MacLoad is a program useful for MultiFinder (or System 7) users. It shows how busy your computer is at any given point. See the "About..." dialog for more information on how it works and what the histogram means.
The program will work with System 6 or 7, on machines with or without Color QuickDraw. On machines with Color QuickDraw, color-setting options are available in the Preferences dialog.
MacLoad will remember where you leave it and return to that size and position the next time it opens. It will also remember scrolling, title bar, load number, and color options you set in the Preferences dialog.
This program is mainly useful to people who are concerned or curious about how their system performs under varying loads and who want to determine what programs are hogging the most CPU time. Limiting the amount of time these programs are running can drastically increase the performance of the user interface of Macintosh computers.
I leave MacLoad runnning on one edge of my screen all the time, and even have a System 7 alias in my "Startup Items" folder so that it's always present.
If you get an "Out of Memory" error, especially while using the Preferences dialog, simply increase the memory partition allocated to MacLoad by using the Finder's Get Info command. (I have tried to anticipate most memory configurations, but there will of course be systems that defy prediction.) If you have a black-and-white system, or you won't be using the Prefs once you have them set the way you like, you can decrease the memory allocated for MacLoad the same way. Decrease it too much, however, and MacLoad won't be able to function or may crash. You'll have to experiment with this on your particular system.
Solving the "Unknown Error" problem: One user had a problem using this new version with the Prefs file an older version had created, despite the code I included to eliminate this problem. If you have a problem using this version of MacLoad, and you had previously used an older version, try throwing the old Prefs file (located either in the System folder or in the Preferences folder in the System folder) in the trash.
If you find the program useful and would like to send me something in return for the time I spent developing the program, feel free, although this is not required. Please contact me via email or postcard if you have questions or comments or just to tell me that you use the program. Thanks!
I heartily thank the people who helped me prepare version 1.3 for release, including the beta testers and everyone who gave me suggestions. I especially thank David Faust for the time he spent helping me get all the bugs out.
