC
list when you reply it will ask if you want to reply to everyone or just
the sender. Similarly, if it sees a "Reply to" header it will ask if you
want to reply to the original sender or the "Reply to" or both.

I asked Ewen about this during the beta test, but he didn't think it was
necessary and that we could just use an address book. The problem is that
there are often times when I get a single piece of email with a unique CC
list that I would like to respond to. It's not practical to create an
address book entry for just one reply.

FWIW, CoPilot doesn't handle CC responses either.


 -----------------------------------------------------
 Tony Ward, A2 Database Manager
 [Delivered with Spectrum 2.1 and Crock O' Gold 2.1b19]
 --

 I'm in shape ... pear is a shape isn't it?
                      (TONYW1, 10004, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Delphi mail does not list the CC addressees. That is, if I send a
"""""   letter to you, with a CC to CHunk and to Harold, EACH of you will
get a letter with only your own address listed in the header.

(Someone asked the other day about blind CCs, and I THINK that that is the
default for the Delphi mail system.)

Don't count on that information without getting a confirmation from someone
in engineering, but I'm pretty sure of it anyway.

Gary R. Utter
                       (UTTER, 10011, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Ah well, I was going to say this, but it seems there is no point:
"""""
Then we need a volunteer to write a piece of script for COG that takes
selected text on screen, and parses it into a string of names separated by
spaces, so you can paste it into the reply address field!

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                      (EWANNOP, 10027, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   In message 'RE: Crock O' Gold (Re: Msg 9977)' UTTER said:
"""""
> Delphi mail does not list the CC addressees.

It does for me. There might be a user preference for this, but I couldn't
find anything.

> That is, if I send a letter to you, with a CC to CHunk and to Harold,
> EACH of you will get a letter with only your own address listed in the
> header.

Again, I find this not to be the case. In fact, I just ran a test by
sending email to a bunch of Delphi and internet addresses and each
recipient was able to see the entire CC list.


 -----------------------------------------------------
 Tony Ward, A2 Database Manager
 [Delivered with Spectrum 2.1 and Crock O' Gold 2.1b19]
 --

 A lawyer is one who writes a 30-page document and calls it a brief!
                      (TONYW1, 10048, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Dunno, it might depend on where you send it from, or they might
"""""   have fixed it. But at one point this was causing a considerable
problem because mail from "the high command" was being sent to multiple
recipients but they are not showing as being copied. (I would get a letter
whose salutation was "Dean," and which was clearly meant for Dean, but
which appeared to be addressed solely to me.)

There was a lot of stuff being forwarded, a lot of mail going back and
forth that was duplicated, etc.

Perhaps they fixed it. (I TOLD you not to count on what I said without
confirming it, remember?:)

Gary R. Utter
                       (UTTER, 10099, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   When I checked back in my Archive files, I found that the 'CC:'
"""""   field is included in a mail message, as a string of names separated
by commas. Just right for entering in the 'CC:' field when you reply.

With COG2, if you select 'New', then the 'CC:' field is filled in with the
correct string for you. With COG2.3 onwards, you will be asked if you want
to include that string for a 'Reply' as well...

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                      (EWANNOP, 10116, GO COM A2 FOR)


ANTICIPATION: WAITING FOR WOLF   Wolfenstein 3D for the Apple IIgs
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
System Requirements

Apple IIgs
4 MB RAM required
Hard disk required
Accelerator card recommended (8 MHz or higher preferred)

Wolfenstein 3D will not work with an AppleDesign keyboard installed in your
IIgs.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
                      (SHEPPY, 10055, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   You can ignore the warning about the AppleDesign keyboard.
"""""   Apparently it works fine; further testing shows no problems at all;
even Kirk's is working fine now.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
                      (SHEPPY, 10152, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Thanks to the hard working minions at F.E.Systems Software
"""""   Emulation Technologies, a fresh version of Bernie ][ The Rescue has
been released to those Apple IIgs fanatics who are chained to their Macs.
This release allows you to play Wolfenstein 3D for the Apple IIgs on any
Power Macintosh machine or its viable clones. Achtung baby!

http://www.magnet.ch/emutech/Download/

 {<http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/> }David K.
                     (DKERWOOD, 10273, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   Well, time to impact is much less than that now, but I wanted to
"""""   say that Sheppy sent me a pre-release copy for review yesterday,
and it is phenomenal. I thought the demo was pretty darn cool, but the full
version will blow you away (literally :-)

The new music/sound gives the game a distinct personality, and the art from
Clue (NinjaForce) is brilliantly done.

We owe Sheppy and his development team a debt of gratitude for their
continued work and dedication to the IIGS and for finishing up Wolf 3D with
such a flare.

A big moment in Apple II history is about to arrive. The official release
of Wolfenstein 3D for the IIGS. Wow!

And they said it couldn't be done .... :-)

Thanks to Sheppy and all involved. You guys are awesome!


 Max Jones, Juiced.GS
 http://users.ids.net/~kerwood/juiced.gs
 Delivered by Spectrum 2.1 and Crock O' Gold 2.2
                     (JUICEDGS, 10277, GO COM A2 FOR)


IT'S HERE!   Impact.
""""""""""
Get Wolf at http://www.sheppyware.ml.org/software/wolf3d_gs/

Are you psyched yet?

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
                      (SHEPPY, 10279, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   By the way, the Wolfenstein 3D Scenario Converter, for converting
"""""   scenarios from the Mac to the IIgs, is now available as well at the
same Web site: http://www.sheppyware.ml.org.

The game and the Scenario Converter will be available for download on
Delphi on Saturday afternoon (Pacific Standard Time).

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
                      (SHEPPY, 10280, GO COM A2 FOR)

>>>>>   I d/l'ed this incredible masterpiece, and it is everything Sheppy
"""""   said it would be and more, it is fantastic, stupendous...;-)


APPLE II FOREVER!



cknaff --- Calvin

       ***** Spectrum v2.1  & Crock.O.Gold v2.1 *****
                      (CKNAFF, 10284, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   By the way, there is one known bug of significance in the game:
"""""
The knife weapon does not draw quite right. There's a little vertical line
at the right edge of the weapon that shouldn't be there. This is known and
cannot currently be fixed (I don't have the source code for the part of the
game that draws the weapons). I'm hoping to fix it eventually, but I can't
promise anything.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
Macintosh & PowerPC Programmers Forum
                      (SHEPPY, 10318, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   Crashing when you quit Wolf 3D is caused by a GS/OS bug that was
"""""   discovered last week. There's a new version of Wolf 3D coming soon
that works around this GS/OS bug to eliminate the problem.

I'm not sure what could be causing your other problems.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
Macintosh & PowerPC Programmers Forum
                      (SHEPPY, 10453, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   If you have a Wolf 3D scenario you've converted from the Mac to the
"""""   IIgs, you can submit it to be included on the official Wolf 3D IIgs
Web site!

Just make sure the scenario works, and be sure the scenario picture for the
menu has been customized as described in the documentation for the Scenario
Converter program, then email a copy of the scenario to
wolfsubmit@sheppyware.ml.org.

I'll review the file to be sure it works, then put it on the Web site for
all to enjoy!

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
                      (SHEPPY, 10458, GO COM A2 FOR)



                              PUBLIC POSTINGS
                              """""""""""""""

KFEST INFO BY EMAIL
"""""""""""""""""""
 ______      _____
(      )   (      )     ____________________________________________
 |     |  /     /      (        _____________________________'98____)
 |     | /     /        |      |
 |     |/     /         |      |                         II Infinitum!!
 |           /          |      |______
 |     |\     \         |      _______) __________    ________   _________
 |     | \     \        |      |       (     _____)  (     ___) (__     __)
 |     |  \     \       |      |        |   |__       \    \       |   |
 |     |   \     \      |      |        |    __)       \    \      |   |
 |     |    \      \    |      |        |   |_____   ___\    \     |   |
(______)    (________) (_______)       (__________) (_________)    |___|


JOIN THE KFEST '98 MAILING LIST!


Join the KFest mailing list for the most up-to-date information on the
Apple II event of the year.  KFest '98 will again be held on the campus of
Avila College in Kansas City, Missouri. It will take place from July 22 -
July 26, 1998.  If you register before April 15, 1998, the cost is only
$265, which -includes the use of a double room in the Avila College dorms
-and- meals!  There are also a limited number of single rooms available for
$365.  (If you wish to stay at one of the many hotels or motels near the
college then the cost is $165, but you would, of course, have to find and
pay for your own room and meals.)  But act now--prices go up on April 15,
1998.


Check-in will be on Wednesday from 1-4 pm, and check-out from 11 am - 1 pm
on Sunday. Computer sessions will be conducted on Thursday and Friday.

A vendor fair is scheduled for Saturday morning, with software and hardware
demos slated for Saturday afternoon.

To subscribe to the KansasFest Information Mailing List, send email to
majordomo@trenco.gno.org.  In the BODY of the message, place the following
text:

                subscribe kfest

You will receive a confirmation email.  In order to be signed up for the
list, you will have to respond to this confirmation as the instructions
dictate.  You will then be sent a welcome message, including instructions
on how to send mail to the list.

If you have other questions about KFest, or wish to make suggestions, you
can find answers via the InterNet. Just send an email message to
kfest@intrec.com or kfest-help@trenco.gno.org, or visit the World Wide Web
page at http://www.primenet.com/~adams/kfest.html
                     (JUICEDGS, 10428, GO COM A2 FOR)


DIVEMASTER: LORD OF THE (WEB) RINGS   Official Announcement....
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The Mother of All Apple II WebRings is now in service!

The main mission of A2-Web is to serve as the primary resource for anyone
looking for Apple II products, information, and support on the World Wide
Web.

To that end, I've inaugurated a new service of A2-Web which will further
this mission in a big way. The Apple II WebRing is now in place, and the
Ring has been officially recognized by www.webring.org as a legitimate web
ring!

Joining the ring is as easy as filling out a simple form and dropping in
some code that I've made available on the WebRing page, at this url:

    http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/a2webring.html

What is a WebRing, you ask? The Apple II WebRing provides a higher level of
organization to the multitude of Apple II sites on the World Wide Web, a
level above what is offered on A2-Web. The Apple II WebRing is a way to
group together these sites with similar content by linking them together in
a circle, or ring.

How does it work?

The idea is that once you are at one site in the Apple II WebRing, you can
click on a "Next" or "Previous" link to go to adjacent sites in the ring
and--if you do it long enough--end up where you started. Right now the
Apple II WebRing is just getting started, so there aren't that many sites
on the ring. Yet. That will change as time goes on and the word gets out.

If you have a web page that you think belongs in the Apple II WebRing, then
your task is relatively easy. All you have to do is insert an HTML code
snippet on your page, and fill out a simple form. There is no other
maintenance required on your part. When you join the Apple II WebRing, the
HTML code on your homepage never changes. Links point to a special CGI
script at WebRing.org that will send people to the next (or previous) site
in the ring. Because the central ring database is located in one location,
sites can be added and removed quickly and easily, and because the WebRing
CGI allows you go continue past sites that are unreachable, you will always
be able to continue around the loop.

The Apple II WebRing will do quite a few tricks, actually. People can
travel a ring in either direction, either jumping to (or skipping) the next
site or previous site, list the next five sites in the ring or jump to a
random site in the ring. One of the most powerful capabilities the Apple II
WebRing gives the user is the ability to instantly get a list of all pages
in the loop. In other words, giving the user a one-stop-shop to find every
Apple II page that has joined the Apple II WebRing.

Welcome to the Ring!

 {<http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/> }David K.
                     (DKERWOOD, 10264, GO COM A2 FOR)

<<<<<   The Mother of All Apple II WebRings now has ten sites in the ring!
"""""   Here they are:


A2-Web
A2-Web is the self-proclaimed Mother of all Apple II web sites, with links
to Apple II support on the web worldwide!

Marinetti Home Page
TCP/IP for the Apple IIgs.

Charles Hartley's Apple II Software Download Page
This site contains downloadable Apple II software and related materials.

The AppleWorks Gazette
The AppleWorks Gazette is here to help the promise once made by Apple
Computer Corp., but since forgotten by them: Apple ][ forever!

The Apple II Programmers Forum on Delphi
The A2 Pro Forum on Delphi is the center of the Apple II Programmers
Universe.

The Rhode Island Apple Group Home Page
The Rhode Island Apple Group (RIAG) is the Ocean State's premier support
organization for users of ALL Apple and Apple OS computers.

The A2 Forum on Delphi
The A2 Forum on Delphi is the center of the Apple II User Community Online
Universe.

Trenco Apple II FTP Archive
This is an ftp server for Apple II programs, data, and information.

The GNO Consortium
Host site for GNO documentation, the GNO FAQ, and other GNO-related
documentation. GNO is UNIX for the Apple IIgs.

Applebyters of the Quad Cities
The homepage for the Applebyters of the Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois).
Includes club information, sample newsletters, and relevant links.

 {<http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/a2webring.html> Join the Apple II Web
Ring!}
David K.
                     (DKERWOOD, 10532, GO COM A2 FOR)


DELPHI'S A2 WEB PAGE: THE NEXT GENERATION   The Delphi A2 web site has
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   entered its second generation,
with fresh code, new articles, more files added to the Best of A2, an
improved appearance in all browsers (including Lynx!), and much more. The
lead article is on Don Zahniser's excellent Off-line Reader package for
ANSITerm, OLRight!. Our own Pat Kern (PATZ_PIX) now has her own web page on
Graphics and Sounds (what else? :), the KansasFest '97 Scrapbook is HUGE,
and the site is now part of the Apple II Web Ring!

http://www.delphi.com/apple2/

 {<http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/a2webring.html> Join the Apple II Web
Ring!}
David K.
                     (DKERWOOD, 10335, GO COM A2 FOR)


SSII AND ALLTECH: TAKING WINNING SIRIUS-LY   Shareware Solutions II, in
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   association with Alltech
Electronics, is pleased to announce that one very lucky subscriber to the
Shareware Solutions II newsletter has been chosen in a random drawing to
receive a brand new Sirius II RAM card, fully populated with 8 Megabytes of
RAM.

And, the winner is <insert drum roll here>...

Harriet Hoxie of Quincy, MA.

Ms Hoxie has been a subscriber to Shareware Solutions II since 1995.

Thank you Harriet for your ongoing support of Shareware Solutions II.

 Joe Kohn - Publisher,  Shareware Solutions II
 http://www.crl.com/~joko
                     (JOE_KOHN, 10448, GO COM A2 FOR)



                             BEST OF THE BEST
                             """"""""""""""""

10390 18-FEB 14:42 User Groups & Publications
     RE: Shareware Solutions II (Re: Msg 442)
     From: JOE_KOHN     To: JOE_KOHN


After I posted that I'd announce the winner today of the Sirius II RAM
card, I received the latest issue of The Apple Blossom. After reading that
Steve Cavanaugh planned to produce only two more issues, I got more than a
little depressed and decided to turn my computer off and get some fresh air
instead.

Fortunately for me, attending an astronomy lecture given by a NASA
scientist always perks me up, so that's what I did instead of printing out
the names of potential winners.

That said...I just explained to Shiva that the entire Apple II world was
waiting for the results of the random drawing, and she won't let you down.
So, I _will_ post the name of the winner on Thursday.

As far as TAB, I was caught completely off-guard by the announcement. I
truly believed that the companies still involved with producing Apple II
products were, by this point, "in for the long haul."

In his announcement, Steve said that the future of HyperQuarterly was not
yet decided, but that he would fulfill his obligations to mail out the two
remaining issues of HQ's Volume 1 to all subscribers. So, I'd like to take
this opportunity to encourage all of you with an interest in HyperCard to
subscribe to HQ.

If you are hesitant, Steve does have an offer to send you one issue (I
don't remember the price offhand) as a Preview, of sorts. If you like it,
then you can get the other issues.

I'll be honest with you...I think HyperQuarterly is wonderful, and I've
enjoyed the first two issues and I'd really like to see it published for
years to come. In order for that to happen, it's apparent that Steve needs
some encouragement. And, as 'they' say, "money talks."

Please think about signing up for HyperQuarterly. If you like HyperCard,
you won't be sorry, as HQ is a wonderfully creative publication that'll
make you even happier that you use a IIGS.

Support those who support the Apple II.

 Joe Kohn, Shareware Solutions II
 http://www.crl.com/~joko



[EOA]
[A2P]------------------------------
                   A2_ProDUCTIVITY |
-----------------------------------
Checking out A2PRO on Delphi
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
by Ryan M. Suenaga, B.A., M.S.W., L.S.W.
                    [thelamp@delphi.com]


LICENSING BYTEWORKS LANGUAGES?   On a related topic, have you ever
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   considered licensing ORCA/C to run on a
non-IIGs '816?  Or perhaps of more commercial interest, an 8-bit version of
ORCA/C to run on 65c02s?  I'm thinking about the embedded systems market.

Devin
                    (GLYNREADE, 1384, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   If you mean cross compilers, I've already done one. There is a
"""""   version of ORCA/C that runs under MPW. Creating one that would run
under Windows is possible, but I don't see a big enough market to justify
the time. (Correct me if I'm wrong. I would want to see $30,000-$50,000 in
sales to make it worth the time. It could be done under contract for less,
but who has that kind of money and needs this kind of product?)

As far as a 65c02 version, it's not likely. Creating compiled code for the
c02 is just a nightmare; it doesn't have enough RAM to run the typical
compiled program. And the cost of development for a decent system would be
astronomical compared to the cost of porting ORCA/C to the Windows
platform, so the expected return would have to be higher, too.

Mike Westerfield
                    (BYTEWORKS, 1393, GO COM A2PRO FOR)


WHAT A2PRO WANTS AT KFEST   Reading and taking notes at a frantic pace!
"""""""""""""""""""""""""   However, a little late letting everyone know
I'm taking this all in:(  Somewhere "upstream" - msg 1337 to be specific,
I've already nabbed Ewen and designated him as the "First Confirmed [KFest
'98] Presenter"!

Nathan, Geoff, and Mike are "on the list" and we'll try to work out some
fantastic sessions for this year's 'Fest. What would help best is
everyone's input on what they'd really like to see this year. Mike has
already mentioned a HyperLogo session - if there is enough interest.

Tom C. has the right approach! Last year and this year he was the FIRST to
mention what he'd like to see. (Thanks Tom - that's the input we want!).
While we can't guarantee any specific session right now there are still
many talented, knowledgeable programmers that can take on any suggestion we
can put forth! At the bare minimum, posting your interests here will help
you inform the programmers that attend.

Although I've probably missed something, there is one more thing for now.
This is more of a KFest thing than a BASIC Programming thing. So...
shouldn't we move this to the "Programmers' Lounge" under the "KansasFest
1997" area (rep 7)? (Or better, start a KFest '98 subject?).

BTW, Thanks to all for helping us get KFest '98 started with such a "bang"!
With your help, I'll try to make this year's schedule the best ever,

  Godzilla
                     (STEVE_G, 1386, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   You can entitle that 'First steps in Spectrum Scripting' and
"""""   subtitle it 'Spectrum scripting for Dummies', or even 'how to get
Cindy to write Son of SIS in five minutes!' :)

I see a slight trend emerging here with what I propose to do and what Mike
may be doing. Put that in conjunction with the significance of the tenth
K'Fest, and perhaps we have a trend to 'Get back to Basics'. Pun
intended...

From the very start of Spectrum scripting, we tried to keep in mind that
anyone could write their own scripts. Just as in my early days of using a
][, everyone wrote their own Basic programs. There has been a lack of
general involvement in such things in recent years, yet the tools have got
more powerful.

GSBasic will be the ultimate on simple programming of the IIgs, and if we
can get people to do it themselves, we should have a rash of new
applications! In a similar way, we have seen SIS and COG written for
Spectrum, but those were done by programmers whose time can also be spent
at assemblers. We should see things like this from the fingers of ordinary
users...

So to sum up what I am saying is that I think K'Fest 98 is a chance to get
people back to doing things for themselves. It may be the only way they can
keep their IIgs and //es working in the new communications age we find
ourselves!

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                     (EWANNOP, 1387, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   Here is my 2 cents on the subject of K Fest 98
"""""
1. Class on scripting
2. class on scripting as relates to telecommunication programs
3. class on Hypercard. Due to the bridge to other platforms

Would like to see intermediate and advanced but after one another so could
go to both.

4. GSbasic if available for distribution.

I'll try to come up with others.

Allen Moore
Going to KFest98
Not on my love ---AppleGS
                     (AMOORE, 1397, GO COM A2PRO FOR)


IIGS WEB BROWSER BROODING   The two main stumbling blocks are screen
"""""""""""""""""""""""""   resolution and processor speed.

The stock GS simply doesn't have the resolution necessary to display most
web pages. I suppose you could convert all the images down to what the GS
can display, but that brings up point two...

If you have ever viewed GIFs on the GS you know how long it takes to
display them. JPEGs are even worse. Combine this image conversion with the
HTML processing and the GS, even accelerated, is simply out of its league.

Point one can be solved by using the Second Sight card, but that would
severely limit the market and it would still be slow.

I would guess that the average web page with limited graphics would take at
least 5 minutes to render on an accelerated GS. Add some bigger pictures,
especially JPEGs, and you could go have dinner and see a movie while the GS
is chugging away. And those graphic-intensive pages with dozens of large
JPEGs might take overnight. That's simply not acceptable.


 -----------------------------------------------------
 Tony Ward, A2 Database Manager
 [Delivered with Spectrum 2.1 and Crock O' Gold 2.1b19]
 --

 Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.
                     (TONYW1, 1400, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I would also add color depth as a stumbling block for displaying
"""""   graphics "as it was meant to look" on a stock GS. a 16 color fixed
640 mode dithered super-hires graphics just can't produce graphics exactly
as what the original look like. Take a look at Super Convert 4.0 and it
takes forever for the graphic conversion to take place.

As Tony mentioned, the second sight video card will be the only option to
provide the fastest possible decompression of images with the best possible
display. If I recall correctly, a 640x400 JPEG can be uncompressed as
quickly as 40 seconds on an accelerated GS as viewed on a Second Sight card
(with highly optimized decompression routines). This doesn't consider the
page layout work needed to put the graphics in the appropriate location for
the web page. Also, considering there are no X or Quickdraw tools for the
Second Sight, you will have to write your own font, window, cursor,
drawing, etc. routines.

IMO, since SIS is available, it is not worth reinventing the wheel for
features which would take several years to implement. If you are really
interested in writing a graphics Browser, take a look at the source code
for Mosaic 2.x which is freely available and see what it would take to port
to the IIgs. I would also suggest looking at the source for Lynx to
implement features which never made it to Mosaic such as Cookies, extended
Netscape extensions to tags, and HTTP 1.1 compliancies.

Geoff
                    (SISGEOFF, 1401, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I admit that I've never written the code to convert GIF or JPEG
"""""   images on the GS, but I have written a fair amount of
code--including code to convert TIFF on the GS. I tend to bite (byte?) off
more than I should at times, too, but I personally think it is realistic to
download and display _reasonable_ resolution on the Apple IIGS in real
time.

Let me define reasonable.

I don't mean downloading huge, beautiful 24 bit images, converting them to
dithered 256 (or even 16) color images, and displaying the full-size
result. What would seem reasonable to me is downloading the original
images, scaling them quickly to something that would fit on an Apple IIGS
screen, and displaying them in grayscale. The actual full-resolution images
could be saved to disk for later processing.

Yes, it's limited. Yes, it would be slow for some sites--but so is my
200MHz 604e.

As for background processing, I have to disagree flatly with a couple of
comments I've seen here. I don't claim it's easy, nor always useful, but it
could be useful in a significant number of cases.

First, while any GS browser will spend tons more time processing
information for display compared to download time than a fast Mac, with my
ISP, I can promise it will have dead time. Maybe that isn't true in your
area, but it sure is here. That dead time can be used to process display
images. Should it be? That's a design decision for the person doing the
programming.

Second, I contribute a lot of dead time, too. When I'm flipping from page
to page, no browser keeps up with me. But right at this moment almost any
browser could keep up. Computers still process information faster than I
type (or read). :)

Like most of you, I know it's flat out impossible to display the typical
wide, colorful, graphical web page on a stock Apple IIGS. It's unreasonable
to display color at all, and the color wouldn't look good anyway. But I
really don't see why a grayscale browser with scaled pictures isn't
possible.

Whether that would be a significant enough improvement compared to the work
involved is, of course, another issue.

Mike Westerfield
                    (BYTEWORKS, 1416, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   There are plenty of things that can be done on the GS *other* than
"""""   cloning the latest hot program for other platform XYZ. [There's a
lot of games 5-10 years old that are perfectly doable] While it's
occasionally good to go attempt something that's never been done before,
it's also much better to have a clue and a plan. And when the "plan"
includes a fair amount of buzzwords and not enough facts, then you get real
suspicious.

   It'd be much better for everyone if *specific* questions were asked
(such as "how do I handle extended keyboard "How does the bank 01 screen
work, and why bother?" "What's a handle and a refnum?"). Those can be
answered with specific, concrete answers, and show that the person asking
is actually implementing things, rather than just randomly daydreaming.

   Daydreams are nice, but you gotta turn those into code eventually if
you're going to do more than produce vaporware. So daydream, but then turn
it into real code (and questions) before saying what's doable.

Nathan Mates
                     (NMATES, 1421, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   Nathan says it all.
"""""
In my opinion, there are only three people on the IIGS who were able to
make a browser that handles GIF pictures.

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that now we have TCP/IP but no
programs using it. It all sounds like when the second Sight card was
introduced, which could be nice if we had 20 programming groups who
supported it. Right now, the same goes for TCP/IP. Ok, there are some
people who seem to be working on ports of newsreaders, chat programs and so
on, but they just port. This means that the final programs will be slow and
huge, like everything ported from Unix/Linux etc.

The only thing that is actually THERE is SIS. I don't know the program, the
only thing I could imagine that COULD be done would be to be able to create
plugins for SIS that handle graphic data (don't know if that is possible).

What do you think?

Jesse Blue / Ninjaforce

Check out our upcoming Apple IIGS game at:
http://www.igd.fhg.de/~girschik/nfc
                    (JESSEBLUE, 1434, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   There are very few released programs that use it. Marinetti 1.0 has
"""""   a number of bugs which hinder development of large projects.

> like when the second Sight card was introduced,

The second sight is also pretty buggy, but unlike Marinetti, it has no
support from its manufacturer.

> Ok, there are some people who seem  to be working on ports of
> newsreaders, chat programs and so on, but they just port.

All of my "ported" code is 100% assembly with no similarity to the C code
which I used only as a reference. Marinetti doesn't have a socket interface
which is found in UNIX so you have to write the TCP/IP code much
differently. The problem with my FTP client is how to best optimize the
code which is still in an experimental cycle--it works, but not optimized.
Fortunately, I have about 5 months before I have to figure out the best
optimizations since that may be part of a session at KFest this year.

> This means that the final programs will be slow and huge, like everything
> ported from Unix/Linux etc.

This would be a potential problem with GNO based GS/TCP apps.

> The only thing that is actually THERE is SIS. I don't know the program,
> the only thing I could imagine that COULD be done would be to be able to
> create plugins for SIS that handle graphic data (don't know if that is
> possible).

SIS would need heavy modifications to support "plugins", not mentioning
that TCP/IP would be _required_ for downloading GIFS, WAVs, etc... As soon
as Marinetti works well enough for a large scale project such as a Web
Browser, I can take a look to see what it takes to implement a plug-in
interface. Yes, I am interested in writing a plug-in interface, but will
anybody write plug-ins for it? I see SIS needing a bunch of other
improvements before a plug-in interface can be considered.

Geoff
                    (SISGEOFF, 1442, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   The others replied before I could get a chance to, but all the work
"""""   I'm aware of in regard to Marinetti (and there is quite a lot going
on, believe it or not) is written from scratch, specifically for Marinetti.

And with the new version just around the corner, addressing most of the
problems with the first version, I'm happy to say we should have the very
first big apps coming real soon now.

As for bloated and slow, that's up to the programmer, but I have gone out
of my way to make sure Marinetti conducive to simply porting UNIX source
code. The various Marinetti apps WILL be Apple IIGS specific applications.

I agree however that there has been less developed for Marinetti than I'd
wished. I thinks more a case of too little too late, and I blame that
specifically on one person...

Regards,
 Richard
                    (RICHARD_B, 1444, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   Within a week of Marinetti being released to the public, I posted
"""""   the TopCat XCMD, so that Spectrum has been supporting it ever
since...

But I know that TCP/IP is not going to be the same as the SecondSight card,
as you do not need to install hardware and buy a new display to use it!
Anyone can use it... There are numerous small utilities in the pipeline,
and major ones being planned. Marinetti is the corner stone for the future
survival of the IIgs in this information rich age...

 Ewen Wannop - Speccie
 Message delivered by Crock O' Gold 2.1 and Marinetti TCP/IP!
 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ewannop/
                     (EWANNOP, 1449, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I still think that the best option for showing graphics on a IIgs
"""""   web browser would be an NDA that viewed .GIF and .JPG after they
were downloaded.  SIS already shows icons where graphics are supposed to
be.

Ryan
KFest '98 registration happening now!
Delivered by OLRight! scripts for ANSITerm
                    (RSUENAGA, 1460, GO COM A2PRO FOR)


DEBUGGING GS/OS   I'm getting back into debugging the GS/OS boottime code,
"""""""""""""""   and finding lotsa quirks. [And finding that NL and GSBug
are woefully inadequate when you can't get to NL to do memory searching at
boottime, even though I know it's loaded... grrr. Time for me to write
something RIGHT, but I need a name for the thing. Any suggestions?]

   Basically, sometime after Segfaulter, one of my debugging tools is
loaded, memory is trashed around $30/5564. A bit of tracing, and it looks
like 00/D4xx mostly refers to it, with it creating the pointer to DP:88 at
00/D469. First, anyone have a map to GS/OS or a plan of what's supposed to
be there? This is bankswitched ram, so I can't guarantee easily that I can
insert a breakpt in that area. Suggestions, comments, etc?

   Also, if a thread wants to be spun off from here of features you think
should be in a debugger, go for it. [And if someone knows where the ROM
keeps the tables of opcode types, lengths, etc to help in building a
disassembler without me typing in lotsa tables, speak up :]

Nathan "I break everything" Mates
                     (NMATES, 1432, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I typed in a table for use in my Debugger for the Ninjaforce
"""""   Assembler. I can look it up and send you the source, if you want. I
believe that I've typed in the names, too, but I'm not sure.

Jesse Blue / Ninjaforce

Check out our upcoming IIGS game at:
http://www.igd.fhg.de/~girschik/nfc
                    (JESSEBLUE, 1435, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I'm not sure where in ROM the table resides, but here are some
"""""   firmware entry points that you can look at or use:

$F88C  INSDS1.2   Perform LDA (PCL,X); then fall into INSDS2
$F88E  INSDS2     Calculate length of 6502 instruction
$F890  GET816LEN  Calculate length of 65C816 instruction
$F8D0  INSTDSP    Display disassembled instruction

These are all 8 bit firmware entry points but you can also access them
using the Miscellaneous Tools FWENTRY call.

This info is from the Apple IIgs Firmware Reference Appendix C.  The
firmware entry points I described above start on page 229.

They can also be found in Inside the Apple IIgs by Gary Bond starting on
page 123 which is where I originally discovered them.


 Jeff Blakeney
 sent using Spectrum 2.1, Crock O' Gold 2.0 and Marinetti!
                    (JBLAKENEY, 1440, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   Here is the disassembler data tables.
"""""
dis_lens length of operand, for index in this table use command byte
dis_comps offset into dis_coms table: (figure-1)*3 = offset
 for index in this table use command byte
dis_opcs operand type specs
 for index in this table use command byte
dis_opc_tb search op.type.spec in this table. the index can then
 be used to print
 operand prefix with dis_opc_htb
 operand suffix with dis_opc_etb

btw.: dfb = define byte
 dw = define word
 asc = ascii data
 ; = comment
 msb on/off used for asc pseudo-op

------------------------------------------------------------

dis_lens dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 3,2,4,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 1,2,2,2,3,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,3,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,4,3,3,4
 dfb 1,2,3,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,3,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,3,3,4
 dfb 2,2,2,2,3,2,2,2,1,3,1,1,3,3,3,4

; Meaning: (space) implied
; # direct
; $ dp, abs, long
; r rel, longrel
; ( (dp) (abs)
; 1 (dp,x) (abs,x)
; 2 (dp),y
; [ [dp]
; ] [dp],y
; d (dp,s),y
; x dp,x abs,x long,x
; y dp,y abs,y
; s dp,s

msb off
dis_opc_tb asc " #$r(12[]dxys%" ;14 Z.
dis_opc_htb dw do0,do3,do0,do0,do1,do1,do1,do2,do2,do1,do0,do0,do0,do3
dis_opc_etb dw do0,do0,do0,do0,do4,do5,do6,do7,do8,do9,doa,dob,doc,do0

msb on
do1 dfb "("+128
do0 dfb 0
do2 dfb "["+128,0
do3 dfb "#"+128,0
do4 dfb ")"+128,0
do5 asc ",X)"
 dfb 0
do6 asc "),Y"
 dfb 0
do7 asc "]"
 dfb 0
do8 asc "],Y"
 dfb 0
do9 asc ",S),Y"
 dfb 0
doa asc ",X"
 dfb 0
dob asc ",Y"
 dfb 0
doc asc ",S"
 dfb 0
 msb off

dis_opcs asc "$1$s$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(d$xx] y $xxx"
 asc "$1$s$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(dxxx] y xxxx"
 asc " 1$s$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(d$xx] y $xxx"
 asc " 1$s$$$[ # ($$$"
 asc "r2(dxxx] y 1xxx"
 asc "r1rs$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(dxxy] y $xxx"
 asc "%1%s$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(dxxy] y xxyx"
 asc "%1$s$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(d$xx] y (xxx"
 asc "%1$s$$$[ # $$$$"
 asc "r2(d$xx] y 1xxx"

msb on
dis_coms ASC "ADCANDASLBCCBCSBEQBITBMIBNEBPLBRABRLBRKBVC"
 ASC "BVSCLCCLDCLICLVCMPCOPCPXCPYDECDEXDEYEORINC"
 ASC "INXINYJMPJSLJSRLDALDXLDYLSRMVNMVPNOPORAPEA"
 ASC "PEIPERPHAPHBPHDPHKPHPPHXPHYPLAPLBPLDPLPPLX"
 ASC "PLYREPROLRORRTIRTLRTSSBCSECSEDSEISEPSTASTP"
 ASC "STXSTYSTZTAXTAYTCDTCSTDCTRBTSBTSCTSXTXATXS"
 ASC "TXYTYATYXWAIXBAXCEWDM"
 msb off

dis_comps dfb 13,41,21,41,80,41,3,41,49,41,3,47,80,41,3,41
 dfb 10,41,41,41,79,41,3,41,16,41,28,77,79,41,3,41
 dfb 33,2,32,2,7,2,59,2,55,2,59,54,7,2,59,2
 dfb 8,2,2,2,7,2,59,2,65,2,24,81,7,2,59,2
 dfb 61,27,91,27,39,27,37,27,45,27,37,48,31,27,37,27
 dfb 14,27,27,27,38,27,37,27,18,27,51,76,31,27,37,27
 dfb 63,1,44,1,73,1,60,1,52,1,60,62,31,1,60,1
 dfb 15,1,1,1,73,1,60,1,67,1,57,78,31,1,60,1
 dfb 11,69,12,69,72,69,71,69,26,7,83,46,72,69,71,69
 dfb 4,69,69,69,72,69,71,69,86,69,84,85,73,69,73,69
 dfb 36,34,35,34,36,34,35,34,75,34,74,53,36,34,35,34
 dfb 5,34,34,34,36,34,35,34,19,34,82,87,36,34,35,34
 dfb 23,20,58,20,23,20,24,20,30,20,25,88,23,20,24,20
 dfb 9,20,20,20,43,20,24,20,17,20,50,70,31,20,24,20
 dfb 22,64,68,64,22,64,28,64,29,64,40,89,22,64,28,64
 dfb 6,64,64,64,42,64,28,64,66,64,56,90,33,64,28,64
                    (JESSEBLUE, 1474, GO COM A2PRO FOR)


ANIMATING THE IIGS FOR BEGINNERS   Does anyone have any suggestions where
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   to start learning to program animations
on the IIGS SHR? Maybe a book or two or some magazine articles?

My experience is with text displays, using ORCA C or TML Pascal on the IIGS
or REXX in a TSO environment on IBM mainframes but I am currently teaching
myself assembly and would like to add simple animations to the desktop
program I am currently converting from text.

I understand the concept of draw/erase/redraw etc. but having been in text
environments for years I need some background material to peruse.

Any suggestions are welcome, as I am starting practically from scratch.
Source examples would be very helpful if there are any available, but I am
firstly interested in the concepts, especially animating small figures on
complex backgrounds.

Thanks,
HABANERO
                    (HABANERO, 1437, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   Having recently done a game title for the GS (Turkeyshoot, blatant
"""""   plug :), I think I can answer a few questions on this subject.
[Keep questions to the forum when possible, please, I bet others would like
to hear as much as possible]

   First, the basics on the SHR Screen. First off, it's primarily in bank
E1 (more on that later), starting at $2000. You have 200 rows at 160 bytes
per row, filling memory until $9D00. [Rows are in linear order, unlike the
Hires screen] $9D00-$9DC8 are the 'SCBs', scanline control bytes. Those
control what mode each line is in. Bit 7 ($80) controls mode: 1 is 640
mode, 0 320 mode. Bit 6 is interrupts (1=on), 5 is fillmode (1=on),
4=reserved (off), and 0-3 are the palette #.

   From $9E00 to $9FFF are 16 palettes of 16 words each. Palette 0 is at
$9E00, palette 1 is at $9E20, etc. Offset +0 in the palette is color 0 for
that, in $0rgb format. [65816 byte order will flip bits around in memory so
it'll look backwards-- 9E00: 48 0E is red=14, g=4, b=8. However, if using
words in assembler or C, go with the $0rgb format]

   I've got the above in slightly more detail at
http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/gff/shires.txt if you want to print it out.

   Once you've got an idea of how things act, you need to program things to
act that way. First, unless you're doing some kind of a NDA or purely in a
window code (can be a lotta headaches, and kinda not recommended for
anything wanting fast action), your graphics code should probably be purely
in assembly. Sorry, but C is just too slow for most of this kind of things.
On the other hand, you can use C (or Pascal, I guess) to tweak your
algorithm,  and recode to asm once you're sure that you're going to use
that. [Being bullheaded and/or damn sure of myself, I always start in asm
:]

   One of the first things I'd recommend doing in any language is to
generate a lookup table of where each row starts on screen. [Multiplying
row # *160 is going to be too slow. Generate an array of word offsets in
your code (such as $2000, $20A0, ...), probably during the startup code.]
Use that table to get the starting location of a shape on screen, and when
going up or down 1 row, add 160 ($A0) to the base location.

   Next, be prepared for a lot of headaches figuring out where everything
is onscreen. Because the GS is 4 bits (1 nibble) per pixel, there's a 2:1
relationship between pixels and bytes. (And 4:1 on pixels:words). Unless
you want to do a lot of slow shifting or doubled data, you're going to want
to do all drawing at the byte level. If that's done, keep everything in
byte offsets internally, or you'll run into a LOT of oddball bugs. [Been
there, done that, pulled the hair out over]

   And after at least 40 lines of introductory stuff, how to actually draw
stuff against backgrounds. There are 2 main approaches on this-- first is
to have your draw code save off the background, and restore it on erasing,
and the other is to have the background redrawable in sections to forcibly
erase the shapes off. Both have some merits, and I'm going to leave it up
to you which to do.

   If the shape is rectangular and opaque agains the background, a straight
copycan be quickly coded. Here's a quick example (not the most efficient,
but fairly straightforward) of a blitter in orca/m syntax:

Blitter start
* On entry, Y=address of shape in current bank, X=# bytes per row to copy
* A=# rows high to copy, and 1,s is screen address to copy to. Stack
* cleaned up before exit.

 sta OnRow
 stx NumBytes
 txa  ;calculate offset from end of shape to start of next on screen
 eor #-1
 inc a
 clc
 adc #160 ;We just calculated 160-A without having to use any temp varbs
 sta RowDelta+1
 lda 1,s ; address on screen
 tax
DrawRow anop
 lda NumBytes
 sta CurBytes
 shortm
CopyIt lda |0,y ;get byte from shape
 sta >$e10000,x
 iny
 inx
 dec CurBytes
 bpl CopyIt
 longm
 txa ;Adjust screen location to be one row down from start
 clc
RowDelta adc #0  ;selfmodded from amove
 tax
 dec OnRow
 bpl DrawRow
 pla ;clean up stack before exiting
 plx
 pha
 rts

CurBytes ds 2
NumBytes ds 2
OnRow ds 2

 end

   Although the above code should work (coded off the top of my head, GS
not handy to check), it's not the most efficient. Copying words at a time
would be more efficient, as well as partially unrolling the loop if the
shape width is fixed in advance. Further, this code assumes the shape
definition in memory is pointed to by the Y-reg and in the current bank
(B-reg tricks would break the local varbs), and the shape def does not
cross banks. If you've got a relatively small number of shapes, those
limitations may be fine for you.

   The more serious limitations of the above code are (1) that it doesn't
allow unerasing things (you could modify it to copy memory off to a backup
of the screen first, then a restore function to copy back), and (2) it
doesn't allow any 'transparent' areas of the shape. If your background was
a solid color, that'd be easy to account for, but that's not what you state
above.

   Transparency is handled fairly easily with the concept of a 'mask', or
which bits are on. Say for example you want the screen word to end up like
'x67x' where x is the original nibbles (pixels). What you need to do is
read the screen word, AND it with $F00F, and then OR it with $0670 before
writing it to screen memory. That'll preserve the end nibbles, but stuff
new values into the middle two. That doubles the amount of memory each
shape takes up, but it'll work fine. [Tip: if you store the mask right
after the shape and pass in the byte size of the shape, you could modify
the CopyIt loop above to look something like this:

CopyIt lda >$e10000,x
 and |$80,y ; self-modded in to be the constant offset to mask from shape
 ora |$00,y
 sta >$e10000

  [Where the above example shows the shape definition of 128 bytes long]

   The above examples assume the SHR screen in bank E1. You're supposed to
use a few Apple calls to figure out where the screen is, but that's pretty
darn unlikely to change anytime soon. For slightly faster animation with
less flicker, there's the concept of the SHR 'shadow' screen for fun stuff,
but that's for another a2p posting. [Bad storm of packet lossage and don't
wanna lose this post]

   This'll eventually go up on my web site, and might be the basis of a
kfest talk if demanded. Feel free to ask more questions in followup
postings.

Nathan
                     (NMATES, 1441, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   You're lucky in that a good many of people here also have
"""""   experience with 370 code and architectures.

I think the main thing to try and grasp (I don't know if you've done any
other microcomputer programming), is that the text and graphics areas
aren't devices or buffers addressable via channel programs.

They're simply reserved areas in memory which are directly addressable by
your program. While there are also macros and toolbox calls you can use to
manipulate their content, you can treat just like a memory array.

Regards,
 Richard
                    (RICHARD_B, 1445, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   Ok, here's an almost immediate followup to what I said earlier
"""""   (didn't want a telnet disconnect or problems to lose 7 screenfulls
typed in off the top of my head). First, some more animation theory/ tips:

(1) The way to get speed is to draw as little as possible. No matter what
other optimizations you make to the code, that's probably the hands down
best method. Basically, if it didn't move, don't touch it onscreen.

(2) For whatever you do draw (whole screen, 16x16 chunks, etc), it can be
much faster to handle redraws by redrawing everything from the background
up than having your shape code first back up the background and redraw it
later. (That's 1 write vs 2). Of course, that should be combined with #1 to
redraw as little as possible most of the time. [Don't redraw the whole 32K
background if you've got a simple 8x8 sprite in the middle animated :]

   And finally, for the advanced animation theory, look into compiled
sprites. For the penalty of taking up a lot more ram and disk space, they
can be faster. A program like Mr.Sprite can automate the compilation, or
you write your own tools to turn pictures into code. [Turkeyshoot used
17-color (one for transparent) .BMPs saved from Photoshop on my pentium at
home, and a program I wrote in C to convert those pictures into code] Move
asm src to GS, compile and link.

   The best way to get animation and graphics sped up is to use the 01
'shadow' screen. First, a bit of theory as to why it's useful: The E1 bank
of memory is *slow*. All accesses to it go at 1Mhz, vs the 2.5Mhz you can
get to regular RAM. In the same memory region ($2000.A000), the GS can
'shadow' writes made to bank 01 to the same location in E1. That's at 1Mhz.
But, if you read from bank 01, you get the 2.5Mhz speed.

   The 01 screen can also be used as a buffer to build up a frame (to avoid
flickering/problems if multiple layers of sprites are being drawn), and
then pushed to the E1 displayed screen. This is done by turning the
shadowing off (read $00c035, or it with $30, write to 00c035), and then
accessing the 01 screen. [Make sure that memory block is allocated and the
system is set to use it in the first place--look in Toolbox Ref #3,
Quickdraw chapter for one set of flags to use to do it correctly]

   When your frame has been built in the 01 buffer, turn shadowing back on
(00c035 and with $E7, write back to c035), and then simply read and write
each byte in the 01 screen to itself. MVN works ok for this kind of trick,
but can definitely be improved on, with the most esoteric of animation
tricks. [You certainly DON'T have to do these things unless you really are
going for maximal performance. If you code your things right, you can
upgrade certain parts of the graphics engine one part at a time nicely, and
not break too much]

   For this final bit of graphics-type code, you have to do the previous
stuff, *plus* note that thanks to a holdover from the //e, the stack and
direct page in asm (ONLY asm works here. Don't even think of doing this
with C) can be moved to bank 01. And that's where you get to do all your
graphics drawing and pushing to bank E1. But, first, a small reminder that
many forget:

   TURN OFF INTERRUPTS BEFORE MOVING THE STACK TO BANK 01!

   All interrupt code assumes that the stack/dp are in bank 00, and
interrupts push lotsa stuff on the stack-- you don't want that on your
screen displays. A simple 'php/sei' before such code, and a 'plp'
afterwards. Background music players, etc do NOT like having interrupts off
for too long, so you'll either want to do smaller operations with
interrupts off (push no more than about 8 pages at a time), or reenable
interrupts occasionally.

   You should be able to figure out how dp/stack can be used to draw items,
but 'pei slamming' is the most effective use of it no matter what the
drawing method is. [I use this method in my Toast Twilight II module,
Turkeyshoot, and Sheppy incorporated some of the theory of this into
WolfGS's screen updates] PEI is used to push a value off the direct page
onto the stack-- and if you set things up right, you're pushing the values
into the right place. An outline of it follows:

PeiThru32K start
* This pushes thru the whole (32K) screen from bank 01 to E1.
* Make sure shadowing is on when this is called!

 tsc
 sta EntryStack
 tdc
 sta EntryDP ;these'll get munged, gotta store them safely
 sei  ;shoulda used php/sei above the entrystack, oops
 shortm
 sta >$00c005 ; bank 01 stack & dp write
 sta >$00c003 ; bank 01 stack & dp read
 longm

 ldy #$2000 ;start on this page
DoAPage tya
 tcd ;DP is here
 clc
 adc #$FF ;put stack to top of page, as it works from top to bottom
 tcs
 inc a
 tay ; save adding $100 later
 pei $FE ;push DP:FE, FF
 pei $FC
 pei $FA
* You get the picture, I'm not typing in too much here.
 pei $06
 pei $04
 pei $02
 pei $00
 cpy #$A000 ;off bottom of screen?
 bge AllDone
 brl DoAPage

AllDone shortm
 sta >$00c004
 sta >$00c002 ;bank 00 DP & stack read & write
 longm
 lda EntryStack
 tcs
 lda EntryDP
 tcd
 cli ; Or plp if done right as above
 rts

EntryStack ds 2
EntryDP ds 2
 end

   According to the guys with bus analyzers at Apple, inserting a NOP after
every 13th PEI speeds up things by allowing the 1Mhz and 2.5Mhz busses a
little bit to get back into sync or somesuch. [Doing that and extending the
pei's above is left as an exercise for the reader]

   Thus concludes today's lesson. The floor is now open to questions...

   [And all of the above is pretty much off the top of my head without an
editor to go back and fix things, so hopefully I haven't made too many
messups]

Nathan
                     (NMATES, 1446, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

NEWLY DISCOVERED GS/OS BUG HITS WOLF. . . AND OTHERS?   As some of you
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""   who've been on the
delphi chats and read the messages about Wolfy, I've been fixing the last
few oddball bugs just before and even after release. [I break *everything*
... both a curse and a blessing]

   First, a bit of background on this bug-- sheppy decided to patch out
_Refreshdesktop (part of windowmgr) for wolfy, and did so with the form in
gs technote #101 (http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/tn/  if interested) a
_SetTSPtr with a properly generated table. But, with the _Shutdowntools
call later, the tool loader sees a new TSPtr from the 'default' and decides
to dump the toolset from memory. Given that the default is now pointing at
unallocated memory, you can see why crashes can quickly follow.

   Although technote #101 does not say anything about what apps should do
before exiting, because the tool locator only dumps things if the current
TSPtr is not the default, I made up a GUPP beta which patches wolfy 1.0 to
grab the WindowMgr's tsptr before it was patched, and then restore it just
before the ShutDownTools. Result: everything works.

   I don't like the tool locator blindly shutting down stuff in memory (and
may patch that to be more sane soon), but this can be fixed easily at the
app level by that same procedure I listed above. [GUPP can be shift-booted
out, but app-level fixes can't]

   So, is there anyone else doing such a _SetTSPtr anywhere in their app's
code (inits going thru SetDefaultTSPtr are immune), and seeing similar
problems? I'd half like to write an addendum to Technote #101 detailing
this fix; who's in charge of them to bug for permission.

   Any other questions/comments/criticisms?

Nathan
                     (NMATES, 1472, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I'll have to check, but Express may do this. Let me check and get
"""""   back to you. Remind me if I don't.

Regards,
 Richard
                    (RICHARD_B, 1473, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   the GNO kernal (2.0.4 at least) patches out TLShutDown to do
"""""   nothing, which would mean that the TSPtr isn't reset.  Of course,
this would only affect programs launched from GNO/ME....
                       (KWS, 1483, GO COM A2PRO FOR)

>>>>>   I remember that. GNO needs to be fixed to cope with correctly
"""""   resolving patch issues when apps quit. How that can be done
reasonably, I dunno.

Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd
Macintosh & PowerPC Programmers Forum
                     (SHEPPY, 1503, GO COM A2PRO FOR)



[EOA]
[FRE]------------------------------
                FREEWARE FAVORITES |
-----------------------------------
HERMES
""""""
by Ryan M. Suenaga, B.A., M.S.W., L.S.W.
                    [thelamp@delphi.com]

                                  HERMES
                                  ~~~~~~

          Product Name:      Hermes
          Distribution:      Freeware; available in the Delphi A2
                             Database, Genie A2 Library, and Apple II ftp
                             sites.
                             F.E. Systems (Formerly Bright Software)
                             Andre Horstmann
          Requirements:      Apple IIgs; 64k disk space.




     Let's face it: sooner or later, we all need a good text editor.  While
there's always been a rich slew of word processors for the Apple II series
of computers, sometimes all of the fancy bells and whistles that come with
them--the grammar checkers, the spelling checkers, the control character
entering options--get in the way of the real work--writing.

     Fortunately, there's also been a plentiful supply of Apple II text
editors as well, from the freeware _FreeWriter_ and _FredWriter_ on to the
powerful _EgoEd 2.0_ and _WordWorks Pro_.  Somewhere in the middle of all
of this lies _Hermes_, The Text Editor Formerly Known As _ShadowWrite_,
from the gang now bringing you the acclaimed Apple IIgs emulator _Bernie ][
The Rescue_ at F.E. Systems, the former Bright Software.

     A New Desk Accessory appearing under the Apple menu, _Hermes_ can be
activated with a simple open apple-! keystroke (or, for that matter, just
about any other key paired with the open apple key--_Hermes_ allows you to
set which key in its preferences).  Once active, _Hermes_ acts just like
any other graphically based text editor--you can resize the window or move
it on your screen; highlight text to add or remove styles; show or hide the
"ruler" which shows you tabs, margins, text justification, and gives you
shortcuts to set fonts, styles, sizes, and colors of text; find and
replace; or just type away.

     _Hermes_ sets itself apart from other text editors with its powerful
file handling features.  For instance, not only can you open text, Teach,
source, and Appleworks Word Processor files, you can set _Hermes_ to save
files as text, Teach, or source, and even set _Hermes_ up so that it will
automatically open these files when they are double clicked in the Finder.
_Hermes_ can also be set to show you "invisible" files when you're looking
through a hard drive directory, and not only open any file as text
(invaluable when you're looking at the inside of a data file for certain
key information--often referred to as "snooping"), but give you a choice of
opening a forked file's resource or data fork.  _Hermes_ can have eight
separate documents open at one time (provided you have enough memory to do
so) and cut and paste using the standard Apple IIgs system clipboard, so
you can cut and paste between documents.  In addition, it has two features
that I wish were standard in _Appleworks_--the ability to append a newly
opened file to a currently opened one is one.  The other is the ability to
handle word processing documents with an unlimited number of lines up to
the limits of memory (Even on an 8 megabyte Apple IIgs, text files with
many lines--defined as many carriage returns--often cannot be opened in
Appleworks 5.1).  This may not be an issue for many users, but it is for
me--particularly when editing the large text file of Delphi A2 Forum
messages I collect at the end of each month for use in _The Lamp!_.

     Of course, _Hermes_ is fast in terms of scrolling speed (and, you can
set a preference in _Hermes_ to let it know just how fast you want it to
scroll) and has excellent find/replace features.  In fact, its find/replace
window lets you replace all instances of a text string and copy from the
system clipboard into the "Search for" and "Replace with" windows--perfect
for getting rid of all of those linefeed characters in an MSDOS text file.

     If _Hermes_ has a shortcoming, it's that it spoils you--you begin to
expect too much from it.  Because it is based on the standard IIgs TextEdit
tool, it is prey to the shortcomings of that tool, including its known (and
unknown) bugs as well as its single set of margins and justification per
document.  However, you can, of course, easily save your text into a text
or Teach file and import it into a word processing or page layout program
and add your fancy formatting there.

     I've always believed that the most perfect tools for writing are the
ones that get in your way the least, and _Hermes_ is one of those tools.
Simple yet powerful, elegant yet distinguished, _Hermes_ can be the Apple
IIgs writer's best friend.


[EOA]
[WEB]------------------------------
                  WEB SLINGING 101 |
-----------------------------------
Apple II Web Sites
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Ryan M. Suenaga, B.A., M.S.W., L.S.W.
                    [thelamp@delphi.com]

                         WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
                         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     If you've successfully started cruising the Internet with a World Wide
Web broswer, from the unassuming _Lynx_ or the _Spectrum Internet Suite_
(SIS) to the sophisticated _Netscape Communicator_ or _Microsoft Internet
Explorer_, or any in between, you may be wondering where the hot spots are
for the Apple II family computers.  We're here to tell you just where to
find them.

     First, a caveat: the Web is in a constant state of flux, and addresses
can change from day to day.  An address you see here (remember the term
"URL" from Volume 1, Issue 1 of _The Lamp!_) that's valid today may not be
valid tomorrow.  Web Page maintainers may move not just from Internet
Service Provider to Internet Service provider, but also from state to state
or country to country, and many ISP's are only available in certain areas.
Still, we'll try to give you a start on some of the most fascinating sites
accessible to the Apple II user.

     Some all purpose sites:

     http://www.apple.com

     Apple Computer, Inc., the parent of the Apple II family of computers,
has long operated its own Web site.  Of course, the vast majority of the
content there is focussed on its other computers, but it still has valuable
information and software for the Apple II enthusiast, including all of the
most recent versions of the Apple II System Software, including Apple IIgs
System Software 6.0.1 and HyperCard GS 1.1.  Sadly, its Web site could be
better set up for those of us using the Web browsers available on the Apple
II.

     http://www.apple2.org

     Operated by Tony Diaz of Alltech Electronics, one of the Apple II's
chief hardware honchos, apple2.org is a relatively new site that features
information and pictures that cannot be found elsewhere.  Tony's slant on
such things as the never-released Apple II Ethernet Card, complete with
diagrams, is here, as well as pictures (many in .JPG format, which
unfortunately is not particularly Apple II friendly) of rare pieces of
hardware.  If you want to learn what it takes to rebuild your Apple II in
an alternative case such as a tower or an old portable, this is the site
for you.

     http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web

     The Mother Of All Apple II Web Sites, A2-Web is maintained by the
Divemaster, David Kerwood, who has assembled a plethora of Apple II
oriented Web sites.  A2-Web maintains one of the most extensive collections
of links in the world, including links to Apple II newsletter publishers,
user home pages, software repositories, online services, software houses. .
. you name it, A2-Web has it.  Moreover, David has made extensive efforts
to assure that A2-Web is compatible with any and all World Wide Web
browsers, including and especially Lynx and SIS.  A2-Web is hosted on the
Syndicomm server, which is the base of World Wide Web operations for the
company that operates the A2 areas on Delphi and Genie.

     http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2

     This site is maintained by Delphi regular Nathan Mates, and his
listing of Apple II resources is one of the most complete in the Apple II
world.  You can also find the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for the
Usenet newsgroup known as comp.sys.apple2 here.  There is an immense amount
of information located there, including answers to some of the most basic
questions the new or inexperienced Apple II user will have.  From the
history of the Apple II to general information about what an Apple II can
do to where to find Apple II software and pinouts of various Apple II
hardware connectors, everything is here.  Also on this site is recent Apple
II news and more links to other Apple II sites.

     Some Apple II newsletter publishers:

     http://www.crl.com/~joko

     _Shareware Solutions II_ is the dean of Apple II newsletters, an
absolute "Must-Have" item for the serious Apple II user.  Joe Kohn hosts
this page which contains a SSII mini-index and the closest thing to a
complete catalog that the SSII product line has.  This is a 100% Lynx
friendly web site that must be checked out by anyone serious about their
Apple II.

     http://users.ids.net/~kerwood/juiced.gs/home.html

     Here we find the World Wide Web page for the exciting Apple IIgs
specific newsletter, _Juiced.GS_.  Published by Max Jones with the website
hosted by the prolific David Kerwood, this quarterly publication is known
for its beautiful layout and high quality journalism.

     http://people.delphi.com/appleblossom

     This is the new location of Apple Blossom Publishing's web page.
Formerly on aol.com, Steve Cavanaugh has moved the pages to Delphi.  Even
though Steve's decided to end the run of _The Apple Blossom_,
_HyperQuarterly_ could go on for some time, and you'll be able to find some
back issues of _TAB_ here, as well as some sample articles and a real
bonus: a listing of Apple II vendors.

     http://people.delphi.com/rsuenaga

     -and-

     http://www.sheppyware.ml.org/~rsuenaga

     are the homepages for _GenieLamp A2_ and _The Lamp!_ respectively. You
will find as complete an archive of both publications as possible here. I
host these sites, so I don't think I can be very objective in their review.
I'd just suggest checking them out.

     In our next installment, we'll keep looking for new places to check on
the World Wide Web for signs of Apple II life.  See you next month.


         :: DISCUSSED ON DELPHI ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
         :                                                       :
         :     Succumb to natural tendencies.  Be hateful        :
         :                     and boring.                       :
         :                                                       :
         ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: TONYW1 ::::



[EOA]
[INN]------------------------------
                     EXTRA INNINGS |
-----------------------------------
About The Lamp!   The Lamp! is published on the fifteenth of every month in
"""""""""""""""   the Database of the II Scribe Forum on the Delphi online
service (GO CUS 11).

This publication produced entirely with real or emulated Apple II computers
using Appleworks 5.1 and Hermes.  Apple II Forever!

     * The Lamp! is (c) copyright 1998 by Ryan M. Suenaga, M.S.W.  All
       rights reserved.

     * To reach The Lamp! on Internet email send mail to
       thelamp@delphi.com.

     * Back issues of The Lamp! are available in the II Scribe Forum on
       Delphi as well as The Lamp! Home Page,
       http://www.sheppyware.ml.org/~rsuenaga.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Opinions expressed herein are those of  the individual authors, and do  not
necessarily  represent  the  opinions   of  the  Delphi  Online   Services,
Syndicomm, Inc.,  or  Ryan M.  Suenaga.     Forum  messages  are  reprinted
verbatim and  are included  in this  publication with  permission from  the
individual authors.   Delphi Online Services,  Syndicomm, Inc. and  Ryan M.
Suenaga  do not guarantee  the accuracy or  suitability of any  information
included herein.  We reserve the right to edit all letters and copy.

Material published  in  this  edition  may not  be  reprinted  without  the
expressed  written consent  of the  publisher.   Registered  computer  user
groups, not  for profit  publications ,  and other  interested parties  may
write the publisher to apply for permission to reprint any or all material.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<



[EOF]


