Celestin Apprentice 5/Apprentice-Release5.iso/Information/CSMP Digest/volume 3/csmp-digest-v3-129

Text File | 1995-12-26 | 109.4 KB | 2,841 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

C.S.M.P. Digest             Tue, 26 Dec 95       Volume 3 : Issue 129

Today's Topics:

        Alt.Sources.Mac Archive
        Apple Disk Copy Image Format Needed!
        Apple Events to Eudora to send mail...
        Block copy on 604 slow
        Choosing a Help Authoring Tool
        Events vs. GetKeys
        How do I draw dashed lines?
        Network code on a PPC native project?
        Spheres in Q3D?
        WaitNextEvent & Background Processing



The Comp.Sys.Mac.Programmer Digest is moderated by Francois Pottier
([e-mail]).

The digest is a collection of article threads from the internet
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-------------------------------------------------------

>From [e-mail] (David Nebinger)
Subject: Alt.Sources.Mac Archive
Date: 8 Dec 1995 23:01:46 GMT
Organization: epix.net

The alt.sources.mac archive is up and active.  Currently only anon FTP
access is supported; I plan to have WWW access ready to go by the end of
next week.

Point your ftp tool to:
<ftp://ftp.AmbrosiaSW.com/pub/alt.sources.mac/>

Point your www tool to:
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/alt.sources.mac/>

I have the archives filled with the files I received before 1/1/95; the
files that I have collected this year will be appearing in the archive soon.
The digest for the year will also be published soon.

Dave Nebinger
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/~dnebing/>
<mailto:[e-mail]>

P.S. the IP address for Ambrosia is 206.27.96.210.


>From [e-mail] (David Nebinger)
Subject: Alt.Sources.Mac Archive
Date: 8 Dec 1995 23:01:08 GMT
Organization: epix.net

The alt.sources.mac archive is up and active.  Currently only anon FTP
access is supported; I plan to have WWW access ready to go by the end of
next week.

Point your ftp tool to:
<ftp://ftp.AmbrosiaSW.com/pub/alt.sources.mac/>

Point your www tool to:
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/alt.sources.mac/>

I have the archives filled with the files I received before 1/1/95; the
files that I have collected this year will be appearing in the archive soon.
The digest for the year will also be published soon.

Dave Nebinger
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/~dnebing/>
<mailto:[e-mail]>

P.S. the IP address for Ambrosia is 206.27.96.210.


>From [e-mail] (David Nebinger)
Subject: Alt.Sources.Mac Archive
Date: 8 Dec 1995 22:59:55 GMT
Organization: epix.net

The alt.sources.mac archive is up and active.  Currently only anon FTP
access is supported; I plan to have WWW access ready to go by the end of
next week.

Point your ftp tool to:
<ftp://ftp.AmbrosiaSW.com/pub/alt.sources.mac/>

Point your www tool to:
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/alt.sources.mac/>

I have the archives filled with the files I received before 1/1/95; the
files that I have collected this year will be appearing in the archive soon.
The digest for the year will also be published soon.

Dave Nebinger
<http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/~dnebing/>
<mailto:[e-mail]>

P.S. the IP address for Ambrosia is 206.27.96.210.


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

>From Programer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Apple Disk Copy Image Format Needed!
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 13:14:10 -0500
Organization: The Internet Access Company


Does anyone know where i can find or can send me the format to Apple's
Disk Copy utilties....I have a need to read in those Image files and I
need to know how they are layed out compared to the real disk!

Thanks in advance!

Marek
[e-mail]
http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~progrmer



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Jon Pugh)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 01:16:08 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer

In article <[e-mail]>,
Programer <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Does anyone know where i can find or can send me the format to Apple's
> Disk Copy utilties....I have a need to read in those Image files and I
> need to know how they are layed out compared to the real disk!

The MungeImage source contains this information.

<ftp://mirror.apple.com//mirrors/Info-Mac.Archive//dev/src/
  munge-image-120-p.hqx>

Jon

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

>From [e-mail] (Sean McBride)
Subject: Apple Events to Eudora to send mail...
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 16:48:56 -0500
Organization: Communications Accessibles Montreal, Quebec Canada

I'm wondering if someone can point me in the right direction of
information pertaining to sending apple events (to Eudora for example) to
create a new piece of mail to sent to a person.

I've seen lots of programs do this, CyberFinder for example...

Thanks in advance!

_______________________________________________________________________
  H H      |                   |                                      |
  | |      | Sean McBride      |                                      |
H-C-C-O-H  | [e-mail]   |     If you drink, don't drive.       |
  | |      | Montreal, Canada  |        Crawl home                    |
  H H      |                   |     0010 1001 1010                   |
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Scott Gruby)
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 17:20:26 -0800
Organization: QUALCOMM, Inc.

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Sean McBride) wrote:

> I'm wondering if someone can point me in the right direction of
> information pertaining to sending apple events (to Eudora for example) to
> create a new piece of mail to sent to a person.
>
> I've seen lots of programs do this, CyberFinder for example...
>
> Thanks in advance!

You can find some example code at:

<ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/mac/eudora/scripts/c-samples.hqx>

(There are some minor mistakes with it, but it should lead you in the
right direction.)

--
Scott Gruby
[e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Fairgate Technologies)
Date: 8 Dec 1995 22:49:09 -0600
Organization: interQuest Online Services -- Huntsville, AL

[e-mail] (Sean McBride) writes:

>I'm wondering if someone can point me in the right direction of
>information pertaining to sending apple events (to Eudora for example) to
>create a new piece of mail to sent to a person.

Check out
ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/quest/mac/eudora/scripts/new-message.hqx. It's
a sample that should point you in the right direction. The sample code
has some bugs but you'll find them fairly quickly :)

Cheers,
-Paul

--
Paul Robichaux          [e-mail]               Fairgate Technologies
       Fairgate Technologies does custom Mac & WWW development.
                    <URL:http://www.fairgate.com>
         <URL:http://www.fairgate.com/people/paul/index.html>

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Robert Coie)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 11:56:31 -0800
Organization: Intrigue Corporation

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Sean McBride) wrote:

: I'm wondering if someone can point me in the right direction of
: information pertaining to sending apple events (to Eudora for example) to
: create a new piece of mail to sent to a person.
:
: I've seen lots of programs do this, CyberFinder for example...
:
: Thanks in advance!

I believe the Aretha release has tools to do this
<http://www.hotwired.com/staff/userland/aretha/>, and Qualcomm's FTP site
has a document with info about the scripting interface to Eudora.

Robert Coie
Implementor, Intrigue Corporation
[e-mail]

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

>From [e-mail] (Craig S. Steele)
Subject: Block copy on 604 slow
Date: Tue,  5 Dec 1995 18:30:53 -0800
Organization: USC Information Sciences Institute

I'm trying to benchmark block copy rates of various sizes for PowerPCs.  My
results are disappointing for the 604, and cause me to wonder what it is I
don't understand. Testing on a 9500/120, to which I have limited access, gives
the following results for copy code using 32-bit integer and 64-bit double
load and stores, respectively:

Asm lvector copy of  1024 doubles in  44.8 nS/acc,  5.4 clocks/acc,  85.1 MB/s
Asm dvector copy of  1024 doubles in  34.1 nS/acc,  4.1 clocks/acc, 111.9 MB/s

The source array is aligned to 4K, the destination array to 4K+0x100, to avoid
possible aliasing interlocks.  The source array is preloaded immediately
before the copy routine is called, so I would expect everything to run at L1
cache rates.

I would naively expect the copy code to average about 1.5 clocks per load or
store.  Instead, my code reports over 4 clocks/access.  The code uses the
time-base register for timing, which shouldn't cause significant cache
disturbance.

Can anyone contradict, corroborate, or explain my poor results? If I can't do
better than this, we'll have to build extra hardware :-(
Thanks in advance.
-Craig

        exportf2        dvec_copy
        mtctr   r5              ; init loop counter
        addi    r3,r3,-8        ; predecrement pointer by double size
        addi    r4,r4,-8        ; predecrement pointer by double size
        li      r6,8            ; cache line alignment constant for dcbz
        b       dvc_1
        align   6
dvc_1
        dcbz    r6,r3           ; kill dest. cache line
        lfd     fp0,8(r4)
        lfd     fp1,16(r4)
        lfd     fp2,24(r4)
        lfdu    fp3,32(r4)
        stfd    fp0,8(r3)
        stfd    fp1,16(r3)
        stfd    fp2,24(r3)
        stfdu   fp3,32(r3)
        bdnz    dvc_1           ; test loop condition
        blr



Craig S. Steele - Not yet Institutionalized



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Robert Barris)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 09:46:47 GMT
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)

In article <[e-mail]>,
Craig S. Steele <[e-mail]> wrote:
>I'm trying to benchmark block copy rates of various sizes for PowerPCs.  My
>results are disappointing for the 604, and cause me to wonder what it is I
>don't understand. Testing on a 9500/120, to which I have limited access, gives
>the following results for copy code using 32-bit integer and 64-bit double
>load and stores, respectively:
>
>Asm lvector copy of  1024 doubles in  44.8 nS/acc,  5.4 clocks/acc,  85.1 MB/s
>Asm dvector copy of  1024 doubles in  34.1 nS/acc,  4.1 clocks/acc, 111.9 MB/s

OK, in regular "bytes", you appear to be moving (for examples sake)
 8192 bytes
 from address (say) 0x1000000
 to  address (say)  0x1002100.

So you are reading 8K and writing 8K as I read it... in a perfect world
all of your data would fit (precisely) into the L1 d cache.

>The source array is aligned to 4K, the destination array to 4K+0x100, to avoid
>possible aliasing interlocks.  The source array is preloaded immediately
>before the copy routine is called, so I would expect everything to run at L1
>cache rates.

Except that you are sharing that L1 with things like interrupt tasks, 68K
interrupt tasks (which invoke the emulator causing additional pollution),
and so on.

Since as far as I know, there is no way to completely shut off PowerPC
interrupts, quantifying the effect of background processes on your cache
population can be a bit tricky.

>I would naively expect the copy code to average about 1.5 clocks per load or
>store.  Instead, my code reports over 4 clocks/access.  The code uses the
>time-base register for timing, which shouldn't cause significant cache
>disturbance.

When you say per access, do you mean per double "moved" as in a read and
a write, or per double accessed, as in the read or the write alone?

I guess I can work it out: 110MB/s (say it's 120 for arguments sake) is
about 1MB per million clocks (at 120MHz). Or about a byte moved per clock, or
a double moved per 8 clocks. OK so that's 4 per double read, 4 per
double write (on average).

Suggestions:
 1. Plot speed versus vector length. Look for nonlinearities.
   (deliberately shrink or grow the vector).

 2. wiggle that 256 byte offset factor some more. or make it zero.
    I do not think the 4-wayness would become a problem until you went
    above 8K vectors, then very little would help...

 3. think about cache hinting at or near the bottom of the loop.
    if for some reason a cache line which you are going to read from
    has been dropped, it's good to schedule its re-fetch as far ahead as
    possible. I'm sure Tim Olson can elaborate much more better good :)

 4. I hear Exponential Technology has a faster BiCMOS 604 coming...

Rob Barris
Quicksilver Software Inc.
[e-mail]
* opinions expressed not necessarily those of my employer *

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Craig S. Steele)
Date: Wed,  6 Dec 1995 12:41:15 -0800
Organization: USC Information Sciences Institute

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Robert Barris)
writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, Craig S. Steele
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >I'm trying to benchmark block copy rates of various sizes for
> >PowerPCs.  My results are disappointing for the 604, and cause me
> >to wonder what it is I don't understand. Testing on a 9500/120, to
> >which I have limited access, gives the following results for copy
> >code using 32-bit integer and 64-bit double load and stores,
> >respectively:
> >
> >Asm lvector copy of  1024 doubles in  44.8 nS/acc,  5.4 clocks/acc,  85.1
MB/s
> >Asm dvector copy of  1024 doubles in  34.1 nS/acc,  4.1 clocks/acc, 111.9
MB/s

> So you are reading 8K and writing 8K as I read it... in a perfect
> world all of your data would fit (precisely) into the L1 d cache.
Exactly.  However, I did benchmark a range of copy sizes from 512B to 1MB; the
quoted 8KB block results were the fastest.  Needless to say the rate for
larger blocks dropped precipitously as the sizes busted (burst?) the L1 and L2
caches.

> >...so I would expect everything to run at L1 cache rates.
> Except that you are sharing that L1 with things like interrupt
> tasks, 68K interrupt tasks (which invoke the emulator causing
> additional pollution), and so on.
True.  I would have thought that at least some of my trials would have fit in
between interrupts, e.g., the critical part of the 8KB case only takes about
100uS, and the smaller proportionately less. I also tried back-to-back copy
calls, producing essentially identical results. I did get _much_ worse results
when I experimented with using the MacOS Microseconds call for timing, so the
cache pollution issue is very real.  What is the highest rate interrupt source
on an idle PowerMac anyway?.  Is Microseconds non-native?  I'm clueless.

> Since as far as I know, there is no way to completely shut off
> PowerPC interrupts, quantifying the effect of background processes on
> your cache population can be a bit tricky.
I believe I know how to do it on an 8100 (although not the 9500) so it's
probably worth a (probable deathcookies) experiment to see it if makes a
difference there.  I deeply regret having blown up our only hardware prototype
last month...  Maybe next week I'll have a bare machine again, knock on
Formica(TM).

> >I would naively expect the copy code to average about 1.5 clocks per
> >load or store.  Instead, my code reports over 4 clocks/access.
> I guess I can work it out ... OK so that's 4 per double
> read, 4 per double write (on average).
Yes.

> Suggestions:
>  1. Plot speed versus vector length. Look for nonlinearities.
>    (deliberately shrink or grow the vector).
For a 9500/120:
512B    49 MB/s
1KB     68
2KB     87
4KB     109
8KB     112
16KB    68
32KB    62
64KB    54
128KB   53
256KB   40
512KB   35
1024KB  32

The trends are reasonable, it's just the L1 peak rate that seems very low to
me.  The 6100 and 8100, on the other hand, have some huge huge anomalous dips
for 128KB operations, presumably managing to evict the code from both the L1 &
L2 unified caches in some particularly malign way.

>  2. wiggle that 256 byte offset factor some more. or make it zero.
Zero makes things about 10% slower, but I haven't yet tried other offsets.

>  3. think about cache hinting at or near the bottom of the loop.
>     if for some reason a cache line which you are going to read from
>     has been dropped, it's good to schedule its re-fetch as far ahead
>     as possible.
A prior load loop is supposed to have ensured that the source is in the cache,
but this is a good suggestion to double check that assumption, and probably
the right thing to do for a general-purpose copy where cache status is
uncontrolled.  I'll check this out.

>  4. I hear Exponential Technology has a faster BiCMOS 604 coming...
That certainly does look interesting, "only" $14million capitalization, but
good credentials.  Unfortunately, I have to put something under the tree for
this Christmas, can't wait for that rosy glow ("Is it Rudolph or is it
bipolar?") we might see next. :-)



Craig S. Steele - Not yet Institutionalized



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Tim Olson)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 03:33:26 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. / Somerset

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Craig S. Steele) writes:

> I would naively expect the copy code to average about 1.5 clocks per load or
> store.  Instead, my code reports over 4 clocks/access.  The code uses the
> time-base register for timing, which shouldn't cause significant cache
> disturbance.
>
> Can anyone contradict, corroborate, or explain my poor results?

I did a number of measurements awhile back which showed that a 604 can
perform the loop you gave (without the DCBZ) at about 1.3 cycles per
doubleword loaded or stored -- this was done by measuring the runtime
of copying a 64-byte block over many iterations, so both source and
destination were in the cache.  The DCBZ instruction spends multiple
cycles clearing the allocated cache block, so that will add some
overhead (I don't have my spec with me -- I seem to remember it is 4
cycles), which should bring it to somewhere around 15 cycles per loop
iteration, or about 1.8 cycles per doubleword, which is still far less
than your reported 4 cycles.

First, try running without the DCBZ to see if it more closely matches
my results (~1.3 cycles per doubleword); if not, then you might be
forgetting about some multiplication factor when using the timebase
register.  On the 604, it increments every 4th bus clock.

        -- Tim Olson
        Apple Computer, Inc. / Somerset
        [e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Cliff Click)
Date: 7 Dec 95 09:23:08
Organization: none

[e-mail] (Craig S. Steele) writes:

Craig S. Steele <[e-mail]> wrote:
>I'm trying to benchmark block copy rates of various sizes for
>PowerPCs.  My results are disappointing for the 604, and cause me
>to wonder what it is I don't understand. Testing on a 9500/120, to
>which I have limited access, gives the following results for copy
>code using 32-bit integer and 64-bit double load and stores,
>respectively:

Have you tried using "lmw" and "stmw" instead of "lfd" and "stfd"?
My 604 book sez these are #regs+2 cycles each, whilst the float
operations are 3 cycles each.  For large enough blocks, you should
win on the lmw and stmw.

Cliff
--
Cliff Click                  Compiler Researcher & Designer
RISC Software, Motorola      PowerPC Compilers
[e-mail]      [phone]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Tim Olson)
Date: 8 Dec 1995 02:59:57 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. / Somerset

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Cliff Click) writes:

> Have you tried using "lmw" and "stmw" instead of "lfd" and "stfd"?
> My 604 book sez these are #regs+2 cycles each, whilst the float
> operations are 3 cycles each.  For large enough blocks, you should
> win on the lmw and stmw.

The lfd instruction has a 3-cycle latency for using the result of the
load in a floating-point operation, but the issue-rate of lfd is one
per cycle.  When pipelined in the manner used in the block copy code,
it can transfer at close to one doubleword per cycle.

Load and store multiple instructions can achieve close to one word per
cycle for large transfers, but that is half the bandwith of the
lfd/stfd solution.


        -- Tim Olson
        Apple Computer, Inc. / Somerset
        [e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From Mark Williams <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 95 18:25:26 GMT
Organization: Streetly Software


In article <[e-mail]>, Cliff Click writes:

>
> [e-mail] (Craig S. Steele) writes:
>
> Craig S. Steele <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >I'm trying to benchmark block copy rates of various sizes for
> >PowerPCs.  My results are disappointing for the 604, and cause me
> >to wonder what it is I don't understand. Testing on a 9500/120, to
> >which I have limited access, gives the following results for copy
> >code using 32-bit integer and 64-bit double load and stores,
> >respectively:
>
> Have you tried using "lmw" and "stmw" instead of "lfd" and "stfd"?
> My 604 book sez these are #regs+2 cycles each, whilst the float
> operations are 3 cycles each.  For large enough blocks, you should
> win on the lmw and stmw.
>
> Cliff
> --
> Cliff Click                  Compiler Researcher & Designer
> RISC Software, Motorola      PowerPC Compilers
> [e-mail]      [phone]

But surely the point is that lfd & stfd have a _latency_ of 3 cycles, but a
throughput of 1 instruction per cycle, whereas the lmw/stmw have both a latency
and throughput of 1 instruction per #regs+2 cycles. That means the lfd/stfd
method should be able to move (ie load and store) 1 word per cycle, while the
lmw/stmw cannot do better than 1 word every 2 cycles (and even with 28 regs
available it would take 60 cycles to move 28 words).

- --------------------------------------
Mark Williams<[e-mail]>

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Tom Roberts)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 19:19:22 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

In article <4a89nd$[e-mail]>, Tim Olson <[e-mail]> wrote:
>In article <[e-mail]>
>[e-mail] (Cliff Click) writes:
>
>> Have you tried using "lmw" and "stmw" instead of "lfd" and "stfd"?
>> My 604 book sez these are #regs+2 cycles each, whilst the float
>> operations are 3 cycles each.  For large enough blocks, you should
>> win on the lmw and stmw.
>
>The lfd instruction has a 3-cycle latency for using the result of the
>load in a floating-point operation, but the issue-rate of lfd is one
>per cycle.  When pipelined in the manner used in the block copy code,
>it can transfer at close to one doubleword per cycle.
>
>Load and store multiple instructions can achieve close to one word per
>cycle for large transfers, but that is half the bandwith of the
>lfd/stfd solution.

In practical systems, memory bandwidth is MUCH more important than
the number of instructions used or their throughput or latency.
(This assumes that the data actually resides in memory, not just in the
cache. This also assumes a "long" loop, so the code is in the icache.)

In systems which run the 604 at 1:1 clocking (i.e. internal CPU clock
equals external bus clock), memory bandwidth can be 2-4 times slower than
simple calculations. This is due to cache-access limitations and the
fact that both the CPU and the bus access unit are competing for
access to the cache. In this mode the memory essentially NEVER
overlaps address and data tenures on the bus (halving memory bandwidth);
there are usually several bus clocks between succesive cycles, reducing
bandwidth even more.

With 1.5:1 clocking this effect is reduced -- the cache can handle
one access per internal clock, so there is a cycle available to the
CPU between every 2 bus accesses. At 2:1 this effect should disappear,
as the CPU can get every other cycle, and keep up with the memory
bus bandwidth.

Note that only recently have 604 chips been shipping which can go 1.5:1
at 66 MHz bus clock.

Tom Roberts     [e-mail]

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

>From [e-mail] (Ralf Grisard)
Subject: Choosing a Help Authoring Tool
Date: 30 Nov 1995 15:31:01 GMT
Organization: Lexis-Nexis

I'm a technical writer with some experience creating electronic helps
for MS Windows applications. I've also written balloon help and some
technologically primitive application help for one Macintosh
application. Now I'm researching the help possibilities for the next
version of that Mac app. Here's a list of some of the factors I'm
considering:

* Is there a Mac help tool/system that's evolving into the "standard"?

* How well is Apple Guide being accepted by the developer and user
communities?

* When will there actually be a version of Apple Guide available that
is compatible with System 7.0/7.1?

* Are there tools/systems other than Apple Guide (such as EHelp) that
are well regarded by Mac users? For example, the help for the latest
version of ClarisWorks for Macintosh has received some praise.

* Which tools are suitable for use by non-programmers (like technical
writers)?

* What's the learning curve for the tool?

* How much collaboration does a tool require between the programmer
and the help author?

* How large are the final help files? How quickly to they respond to
the user?

* How expensive is the tool? (The complete EHelp package costs about
$2500 per copy.)

* Does use of the tool involve royalty/licensing/distribution fees?

And so on. Any information you could share with me would be much
appreciated. Thanks in advance.
--
Ralf Grisard
[e-mail]
LEXIS-NEXIS, Technical Communications, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401
voice: 513-865-7314  fax: [phone]


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Alain Roy)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 17:20:48 GMT
Organization: It lurks in the night

In article <49ki7n$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ralf
Grisard) wrote:

>* When will there actually be a version of Apple Guide available that
>is compatible with System 7.0/7.1?

Apple Guide 2.0 is out and supports 7.0/7.1. Check out:

http://dev.info.apple.com/appledirections/dec95/appleguide.html

(They provide a pointer to download AG 2.0)

Apple has "Guide Maker". I've never used it.

At the info-mac archive in the "dev" directory, you can find
"guide-composer-10-demo.hqx" which is a demo of a tool to make apple guide
files. It claims to be easy, but I've never used it.

-alain

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Steve Wilson)
Date: 30 Nov 1995 17:49:32 GMT
Organization: Emergent Behavior


> * How well is Apple Guide being accepted by the developer and user
> communities?

I think it is very cool.  Everyone should be using it.

> * When will there actually be a version of Apple Guide available that
> is compatible with System 7.0/7.1?

It is already here.  You can get Appleguide 2.0 off apple's web page.  It
will work with system 7.

> * Are there tools/systems other than Apple Guide (such as EHelp) that
> are well regarded by Mac users? For example, the help for the latest
> version of ClarisWorks for Macintosh has received some praise.

I persnally hate Claris' online help.   It was created with QuickView.
QuickView was also used to create the Toolbox Assistant, which I love, so
it probably isn't the tool's fault.

> * Which tools are suitable for use by non-programmers (like technical
> writers)?

If you're going to use AppleGuide you should get Danny Goodman's book
which includes a nice tool to get you started.  It works well for
non-programmers.


> * How expensive is the tool? (The complete EHelp package costs about
> $2500 per copy.)

You can get the book( which includes the tool) for about $30-$40.

Steve Wilson
Emergent Behavior
[phone]
[e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Marc Paquette)
Date: 1 Dec 1995 19:56:04 GMT
Organization: Metrowerks Inc.

In article <49kiot$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ralf
Grisard) wrote:

Metrowerks, the company I work at, has been creeping along this path for
some time. Here is what I have to offer. The Mac OS help jungle can be
treacherous--watch your step:

> * Is there a Mac help tool/system that's evolving into the "standard"?

Balloon help. Apple Guide _could_ also be considered a "standard," but
developers seem to be slow to accept it, although it's becoming more
popular lately.

>
> * How well is Apple Guide being accepted by the developer and user
> communities?

See above. Metrowerks doesn't use Apple Guide so I can't give accurate
answers about it. We don't use Apple Guide partly because the tools aren't
quite ready yet, but mostly because our documentation is heavy on the
technical reference side which is inappropriate for AG. However, some
people at Apple have attentively bent theirs ears for us on making AG more
reference-happy. The results remain to be seen.

>
> * Are there tools/systems other than Apple Guide (such as EHelp) that
> are well regarded by Mac users? For example, the help for the latest
> version of ClarisWorks for Macintosh has received some praise.

I don't have experience in producing doc for EHelp.

I'm told that Claris uses a version of QuickView for some of its software.
So does Apple for its Toolbox Assistant software. Metrowerks is also using
QuickView for its on-line help. QuickView is a Microsoft help-compatible
viewer.

Metrowerks also uses Adobe Acrobat, but a lot of users complain about its
large memory footprint, its need for ATM, and incompatibilities with
QuickDraw GX.

There's also HTML. Metrowerks is looking into it, but solid HTML tools for
the Mac aren't around yet.

>
> * Which tools are suitable for use by non-programmers (like technical
> writers)?

[rant on]
I wish tech writers had nifty documentation development tools like
programmers have nifty software development tools! Such tools would save
me so much time and effort. I'd rather spend my time developing useful,
accurate doc rather than fiddling with the silly details of how to deliver
the doc to the user.
[rant off]

Metrowerks produces its documentation using Framemaker on Mac OS machines.
We use whatever converters and translators there are for FrameMaker to
convert to RTF, Acrobat, etc. It's straightforward stuff.

We use Resorcerer, a resource editor, for balloon help. It's not an easy
way to go, but we get the job done.

>
> * What's the learning curve for the tool?

For FrameMaker, things are pretty simple: Create FrameMaker document,
save/print the document in a specific format, put that file through a
translator to generate the online help document. If you know FrameMaker,
you've got it clinched.

Resorcerer and the Help Manager's strange interactions with the Dialog
Manager results in some frustrating situations until you get the hang of
it.

>
> * How much collaboration does a tool require between the programmer
> and the help author?

For balloon help, the collaboration sometimes has to be pretty tight. Even
more so, IMHO, for Apple Guide.

For FrameMaker, none once you're all set up.

>
> * How large are the final help files? How quickly to they respond to
> the user?

A QV file is quite reasonable. The 1300 page PowerPlant library reference,
produced by Metrowerks is 6.2 Mbytes. QV is responsive. We've had no
complaints about its performance, and Altura was quick to improve parts of
the UI at user's requests.

Acrobat is about the same as a QV database. IMHO, Acrobat is OK when
reading from a hard drive, but it can be slow when reading from a CD-ROM.
However, proper documentation design can dramatically improve Acrobat's
responsiveness. Metrowerks is still working on this.

I don't have any numbers for the HTML version of the PowerPlant reference
(it doesn't exist). For HTML conversion I believe we've tried some of the
freeware/shareware translators available.

>
> * How expensive is the tool? (The complete EHelp package costs about
> $2500 per copy.)

Altura Software, Inc.
510 Lighthouse Ave., Suite 5
Pacific Grove, CA 93950

Voice:408.655.8005
FAX:[phone]

Disclaimer: Some of these opinions are my own, not Metrowerks. All of
these opinions are based on my experiences as a member of the Metrowerks
documentation team.

Regards,

Marc.

- -
Marc Paquette
Lead Lead Pipe Fitter
Metrowerks Inc.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From Jeff Benjamin <[e-mail]>
Date: 1 Dec 1995 15:54:16 GMT
Organization: StepUp Software

[e-mail] (Ralf Grisard) wrote:

>
>* Is there a Mac help tool/system that's evolving into the "standard"?
>

Only time will tell. It seems that Apple Guide is growing
very well.

>
>* When will there actually be a version of Apple Guide available that
>is compatible with System 7.0/7.1?

Today. Apple Guide 2.0 (shipping).


>* Which tools are suitable for use by non-programmers (like technical
>writers)? * What's the learning curve for the tool?
>

I suggest you check out our Guide Composer (see Web site below).

>* How much collaboration does a tool require between the programmer
>and the help author?

It depends on the level of interaction between the help system and
the program. For Apple Guide, it could be as little as NO
INTERACTION. If your app is AppleScript-able, you can do alot
w/o the programmer.

>
>* How expensive is the tool? (The complete EHelp package costs about
>$2500 per copy.)

Guide Composer is $99. No other fees.

>* Does use of the tool involve royalty/licensing/distribution fees?

For Guide Composer, no.

Good luck!


- -----------------------------------------------
+                Jeff Benjamin
+                StepUp Software
+                [e-mail]
+                http://rampages.onramp.net/~stepup/
- -----------------------------------------------



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Bill Foster)
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 1995 21:32:34 -0800
Organization: Passion Pacific

In article <49kinl$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ralf
Grisard) wrote:

> Now I'm researching the help possibilities for the next
> version of that Mac app.
>
> And so on. Any information you could share with me would be much
> appreciated. Thanks in advance.
> --
> Ralf Grisard
> [e-mail]
> LEXIS-NEXIS, Technical Communications, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401
> voice: 513-865-7314  fax: [phone]

You might want to check out

    http://www.guideworks.com

This site has a lot of information about Apple Guide.

Apple Guide 2.0 now supports System 7.0/7.1. It is available from the
guideWorks site as is the GuideMaker application for compiling guides. I'm
not sure about licensing but its either free or cheap.

It's pretty easy to put together a basic guide. You do not need to change
your application unless you want to add features.

================================================
Bill Foster            Passion Pacific Solutions
[e-mail]         Santa Cruz, Califonia
================================================

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Bruce Alspaugh)
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 14:25:35 -0600
Organization: SchoolWare

In article <49ki7n$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ralf
Grisard) wrote:

> * When will there actually be a version of Apple Guide available that
> is compatible with System 7.0/7.1?

   AppleGuide 2.0, which supports system 7.0 and 7.1, is available now and
can be ftp'ed from:

ftp://ftp.info.apple.com/Apple.Support.Area/Developer_Services/System_Software_Extensions/Apple_Guide_Authoring_Kit.


If you want further information on AppleGuide, I suggest you check out the
GuideWorks home page:

http://www.guideworks.com/

   You can also subscribe to an apple-guide mailing list to answer your
technical questions.  Send an e-mail to [e-mail] with
the command, subscribe apple-guide <your first name> <your last name> in
the subject header and the body of the message.

Hope this helps,


Bruce Alspaugh
[e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Lawrence D'Oliveiro)
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 1995 17:42:09 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Marc Paquette) wrote:

>Metrowerks also uses Adobe Acrobat, but a lot of users complain about its
>large memory footprint, its need for ATM, and incompatibilities with
>QuickDraw GX.

I believe Adobe's PDF-generation tools are GX-incompatible, however
Acrobat Reader 2.1 seems to work OK (most of the time) with GX.

Under GX, as you know, you can print from any application to a "Portable
Digital Document" (PDD). This is viewable and printable at full resolution
on any printer from any Mac with GX installed. I've also been working on a
tool to generate PDF files from these PDDs--no support for hyperlinks and
annotations as yet, though. If anybody's interested, they can try out a
prerelease version at
<ftp://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/gst/grf/tumbler-06d2.hqx>. Feel
free to send me your comments.

Lawrence
supporter of the QuickDraw GX Fan Club at <http://www.ixmedia.com/quickgx/>

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

>From Frank Kane <[e-mail]>
Subject: Events vs. GetKeys
Date: Sat, 02 Dec 1995 14:54:14 +0000
Organization: Cerberus Development

I hear mixed messages about using GetKeys() vs. the Event Manager to
read user input during a game.

I used GetKeys in my first game, and I'm using events in my current
game.  Honestly, I don't think it makes much of a difference in
terms of speed.

Using the Event Manager has several advantages, such as ensuring
that you don't miss a keystroke if the user hits a key real fast
(it's also a heckuva lot easier.)  It just seems safer, and more
friendly to the customer.  Plus it seems like a safer bet that
future game controllers will work properly through the event queue.

Am I missing the boat altogether by using the Event Manager?  Is
there some good reason to use GetKeys that I don't know about?

Thanks,
-Frank Kane
Cerberus Development
http://www.transy.edu/~cerbdev/Mac_Division/MacHome.html

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Kevin Stone)
Date: 2 Dec 1995 21:00:05 GMT
Organization: South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

: Am I missing the boat altogether by using the Event Manager?  Is
: there some good reason to use GetKeys that I don't know about?

   Can you read multiple keys this way?
   My understanding is that when an event is triggered, it's sent to the
   Event Manager queue.  It waits their until you use GetNextEvent or
   WaitNextEvent.  You can see what the next event is... whether it's a
   key hit or a mouse click or whatever, and you can check to see which
   modifier keys are down, but it dosn't look like you can't see if two
   character keys are down at the same time.

   I don't know... I might be missing something here.  Personaly, I
   havn't had any problems with GetKeys.

BAS


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (John Lewis)
Date: Sat, 02 Dec 1995 14:02:16 -0800
Organization: me

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:

> Using the Event Manager has several advantages, such as ensuring
> that you don't miss a keystroke if the user hits a key real fast
> (it's also a heckuva lot easier.)  It just seems safer, and more
> friendly to the customer.  Plus it seems like a safer bet that
> future game controllers will work properly through the event queue.
>
> Am I missing the boat altogether by using the Event Manager?  Is
> there some good reason to use GetKeys that I don't know about?

I'm currently working on a project that needs to know when the user
releases a key as well. I started out using the event manager and watching
for keyUp events. (Yes I did call SetEventMask)

This worked fine except when I was running under the debugger. Then, for a
reason I still haven't figured out, I wouldn't receive keyUp events. For
this reason, I ended up switching to GetKeys.

The keyUp problem wouldn't happen all the time, though, and Metrowerks has
been notified of the problem.

Later.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
John "I'd rather be skydiving" Lewis |#include "stdsig.BS" | This space  |
[e-mail]    <- prefered    |Blue Skies           | available   |
[e-mail] work(unreliable)|USPA87419, C-22826   | for rent.   |
[e-mail]    <- rarely      |Slider - '92 BMW K75s| Inquire     |
|http://www.emf.net/~lewistot        |<fnord>              | within      |

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From Frank Kane <[e-mail]>
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 09:38:16 +0000
Organization: Cerberus Development

> The keyUp problem wouldn't happen all the time, though, and Metrowerks has
> been notified of the problem.
>

Glad you posted this...  I've been having the same problems with KeyUps as
well, but I thought it was some horribly elusive bug in my code.  Now at least
I know I'm not to blame...

Regarding the previous post -- yes, you can tell if two keys are down
simultaneously using events, *if* you track KeyUps as well as KeyDowns.  Just
don't try it using the MW debugger :-)

Thanks,
-Frank

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Tom Gooding)
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 20:46:47 -0600
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:

> I hear mixed messages about using GetKeys() vs. the Event Manager to
> read user input during a game.
>
> I used GetKeys in my first game, and I'm using events in my current
> game.  Honestly, I don't think it makes much of a difference in
> terms of speed.
>
> Using the Event Manager has several advantages, such as ensuring
> that you don't miss a keystroke if the user hits a key real fast
> (it's also a heckuva lot easier.)  It just seems safer, and more
> friendly to the customer.  Plus it seems like a safer bet that
> future game controllers will work properly through the event queue.
>
> Am I missing the boat altogether by using the Event Manager?  Is
> there some good reason to use GetKeys that I don't know about?

My experience using the Event Manager has been somewhat rocky.  It has a
few problems.
1) Reading Multiple keys becomes difficult
2) The speed that you can read keys is limited by the keyboard repeat rate.

I dunno, maybe I'm missing some function call.  If speed isn't important,
use GetNextEvent or WaitNextEvent.

Tom Gooding
[e-mail]
Computer Engineering 4

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Ingemar Ragnemalm)
Date: 4 Dec 1995 09:34:14 GMT
Organization: (none)

Frank Kane <[e-mail]> writes:

>I hear mixed messages about using GetKeys() vs. the Event Manager to
>read user input during a game.
Of course you get mixed messages! Different games need different solutions.

>I used GetKeys in my first game, and I'm using events in my current
>game.  Honestly, I don't think it makes much of a difference in
>terms of speed.

It makes a big difference if you use WNE with a sleep time > 0, or have
lots of applications in the background.

>Using the Event Manager has several advantages, such as ensuring
>that you don't miss a keystroke if the user hits a key real fast
>(it's also a heckuva lot easier.)  It just seems safer, and more
>friendly to the customer.  Plus it seems like a safer bet that
>future game controllers will work properly through the event queue.

Also, with events you *know* what key the user has hit. With GetKeys,
you only have the key code, you don't know what key it is. Assuming that
the key codes are the same on all keyboards is foolish. Dark Forces
does it, but that's no excuse. (The "+" key shinks the map and the "'"
key expands it - not good at all!)

>Am I missing the boat altogether by using the Event Manager?  Is
>there some good reason to use GetKeys that I don't know about?

Well, as long as you just want the keyDowns, that is, if you just want to
know when a key is hit, not for how long it stays down, it is ok. I never
felt I could trust every keyDown to be matched by a keyUp.

--
- -
Ingemar Ragnemalm, PhD
Image processing, Mac shareware games
E-mail address: [e-mail] or [e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Date: 4 Dec 1995 17:12:32 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology

In article <49ufan$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ingemar Ragnemalm) writes:
>Frank Kane <[e-mail]> writes:
>>I used GetKeys in my first game, and I'm using events in my current
>>game.  Honestly, I don't think it makes much of a difference in
>>terms of speed.

>It makes a big difference if you use WNE with a sleep time > 0, or have
>lots of applications in the background.

During games, I never call WNE. I may call GetNextEvent, if the user
has background processing enabled, but the best thing is usually to
call only GetOSEvent, since it doesn't allow any background processing.

>>Using the Event Manager has several advantages, such as ensuring
>>that you don't miss a keystroke if the user hits a key real fast
>>(it's also a heckuva lot easier.)  It just seems safer, and more
>>friendly to the customer.  Plus it seems like a safer bet that
>>future game controllers will work properly through the event queue.

These are all true. That's why I converted from GetKeys to GetOSEvent.
The main bother is that you don't get keyUps and keyDowns for modifier
keys and they are usually the best for games, so one has to write some
additional code to handle them and it's still possible for the game to
miss a quick tap on a modifier key.

>Also, with events you *know* what key the user has hit. With GetKeys,
>you only have the key code, you don't know what key it is. Assuming that
>the key codes are the same on all keyboards is foolish. Dark Forces
>does it, but that's no excuse. (The "+" key shinks the map and the "'"
>key expands it - not good at all!)

Keys should be configurable. I think it is better to attach the functions
to virtual keycodes than characters. You just have to remember that the
layouts may change and some keys may not exist at all or some extra keys
will exist on some keyboards.

I believe that I have the perfect solution to keyboard configuration,
but most of you will have to wait until the game is released before you
can judge if it does it right. It's a very compact, easily
reconfigurable library, so I may offer it to other developers as well,
if there is interest.

>Well, as long as you just want the keyDowns, that is, if you just want to
>know when a key is hit, not for how long it stays down, it is ok. I never
>felt I could trust every keyDown to be matched by a keyUp.

Interestingly, it seems you can trust keyUps to be posted for each
keyDown. At least it works for me. You can also get more accurate
timing information with events, since every event is time stamped
with a tickcount.

The thing to remember with events is that you only get one event at a time
even when there might be a dozen queued up. Each time you look for keyboard
activity, go through the whole queue. A game that only allows one keypress
per frame will be extremely irritating to most players.

--
Juri Munkki [e-mail]      In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.iki.fi/~jmunkki              Windsurfing: Faster than the wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Jesse Jones)
Date: 4 Dec 1995 01:28:06 GMT
Organization: Edmark

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (John Lewis) wrote:

[snip]

> I'm currently working on a project that needs to know when the user
> releases a key as well. I started out using the event manager and watching
> for keyUp events. (Yes I did call SetEventMask)
>
> This worked fine except when I was running under the debugger. Then, for a
> reason I still haven't figured out, I wouldn't receive keyUp events. For
> this reason, I ended up switching to GetKeys.

[snip]

For some reason the system event mask isn't reset when apps are switched
out and in. You need to reset the mask when your app is switched in and
change it back to the default before quitting.

  --Jesse

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Ron Hunsinger)
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 1995 20:59:55 -0800
Organization: ErsteSoft

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Tom Gooding) wrote:

> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > Using the Event Manager has several advantages, such as ensuring
> > that you don't miss a keystroke if the user hits a key real fast
> > (it's also a heckuva lot easier.)  It just seems safer, and more
> > friendly to the customer.

Hear, hear! I really hate games that miss keystrokes because they're using
GetKeys. And from a progamming viewpoint, I agree that events are a lot
cleaner.

One advantage you overlooked is that the Event Manager understands about
multiple keyboards. Admittedly, not many users have them, but the fact
that GetKeys is making an unwarranted assumption strengthens the feeling
that it's really just a kludge.

> My experience using the Event Manager has been somewhat rocky.  It has a
> few problems.
> 1) Reading Multiple keys becomes difficult

Not really. Enable keyUp events (and mask out autoKey events instead), and
you will get exactly the same information: a keyDown every time a bit is
set in the keyboard table, and a keyUp every time a bit is cleared. Except
for modifier keys, of course, which you have to track separately from the
modifiers field of each event.

> 2) The speed that you can read keys is limited by the keyboard repeat rate.

No difference here. The information returned by GetKeys only changes this
fast anyway. The keyboard itself only sends back (the equivalent of)
keyDown and keyUp events, which the event manager uses to maintain the
table that GetKeys returns.

You can maintain that table just as well, and if you do it yourself you're
sure to catch rapid keystrokes.

> I dunno, maybe I'm missing some function call.  If speed isn't important,
> use GetNextEvent or WaitNextEvent.

I can't believe that speed would ever be that important. The keyboard is
only scanned 60 times a second, and the cost of GetNextEvent is much
smaller than this.

If absolutely necessary, you can monitor Ticks so you only call GNE/WNE
that often. The test would be: don't call GNE if the last event was a
nullEvt and the TickCount hasn't changed since then. This allows for the
possibility that multiple events could be posted in one tick, while still
holding the overhead down to at most one superflous call per tick.

-Ron Hunsinger

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (John W. Blackburne)
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 18:11:57 +0800
Organization: Tempest

Not so much a reply but a couple of observations.

First is that one problem with events is as far as I can tell you won't
receive notification of a user pressing a modifier key. With most
keyboards having dozens of other keys to choose from this would not be
important, except Apple only guarantees that at at most 2 non-modifier
keys will be properly sensed at once. Modern action games can easily have
four or five keys in use at once, so function most reliably using
modifiers for many of their functions.

This is assuming the 'at most 2 keys plus modifiers' limit still applies.
I think this first appeared in Inside Macintosh IV or V, and I've not seen
anything about it since then. We've been through a few System software and
hardware revisions since then, so does this limit still apply ?

Also the most significant problem with GetKeys, that it can't poll
multiple devices, e.g. a keyboard and seperate keypad, can be fixed using
a GetKeys replacement routine, ADB Key Spy, which appeared on the November
Developer CD.

John
--
John Blackburne,                     [e-mail]
Programmer  Asia, Inc. Online:       http://www.asia-inc.com
Technology consultant and trainer:   http://www.hk.super.net/~johnb

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Francois Pottier)
Date: 5 Dec 1995 15:06:29 GMT
Organization: Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris

In article <49va60$[e-mail]>, Juri Munkki <[e-mail]> wrote:

>Keys should be configurable. I think it is better to attach the functions
>to virtual keycodes than characters.

I agree, because people with foreign keyboards will have trouble if functions
are attached to characters which are obtained through weird combinations. The
only problem is then how to tell the user which key does which. For instance,
the docs for A-10 say "press M to arm the cannon" but I actually have to press
"," because I have a French keyboard. The location of the key on the keyboard
is the same, but a user who has never used an American keyboard is helplessly
lost.

--
Francois
[e-mail]
http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/pottier/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Date: 5 Dec 1995 20:13:08 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology

In article <4a1n5l$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Francois Pottier) writes:
>In article <49va60$[e-mail]>, Juri Munkki <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>>Keys should be configurable. I think it is better to attach the functions
>>to virtual keycodes than characters.
>
>I agree, because people with foreign keyboards will have trouble if functions
>are attached to characters which are obtained through weird combinations. The
>only problem is then how to tell the user which key does which. For instance,
>the docs for A-10 say "press M to arm the cannon" but I actually have to press
>"," because I have a French keyboard. The location of the key on the keyboard
>is the same, but a user who has never used an American keyboard is helplessly
>lost.

You can use KeyTrans to translate key codes to characters. Optimally you
would maintain a set of strings or icons to label special keys that do not
have printable characters (like tab, return, F1-F15, home, arrow keys) and
you can use KeyTrans for the other keys.

If, in addition to this, you show the user a picture of the keyboard he/she
is typing on with the keys clearly shown, you should be able to avoid all
confusion. (But then you have to remember that there can be multiple different
keyboards attached.)

--
Juri Munkki [e-mail]      In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.iki.fi/~jmunkki              Windsurfing: Faster than the wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Date: 5 Dec 1995 21:25:09 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John W. Blackburne) writes:
>First is that one problem with events is as far as I can tell you won't
>receive notification of a user pressing a modifier key. With most
>keyboards having dozens of other keys to choose from this would not be
>important, except Apple only guarantees that at at most 2 non-modifier
>keys will be properly sensed at once. Modern action games can easily have
>four or five keys in use at once, so function most reliably using
>modifiers for many of their functions.

Events win over GetKeys here too. The very least you will get is a
null event with the modifier keys bitmap. If the user happened to
release or press any other keys, those events will also have modifier
key bitmaps, so you actually get the state of modifier keys whenever
something else happens on the keyboard, whereas with GetKeys, you only
get the current situation.

The only thing you can't (as far as I know) do with events is to detect
the right side command, shift and option (ALT) keys on the extended
keyboard. (And tell them apart from the left side.)

>This is assuming the 'at most 2 keys plus modifiers' limit still applies.
>I think this first appeared in Inside Macintosh IV or V, and I've not seen
>anything about it since then. We've been through a few System software and
>hardware revisions since then, so does this limit still apply ?

It has nothing to do with system software. It's a hardware limitation
related to the way the keyboard matrix is designed. The limitation was
slightly relaxed on some keyboards (the Apple Extended Keyboard comes
to mind but there are still severe limitations to the number of
keydowns that can be detected.

An easy way to find them is to open Key Caps and play with holding
multiple keys: you'll see the ones that are detected highlited.

The two key limitation is still the lowest common denominator, so it is
a good idea to test default key layouts on such a keyboard.

--
Juri Munkki [e-mail]      In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.iki.fi/~jmunkki              Windsurfing: Faster than the wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Gordon Henriksen)
Date: 6 Dec 1995 00:38:10 GMT
Organization: Micron Internet Services

Okay, it seems to me that most people have decided to go with the Event
Manager to track keys. I only have one problem with this: How does one
track modifier keys this way? Most programs don't need it, but games ARE
the exception of most every rule. Anyway....

                      TTFN,
                        Gordon Henriksen
                        [e-mail]
        __________________________________________________
   HAL 9000:  Dave.  Put down those Windows disks, Dave.  DAVE!
__________________________________________________________________
Microsoft is prohibited from redistributing this work in any form,
in whole or in part. Copyright, Gordon Henriksen, 1995. License to
distribute this post is available to Microsoft for $150. Posting
without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms. Please
send notices of violation to [e-mail] and
[e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Ron Hunsinger)
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 20:31:45 -0800
Organization: ErsteSoft

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Jesse Jones) wrote:

> In article <[e-mail]>,
> [e-mail] (John Lewis) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > I'm currently working on a project that needs to know when the user
> > releases a key as well. I started out using the event manager and watching
> > for keyUp events. (Yes I did call SetEventMask)
> >
> > This worked fine except when I was running under the debugger. Then, for a
> > reason I still haven't figured out, I wouldn't receive keyUp events. For
> > this reason, I ended up switching to GetKeys.
>
> [snip]
>
> For some reason the system event mask isn't reset when apps are switched
> out and in. You need to reset the mask when your app is switched in and
> change it back to the default before quitting.

Not so. The system event mask is maintained separately for each process,
and is switched properly whenever there is a process switch. You can set
it once during initialization and forget about it. Your setting is in
effect whenever (and only when) your application is the front process.

The only thing you have to worry about is keystrokes that are sent to
another process while you're in the background. To compensate, you need to
adjust your private key map each time you get a resume event. You can
either rebuild it using GetKeys (being careful to handle foreign keyboards
properly), or just flush all keyboard events and presume that all the keys
are up.

This came up once before in another conference, and I conducted a lengthy
conversation with the person who reported (as you did) that it doesn't
work. We finally pinned it down to his debugger. I was using MacsBug,
which shows what's actually going on. He was using the debugger integrated
into his development system (Symantec C, IIRC).

The problem boils down to the fact that, while you are debugging with a
high level debugger, your active process is actually the debugger rather
than the program under test, so PostEvent uses the SysEvtMask for the
debugger instead of the one set by SetEventMask in the application. To add
to the confusion, if you ask the debugger to display (or set) low memory,
it may show you the application's low memory instead of its own.

He found a workaround. I'm not 100% sure what it was, but I presume it was
to set SysEvtMask (at address $0144) for the debugger as well as for the
application. It's also possible that he got around the problem by
debugging with MacsBug instead of the integrated debugger. Kind of a
nuisance, I suppose, but your customers aren't going to be debugging the
final product, so it's only a nuisance to you, not them.

-Ron Hunsinger

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Date: 6 Dec 1995 09:17:15 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gordon Henriksen) writes:
>Okay, it seems to me that most people have decided to go with the Event
>Manager to track keys. I only have one problem with this: How does one
>track modifier keys this way? Most programs don't need it, but games ARE
>the exception of most every rule. Anyway....

The event record has the modifiers field that you can use. That's easy
enough. The tricky thing is to detect dead keys. I forgot all about that
until I tried to use a dead key in my app...it only worked every second
time, since the first time was "dead".

Any suggestions as to how to handle dead keys without GetKeys or
an equivalent would be welcome. In my case, I would also prefer to
be able to use the dead keys to accent marks while the game is running,
so making them act like regular keys would not be the perfect solution.

It's back to the drawing board for me... ouch.

--
Juri Munkki [e-mail]      In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.iki.fi/~jmunkki              Windsurfing: Faster than the wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Thomas Reed)
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 09:44:19 -0600
Organization: Washington University

>First is that one problem with events is as far as I can tell you won't
>receive notification of a user pressing a modifier key.

Yeah, but every event has got bits telling what modifiers were down at the
time.  You can always do something like scan for nullEvents and check the
modifiers in the event.  The system always has nullEvents to spare, so
you'll never go looking for one and come up dry...

-Thomas

=====================================================
Thomas Reed                     Washington University
[e-mail]               Medical School
[e-mail]            Saint Louis, MO
http://medinfo.wustl.edu/~reed
- ---------------------------------------------------
Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no
influence on society.  -- Mark Twain
=====================================================

Opinions posted are not the opinions of Wash. U.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From Frank Kane <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 19:30:50 -0500
Organization: Cerberus Development

Juri Munkki wrote:

> The event record has the modifiers field that you can use. That's easy
> enough. The tricky thing is to detect dead keys. I forgot all about that
> until I tried to use a dead key in my app...it only worked every second
> time, since the first time was "dead".

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by a "dead key."  Could you explain the problem
you're having a bit more?   Are we talking about a bit too much dried coffee
sitting in a contact for a key, or some quirky event manager thing related to
handling more than two non-modifier keys being depressed simultaneously?

This makes me think:

If a user depresses and holds 'A', 'S' and 'D', in that order, I expect that
we'll get KeyDowns for A and S but not D.  Now, if the user releases these keys
in the opposite order, do we get a KeyUp for D with no matching KeyDown?

-Frank

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Ron Hunsinger)
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 03:18:24 -0800
Organization: ErsteSoft

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (John W. Blackburne) wrote:

> Not so much a reply but a couple of observations.
>
> First is that one problem with events is as far as I can tell you won't
> receive notification of a user pressing a modifier key.

Sure you do. You don't even have to keep track of them. The modifier keys
each have their own bit in the modifiers field of the Event Record. These
are valid for every event type, even nullEvt.

> With most
> keyboards having dozens of other keys to choose from this would not be
> important, except Apple only guarantees that at at most 2 non-modifier
> keys will be properly sensed at once.

This is a limitation of the keyboard, not the OS. When you press the third
non-modifier key on a 'standard' Apple keyboard, the keyboard itself sends
a keyUp for the first key in response to the next poll.

Since it's the keyboard doing this, the limit of two non-modifier keys
applies no matter how you examine the results, whether with events or with
GetKeys.

The separate numeric keypad was non-standard in this regard, and would
report all the keys.

I'm pretty sure the extended keyboards treat the numeric keypad part the
same way. That is, it's only on the main block of keys that rollover is
limited to two keys. The definitive answer, as ever, is keyboard
dependent.

-Ron Hunsinger

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (TheBug)
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 14:05:46 +0100
Organization: privat

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:

> I'm not 100% sure what you mean by a "dead key."  Could you explain the
problem
> you're having a bit more?

Dead keys generate no KeyDown event on the first pressing down, like the
accent character key. Since these keys can be on different locations in
different quantities, depending on the language being used this is a BIG
problem.

> If a user depresses and holds 'A', 'S' and 'D', in that order, I expect that
> we'll get KeyDowns for A and S but not D.  Now, if the user releases
these keys
> in the opposite order, do we get a KeyUp for D with no matching KeyDown?

You will never see a KeyUp for which there was no KeyDown. What I wuld
guess in your case is that you can get an additional KeyDown for a key
that is not acutally pressed. This is due to the fact the keyboards are
arranged in matrixes. If you press three keys in a certain pattern in the
matrix you will see another key as being pressed, even though it actually
is'nt. To prevent this you would have to put diodes all over the matrix.
Due to production cost this is almost never done.

--
*******************************************************************
Guido Körber -            Programmer and hardware hacker
[e-mail]    Specialised in mistreating the ADB
fax: x49-30-773 81 36     Ask me about:
                           Flightstick Pro, Jetstick
                           MacEnjoy, MacEnjoy Style

Opinions expressed herein are mine unless expressly stated
otherwise. Similarities with living or undead persons are
coincidence and not intended - really!   ;-)
Best use before: (see date printed on backside of message)
*******************************************************************

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 21:51:05 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>Juri Munkki wrote:
>> The event record has the modifiers field that you can use. That's easy
>> enough. The tricky thing is to detect dead keys. I forgot all about that
>> until I tried to use a dead key in my app...it only worked every second
>> time, since the first time was "dead".
>
>I'm not 100% sure what you mean by a "dead key."  Could you explain the problem

Look up the words "dead key" in Inside Macintosh. They are usually used to
provide accented characters. When you hit the accent mark key, no keyDown
is reported. If you then hit a character that can not accept an accent,
the dead key (a backquote, for instance)  keyDown is queued as well as
the character that could not be accented.

There's a funny feature related to that too. The keyDown event for the
dead key receives it's modifier keys from the next key, so:

        if you try to enter ~ ctrl-Z to suspend an rlogin:

        - the ~ is a dead key (on at least some KCHRs), so it doesn't cause
          a keyDown.
        - The ctrl-Z is entered and obviously a control character can not
          take the accent, but instead of ~ctrl-Z, we actually get ctrl-~
          ctrl-Z, because the modifier keys from the ctrl-Z are copied to
          the dead key.

It was a major problem for me, back when I was writing a terminal program
that ran on a keyboard with no control key. The command key could be used
as the control key, so pressing ~ command-Z actually cause ctrl-~ ctrl-Z
to be sent. It doesn't have much relevance to games though.

>you're having a bit more?   Are we talking about a bit too much dried coffee
>sitting in a contact for a key, or some quirky event manager thing related to
>handling more than two non-modifier keys being depressed simultaneously?

I usually wash my keyboard when I spill Coca Cola on it.

>If a user depresses and holds 'A', 'S' and 'D', in that order, I expect that
>we'll get KeyDowns for A and S but not D.  Now, if the user releases these keys
>in the opposite order, do we get a KeyUp for D with no matching KeyDown?

You can only get keyUps for keys that have gotten keyDowns. Every keyUp is
preceded by a keyDown. If you hold down 456 and then release 4, you will get
a keyUp for 4 and then immediately a keyDown for 6.

As I remember it, the limitations of the extended keyboard are really
funky... you can hold down certain combinations of keys, but not others.
Key Caps is again your friend in exploring these mysteries.

--
Juri Munkki [e-mail]      In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.iki.fi/~jmunkki              Windsurfing: Faster than the wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Dale Semchishen [4597])
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 20:45:59 GMT
Organization: Glenayre Electronics Ltd.

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] (John W. Blackburne) writes:
>This is assuming the 'at most 2 keys plus modifiers' limit still applies.
>I think this first appeared in Inside Macintosh IV or V, and I've not seen
>anything about it since then. We've been through a few System software and
>hardware revisions since then, so does this limit still apply ?

The limit on the number of simultaneous keys being held down
(and still detected) is a function of the keyboard and its driver.

If I connect the keyboard that came with my SE to my LCIII, I only
get 2 key rollover (regardless of the operating system version).

If I connect a 3rd party keyboard to my LCIII, then I get
many key rollover. I held down as many as I could at the same time
and all keys were returned by the Event Manager.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Andrew Meggs)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 23:10:22 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <49ufan$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ingemar
Ragnemalm) wrote:
>
> Also, with events you *know* what key the user has hit. With GetKeys,
> you only have the key code, you don't know what key it is. Assuming that
> the key codes are the same on all keyboards is foolish. Dark Forces
> does it, but that's no excuse. (The "+" key shinks the map and the "'"
> key expands it - not good at all!)
>

Could you perhaps fill in my knowledge of Mac key mapping a little
bit? GetKeys returns virtual key codes, not raw key codes, so presumably
they've already been mapped through the KMAP resource. Other than the
conversion to ASCII (at which point you lose the ability to distinguish
between the keypad and the numbers on the main keyboard, and other such
misfortunes), what translation is left after you've got a virtual
key code?

--
_________________________________________________________________________
andrew meggs                               the one who dies with the most
[e-mail]                              AOL free trial disks wins

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Ron Hunsinger)
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 1995 06:08:57 -0800
Organization: ErsteSoft

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:

> If a user depresses and holds 'A', 'S' and 'D', in that order, I expect that
> we'll get KeyDowns for A and S but not D.  Now, if the user releases
these keys
> in the opposite order, do we get a KeyUp for D with no matching KeyDown?

Assuming that the keyboard doesn't get confused, here's what happens on a
strict 2-key-rollover keyboard:

  1) User presses A.  Keyboard sends keyDown(A).

  2) User presses S.  Keyboard sends keyDown(S).

  3) User presses D.  Keyboard sends keyUp(A), then keyDown(D).

  4) User releases A. Keyboard does nothing.

  5) User releases S. Keyboard sends keyUp(S).

  6) User releases D. Keyboard sends keyUp(D).

At time (3), the keyboard knows that A is still down, but sends the keyUp
for it anyway so that the computer will not 'see' more than two
non-modifier keys down. Not all keyboards will do this, because not all
keyboards are afraid to show more than two keys down.

By "assuming that the keyboard doesn't get confuse", I'm referring to the
fact that on many (most) keyboards, there are combinations of three keys,
on three corners of a rectangle on the scanning grid, that will make the
keyboard mistakenly think the key on the fourth corner is also pressed.

My Apple Extended Keyboard (M3501) is happy to show "asdfhjcb," all at the
same time (at which time I run out of fingers). It will not, however, show
"afg" at the same time. In this sense, the limit seems to be that the
keyboard only promises to faithfully report both of any two keys pressed.
It makes no guarantee about what happens when more keys are pressed.

The effect may in some cases be timing related. For example, if I press
and hold "o" and then press "u" and "t" simultaneously, I may get "ot", or
"ou", or "ou;". This has in fact been reported by several users: if you
type "out" very quickly, you may get "ou;".

Try playing with KeyCaps to see what you get on your keyboard. Ignore any
auto-repeat, which is generated by the event manager and not by the
keyboard. Keep in mind that not all your customers will have your
keyboard.

-Ron Hunsinger

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Gordon Henriksen)
Date: 9 Dec 1995 02:45:34 GMT
Organization: Micron Internet Services

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:

> Juri Munkki wrote:
>
> > The event record has the modifiers field that you can use. That's easy
> > enough. The tricky thing is to detect dead keys. I forgot all about that
> > until I tried to use a dead key in my app...it only worked every second
> > time, since the first time was "dead".

> I'm not 100% sure what you mean by a "dead key."  Could you explain the
> problem you're having a bit more?   Are we talking about a bit too much dried
> coffee sitting in a contact for a key, or some quirky event manager thing
> related to handling more than two non-modifier keys being depressed
> simultaneously?

Fire up your favorite text/word processor. Type option-n. NOTHING happens.
Now type a vowel. The vowel should appear with an accent mark that looks
like a tilide (~) over it. The point of this is to extend the keyboard in
such a way as to be able to type accent marks and have the keystrokes
involved be somewhat intuitive. It is much easier than having to remember
a specific keystroke for each letter's accent mark. The technique [sp?]
also works on capitals just as would be expected. The reason the program
didn't respond was because it simply wasn't notified of the stroke. The
System obviously stores them in some internal variable, and there is no
way that I am aware of to work around them using events.

> This makes me think:

> If a user depresses and holds 'A', 'S' and 'D', in that order, I expect that
> we'll get KeyDowns for A and S but not D.  Now, if the user releases these
> keys in the opposite order, do we get a KeyUp for D with no matching KeyDown?

No. Allow me to illustrate:

 User | Computer
- ----+----------
 A    |   A
 AS   |   AS
 ASD  |   AS     //  'd' depressed, but the keyboard doesn't see it
 AS   |   AS     //  'd' released, but since the keyboard didn't see it, it
      |          //     doesn't respond
 A    |   A

Since the keyboard usually can only detect two keys at a time, the 'd'
wouldn't be registered at all. If we performed a similar operation as
follows, I think that a 'd' KeyUp event would be registered without a
corresponding KeyDown. On the other hand, it could result in a KeyUp as
soon as the 'a' key is released.

 User | Computer
- ----+----------
 A    |  A
 AS   |  AS
 ASD  |  AS      //  'd' is also depressed, but the keyboard doesn't see it
  SD  |   SD     //  now it sees it. Does it generate a KeyUp or nothing?
   D  |    D

Anyone care to tell us what would really happen? I find this discussion
fascinating because I was not actively aware of this limitation to the
standard keyboard.

                      TTFN,
                        Gordon Henriksen
                        [e-mail]
        __________________________________________________
   HAL 9000:  Dave.  Put down those Windows disks, Dave.  DAVE!
__________________________________________________________________
Microsoft is prohibited from redistributing this work in any form,
in whole or in part. Copyright, Gordon Henriksen, 1995. License to
distribute this post is available to Microsoft for $150. Posting
without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms. Please
send notices of violation to [e-mail] and
[e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Kevin Tieskoetter)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 21:27:13 GMT
Organization: Albatross Productions

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Thomas Reed) writes:

> >First is that one problem with events is as far as I can tell you won't
> >receive notification of a user pressing a modifier key.
>
> Yeah, but every event has got bits telling what modifiers were down at the
> time.  You can always do something like scan for nullEvents and check the
> modifiers in the event.  The system always has nullEvents to spare, so
> you'll never go looking for one and come up dry...

That doesn't seem to make much sense - why deliberately look for a null
event just so you can see what modifiers were being held down when that
null event took place? (is the modifier field even valid for null
events?) If you always know you're going to get a null event (I'm not
sure this is true), why not just call GetKeys() instead?

-kevin

//---------------------------------------------------------------------
   Kevin Tieskoetter / Software Prestidigitator, Specular International
//---------------------------------------------------------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Kevin Tieskoetter)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 21:29:32 GMT
Organization: Albatross Productions

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Gordon Henriksen) writes:

> Okay, it seems to me that most people have decided to go with the Event
> Manager to track keys. I only have one problem with this: How does one
> track modifier keys this way? Most programs don't need it, but games ARE
> the exception of most every rule. Anyway....

What I do is call WaitNextEvent every 5 ticks or so, then call
GetKeys() every other time. I can track modifier keys through
GetKeys(), plus the rest of the system gets time to work. There's not
much point in calling WaitNextEvent() several times a second, which is
what many programs end up doing since they made assumptions about the
processor speed which weren't true...

-kevin

//---------------------------------------------------------------------
   Kevin Tieskoetter / Software Prestidigitator, Specular International
//---------------------------------------------------------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (TheBug)
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 14:05:46 +0100
Organization: privat

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] wrote:

> I'm not 100% sure what you mean by a "dead key."  Could you explain the
problem
> you're having a bit more?

Dead keys generate no KeyDown event on the first pressing down, like the
accent character key. Since these keys can be on different locations in
different quantities, depending on the language being used this is a BIG
problem.

> If a user depresses and holds 'A', 'S' and 'D', in that order, I expect that
> we'll get KeyDowns for A and S but not D.  Now, if the user releases
these keys
> in the opposite order, do we get a KeyUp for D with no matching KeyDown?

You will never see a KeyUp for which there was no KeyDown. What I wuld
guess in your case is that you can get an additional KeyDown for a key
that is not acutally pressed. This is due to the fact the keyboards are
arranged in matrixes. If you press three keys in a certain pattern in the
matrix you will see another key as being pressed, even though it actually
is'nt. To prevent this you would have to put diodes all over the matrix.
Due to production cost this is almost never done.

--
*******************************************************************
Guido Körber -            Programmer and hardware hacker
[e-mail]    Specialised in mistreating the ADB
fax: x49-30-773 81 36     Ask me about:
                           Flightstick Pro, Jetstick
                           MacEnjoy, MacEnjoy Style

Opinions expressed herein are mine unless expressly stated
otherwise. Similarities with living or undead persons are
coincidence and not intended - really!   ;-)
Best use before: (see date printed on backside of message)
*******************************************************************

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

>From [e-mail] (Tim DeBenedictis)
Subject: How do I draw dashed lines?
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 07:36:50 GMT
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)

In Windows GDI, there is an option to create a "dashed" pen, and anything
you draw with that pen will have a dashed-line appearance (squares,
circles, etc.)  Does Mac QuickDraw have anything similar?  I know you
could always just set the PenPat, but that's not what I'm looking for: I
want an honest-to-god, genuine dashed-line pen.  Am I going to have to
write my own DrawDashedLine() routine (which, I assume, would consist of
a bunch of LineTo()/MoveTo() calls)?  If so, can anybpdy present me with
a simple algorithm, or better yet sample code?

Thanks!

-Tim DeBenedictis
[e-mail]


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Frank Durgin, Stephen Sample, and various student researchers)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 09:06:41 -0500
Organization: Swarthmore Visual Perception Lab

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tim
DeBenedictis) wrote:

> In Windows GDI, there is an option to create a "dashed" pen, and anything
> you draw with that pen will have a dashed-line appearance (squares,
> circles, etc.)  Does Mac QuickDraw have anything similar?  I know you
> could always just set the PenPat, but that's not what I'm looking for: I
> want an honest-to-god, genuine dashed-line pen.

Well, GX supports dashed pens (with arbitrary dash shapes yet!) so you
could use that. It would give you lots of other really cool graphics
features more or less for free, too, but, OTOH, you'd have to require GX
(or Copland).


Ta,
   -Stephen

--
Frank Durgin, Stephen Sample, & various student researchers
- --------------------------
Visual Perception Laboratory
Department of Psychology
Swarthmore College

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

>From Frank Kane <[e-mail]>
Subject: Network code on a PPC native project?
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 09:44:06 +0000
Organization: Cerberus Development

Just got my copy of Tricks of the Mac Game Programming Gurus, began
reading the chapter on networking, got all inspired, and decided I'd
add network play to my current project.

But then you get to a little aside that says "oh by the way, you
need to use 68K assembly for the callback routines, if you're making
a PowerPC native game, sorry, thanks for playing.  It's possible,
but good luck."  Well, not in those words exactly.

Now, I know it's possible to get the Mixed Mode Manager to use 68K
code from a PowerPC app, via UPP's or something.  Personally, I have
no clue how UPP's work unless they're set up for me in a header
file.

Does anybody have any experience in handling networks from a PPC
native app?  How do you use the 68K assembly from a PPC project?
(Besides trying to use the new Open Transport calls instead) Do I
need to somehow get the 68K code in a resource or something?

Thanks!
-Frank

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Andrew Barry)
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 14:53:48 +1000
Organization: Interconnect Australia

> Does anybody have any experience in handling networks from a PPC
> native app?  How do you use the 68K assembly from a PPC project?
> (Besides trying to use the new Open Transport calls instead) Do I
> need to somehow get the 68K code in a resource or something?

Ran into exactly this problem when doing the PowerPC version of 'Prince of
Destruction' - my DDP socket listener was written as a code resource,
which I then loaded and created a UPP to it.

If you look in AppleTalk.h, you'll notice upp info definitions for the
various procs. eg. uppDDPSocketListenerProcInfo

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

>From [e-mail] (Vanessa Williams)
Subject: Spheres in Q3D?
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 1995 22:00:40 -0500
Organization: Tessera Solutions

Anyone have any ideas on the best way to render spheres, cylinders etc. in
QuickDraw 3D? I'm assuming NURB surfaces are the way to go, but don't know
exactly how to specify basic surfaces using NURBS. All of the info I have
on NURBS is very theoretical, no practical examples to speak of (i.e.
Foley and Van Dam). Any ideas or pointers appreciated.

Thanks,

Vanessa

--
Vanessa Williams
Tessera Solutions, Interactive Graphics & Multimedia
[e-mail]
http://www.io.org/~vanessa/

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Andrew Shearer)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 20:50:18 -0500
Organization: Rhode Island Hospital

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Vanessa Williams) wrote:

>Anyone have any ideas on the best way to render spheres, cylinders etc. in
>QuickDraw 3D? I'm assuming NURB surfaces are the way to go, but don't know
>exactly how to specify basic surfaces using NURBS. All of the info I have
>on NURBS is very theoretical, no practical examples to speak of (i.e.
>Foley and Van Dam). Any ideas or pointers appreciated.

One of the pieces of QD3D sample code (TriGrids?) has a sphere creation
routine. It doesn't add vertex normals, though, so the sphere looks
faceted even with vertex interpolation on.

Here's a version modified to add normals. (I removed some extra code
before posting; hopefully, I didn't break anything.) 1.5 is a good value
for inQuality. CheckQ3Object() and CheckQ3Status() are error-checking
routines.

TQ3GeometryObject
MakeSphere(
   float inRadius,
   float inQuality)
{
   /*
    * vvValue is an angle used to generate each half circular cross section
    * uuValue is an angle used to revolve the cross section about the y axis
    */
   const float vvMin = -kQ3PiOver2, vvMax = kQ3PiOver2;
   const float uuMin = 0.0, uuMax = kQ32Pi;
   const unsigned long theNumRows = (6 * inQuality)  + 1, theNumColumns =
(10 * inQuality) + 1;

   StPointerBlock theVerticesPtr(theNumRows * theNumColumns *
sizeof(TQ3Vertex3D));
   TQ3Vertex3D *theVertices = (TQ3Vertex3D*) Ptr(theVerticesPtr);
   // Non-PowerPlant C version:
   // TQ3Vertex3D *theVertices = (TQ3Vertex3D *) ::NewPtr (theNumRows *
theNumColumns * sizeof(TQ3Vertex3D));
   // ThrowIfMemFail_(theVertices);

   const float uuStep = (uuMax - uuMin) / (theNumColumns - 1);
   const float vvStep = (vvMax - vvMin) / (theNumRows - 1);

   for (unsigned long theRow = 0; theRow < theNumRows; theRow++) {
      for (unsigned long theColumn = 0; theColumn < theNumColumns;
theColumn++) {
         const float uuRadians = uuMax - theColumn * uuStep;
         const float vvRadians = vvMin + theRow * vvStep;
         TQ3Vertex3D &theVertex = theVertices[theColumn + theRow *
theNumColumns];
         const TQ3Vector3D theNormal =
            {cos(vvRadians) * cos(uuRadians), sin(vvRadians),
cos(vvRadians) * sin(uuRadians)};

         theVertex.point.x = inRadius * theNormal.x;
         theVertex.point.y = inRadius * theNormal.y;
         theVertex.point.z = inRadius * theNormal.z;
         theVertex.attributeSet = CheckQ3Object(Q3AttributeSet_New());
         CheckQ3Status(Q3AttributeSet_Add(theVertex.attributeSet,
kQ3AttributeTypeNormal, &theNormal));
      }
   }

   const TQ3TriGridData data =
      {theNumRows, theNumColumns, theVertices, nil /*facetAttributeSet*/,
nil /*triGridAttributeSet*/};
   TQ3GeometryObject outResult = Q3TriGrid_New(&data);

  for (long i = 0; i < theNumRows * theNumColumns; i++) {
      CheckQ3Status(Q3Object_Dispose(theVertices[i].attributeSet));
   }

   // C version:
   //::DisposePtr((Ptr)theVertices);

    return CheckQ3Object(outResult);
}

--
Andrew Shearer
Regular email: [e-mail]
(may be changing to [e-mail])

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

>From dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way)
Subject: WaitNextEvent & Background Processing
Date: 6 Dec 1995 20:48:56 GMT
Organization: ECC at Ford Motor Company, Dearborn Michigan

Juri Munkki ([e-mail]) wrote:
> In article <49ufan$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ingemar
Ragnemalm) writes:
> >It makes a big difference if you use WNE with a sleep time > 0, or have
> >lots of applications in the background.
>
> During games, I never call WNE. I may call GetNextEvent, if the user
> has background processing enabled, but the best thing is usually to
> call only GetOSEvent, since it doesn't allow any background processing.

(I wanted to start a new thread on this, since I had some questions about
WaitNextEvent.)

I'm writing a game in which I'm NOT calling WaitNextEvent (or anything
similar) unless the user decides to enable "background processing" in a
preferences dialog.  My initial impression was that if I didn't call
WaitNextEvent, I wouldn't have to worry about background processes taking up
valuable CPU time.

However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.  If I had
extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I turned
extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably
thinking that's damn fast anyway, but this is on a 7200/90 and I still have to
add a lot more complexity to the game.)  It turned out that the main culprit
was AfterDark (2.0).  If I removed AfterDark, the frame rate was about the
same whether other extensions were on or off.

So I'm wondering, are there certain kinds of background processes that can
occur whether or not I'm calling WaitNextEvent?  (I'm sure the After Dark
thing is not a RAM issue, the System and the game each take up about 5 megs on
my 16 meg machine... also, I'm wondering why AfterDark would need to chew up
so many resources just checking for inactivity.)  Or, could it be that some
other toolbox routine I'm calling somehow allows for event processing?  I
thought only WaitNextEvent and GetNextEvent did this.  To be fair, I do use
WaitNextEvent for the menu interface (for starting a new game, etc), but this
is outside of the game loop where I'm testing the frame rates.

(Also, I'm curious as to why Juri calls GetNextEvent rather than
WaitNextEvent.  Is it more efficient?)

Any ideas?  (Please post rather than emailing me.)

- Doug Way
  [e-mail]
  Bebound!


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From Frank Kane <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 19:07:43 -0500
Organization: Cerberus Development

Douglas E. Way wrote:

> However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.  If I had
> extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I turned
> extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably
> thinking that's damn fast anyway, but this is on a 7200/90 and I still have to
> add a lot more complexity to the game.)  It turned out that the main culprit
> was AfterDark (2.0).  If I removed AfterDark, the frame rate was about the
> same whether other extensions were on or off.

I'm no expert on how After Dark works (or on much else for that matter,) but I do
know that neglecting WaitNextEvent will do nothing to stop tasks that run on
interrupts.  File Sharing is a good example, and it's probably a good bet that
After Dark does too.  I'm probably oversimplifying, but apps like this will eat
up CPU time whenever the screen gets redrawn (every 1/60 second) whether or not
you give them time with WaitNextEvent.

If speed is critical, it's usually a good idea to give the user the option to
kill file sharing and the finder when starting up your game.  There's some code
to do this available at ftp.info.apple.com if you hunt long enough (look for a
game folder, it's in there.)

Hope this helps somewhat...

-Frank

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Jason Regier)
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 17:14:11 -0800
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc.

Regarding slowdowns with After Dark installed:
>
> I'm no expert on how After Dark works (or on much else for that matter,)
but I > do know that neglecting WaitNextEvent will do nothing to stop
tasks that run
> on interrupts.  I'm probably oversimplifying, but apps like this will eat
> up CPU time whenever the screen gets redrawn (every 1/60 second) whether or
> not you give them time with WaitNextEvent.
>
AfterDark most likely has to install some periodic interrupt (it doesn't
necessarily have to be tied to the 60 Hz vertical retrace clock) in order
to turn on when your mouse is placed in the corner.  When the interrupt
executes, it takes over the processor (thus stalling your application),
checks the mouse position, and relinquishes control of the processor back
to your app.  You most likely notice the lag incurred by checking the
mouse position and switching contexts between your app and AfterDark.

Assuming this is the case, kill AfterDark, and your problem will go away,
just as you found.

Jason

--
Jason Regier
GlobalStar Software Engineer
QUALCOMM, Inc.
[phone]
[e-mail]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Erichsen)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 04:21:40 GMT
Organization: Disorganized

In article <4a4vjo$[e-mail]>,
dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way) wrote:


>However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.  If I had
>extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I turned
>extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably
>thinking that's damn fast anyway, but this is on a 7200/90 and I still have to
>add a lot more complexity to the game.)  It turned out that the main culprit
>was AfterDark (2.0).  If I removed AfterDark, the frame rate was about the
>same whether other extensions were on or off.

The slowdown has nothing to do with background processing, it's extensions
patching traps. After Dark does this like it's going out of style. I'm not
sure if they've fixed it yet or not but, a lot of the stuff it patches is
replaced with 680x0 code which may be fine on a 680x0 machine but, on a
PowerPC if they patch something that is native, it's going to run emulated
and really slow you down.

You should try doing everything correctly (ie. calling WaitNextEvent and
processing events) and see what kind of speed you get. If you're not
getting the speed you want, try to improve your algorithms and as a VERY
last resort, limit your calls to WaitNextEvent. Don't just stop calling
it, throttle it so you can adjust how often it's called and decrease this
until you get the speed you need.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 10:57:29 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology

In article <4a4vjo$[e-mail]> dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way) writes:
>I'm writing a game in which I'm NOT calling WaitNextEvent (or anything
>However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.  If I had
>extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I turned
>extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably
>thinking that's damn fast anyway, but this is on a 7200/90 and I still have to
>add a lot more complexity to the game.)  It turned out that the main culprit
>was AfterDark (2.0).  If I removed AfterDark, the frame rate was about the
>same whether other extensions were on or off.

It needs to monitor what is happening on the machine, so I guess it patches
here and there and since it's probably not a fat extension, the patches
make the PPC emulate 68K code and thus slow it down (cache deteriorates
fast with 68K emulation).

It could also be installing time manager tasks for some reason.

>other toolbox routine I'm calling somehow allows for event processing?  I
>thought only WaitNextEvent and GetNextEvent did this.  To be fair, I do use
>WaitNextEvent for the menu interface (for starting a new game, etc), but this
>is outside of the game loop where I'm testing the frame rates.

The best you can do is call GetOSEvent. The rest is left up the the
users. Try to warn them that the game will run faster without extensions.
Then again, everything runs faster without extensions, so they might
already know.

Debuggers also tend to slow down the machine.

>(Also, I'm curious as to why Juri calls GetNextEvent rather than
>WaitNextEvent.  Is it more efficient?)

Just old habit. The main application calls WaitNextEvent, but GetNextEvent
is a bit simpler and does the same thing. It probably gets translated into
a WaitNextEvent. It shouldn't matter unless you want to be compatible with
historical Macs.

--
Juri Munkki [e-mail]      In cyberspace everyone can hear you scream.
http://www.iki.fi/~jmunkki              Windsurfing: Faster than the wind.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Michael C. Whidden)
Date: 7 Dec 1995 14:54:36 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

>However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.  If I had
>extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I turned
>extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably

>So I'm wondering, are there certain kinds of background processes that can
>occur whether or not I'm calling WaitNextEvent?  (I'm sure the After Dark
>thing is not a RAM issue, the System and the game each take up about 5 megs on
Yes.  Interrupt handling routines execute and there's nothing (realistically)
you can do about it.  Interrupt routines do things like redraw the screen,
listen to your modem, play your sounds, etc...  My guess is that AfterDark
is installing a routine that executes at regular, timed intervals for the
purposes of figuring out how long it has been since you last moved the
mouse or pressed a key.  (so that it can turn on after 15 minutes of
idle time or whatnot.)  Not much you can do about it.

-Mike


--
    /\   /|                                  |  [e-mail]
    | \ | |      \                           |  [e-mail]
   /  | | |  @   |  /                        |  [e-mail]
  /    \| |  \   |/      ___                 |And don't miss all the great

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Don Arbow)
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 13:50:25 -0700
Organization: Wolfe Internet Access, L.L.C.

In article <4a4vjo$[e-mail]>,
dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way) wrote:

:  Juri Munkki ([e-mail]) wrote:
:  > In article <49ufan$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ingemar
:  Ragnemalm) writes:
:  > >It makes a big difference if you use WNE with a sleep time > 0, or have
:  > >lots of applications in the background.
:  >
:  > During games, I never call WNE. I may call GetNextEvent, if the user
:  > has background processing enabled, but the best thing is usually to
:  > call only GetOSEvent, since it doesn't allow any background processing.
:
:  (I wanted to start a new thread on this, since I had some questions about
:  WaitNextEvent.)
:
:  I'm writing a game in which I'm NOT calling WaitNextEvent (or anything
:  similar) unless the user decides to enable "background processing" in a
:  preferences dialog.  My initial impression was that if I didn't call
:  WaitNextEvent, I wouldn't have to worry about background processes taking up
:  valuable CPU time.
:
:  However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.
If I had
:  extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I
turned
:  extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably
:  thinking that's damn fast anyway, but this is on a 7200/90 and I still
have to
:  add a lot more complexity to the game.)  It turned out that the main culprit
:  was AfterDark (2.0).  If I removed AfterDark, the frame rate was about the
:  same whether other extensions were on or off.
:

One of the problems with calling WNE, is that it is not native.  It is
still 68k code,
so each time you call it on the PowerPC, it requires a Mixed Mode switch.
Every Mixed
Mode switch requires the execution of approximately 500 PowerPC instructions.

An interesting experiment as shown in the book "Programming the PowerPC" shows
a simple program that draws some output on the screen.  It loops 10,000 times.
The first version of the program ran in 8 seconds.  By adding a call to
WNE to allow the
user to jump out of the loop by pressing a key, execution time was
increased to 30 seconds,
because of the overhead of Mixed Mode calls.

If you're calling WNE on a PowerPC, make sure you don't call it every time
through
your event loop.  Mixed mode thrashing causes a lot of slowdowns with
WNE.  I use
a timing variable that only calls WNE every 15 ticks when running on a PowerPC.
That will effectively speed up your event loop.

Don

--
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \ | /    Don Arbow, Partner      |  [e-mail]
  -- EDO --  EveryDay Objects, Inc.  |  http://www.pla-net.net/edo
    / | \    Seattle, WA             |
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  My Prographing web page:   http://www.wolfe.net/~donarb/Dataflow.html
        "The fix is only temporary, unless it works" - Red Green
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Thomas Tempelmann)
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 1995 12:46:51 +0100
Organization: MUC.DE e.v -- private Internet access

In article <4a4vjo$[e-mail]>,
dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way) wrote:

>I'm writing a game in which I'm NOT calling WaitNextEvent (or anything
>similar) unless the user decides to enable "background processing" in a
>preferences dialog.

I do that in my games (from Dongleware, e.g. OXYD, Tubular Worlds), too.
It seems to work good.
But if you do not call WNE but GetOSEvent, you should also call SystemTask
around every 1/60 second (at most) in order to allow drivers to get some
time if they require it. It makes it a little bit more compatible and will
not consume much time, since the drivers are asked no to perform
time-consuming tasks here.
At least, I had the impression that PowerBooks need that SystemTask call
(which is performed implecitly when you use WNE) in order to control HD
spin down and similar tasks.
Although I'm not 100% sure about this, it is just a good idea to call
SystemTask anyway.

Thomas

- -
Thomas Tempelmann, Tuerkenstr. 31, D-80799 Muenchen, Germany.
E-mail: [e-mail] (private), [e-mail] (business)
Phone: (++49) (89) 286590-90, Fax -89

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Ron Hunsinger)
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 1995 07:01:06 -0800
Organization: ErsteSoft

In article <4a4vjo$[e-mail]>,
dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way) wrote:

> I'm writing a game in which I'm NOT calling WaitNextEvent (or anything
> similar) unless the user decides to enable "background processing" in a
> preferences dialog.  My initial impression was that if I didn't call
> WaitNextEvent, I wouldn't have to worry about background processes taking up
> valuable CPU time.
>
> However, when I was testing the frame rate, I noticed a weird thing.  If
I had
> extensions turned off, the frame rate was around 360 frames/sec.  If I turned
> extensions on, the frame rate was about 270 frames/sec.  (You're probably
> thinking that's damn fast anyway, but this is on a 7200/90 and I still
have to
> add a lot more complexity to the game.)  It turned out that the main culprit
> was AfterDark (2.0).  If I removed AfterDark, the frame rate was about the
> same whether other extensions were on or off.

The problem here is that AfterDark patches a lot of system traps. In
version 2.0, the patches are all 68K code, so that if native code calls
one of the patched traps, you have two mode switches: one from native mode
to emulator mode, and then another one just a few instructions later to go
back to native mode. These mode switches are very expensive.

Version 3.0 of AfterDark makes fat patches, so you won't have this
slowdown if you upgrade.

> So I'm wondering, are there certain kinds of background processes that can
> occur whether or not I'm calling WaitNextEvent?

As other people have told you, interrupt routines still run even if you
don't call WNE.

I applaud your decision to make it a user preference whether to give time
to background tasks. Just because I'm playing a game doesn't mean I don't
have anything else going on. I usually want to let background tasks get
their time, and if they take too much I'll either quit them or (if the
game allows) starve them. I don't want the game to make that decision for
me. A game that takes over the whole machine is a game that I cannot
always afford to run.

You can can use the event manager and still starve background tasks if you
want by calling GetOSEvent instead of WaitNextEvent or GetNextEvent. But:

If you starve background tasks, they can't update their windows. This may
look ugly. Even if your game (impolitely) takes over the whole screen, the
user may have other screens with windows on them.

Some screen savers won't work if background tasks don't get time. Yes, I
know your game is wonderful, but my phone still rings, people still come
to the door, and sometime I have to leave the game unattended for a while.

> (Also, I'm curious as to why Juri calls GetNextEvent rather than
> WaitNextEvent.  Is it more efficient?)

WaitNextEvent calls GetNextEvent. WaitNextEvent with a sleep time of zero
is the same as SystemTask;GetNextEvent. Unless you have desk accessories
running in your heap (extremely unlikely), SystemTask doesn't do anything,
so in this case WNE and GNE are equivalent.

(Actually, as I write this, I suddenly find myself unsure. Is it
SystemTask or GetNextEvent that gives time to background processes? I know
they hang on a GNE waiting for the time, and get it with a nullEvt, but
that doesn't of itself demand that the front process give up the time with
GNE.)

The advantage of WNE over GNE comes when the sleep time is greater than
zero. In this case, WNE is more efficient about giving time to background
tasks, because it knows how much it can starve the foreground task. But
then, you probably aren't actively seeking ways to starve your action-type
game.

-Ron Hunsinger

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>From [e-mail] (Thomas Reed)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 09:23:06 -0600
Organization: Washington University

In article <4a4vjo$[e-mail]>,
dway@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_GATEWAY_FILE (Douglas E. Way) wrote:

>(Also, I'm curious as to why Juri calls GetNextEvent rather than
>WaitNextEvent.  Is it more efficient?)

WaitNextEvent basically calls GetNextEvent and SystemTask.  By calling
GetNextEvent, you get that portion without the automatic allocation of
time to the system.  Of course, you could do the same thing with the right
sleep value passed to WaitNextEvent...

-Thomas

=====================================================
Thomas Reed                     Washington University
[e-mail]               Medical School
[e-mail]            Saint Louis, MO
http://medinfo.wustl.edu/~reed
- ---------------------------------------------------
Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no
influence on society.  -- Mark Twain
=====================================================

Opinions posted are not the opinions of Wash. U.

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

End of C.S.M.P. Digest
**********************