Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 01:54:16 -0600 From: Datamike@interaccess.com (Michael Shannon) Subject: Underground Mac Report#4 Issue #4 (11/14/93) of The Underground Mac Report is out now! Check the "New files and Free Uploading" section in the Mac Hardware forum on AOL or FTP from from Sumex.aim.stanford.edu. Enjoy! Table of Contents: Reviews of Virtus Walkthrough and Walkthrough Pro Patch for the av Macs A hack for Virtus Walkthrough Mac TV An Internet quick reference to the most commonly used commands Apple rip-off? Hot File: Quoter DA And the usual columns: Rumor Mill, Questions and Answers, Misc. Thoughts, Hot Files and more... Coming Next Issue: Reviews of HomeWorks Templates, and The Internet Tour Guide (Book) Do-it-yourself clock-chipping Winning the lottery with your Mac BEGIN TEXT FILE: The Underground Mac Report "Information With An Edge!" Volume 1 No.4 11/14/93 All contents and title C Michael P. Shannon 1993 A non-profit publication Freely distributable via electronic means for non-profit purposes-Post it everywhere! For other uses please inquire. Thanks! Send comments, criticisms and questions to: AOL: Datamike Internet: Datamike@interaccess.com While the information presented herein is true to the best of our knowledge, please don't base any important decisions on what you read. We make no guarantees. Developers: While we don't accept any advertising or "sponsors", we're happy to review any hardware or software you can provide. Consider it cheap advertising. For the cost of a single unit, you get the best form of advertising: the testimonial of an actual Mac user. If you would like to have a product reviewed, please contact us at one of our E-mail addresses. Thanks! Table of Contents: Reviews of Virtus Walkthrough and Walkthrough Pro Patch for the av Macs A hack for Virtus Walkthrough An Internet quick reference of the most commonly used commands Apple rip-off? Hot File: Quoter DA E-mail: From: M.B.B.Bointon@lut.ac.uk Subject: Re: 66AV video MB> Since you were correcting someone else, I thought I'd correct you... MB> MB> The 660AV CAN do 24-bit on a 14". There is an additional mode that MB> drops the resolution to 640 by 400 (like a PowerBook), and in this MB> mode, millions is selectable. MB> MB> I like UMR... MB> MB> Keep up the good work MB> MB> Try this... Go into the monitors control panel, click options, and you MB> should see the 640*400 mode listed in the little window (if not, try MB> holding down the option key as you click on the options button!). MB> Select it, go back to the main control panel and you should be able to MB> select millions for that resolution. I think you will need a restart MB> before you can select millions actually, since the 660 does not do MB> on-the-fly resolution switching (RadiusWare doesn't work on it MB> either). Well, technically you're right--the 660av can drive a 24-bit display. In reality though, it's not something you would actually want to use. I just tried it. It worked, but the size of the screen is reduced dramatically. About 1 1/2 inches are cropped off the top and bottom of the screen. Not very useful in my opinion, but thanks for alerting me to my error--Mike. From: Vittorio Dell'Aiuto Subject: Umr Comment VD> Hi Michael, I just want to spend two words: "Excellent work". I was VD> feeling like an orphan since Murph's column has gone, now I see that VD> the spirit of "Vaporware" has survived. VD> VD> Please, consider to dedicate a small amount of time to the formatting VD> of the text: setext (just as tidbits) isn't that bad. It should make VD> your notes easier to read. IMHO, of course. VD> VD> Now, may I play the "error hunter" for a while? :-) VD> VD> (The Underground Mac Report Volume 1 No.2) VD> VD> LC II 16 mhz 040/0 NuBus slots Color Classic 16 mhz 040/optional FPU/0 VD> NuBus slots VD> VD> aren't they 16 MHz 68030? VD> VD> Probably it applies also to performas: Performa 460 33 mhz 040/no VD> FPU/0 NuBus slots Performa 410 16 mhz 040/no FPU/0 NuBus slots should VD> be 68030, isn't it? VD> VD> MacUser states that the maximum memory expansion on the Q610 is 64 MB. VD> It's actually 68 MB. The article claims that maximum memory expansion VD> on the Q650 is 132 MB. It's really 136 MB. VD> VD> MacUser is referring to maximum memory EXPANSION, not to TOTAL memory VD> capabilities: if you add the 4Mb soldered on board you obtain the VD> latter. Not a really clear statement of them, but definitely not a VD> mistake. VD> VD> ciao vittorio Thanks for your response. A few readers have mentioned that they would like to see UMR in Setext format. For now though, UMR is going to stay in plain text. The reason is that I don't feel that enough people would take advantage of the formatted text. I also don't think that UMR contains the type of information that has a long shelf life. Most people read it once and trash it. Those that archive UMR or TidBits are definitely in the minority. Why waste the disk space when you can obtain the issues from a variety of online locations? As you mention, TidBits offers Setext and the ratio of plain text downloads to Setext downloads is about 10-1. You can check this by looking at the download count on AOL. I will consider it for the future, though, You're right about the errors. A number of readers mentioned this in their E-mail. Thanks again! Reviews: Virtus Walkthrough, Walkthrough Pro Virtus Corp. (919) 464-9700 Street prices: Walkthrough $125, Walkthrough Pro $250 Walkthrough and Walkthrough Pro are essentially the same program. The only difference being that Pro has an extra palette which is used to assign "textures" to objects. Consider the following to apply to both programs except where noted. Walkthrough is a application designed to create 3D models and objects. What really differentiates Walkthrough from the other 3D programs is the interactive ability for the user to actually move around the objects. This is a great attribute for someone designing buildings or decorating interiors. Create a room and then walk around inside! According to Virtus, one of the most common uses for Walkthrough is designing movie sets! It was recently used on The Firm. Creating objects is extremely simple even if you lack any artistic ability. Creating a square room, for example, involves nothing more than drawing a square. Walkthrough uses an expansion algorithm to create the required depth. The depth can then be changed by using a slider control. Many different shapes are offered as well as several different types of expansion, such as round, square, or cone. This allows for virtually any shape to be constructed. Models are created in the design windows, and are displayed in wireframe. The walk view is a separate window that displays the results and is used for navigation. To move around the walk view the mouse is used. Hold the mouse button down and push the mouse forward and you appear to walk toward the model. Move the mouse left, you move left. The option key is used to move up and down. Walkthrough is an impressive piece of work. Really a very basic virtual reality program, Walkthrough give us a taste of the future today. While Walkthrough is a great program that I highly recommend, Walkthrough Pro is not recommended. Pro costs significantly more, and frankly the difference just isn't worth it. The texture mapping feature, while great in theory, doesn't work as well as it should. Any PICT or QuickTime movie can be used as a texture. The textures are coarse in appearance and simply not worth the added expense and hassle. In fact, a PICT file that appears attractive and realistic in a graphics program, looks like smeared jelly when applied to a Virtus model. Virtus maintains that the textures add extra realism. They add something, but it certainly isn't realism. You can turn off shading to improve the appearance slightly, but this defeats much of the 3D aspect and still doesn't produce great results. Don't misunderstand, the textures feature works well, it's just that the results are less than adequate. Pro also requires a ton of memory. 3000K is the minimum and 8000k is the preferred size. The walk through speed also suffers a severe speed penalty when viewing models with textures, even on a Quadra level machine. If you're interested in creating 3D environments in which you can navigate in real time, Walkthrough is the program to get. Pass on the Pro version for now. Hopefully the upgrade will solve many of Pro's substantial problems. New and Thoughts: Some users and developers have discovered that the new drive controller causes almost constant disk accessing on the new av Mac's. Another frequent problem is incompatibilities between programs and the new sound manager. Two programmers from England have developed a fix for these two problems in the form of a System extension. Here's the note from the authors that accompanies the extension: Dear All, Since it seems Apple won't do anything about this problem for a while, we decided to. Enclosed is our first (releasable) version of an extension 'AV Speedup' which works around the ChangedResource and AddResource slow downs on the 840 and 660 AVs. Please give it a go with your development environments to see if it makes a difference. We noticed our MPW resource merging stuff takes half the time on an 840 with this installed than without it installed (although an 800 without it was twice as quick again.) A bit of info. The INIT patches ChangedResource and AddResource to prevent them calling FlushFile (which is the main slow down culprit). We are currently investigating other culprits so that we can further improve the code. If you know of any then please contact us. Names are on in the code so in the unlikely event of you running into any problems you can tell us about them. Best wishes, Matt Gough and Brian Stroud MicroSpot Ltd. I tried the patch and it does seem to alleviate the disk access problem. I don't have many games, but the great freeware game, Arashi, is still silent. Virtus Walkthrough and Walkthrough Pro (see reviews above) are incompatible with the new sound manager used in the av Mac's. The good news is that I've discovered an elegant work-around. The problem stems from the clicking sound made whenever a tool is selected. To fix the problem, remove the sound resource. Here's how: Start ResEdit Select the Virtus program Click on the speaker icon to display a list of sound resources You'll find two sounds: "Nil" and "Button" Select them and then select "Clear" from the edit menu Select "Save" from the file menu That's it! The program will now run as intended, sans the clicking sound. Please don't send me E-mail asking if a E-mail subscription to UMR is available--it isn't. I would very much like to set up an automated subscription service, though. If anyone is familiar with creating a listserv mailing list, please contact me at one of the above E-mail addresses. Thanks! If you're interested in contributing to UMR, please do so. It's very time consuming to produce this newsletter every week and would appreciate the help. Reviews, how-to's or feature articles will all be considered. You don't have to write to get your idea approved. Just submit the finished article, if I like it, I'll use it and give you full credit. Think of the fame and fortune that could be yours by simply writing an article.... Best Buy, the discount electronics store, is selling Mac TV. I saw one at a store here, and it looks very cool. It appears to be a Performa 550, but all black. I played with it for a few moments before the salesperson came over, and it works like any other Mac. One notable feature was the ability to grab screen shots of both the Mac display and a TV picture. A tiny remote is included and you can switch between being a computer and being a TV at the touch of a button. This still seems like a lame idea to me, but my nephew pointed out that it may be popular with college students. Instead of their parents popping for both a TV and a computer, they can buy one unit. Perhaps the next version will have an integral vcr, which can record and edit QuickTime movies, as well as play rental movies. Now that would be worth buying! Whether you think Mac TV is a lame idea or not, I think that we can all agree that an 8 MB RAM limit is sheer lunacy. In my opinion 8 MB is the minimum configuration for a Mac these days. Apple has made some stupid decisions in its time, but this one really takes the prize. In any event, the black case is totally cool. I hope that someone in Apple's marketing department recognizes how appearance can influence a computer buyer's decision. Anyone for a write-in campaign? While I only had two people mention that they use publish and subscribe, I had a virtual avalanche of mail from users proclaiming the virtues of the label menu color coding scheme. Really. If I were to judge by my E-mail, it would seem that I am the only one NOT using it. Go figure... An Internet quick reference If you're new to the Internet or thinking about obtaining access, you're probably aware that most Internet hosts run on Unix. This means that if you have a standard dial-up connection (as opposed to a SLIP or PPP connection) you'll have to use Unix commands to do your bidding. As many new users to the Internet are obtaining access by joining Delphi, which uses standard Unix conventions, here's a short list of basic Unix commands. Although there are many Unix commands, those presented below should be all you need on a day-to-day basis. Some may differ depending on the operating system the host is using. ls lists files in directory dir lists files in directory, displays more information than ls cd changes directory by moving down the hierarchy cdup changes directory by moving up in the hierarchy (some systems use cd..) mv moves files or directories cp copy command rm removes files sz send file using the zmodem protocol (use this when downloading) rz receives a file using the zmodem protocol (use this when uploading) bye logoff, exit can also be used mkdir creates a directory rmdir removes a directory The Rumor Mill: Apple has sold over 2500 Newton development kits! New PowerBooks released in March will have PCMCIA slots similar to the Newton Message Pad. The first PowerPC (601) will be in a Quadra 610 case. Upgrades for 610/660 owners will cost about $950. The LCIII will leave the product line shortly after the holidays and the Color Classic II will be introduced. It is basically the same as the Color Classic, except it runs at 25 mhz and has a 32 bit bus. Does anyone actually use Balloon Help on a regular basis? Look for Apple to release a Color Stylewriter within six months. If you want to know the specifics, look at the Star Micronics color inkjet, which is basically the same. Both are manufactured by Canon. Apple is working on a joint venture with Kodak and they will produce a digital Imaging camera that includes a Photoshop plug in for around $800. Pictures are stored in RAM. Nokia is set to release a portable cellular phone with an integral cellular modem which can connect to any device with a PMCIA slot, such as a Newton. Now if we can just get some software for the thing... Questions and Answers: Q: I just bought a Centris 610 about three weeks ago. I am having a major case of buyers remorse. I think Apple is really declining. I used to be a 100% Mac fan, and now I am almost ready to buy a Windows machine. Do you think I was ripped off? A: I certainly can sympathize with the buyer's remorse feeling. It can occur after making virtually any major purchase. As to whether Apple ripped you off, that's another matter altogether. Apple is a corporation whose entire reason for being is to make money. One way to do this is to frequently release faster computers with more features. Unfortunately, this causes some frustration on the part of the buyer. Since Sculley is gone, expect to see the number of new Macs released to dwindle to a few per year. The new boss, Spindler, has indicated that he wants to simplify the product line and only introduce new models that are significant updates. It's interesting to note that the computer market is really the only market where customers become angry when new models are released. Have you ever heard a car owner become furious because the new '93 model comes with standard anti-lock brakes and his '92 didn't? Perhaps he should call the manufacturer and demand an low cost update. When someone buys a computer, they do so because it fills a need. Just because a faster, more feature laden model is introduced, doesn't mean the old model isn't capable of doing what it was purchased to do. Remember, computers are just tools. Let's not get too hung up with having the latest and greatest. Buy a computer that does what you need it to, when you need it to. Then start saving for the next one. Hot Files: Quoter DA Freeware Pete Johnson Quoter DA is a small program that comes in very handy during any telecom session. Essentially, Quoter does one basic task; it formats text so that a pair of initials and a quote symbol appear before each line. For example: MS> The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps MS> over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The MS> quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps MS> over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This is useful when replying to notes and E-mail. As the note you're replying to may be expired or otherwise missing, it's a good idea to remind other readers of what you're replying to. Some E-mail programs and newsreaders offer this feature, but Quoter is the best stand alone quoting utility available. As an added bonus, Quoter also has a basic encryption feature. Both the sender and the receiver have to agree on the password beforehand, and although admittedly the encryption is primitive at best, it does work. Coming Soon Reviews of: The Internet Tour Guide (Book) Ready, Set, Go! 6.0 Infini-D 2.6 Quicken 4.0 Now Fun Virtus VR Nisus 3.4L Hi! Finance And more... Coming Next Issue: Reviews of HomeWorks Templates, and The Internet Tour Guide (Book) Do-it-yourself clock-chipping Winning the lottery with your Mac And the usual columns: Rumor Mill, Questions and Answers, Misc. Thoughts, Hot Files and more... END TEXT FILE A incredibly hilarious and witty signature is currently under construction.