Info-Mac 3/Info_Mac_1994-01.iso/Periodical/TidBITs/TidBITS#190

Internet Message Format | 1993-12-31 | 30KB

From: [e-mail] (Adam C. Engst)
Subject: TidBITS#190/23-Aug-93
Date: 24 Aug 93 06:54:41 GMT

TidBITS#190/23-Aug-93
=====================

This week we bring you a thoughtful article about copy-protected
   MIDI software, an overview of the new Centris 660 AV and Quadra
   840 AV, some humorous notes for people who do telephone
   technical support, and we continue our multi-part Newton series
   with a look inside the MessagePad.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- [e-mail]
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, memory, and accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: [e-mail]

Copyright 1990-1993 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Automated info: <[e-mail]>. Comments: <[e-mail]>
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/23-Aug-93
    Copy Protection in the MIDI Market
    Two New Macs - A Quick Trip Around the AV Room
    Your Customer Could be a Space Alien
    Under the MessagePad's Hood
    Reviews/23-Aug-93

[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-190.etx; 30K]


MailBITS/23-Aug-93
------------------
**AudioVision monitor connections** -- In response to last week's
  discussion about connecting a Quadra 840AV to the AudioVision
  monitor, we learned that Apple has no plans to modify the 840AV's
  (or the Centris 660AV's) motherboard to add a different port for
  connecting to the AudioVision monitor. No matter what kind of Mac
  you have, you need to make sure to purchase an adapter along with
  the AudioVision monitor. Apple corrected its price list (as of
  16-Aug-93) to avoid future customer confusions.


Your Customer Could be a Space Alien
------------------------------------
  by Tonya Engst, TidBITS editor

  This article, a deliberate takeoff of urban legend article, "Your
  Co-worker Could be a Space Alien," goes out with a grin to people
  who do telephone technical support.

  Many callers are actually space aliens who sound human, but you
  can expose these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say
  experts.


Odd or mismatched software and hardware.
  Aliens might run "MacWriter on their Apple Microsoft," or use
  "PerfectWord on a Claris 610."

Strange or unusual software habits.
  An alien might not understand the hierarchical filing system, so
  she might put all her files and applications in the same folder.
  Aliens can also exhibit paranoia, so an alien may worry that if he
  throws out one document, all other documents will disappear.
  Perhaps this occurs in different solar systems.

Bizarre sense of humor.
  Aliens often exhibit inappropriate senses of humor. For instance,
  an alien may burst out laughing in the middle of a serious
  discussion about the difference between clicking and dragging.

Puts you on hold frequently.
  Aliens have trouble with human language and often must put you on
  hold to consult references in order to figure out what you are
  saying.

Keeps a written or recorded diary.
  Aliens worry that they won't retain every subtlety of the
  conversation and feel more comfortable recording it.

Misuses everyday items.
  Aliens have trouble with human-based objects, so an alien would be
  more likely to use a mouse upside down. Aliens having Pivot
  monitors are constantly pivoting them. Scientists speculate that
  they are trying to align their monitors with a distant magnetic
  wave system, but tests have been inconclusive.

Constant questions about customs.
  Aliens want to know why thing happen as they do, so they may
  interrupt every suggestion you make to ask why or to suggest
  another way of doing it. Don't be put off by this behavior, aliens
  can't help it.

Secretive about personal life-style and home.
  Aliens don't like to give anything away for fear of blowing their
  cover. If a caller has a great deal of difficulty telling you,
  say, the names of the fields used in a print merge, and then
  finally tells you the information is classified, you are probably
  assisting a space alien. Another tip-off is aliens that cannot
  reveal the names of their hard drives.

Frequently talks to himself.
  The alien may be rehearsing or practicing what he will say next.

Displays a change of mood when near certain high-tech hardware.
  An alien may become nervous or hyperventilate when near computer
  hardware. Aliens also become unobservant and have trouble reading
  labels. If a customer cannot identify the name of the computer,
  and the name is affixed to the front of the computer, you may have
  a space alien on your hands.

  Experts point out that a caller would have to display most if not
  all of these traits before you can positively identify her as an
  alien.


Copy Protection in the MIDI Market
----------------------------------
  by Nick Rothwell -- [e-mail]

  For the majority of Macintosh users, those without copy-protected
  software, this article will be a minor curiosity. Lucky you. For
  those left, you will want to read this to save yourself the hours
  of aggravation that I went through installing The Latest Upgrade.
  Specifically, we're dealing with professional music software.

  Music software (specifically, MIDI sequencers, patch editors and
  librarians) has been copy-protected basically forever. I bought a
  copy of Mark of the Unicorn's (MOTU) Performer in 1988, and it
  came on a copy-proof floppy disk which had to be "keyed" into the
  Mac for the program to run. The program won't run without a key
  disk, and the key disks carry formatting errors to circumvent
  duplication. If the key floppy gets damaged for any reason, you're
  lost, regardless of the number of dollars per second being burnt
  in a production studio, or the size of an audience. If you live in
  the U.S. you stand a chance of getting a replacement, but if you
  live outside the U.S. the support is probably such that a change
  of career is a better idea.

  A couple of years later a new scheme came along, and was adopted
  both by MOTU and by Opcode who by this time had a pro-level
  sequencing package of their own. There were still key disks, but
  there was also a procedure for installing on a hard disk. An
  "install count" on the key floppy would decrement in exchange for
  a copy of the application on the hard disk. At this time, another
  mechanism would kick in to avoid duplication of the hard disk copy.
  The application's location on the disk would be stored in a secret
  format in hidden key files also on the disk, preventing making a
  useful copy of the application from the hard disk since the copy
  wouldn't have the keying information.

  The advantage now is that you don't have to mess around with
  floppies. But the disadvantages to legitimate users are
  significant. Disks cannot be optimised without destroying the
  install key. And of course, backups are useless; damage the disk
  for any reason, and you lose the key forever. If you get an update
  of the program, you have to go through a deinstall/reinstall
  procedure. You rely on the scheme working properly, and it doesn't
  always. A legally installed copy will, every now and then, declare
  itself illegal and refuse to run.

  But at least it stops piracy and keeps the software companies in
  business, right? Wrong. Leaving aside the arguments about whether
  illegal copying of software eats into sales or not, you can
  circumvent these protection schemes. These methods are not
  trivial, but are reasonably well known. So all the schemes do is
  inconvenience legitimate users.

  Anyway, a lot of music software seems to use the same scheme. Or,
  I should say, "used." There is now A New Scheme, featured in
  Performer 4.2, the latest version of Opcode Galaxy, and on its way
  in Vision and MAX. It works as follows: instead of installing a
  copy of an application with a specific key, you attach a key to a
  hard disk. The application can be moved around (or upgraded, an
  important benefit) without wrecking the key. That's the Major Pro.
  Major Con: the protection key is buried deep within the disk. I
  suspect a pointer within the boot blocks, but that's only a guess.
  The installation process is now one of authorising a disk, rather
  than installing an application.

  The more complicated the scheme, the more that can go wrong. The
  more complex the scheme, the more it has to assume about the
  target configuration, and the less likely the assumption is to be
  correct. The Performer installation blew up several times over a
  period of several hours. I partition my disks with Silverlining,
  and yet the installation instructions and scripts assume a single-
  partition disk. Installation has to be to the boot "disk" - so I
  had to resize partitions to make space. The instructions stated
  that any copies of the application on the disk would run. Wrong:
  the application is keyed from its own partition. Not a serious
  drawback, but the wording of the instructions shows this
  eventuality hadn't been considered, which is worrying. So, I had
  to move the authorisation tag from one partition to another, which
  failed several times, due to a bug in the copy protection
  machinery which causes it to not always recognize a legal key.

  Hopefully your experiences with these schemes won't be as
  problematic as mine. But if they are, the above notes may be
  useful.

  Floppy-based copy protection stinks, yes? Magical hard disk
  installation schemes stink too, yes? So why not use a hardware
  dongle instead? This is the course taken by Steinberg for their
  Cubase sequencing software. It uses an ADB dongle. And it works
  well... except on PowerBooks, where sleep mode causes the dongle
  to malfunction. Of course, we all know that copy protection
  schemes serve no purpose except to inconvenience legitimate users,
  and the pressures of the music business (studio recording and live
  work) make this more significant than in some other fields. So, is
  there any chance of such schemes being dropped? The only
  indication I have is from Mark of the Unicorn, and I quote, "not a
  chance." Let me leave you with an excerpt from Apple's document
  "Antipiracy Technologies," on the subject of key floppies and hard
  disk installation schemes:

  "Since this kind of copy protection depends on specific
  characteristics of the hardware, the copy protection may
  occasionally malfunction, thus preventing your customer from
  legally using the program he or she bought. Also, you have no way
  of knowing whether the floppy-disk copy protection that you use
  will work with future hardware from Apple and other companies.

  "Technical reasons aside, floppy-disk copy protection is bad
  because it breaks the most important law governing antipiracy
  technologies: Thou Shalt Not Annoy the Legitimate User. Limited-
  use installer programs and key disks are inconvenient to use, and
  they often cause legitimate users problems. When this copy
  protection malfunctions, you suddenly have a very unhappy
  customer, one who sees copy protection as a useless encumbrance
  that doesn't deter the software pirate but that penalizes the
  legitimate user for being honest."

  [If you have comments about this article, please hold off on them
  for now. Copy protection usually beats up a storm of debate, but
  Adam's book is keeping us busy and we just don't have time to read
  your thoughts this week. Thanks for understanding. :-) -Tonya]


Two New Macs - A Quick Trip Around the AV Room
----------------------------------------------
  by Tonya Engst, TidBITS Editor

  Apple's newest Macintoshes are fast machines with new video and
  sound capabilities. To review, the new Centris 660AV, formerly
  known as the Cyclone, uses a Centris 610 case; likewise, the new
  Quadra 840, once known as the Tempest, lives in a Quadra 800 case.
  As usual, Apple's naming scheme comes from marketing folks who
  think it's funny that people try to memorize this stuff
  (especially considering that the latest rumors have Apple ditching
  the Centris name entirely and calling all of the old Centris
  machines Quadras). At least AV seems to stand for audio-visual.
  Introductions aside, what's the deal with these Macs and should
  you buy one?

  If you don't care about audio-visual applications, you might buy
  an AV Mac for the 68040 chip, faster NuBus 90 architecture, and
  SCSI DMA (Direct Memory Access). If you care about sound, video,
  or telephony, then the AV Macs may be the place to be, since they
  sport a DSP chip (similar to the one used in the now-obsolete NeXT
  machines) to keep these capabilities humming along. A few of
  quirks worth noting: AV Macs don't support A/UX, they only support
  32-bit addressing, and the serial port has an extra pin. Although
  the port works with the usual 8-pin cables, the new ninth pin
  carries power to a pod (more on pods below), and lets you turn on
  your Mac by calling it on the phone.


In the Macintosh AV room
  If it all works as described, you can use the new DAV (Digital
  Audio Visual) port to bring in video from VCRs and video cameras.
  You can play the video on the screen in the provided Video Monitor
  program, convert it to a QuickTime movie, convert video frames to
  PICT images, play around in the included VideoFusion Fusion
  Recorder, and output video to VCR tape or an attached TV screen.

  The DSP chip works with Apple's new and still-unfolding GeoPort
  architecture to provide the capabilities of a modem, fax board,
  speakerphone, answering machine, or even an Ethernet- or ISDN-
  based videophone. The videophone gives 15 frames per second in a
  small window, so we're not talking about putting someone onscreen
  as in Star Trek. Each AV machine comes with an adapter box, known
  as a pod, that attaches the Mac to the phone system. This is so
  Apple can make different pods for phone systems in different
  countries, not to mention ISDN and digital PBX, which should all
  be available sooner or later.

  The AV Macs also include PlainTalk - formerly know by the code
  name Casper - software that works with the DSP chip to turn speech
  into computer commands and text into speech, of sorts. I've heard
  a PlainTalk version of a paragraph from TidBITS, and although it
  sounded like a computer, I understood every word. Evidently, there
  are a few different voices to pick from. Currently the speech-
  recognition works for adult, English-speaking, North American
  voices, but more options should come soon.

  The AVs come wired so you can speak to them, as in, "Computer,
  Control Panel. Computer, Memory." You can create complex voice
  macros using QuicKeys or AppleScript (a special version of
  QuicKeys ships with the computer). To help the Mac pay attention
  to you, you preface every command with a keyword (like Computer in
  the example above) and the AVs come with a special microphone.
  Note that the microphone and PlainTalk ship with Macs sold in the
  U.S. and Canada, but everyone else has to buy them separately. I
  wonder if this will change when PlainTalk can recognize more voice
  types.

  Sound Manager 3.0 comes as part of the System Enabler, so you can
  play with sounds, distorting or enhancing them, and you don't have
  to buy any third-party software to at least have some basic fun.


Conclusions
  The AV Macs seem like a grand experiment. What features will prove
  popular? Which ones will be ignored? At this time, it's unclear if
  developers will write software and continue to write and support
  software that takes advantage of these Macs, or if developers will
  focus on the larger PowerPC market.

  These Macs could be sensational fun. Not that the capabilities
  can't be created on other Macs with the right hardware and
  software, but that Apple has put a lot of possibilities together
  in one package, so you get a blazingly fast Mac along with
  software to play with. Not only can you create and view movies,
  but you talk and listen to the Mac. I wouldn't buy a Video Spigot
  board and all the trappings, because I don't know enough about
  video to justify the purchase, but if I had an AV Mac, I'd explore
  all of its capabilities. Whether the new abilities are up to
  reliable business uses, intelligent educational applications, or
  great works of art remains to be seen, but if they don't measure
  up, Apple is bound to improve them next time around.


Under the MessagePad's Hood
---------------------------
  by Tom Thompson, BYTE Senior Tech Editor -- [e-mail]

  The MessagePad, Apple's new Personal Digital Assistant, is a type
  of Newton. So, you may ask, what exactly is a Newton? Newton
  represents an architecture that combines hardware, software, and
  application technologies. The Newton architecture doesn't try to
  create a miniature computer. Instead, by discarding bulky desktop
  computer trappings like keyboards and hard drives, the
  architecture provides mobile yet powerful systems that have rich
  communications functions. Importantly, Newton is not proprietary.
  Apple intends to license it, and has already done so to Sharp,
  Siemens, Motorola, Cirrus Logic, and Matsushita.


An Outside Glance
  The MessagePad typifies the design goals of the Newton
  architecture. The system is diminutive enough to carry around like
  a paperback book. It weighs just under one pound, measures .75
  inches thick, and has a 7.25 by 4.5 inch face. A low-power,
  reflective, LCD, 336- by 240-pixel, black-and-white screen
  displays information. The MessagePad has no keyboard; the primary
  input device is a passive plastic stylus. A resistive film over
  the screen senses and tracks the stylus motions. The MessagePad
  comes with an RS-422 serial port and a low-power, half-duplex,
  infrared transceiver built in. The serial port uses a Mac mini
  DIN-8 connector, and like the Mac, this port doubles as a modem
  port and LocalTalk network connection. The infrared transceiver
  uses Sharp's infrared communications protocols to "beam" data at
  rates of up to 19,200 bps (typically 9,600 bps) to another Newton
  at distances up to three feet. For communications, there's a
  seven-ounce fax modem that runs off the MessagePad's power charger
  or two AA alkaline batteries.


Pad Power
  Stand-alone power comes from four AAA alkaline cells or a
  rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery pack. Apple estimates battery
  life at two weeks for alkaline cells, and one week for the battery
  pack. A small lithium cell preserves memory while the batteries
  are changed, and an ingenious interlock mechanism prevents you
  from removing the battery pack and the lithium cell at the same
  time. You plug into the wall using a universal power adapter (100V
  - 240V, 50 - 80 Hz), which also recharges the battery pack.
  Different power adapters are available for the U.S., Japan,
  Australia, and Europe.


Inside the MessagePad
  The heart of the MessagePad is a general-purpose 20 MHz ARM610
  RISC microprocessor made by Advanced RISC Machines. The ARM610
  combines on a single chip an ARM6 RISC CPU, a 4K cache, a write
  buffer, and an MMU (memory management unit) designed to Apple's
  specifications. The write buffer enhances performance by storing
  up to eight 32-bit data values and writing them to main memory
  independently of the CPU. The MMU implements a two-level page-
  table structure and certain extensions that make it suitable for
  object-oriented systems. A read-lock-write operation performs
  indivisible memory updates, which are essential for testing and
  setting semaphores or handling shared memory in a multitasking
  operating system. The ARM610 can handle Big-Endian (Motorola) and
  Little-Endian (Intel) addressing modes, and has fast interrupt
  response features that make it ideal for real-time processing. It
  also consumes little power (less than .5 watts), and is fully
  static (when the processor's clock stops, its internal state is
  preserved and it consumes little power). The small ARM instruction
  set (it has only ten basic instruction types) provides high-level
  language support, yet is straightforward enough to allow assembly
  language programming. Last but not least, the ARM610's
  manufacturing costs less than $25 in quantities of 100,000.

  A custom Apple ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit)
  controls the MessagePad's power and the various memory and I/O
  subsystems, including the serial port, the infrared transceiver,
  and the LCD screen. It handles sound generation, DMA (Direct
  Memory Access) for sound and serial data, the PCMCIA card
  interface, timing signals, and calendar functions. By the way, if
  you wondered, PCMCIA stands for Personal Computer Memory Card
  International Association.

  The MessagePad uses 4 MB of ROM to store its operating system and
  several built-in applications. Included here is the handwriting
  recognition engine written by Paragraph International, a U.S.-
  Russian joint venture in Sunnyvale, California and Moscow.

  The MessagePad has 640K of SRAM (Static RAM) for working memory
  and data storage, of which approximately 200K is free for user
  data. There's no hard drive to save data, so users will probably
  want a flash memory card for backups. I had a chance to try the 2
  MB PCMCIA RAM card from Epson. I inserted it into the card slot,
  and switched the MessagePad on. Although this card was originally
  designed for PC notebooks, the MessagePad recognized it, and asked
  to erase it. After several seconds, I had an additional 2 MB of
  memory to work with - a good show for Apple PIE, Epson, and
  hardware standards. The Newton Intelligence allows you to file
  individual schedules and notes to the card, or make a backup of
  all data.

  Other cards let you add functionality to the MessagePad. Lots of
  cards should be coming from various vendors, and one of the main
  cards to look forward to using is the PCMCIA Messaging Card, which
  consists of a one-way wireless pager that can receive text
  messages.


The Newton Operating System
  The MessagePad uses the Newton OS, or Newton Intelligence, in
  Apple parlance. The Newton Intelligence (NI) is an object-
  oriented, multitasking OS from the ground up. However, it borrows
  a number of useful components from the Macintosh. Portions of
  QuickDraw - the Mac imaging engine - handle the display. The NI
  uses the AppleTalk protocol stack to support name look-up, zones,
  data streams, and printing. There's currently no support for
  AppleTalk Remote Access. However, the NI is designed to be
  extensible, and Apple plans to distribute software updates and
  extensions via online services. Apple built the NI on several
  software components: the Recognition Architecture, the
  Communications Architecture, the Information Architecture, and the
  Intelligent Assistance.


The Recognition Architecture
  The Recognition Architecture deals with stylus input, and a text
  recognition engine - or recognizer - handles printed text, cursive
  text, or a mix of the two. The recognizer is trainable, and adapts
  to your handwriting over time (about 150 words, if you use the
  built-in training program). You can also specify the type of text
  you write and the character shapes in the Preferences section to
  short-circuit the training process. The recognizer uses a 10,000-
  word dictionary to assist in word recognition. This makes for fast
  word identification, but it also means that the results of a
  misinterpreted word, or for a word missing from the dictionary,
  can be wide off the mark. The user interface allows new words to
  be added to the dictionary. The overall design makes the
  MessagePad easy to adapt to overseas markets. By changing
  dictionaries, you can make the Newton Recognition Architecture
  handle new languages.

  A graphics recognizer detects specific objects and stroke
  symmetries as you sketch. A round scribble becomes a circle; four
  perpendicular lines become a rectangle. These recognizers detect
  several predefined gestures to edit or erase text. Both the text
  and graphics recognizers can be switched off so that the
  MessagePad only records digital ink. However, it's better to have
  the recognizers in action, because text and object-based graphics
  require less storage. Also text can be searched for, or used by
  other applications. Due to storage constraints and usability
  problems, the MessagePad doesn't support deferred recognition -
  the ability to store screens of ink and then extract text and
  graphics later. However, nothing in the Architecture precludes
  this feature from being added in the future.


The Communications Architecture
  The Communications Architecture supports a variety of I/O devices.
  With a serial cable, the MessagePad prints to Apple serial
  printers. An optional cable, available in the Print Pack, stores
  printer drivers and allows the MessagePad to print to a wide
  variety of parallel printers. The same serial port allows you to
  print to PostScript printers through a LocalTalk connection. The
  infrared transceiver lets you exchange data with another
  MessagePad or a Sharp Wizard 9600. This architecture is
  extensible, so new devices can join the repertoire.


The Information Architecture
  The Information Architecture levers off the NI's object-oriented
  design. As data enters the MessagePad, the Information
  Architecture tags (or names) it and compresses it as required.
  Data is saved in an object called a frame, a structure composed of
  data stored in tagged locations called slots. Slots can contain
  data values, code, and even other frames. Frames use a unified
  data model which eliminates data translation overhead and the
  redundant copies such translations often make. This common data
  format also promotes data sharing among Newton applications. As
  objects, high-level meanings can be attached to frames: address,
  for instance, can represent "One Phoenix Mill Lane."

  A collection of related data frames is known as a soup, and soups
  reside in physical locations called stores. A soup of contact
  names might exist on a store that's located on a RAM card. Soups
  maintain indexes to the frames within them. What this means is
  that all information entered into the MessagePad automatically
  becomes part of an object database that can be searched, modified,
  and displayed in different forms by various applications. All
  information is processed as Unicode, which means the MessagePad
  can readily handle foreign languages.


The Intelligent Assistance
  The Intelligent Assistance uses the soup of data objects to make
  plausible connections between information and your actions. For
  instance, to see the Intelligent Assistance in action, draw a
  sketch in the NotePad and ask the MessagePad to "fax to Lisa." The
  Intelligent Assistance will assume you want to send the sketch.
  Next, it will locate everyone named Lisa in the object database.
  If there's more than one, the MessagePad prompts you to make a
  choice. The Assistance then retrieves the fax number associated
  with the desired Lisa and generates a fax image. If a fax modem is
  connected to the MessagePad, the Assistance transmits the fax.
  Like the rest of the NI, the Intelligent Assistance rules can be
  extended to handle new applications or devices.

  The synergy of the Intelligent Assistance with the object database
  makes the MessagePad a winner. The ability to locate information
  within the system and act on it in rational ways is a major
  improvement. Once a contact and her relevant information is
  captured in a MessagePad loaded with communications options, you
  can easily call her, fax her, schedule appointments with her, or
  send her email. The Newton OS eliminates the many redundant
  operations (launching an application, locating a file, opening the
  file, and searching for data in the file) that you do on a desktop
  computer to accomplish the same thing, and it's a model desktop
  computers should adopt. The Newton implementation is by no means
  perfect, but it's a huge step in the right direction.


Reviews/23-Aug-93
-----------------

* MacWEEK -- 16-Aug-93, Vol. 7, #33
    QuarkXPress 3.2 -- pg. 34
    Pioneer DRM-604X -- pg. 34
    Digital Palette C150005 -- pg. 38
    Infini-D 2.5 -- pg. 39

* BYTE -- Sep-93
    Newton Expert Pad -- pg. 22
    Centris 660AV, Quadra 840AV, SGI Indy -- pg. 81
    FirstClass BBS -- pg. 149


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(Don't expect prompt responses for several weeks until I finish the book.)