453 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
453 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
AppleLink
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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
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April 18, 1989 10:00 p.m. eastern time
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Topic: Apple II Operating Systems
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Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
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AFL Dyfet Good evening and welcome to the tuesday night Apple
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AFL Dyfet Development Forum chat. Tonight's topic is Operating
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AFL Dyfet Systems (there's the worm!). We WILL be using PROTOCOL starting
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AFL Dyfet now. This means that if you wish to ask a question, you
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AFL Dyfet must enter a '?' on a line by itself, and if you wish to comment
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AFL Dyfet on the question being asked, you must enter a '!' on
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AFL Dyfet a line by itself. I will call you each in turn to speak.
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AFL Dyfet I believe the first question is technically from Gibber...could
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you repeat
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AFL Dyfet it again?
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DTS Folks !
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THE GIBBER What is an error 27 in GSOs.... I have had 3 weeks straight of
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coming home to
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THE GIBBER my cozy 140 meg hard drive and it will not boot :(
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THE GIBBER I have reinstalled the system 4 times..
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AFA Gary J Q = GIBBER (DTS Folks)
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AFL Dyfet GA Dave and MAtt...
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DTS Folks $27 (hex) is I/O error - it means the hardware said it can't read
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or write to the drive reliably. GA.
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Coach101 ?
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THE GIBBER What do you suggest that I do.....??????
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THE GIBBER ga
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AFA Parik !
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AFL Dyfet I would suggest a low level reformat myself...GA Parik...
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DTS Folks Many hard drives or other utilities (such as Glen Bredon's
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MR.FIXIT) will go through a volume and...
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AFA Parik 1) Check all connections to make sure they're seated correctly,
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etc. 2) Run
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AFA Parik Mr Fixit and Bag Of Tricks through it, it most likely won't work.
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3) Low-level
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DTS Folks ...get rid of as many bad blocks as they can, marking them as used
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so they don't cause problems.
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AFA Parik and then high-level format the drive, backing up all data
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beforehand. Fun! :)
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AFA Parik ga
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DTS Folks (this might help. GA [sorry for the delay])
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AFA Gary J Q = Gibber, Coach
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AFL Dyfet Okay. I believe our next question is from coach...GA Coach.
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Coach101 The Print manager has printer drivers and port drivers. GSOS
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has
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Windrider5 ?
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Coach101 device drivers. What are the relationships between them
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(especially
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Coach101 between print manager port drivers and GSOS drivers) and isnt
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this
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Coach101 a little duplication? GA
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DTS Folks !
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AFA Gary J Q = Coach (DTS Folks), Windrider
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AFL Dyfet I knew one of you would go for this one! Go ahead D & M :)
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DTS Folks It's only duplication if you think the system is more
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interconnected than it really is.
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DTS Folks As explained in IIgs TN #35 and #36, Printer and Port drivers in
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the Print Manager are used to...
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DTS Folks ...enable the PM to send generic commands and allow the drivers to
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do the hardware specific stuff.
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DTS Folks For example, the Print Manager would tell a driver to print a
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pixel map. The ImageWriter driver would
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DTS Folks actually do the translating into printer codes. It would then
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call the Printer Port driver to send
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DTS Folks those codes out the Printer Port at the hardware level.
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DTS Folks A GS/OS driver is code that allows a piece of hardware to accept
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and respond to GS/OS calls.
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DTS Folks A Print Manager port driver could, for example, call a GS/OS
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Character Driver for a given port to
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DTS Folks do the dirty work; this is just fine. But a GS/OS driver wouldn't
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call a Print Manager driver.
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DTS Folks (Confusing still or makes more sense? GA)
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AFA Gary J Q = Coach (DTS Folks), Windrider
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Coach101 Right.... My confusion was what looked like a duplication between
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the
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Coach101 port driver and GSOS driver. I hate to see two entities tasked
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with
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Coach101 the same job (interface to the hardware). Why couldn't the
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print
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Coach101 driver make a GSOS call to get to the appropriate _hardware_
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driver. Then
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Coach101 once I installed a GSOS driver for a specific piece of hardware it
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would
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Coach101 (maybe, hopefully) be available to everyone. GA
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DTS Folks !
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AFL Dyfet Oops...! I got bumped! GA Matt and Dave
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DTS Folks 1) The Print Manager was designed first
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AFA Gary J Q = Coach (DTS Folks), Windrider
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DTS Folks 2) The port drivers fulfill functions not implemented by GS/OS,
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such as...
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JohnSchapp Why is it that GS/OS still, as yet, is not AppleShare
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compatible?
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JohnSchapp Yet Apple is developing a genlock card?
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JohnSchapp Shouldn't they put emphasis where they need it?
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AFA Gary J Q = Coach (DTS Folks), Windrider, JohnSchapp
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DTS Folks "Is it safe to print" and asynchronous reading and writing. A
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port driver could call a GS/OS driver
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AFL Dyfet We are in protocol, John. Your question has been recorded, and
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will be
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AFL Dyfet gotten to in turn...
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JohnSchapp Like focusing on their new operating system?
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DTS Folks to do those things that a GS/OS driver can do better (reading,
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writing, etc. synchronously), but
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DTS Folks there are still hardware-depending printing-dependent functions
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the port driver will
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DTS Folks have to fulfill that the GS/OS drivers don't include. GA.
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Coach101 OK.... Thanks for the information.... I was looking at print
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Coach101 spooling and the extra level of drivers, means extra levels of
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Coach101 _spooling_ drivers. Thanks for the time... GA
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AFL Dyfet Any more comments on this question?
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AFL Dyfet Okay, that did clear up some confusion in my mind as well...I
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believe the
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AFL Dyfet next question is from Windrider...GA Windrider.
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Windrider5 Could someone explain high level and low level formats
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(initializations)? GA
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Jump Long !
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AFA Gary J Q = Windrider (Jump Long), JohnSchapp
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AFL Dyfet Go Ahead, Jim.
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Jump Long A low level format writes the actual tracks and sectors on a disk.
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A high level
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Jump Long format writes the volume structure (directories, bit-maps, etc.)
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on the
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Jump Long disk. ga
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Windrider5 how is this preformed?
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Jump Long Which one?
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Windrider5 both
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AFL Dyfet The GS/OS format (and most other formatters) do both for floppy
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drives at the
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AFL Dyfet same time. Harddisks are normally only high level formatted. The
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high level
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AFL Dyfet format simply writes out the volume directory and bitmap through
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standard
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AFL Dyfet block write calls. Low level formats are very hardware specific
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and require
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AFA Gary J Q = Windrider (Dyfet), JohnSchapp
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AFL Dyfet utilities seperate from what is supplied with ProDOS. Anyone else
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wish to
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AFL Dyfet comment here?
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JonL7 WHAT IS INTERLEAVE FACTOR ON A HARDDRIVE
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AFL Dyfet Interleave has to do with how the blocks are numbered on a
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cylinder on the
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AFL Dyfet disk. Normally two consequtive blocks are not put next to each
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other, but
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AFL Dyfet instead are placed a few blocks apart with intervening blocks
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numbered
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AFL Dyfet differently so that the disk driver has enough time to process the
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current
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AFL Dyfet block it is reading before it encounters the next one. If they
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were right
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AFA Gary J Q = Windrider (Dyfet), JohnSchapp
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AFL Dyfet next to each other, the drive would have to complete a whole
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rotation before
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AFL Dyfet it was ready to read the next block in a sequential read...
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AFL Dyfet (my CP/M heritage shows there a little :)...did that help?
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AFA Gary J !
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AFL Dyfet GA Gary.
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AFA Gary J I just wanted to add that interleave is not just used on hard
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drives, but on
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AFA Gary J almose all forms of disk drives. The speed increase that can
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come from the
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Coach101 !
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JonL7 Yes so chosing the right number could speed the disk read process
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considerably
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AFA Gary J proper interleave setting has recently been illustrated on the
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3.5 drive and
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AFA Gary J GS/OS's 2:1 interleave.
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AFA Gary J GA
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AFL Dyfet GA Coach.
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AFA Gary J Yes
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JonL7 Thanks :)
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Coach101 The premiere issue of APDALog (from Apple) contains an excellent
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Coach101 write up on the theory behind interleaving complete with some
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Coach101 concrete examples of the benefits that can be derived from it. If
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you
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DTS Folks (complete with some diagrams bearing numbers that aren't exactly
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related to the text...)
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Coach101 do not have a firm handle on interleaving I suggest you read
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Matt's
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AFA Gary J Q = Windrider (Coach), JohnSchapp
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Coach101 dissertation in APDALog. GA
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DTS Folks (I can say that because I wrote the article, and it's MUCH easier
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to blame it on APDA. GA)
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JonL7 Ok
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AFL Dyfet Okay, thank you coach...Any other comments?
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AFL Dyfet I believe our next question is from John Shapp. GA John.
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AFA Gary J Q = JohnSchapp
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JohnSchapp How come GS/OS still does not work with AppleShare
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DTS Folks !
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JohnSchapp yet Apple is working on developing a genlock card and not
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concentrating
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JohnSchapp their efforts.
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AFL Dyfet GA Matt and Dave...
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JohnSchapp GS/OS is almost a year old now.
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JohnSchapp well not really, but it's not new.
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DTS Folks If one takes the rather simplistic approach that Apple is only
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capable of working on one project at
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DTS Folks a time, you should expect the next System Disk update sometime
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around 1998.
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JohnSchapp About the same time a new Apple II is introduced?
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DTS Folks Reality shows that Apple works on multiple projects at a given
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time. While I can't comment on...
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JohnSchapp While five Mac's buzz by.
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AFA Gary J Q = JohnSchapp (DTS Folks)
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DTS Folks specific things like when AppleShare compatibility will come to
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GS/OS, I can say that it's very
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DTS Folks important to us to do that. GA.
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JohnSchapp What about new improvements to GS/OS, like more FSTS?
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DTS Folks Same story. GA.
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JohnSchapp The Apple 3.5 drive can read Mac disks, why is there no FST out
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already for it?
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Jump Long You know we can't comment on unreleased products... (I had to say
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that)
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DTS Folks (I already did)_
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JohnSchapp Yes, but how long does it take to make an unreleased product?
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JohnSchapp We know that GS/OS took two years.
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AFL Dyfet Quite a long time for something as complex as an os...:)
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DTS Folks The kinds of engineering efforts into good system software
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revisions are not trivial.
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AFL SandyB LOL John, that's a leading question...
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Jump Long (but I've never had the chance, Matt)
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Jump Long :)
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AFA Gary J Q = JohnSchapp
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DTS Folks GS/OS didn't come out until two years after the IIgs, but the IIgs
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was introduced with ProDOS 16.
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AFL TimB !
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AFL Dyfet GA Tim.
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AFL TimB I thought you'd all be interested to hear of a 'new' operating
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system that...
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AFL TimB came on a program that I just received from Electronic Arts....
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;)
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JohnSchapp !
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AFA Gary J Q = JohnSchapp (Tim)
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AFL TimB Apple DOS 4.0!!! :) On Instant Synthesizer!
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AFL TracyP !
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AFL Dyfet Hmm...GA John...
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AFL TimB Maybe someone should tell them!
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JohnSchapp As a matter of fact AppleLink is shipped with System Disk 3.2 in
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order to
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DaviesDoug !
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JohnSchapp remain AppleShare compatible.
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Coach101 !
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AFA Gary J Q = John (Tracy, Doug, Coach)
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AFL Dyfet Okay. GA Tracy.
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DaviesDoug Electronics Arts are too big of babies to program in gsos/p16,
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they use p8....
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DaviesDoug all the time
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AFL TracyP John, I think what the DTS folks are trying to say is that
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DaviesDoug .
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AFL TracyP yes, they are aware of some of the things that need to be done
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AFL TracyP in the area of AppleShare awareness, FSTs, etc.
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JohnSchapp !
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AFL TracyP The problem is they can't say what things they're working on,
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AFL TracyP what stage of development they're in, or even =if= any given
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AFL TracyP product is in development or not! <ga>
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JohnSchapp I was aware of that but I was a little mad about how the Mac has
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priority at
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AFL Dyfet I'm sure they are hard at work on it...GA Doug...
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JohnSchapp DTS
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Jump Long But we can answer questions on current products :)
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DaviesDoug I did
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DTS Folks The Mac doesn't have priority in Apple II DTS. This I can
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guarantee you.
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AFA Gary J Q = John (Coach)
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AFA Gary J :)
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JohnSchapp Well it sure did have the spotlight in the latest issue of
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AppleDirect.
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AFL Dyfet Oh yes :)...*crack* don't let a protocol slip happen again :) GA
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Coach...
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Coach101 With regard to AppleLink and system disk 3.2 and AppleShare.....
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Coach101 I would not suggest having AppleTalk turned on when you are
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AFA Parik !
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Coach101 using AppleLink.... If anyone does anything on AppleTalk.....
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DTS Folks So complain to the AppleDirect folks. They're NOT DTS, and they
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are interested in your comments.
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Coach101 You Die.... And, Quantum says... oh, so sorry.... and
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Coach101 Apple says.... AppleLink is more Quantum than Apple....
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and....
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Coach101 you are stuck.... ga
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AFA Parik AppleLink is shipping with Sys Disk v3.2 because GS/OS + AppleLink
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eats up more
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AFA Parik than 512k. ga
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AFL Dyfet I believe John has the next comment...GA John...
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AFA Gary J Q = John
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JohnSchapp Well I can't really remember except, what real purpose is there
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in
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AFL Dyfet Q = John, Parik
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JohnSchapp spending engineering effort on a genlock card that is going to be
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used
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DaviesDoug ?
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JohnSchapp not too often in practical applications?
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Jump Long !
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JohnSchapp Go.
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AFL Dyfet GA Jim...
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AFA Gary J Q = John (Jim), Doug
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Jump Long It depends what you classify as practical. Many Educators have
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been asking for
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AFL TimB !!!
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Jump Long this kind of capability for a long time. There are a lot of fun
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things you
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JohnSchapp Yes but many educators have also asked for a card to make the
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Apple II a
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Jump Long could go with it a home, too.
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Jump Long ga
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JohnSchapp file-server. I work at a school as the Computer Teacher, I know.
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Jump Long go = do
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AFL Dyfet I don't think anyone here can even guess at, let alone speak for
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Apple's
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AFA Gary J Q = John (Tim), Doug
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AFL Dyfet decision making process in regards to what is planned and why. I
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believe the
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AFL Dyfet next comment is from Tim.
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AFL TimB Personally, I've been very impressed with Apple's intro of the
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VOC. It's an...
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AFL TimB innovative and innovatively priced piece of hardware. I too hope
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(and I think
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AFL TimB I know) it's not the end of Apple's committment to the A2, but it
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certainly...
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JohnSchapp It's nice, but there are too many other things that should have
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been made in
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AFL TimB shows a measure of intent. And what a shot in the arm for the
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//e!!!!!!!
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AFL TimB (done)
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JohnSchapp the first place.
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Coach101 !
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AFL Dyfet I believe the next question is from Doug. GA Doug.
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DaviesDoug How come when I'm tracing through the GS tools I see a lot of
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this......
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Coach101 Cancel !
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DaviesDoug LDY #0, LDA [$69],Y ...... instead of LDA [$69]....and......
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug
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AFA Parik !
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DaviesDoug pea 0 pea 0, instead of LDA #0 pha pha
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DaviesDoug could save some room......of that....
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DaviesDoug 512k parik talked about.
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (Parik)
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AFL Dyfet I guess because Dave just started working over there
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:)...seriously, GA Parik.
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AFA Parik time. not 'nuff off it. :) dunno about tools, but many books I
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learned
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AFA Parik programming from did do it these slow ways, and I guess people
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never think
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AFA Parik about it too much, converting it into a macro instead.
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AFA Parik ga
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DTS Folks !
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AFL Dyfet GA Matt and Dave...
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (DTS Folks)
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DTS Folks I can't say I've seen a LOT of that sort of thing,
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DaviesDoug Just seems to me a lot of stuff isnt done as efficiently as it
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could be....
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DTS Folks but there is no doubt some of it. Email me the particulars and
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I'll see if there is anything I
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JohnSchapp !
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DaviesDoug i look for all optimization points..
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DTS Folks can do. (This is Dave, BTW. Email it to Dave Lyons here.) ga
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DaviesDoug I also see things like pulling something off the stack and
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immediately pushing
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DaviesDoug it back on
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KerrySpind Who knows
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JohnSchapp !
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (John)
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AFL Dyfet GA John...
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AFA Parik its so people like you dig through code
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AE PhilM !
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JohnSchapp The most obvious answer is the following code: LDY #0
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (John, Phil)
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JohnSchapp LDA ($69),Y
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JohnSchapp INY
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JohnSchapp INY
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AFA Gary J Right
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AFA Gary J !
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JohnSchapp BNE LDA ($69),Y
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DaviesDoug yah, but that was not the case
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AFA Parik (handle -> pointer?)
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JohnSchapp You cannot search for branches, there may be many different entry
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points
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (Phil)
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Coach101 If you had a cache accelerator, keeping all the references
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JohnSchapp like BRL.., and many others.
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Coach101 in the procedure bank could be beneficial
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AE PhilM !
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JohnSchapp I mean branch calls not entry points
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AFL Dyfet Okay. I believe the next comment was from AE Phil. GA Phil.
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DaviesDoug PEA 0 PEA 0 -> LDA #0 PHA PHA is done alot, could save one
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byte
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DaviesDoug and some cycles
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AE PhilM Just a comment about efficient code...
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DaviesDoug for tool calls, so no entry points, i doubt
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AE PhilM Tis better to write 500 lines of good code per day than 20 lines
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of great code
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AE PhilM Most of the time critical stuff is limited to a small percentage
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of the
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DaviesDoug yah, but the tools have been out for a long time, hire someone to
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clean it...
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DaviesDoug up
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AE PhilM program anyway. Unless of cource memory is important
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (Phil, Gary)
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DaviesDoug memory is important
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AE PhilM Thats a lot of code
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AE PhilM And it's always changing
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DaviesDoug so do a search for pea 0 pea 0
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AFL Dyfet I would like to comment that optimizing tools is a double edged
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sword...for
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AFL Dyfet example, since the window/dialog managers occasionally call
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quickdraw/screen
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DaviesDoug I just sped up a display routine I'm working on for the current
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WordPerfect....
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AFL Dyfet drawing routines directly instead of through standard tool calls
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(and some
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DaviesDoug project by 50 times by looking for optimizations
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AFL Dyfet tools in some situations even do direct screen writes), it is not
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possible to
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DTS Folks !
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AFL Dyfet stick neat things in like a graphics co-processor by simply
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trapping the
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AFL Dyfet quickdraw tool interface. GA Matt. And please, let's have a
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little protocol
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AFL Dyfet here! *CRACK*
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DTS Folks (This is Dave L) Dave S, optimization is a completely separate
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issue
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DaviesDoug I have the question, can't I talk when I want, or do I have to
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keep doing !'s
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DTS Folks from breaking things. Optimizing means making a piece of code do
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the same thing faster. If other
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AFA Gary J Q = Doug (Dave Lyons)
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DTS Folks pieces of code are assuming non-guaranteed things, that is very
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bad.
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DTS Folks ga
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AFL Dyfet I meant in terms of people breaking in while you were talking,
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Doug :)...
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DaviesDoug :)
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DaviesDoug ok, sorry, I'm ripping....
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DaviesDoug on code here, just thought people might like to stir up some
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conversation...
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DaviesDoug on optimization :)
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AFL Dyfet I guess we sorta lost the original point in there, DL,
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sorry...Um...if you
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AFA Gary J !
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AFL Dyfet would like to add anything else, Doug, go ahead...
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DTS Folks {S Boing}
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DaviesDoug . no done .
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AFL Dyfet Okay, Gary, GA.
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AFA Gary J In defense of the PEA 0 PEA 0 code, it is possible that they may
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have wanted
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AFA Gary J preserve the accumulator... GA
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JohnSchapp !
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AFL Dyfet A sliver by itself is not conclusive...true :). GA John.
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JohnSchapp Not important.
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AFL Dyfet Okay...do we have any more questions tonight?
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DaviesDoug through a tool call?
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AFA Parik who likes escargo?
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AFA Gary J (It doesn't have to come out that way, Doug :)
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