HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sritchie@cs.ubc.ca (Stuart Ritchie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
Subject: Re: On NeXTdimension and Renderman - Who does most the work?
Date: 9 Oct 1992 15:11:49 -0700
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: stephen.cs.ubc.ca

gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes:
>Release 3.0 comes with Renderman, which brings up the following question.
>
>For those people who have the money to own a NeXTdimension board, what part  
>of the system is doing most of the rendering work?  Is it the 68040 on the  
>NeXTcube, or is it the i860 processor which is in the NeXTdimension board?
>
>I'd suspect it's the 68040, but I'd like to think that Interactive Renderman  
>would be able to take advantage of the features & speed of the i860.

I was told that the i860 does run some of the Interactive stuff.
Unfortunately I have not been able to see it in action though!
When I talked to the designer, he mentioned that performance is
much better than 68k.  However, sometimes the i860 requires some
very careful assembler level optimization to really make it scream.
At the time of PR2, he mentioned that there was not enough time/resources
to do this optimization.  This is understandable, considering that there
were still bugs to iron out.


I would still like to know why N3DCameraView promotes
itself to 16 bits on greyscale machines.  Performance
of this view really dogs out.  I suspect it
has to do with dithering.

Stuart
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.sys.next.misc,comp.sys.next.programmer
From: emurphy@cs.uno.edu (Edward Murphy)
Subject: (?) a shot in the dark concerning nextmail headers
Organization: University of New Orleans
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:46:32 GMT


i haven't been able to find much knowledge regarding the construction of  
nextmail headers. specifically, what mechanism (field header, magic spell,  
whatever) determined where a *read receipt* is returned to. anyone who has  
any inkling and could drop me a note, i'd appreciate it.

pointers to where i might find it in the next documentation  
(waaaaaahahahahahaa) would suffice, yea, even be preferred.

ed murphy
grad slave from mars
Newsgroups: comp.sys.isis
From: ken@cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman)
Subject: Re: How does isis_timeout() work?
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:06:28 GMT

>In article <98112@bu.edu> hss@bigbird.bu.edu (Himanshu Sinha) writes:
>
>I have a function "do_something()" called by several other functions in my
>program. I want to ensure that if this function has not been called by anyone
>in the last 5 seconds then it should be called. I call isis_timeout() in
>do_something() to take care of this.

In a followup on this, Himanshu convinced me that isis_timeout had a bug,
and I managed to track it down in time to fix it in the V3.0.7/V2.2.7 release.

The bug is pretty simple.  ISIS_TIME (the internal time variable we use)
is in milliseconds, so we round time down.  Turns off that if we reset the
ISIS time too often, the round-off can prevent ISIS_TIME from advancing
at a reasonable rate.

Himanshu's loop was doing this, by calling isis_accept_events(ISIS_ASYNC)
very fast -- typically, a fraction of a millisecond between calls.  So,
the delta was never big enough for ISIS_TIME to increment, and ISIS had
a notion of time that constantly slipped behind any real system clock.

With code that calls less often, or that uses ISIS_BLOCK, you won't see
a problem because ISIS sets a timeout in that case and sleeps, waiting.
Any round-off error is just a fraction of a millisecond per delay (of
many milliseconds), so you just don't notice the problem.

I'll have this fixed in V3.0.7.  We also should warn people that the
isis_sleep_ms call is limited to a 200ms minimum sleep period at present.
This is because of concern that "select" may return immediately if we
get to too small a delay.  If we had a way to know the minimum delay 
select can accomodate, we would use that minimum in place of 200ms.  Any
suggestions on how to determine this would be appreciated (the core problem
is that below some minimum, select with a timeout of xxms will act like
a timeout of 0 and return right away, sending the program into a busy loop
and consuming a lot of CPU -- a bad behavior from my point of view...)

-- 
Kenneth P. Birman                              E-mail:  ken@cs.cornell.edu
4105 Upson Hall, Dept. of Computer Science     TEL:     607 255-9199 (office)
Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (USA)      FAX:     607 255-4428
Newsgroups: comp.sys.isis
From: chrisf@bnr.ca (Chris Fulmer)
Subject: FAQ list, Availability of ISIS 3.0.5 + .. ?
Reply-To: woodstock!chris@mcnc.org
Organization: BNR Dept 3B91, RTP
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 17:24:44 GMT


Hi there.

  I'm a bit new to this group, so I apologize if this is a
FAQ.  (I checked the list of periodic postings in
news.something.or.other, and didn't see any for this
group...)

  I have FTP'd the ISIS 3.0.5 documentation from Cornell,
and have printed it out & read most of it.  But, one thing I
didn't get was....

  WHERE IS IT?

  The 2.x.x version was there, but I didn't see a 3.anything,
apart from the documentation?  Is it available for FTP, or is
it commercial?  If it's not free, then what are the
differences between it and the 2.x.x version?  Is it worth
getting version 3?

  Again, I apologize for my ignorance.

------------------------------------------------------
Chris Fulmer                    Bell-Northern Research
Sr. Software Designer       Research Triangle Park, NC
mail to woodstock!chris@mcnc.org (preferable) or...
        chrisf@bnr.ca            (not so preferable)
Oh yeah.  The usual disclaimers apply here.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.isis
From: hss@bigbird.bu.edu (Himanshu Sinha)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.isis
Subject: How does isis_timeout() work?
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:12:50 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Computer Science Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA


I have a function "do_something()" called by several other functions in my
program. I want to ensure that if this function has not been called by anyone
in the last 5 seconds then it should be called. I call isis_timeout() in
do_something() to take care of this.
__________________________________________________________________
/* tid is a global variable that was initially set by a call to isis_timeout*/
do_something()
{
    isis_timeout_cancel(tid);
        ........
        .......
	((do asynchronous abcasts and fbcasts here ))
    tid = isis_timeout(5000, do_something, NULL, NULL)
}
__________________________________________________________________

However, this does not always work. Somewhere in my program I have the
following loop.

	while(condition)
	isis_accept_events(ISIS_ASYNC);
	....................

The do_something() function does not get called for a long time while the
program is in this loop. It does get called - but not every 5 seconds.
Sometimes it does not get called for a few minutes.

The man pages say that the function will be called only when the scheduler gets
a chance to run. I thought that the isis_accept_events call above would do
that. If I change ISIS_ASYNC above to ISIS_BLOCK it seems to work but this is
not acceptable because I cannot ensure that there will always be something
waiting to run.

Another question I have is about the flow of control. The manual says that no
task is created and only a function call is made. Where (in my program) is the
call to do_something() made from?


Thanks
Himanshu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.isis
From: ken@cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman)
Subject: V3.0.7 and V2.2.7 release
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:59:48 GMT

Just a progress report: V3.0.7 is now passing all the beta-tests we
have been able to come up with (some contributed by our users).  Unless
some unexpected thing crops up, we will move the the general release
early next week.
-- 
Kenneth P. Birman                              E-mail:  ken@cs.cornell.edu
4105 Upson Hall, Dept. of Computer Science     TEL:     607 255-9199 (office)
Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (USA)      FAX:     607 255-4428
From: tysko@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (John E. Tysko)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: AppleWorks GS problems
Date: 7 Oct 92 20:18:20 GMT
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept,. Athens

In article <92281.103600JKG2@psuvm.psu.edu> JKG2@psuvm.psu.edu (Dr. John King Gamble Jr.) writes:
>Listen to this and tell me if it sounds familiar...
>
  .... text deleted .....
>
>Is AWGS that bad? Who out there uses AWGS with 12 page page-lauout docs and
>has no problems? What is the secret? Aaaaaaaa!!! Clis, fix AWGS!

  I have a 3 meg GS, regular speed (sigh). My last project was to take some 400 
names from a database of 900 and print them in 2 columns, via the page layout
function. I found the only way to get things to work was to constantly use the 
memory desk accessory to check how much memory I had. Now, the amount of memory
used was about 30-40%. The thing was, the amount of time it took to pop up the
desc accessory main menu, as well as the memory desk accessory, was highly
variable. I assumed this was due to the system reorganizing fragmented memory,
giving me enough contiguous memory to work in. You might want to try checking 
memory just before launching AWGS, and after performing any large operation 
within AWGS - like using text fill to fill a column on the next page. (16 pages
does take a long time this way, but at least it finally worked0

John


  John Tysko                                          tysko@boss.cs.ohiou.edu
  Computer Science Dept. - Ohio University            tysko@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu

-- 
  John Tysko                                          tysko@boss.cs.ohiou.edu
  Systems Administrator & Postmaster of OhioU.Edu     tysko@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu
  Computer Science Dept. - Ohio University            1 - 614 - 593-1137
From: shrinkit@Apple.COM (Andrew Nicholas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: ShrinkIt GS 1.1 (cont.)
Date: 13 Oct 92 09:36:02 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

In article <bazyar.718911834@teal> bazyar@teal.csn.org (Jawaid Bazyar) writes:

>David.Empson@bbs.actrix.gen.nz writes:
>
>>BINGO - GSHK11.SEA was 9 bytes too long.  It turns out that SSCII had
>>rounded the file up to the nearest 16 byte boundary.  In effect, there
>>was a partial header for an extra segment, which means the IIgs System
>>Loader didn't like the file.
>
>>This problem only applies to SSCII.  The archive was the correct length
>>when extracted with GSCII+ (the NDA) or BINSCII (the ProDOS-8
>>application).
>
>
>>Derek Taubert, where are you?  Fix this problem in SSCII, please!!!
>>I'm running version 2.3 - March 1992.
>
>  SScii is correct.  It appears that the method Andy used to get the
>file to comp.binaries.apple2 rounded the file up to the next block
>size.  Binscii/SScii both correctly maintain a file's EOF.
>  Ian Schmidt had this same problem (of the cba2 file being too long),
>and he sciibin'd it on his Unix box.

I'm not so sure that SScii is right and I'm wrong -- I just used BinSCII to
make the set of binscii'd parts and uploaded the parts via zmodem to our vax.
I then posted the stuff (by hand) with postnews.  The fact that several people
have reported using BinSCII to decode everything nicely and people using
SScii are having a worse time seems to point the finger at SScii.  If no one
could make use of what I posted then I would think the problem was on my end.

andy

-- 
Andy Nicholas                 GEnie & America-Online: shrinkit
Apple Computer, Inc.                        InterNET: shrinkit@apple.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
From: hal@budapest.math.macalstr.edu (Harold Byron Bouma)
Subject: Re: >Colorful snow
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 02:21:58 GMT

Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex writes
>>>Ever since I installed System 6, I've been having occasional random
>>>problems with all the icons of a given type (like, say, all the "document"

	Yes, earlier this year I was having the same problem. The document
files would turn invisable, turn into RGB snow, or turn into a huge ascii blob
in the window. Other strange things would happen too. The amount free/ amount  
used bar in the window would start flipping out as well as icon file types  
would also flip out. Sometimes quitting finder and rerunning it solved the  
problem, but most of the time, a power cycle was needed.

	Now at the time, I had a another problem with finder and that was
every time I'd insert a disk, the finder would crash. This was very annoying.

	When I went to KFest, I showed the bugs to Dave. (Well, the finder
crashing upon inserting a disk was the first one I could reproduce, and the  
incon problems luckally occured right before he left) What turned up about
the disk inserting crash was that there was a random bug where it would eat
memory and put a 19 into it... (Dave works fast with GSBugs and Niftylist!!)
And he said the icon problems were probably caused by the memory trashing bug.

	Well, at the time, Dave was thinking that it was maybe the RF driver,  
becaues this would also happen with no Inits/DA's installed. So I said I would  
reinstall the software and go vanilla and see how that turned out.

	So when I got home, I reinstalled the software and took everything out  
including my icons, except GSBugs, NiftyList, and IR, and it worked great for  
over a month. When I got back to school, I put the icons back in, and two  
minutes later, I got the same crash, so there is something wrong with the  
icons.

>     2)  Launch your favourite icon editor.  Create a new icon file.
>  Open one of your icons files.  Copy all of the icons from the old
>  file into the new file.  Save that new file on top of your old
>  file (replacing the old file on disk).  Repeat this procedure for
>  all of your icon files.  (I said it was going to be a bit of work,
>  didn't I?)  What this does is insures that none of your icon files
>  are corrupted on disk.
>  
>     ][n the process of going through #2, you may find one or more
>  really weird icons that seem to be either really huge or some strange
>  shape.  That'll be your corrupted icon file.

	I'll have to try that, only how do wierd icons look?? I mean, in  my  
file they all look ok in the icon editor... nothing wierd. Does something wierd  
happen after you copy them or what??


| Hal Bouma                            | Send mail to: HBouma@Macalstr.edu    |
| Macalester College, St. Paul, MN.    | and           HBouma@Macalstr.Bitnet |
 \  Things that make you go Hmmm:  System 6, GNO, DreamGrafix, SoundMeister  /
  \  Coming sometime this decade for the //GS : NBA! (GNO compatible too!)  /
   \  Drop by and say hi to us anytime on the #AppleIIGS channel on IRC!!  /
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: memory card for //e style IIgs needed
From: cxdb14@wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu (RANDY)
Date: 10 Oct 92 14:31:16 CST
Distribution: world
Organization: Wichita State University, Wichita, Ks

In article <m0mdb9t-0001HCC@crash.cts.com>, kimba@gnh-cathouse.cts.com (Kim Brennan) writes:
>> From: cxdb14@wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu (RANDY)
[what I said before nuked]
  
> Dunno. I'm using an AE GS Ram+ in my upgraded IIe/GS. Need to get a higher
> power powersupply for it though (this //e thing just doesn't cut it).
> 
Well-kept secret - you can use a IIgs power supply in a //e upgrade. It has
threaded holes in the bottom that line up with the screw holes in the case,
just like the //e power supply. So if you can turn up a IIgs supply cheap
you're all set. That's what I have in mine. I call it a //e style IIgs instead
of an upgraded //e 'cause I built it from spare parts. It never was a //e in
the time I have had it.
From: PKBRANDON@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: GSHK 1.1
Date: 14 Oct 92 19:19:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

After running into what seems to be the standard problems trying to get
GSHK11.SEA unpacked by GSCII to self-extract, I tried using an old copy
of BINSCII.  It worked!
Paul Brandon
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
    Paul Brandon    ---   INTERNET:    PKBRANDON@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU  
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
From: mattd@apple.com (Matt Deatherage)
Subject: Re: tech questions
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 21:38:15 GMT
Organization: Developer Technical Support, Apple Computer, Inc.
Followup-To: comp.sys.apple2

In article <1992Oct6.200612.27361@ifi.unizh.ch>,
gudat@avalon.physik.unizh.ch (gudat henrik) wrote:
> 
> 
> Hello,
>  
> During my absence I had some problems with the toolbox and GS/OS (and
> wished I
> had a modem...hmmm..). I hope someone here knows how to get rid of them!
> (If DAVE is here, I would certainly appreciate his help QUITE A LOT!)
>  
> 1. The toolbox manuals do not explain how to write a journaling driver.

This is largely because journaling is broken.  You can't make it work
on ROM 1 or ROM 3 machines (one or the other, I forget which).

> 3. When a picture is being stretched vertically but not horizontally,
> the font
> is being scaled appropriately. (For example, this is necessary when
> printing
> pictures and text on the same page.) However, this has a not very nice
> side
> effect: strings in the picture tend to overlap. Is there a possibility
> to force
> the toolbox NOT to do this?

Overlap how?  If you don't want DrawPicture to scale things, don't pass
it a scaled rectangle.  Other than that, I don't get what you're asking.

> 4. Someone started GSymbolix on a network (from a Mac). He told me that
> files
> are not loaded correctly. However, the files he mentioned are auxiliary
> files
> that are accessed only while the program is being initialized (just a
> few
> OPEN-READ-CLOSE GS/OS calls). These files are closed immediately.
> The Mac was running system 7, and the IIGS system 6.0. Though I can't
> think of
> any break of rule, I would like to fix this problem...

You're not depending on prefix zero being set to your program's directory,
are you?

>  
> henrik
> 
============================================================================
Matt Deatherage, Developer Support Center, Apple Computer, Inc.
Personal mail only -- please POST technical questions, questions about
Apple and its policies, where to find documents and related inquiries.
The opinions I express don't represent Apple, which makes us both happy.
============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
From: ppuskari@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Petar E Puskarich)
Subject: Computer Sale!  Odd/Ends! Cheap!
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 19:23:49 GMT

I have the following for sale:


QTY			Description


1		40 meg Apple 40sc internal hard drive with
		Mac SE installation kit				150.00

1		Apple IIGS Powersupply				 40.00

1		Zoom FX 96/24 FaxModem
		With phone cord + FAX software Bit Fax
		Only used for hardware testing			100.00

1		Prometheus 1200 baud external modem
		Includes the Options Processor Unit.		 40.00

1		AppleIIe with Enhanced Chip set
		2 Apple 5.25 drives
		80 col/128 card					300.00

1		8mhz Zip Chip - Only 1 year old!!		 90.00

1		Dumpling GX - Parallel Graphics printer
		card						 30.00

1		Microsoft CPM Card - It works			 15.00

1		Epson Parallel Printer interface card		 10.00

1		Okidata 82A printer 
			Includes the Graphics enhancement
			chip set				 90.00

1		Genuine Wang PC
			Dos 2.01
			VT-100 emulation
			2 360k disk drives
			monochrome monitor			 75.00


CABLE CABLE CABLE CABLE CABLE


2	SCSI 50pin to 50 pin SCSI extension cables
		one SCSI device to another			15.00 EACH

2	SCSI 25pin to 50 pin SCSI cables
		computer to external SCSI device		15.00 EACH

1	External SCSI terminator				 5.00

1	DB25Male to DB25 Female Serial Cable			 5.00

1	Amiga 500 to Amiga 2002 monitor Cable
	db25Female to db9Female					 5.00

1	Apple IIgs Monitor Cable				 5.00



Broken/Fixable STUFF


1	Wangtek 5125es 150 meg tape backup
	Can be fixed						100.00

1	AppleColor GS RGB monitor			
	Have no idea what is wrong				 50.00

4	Generic Apple Parallel printer interfaces		  aphics printer interface		  3.00


That is about it!!!!!
Everything is sold as/is!!!
You pay for shipping unless other terms agreed upon.

I will haggle on most of these items.

Get back to me,

Petar Puskarich
ppuskari@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: VGA card on an Apple II?
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1992 00:56:32 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.225650.11922@fawlty.towers.oz.au> johnmac@fawlty.towers.oz.au (John MacLean) writes:

[Interesting video possibilities...]
 
More than anything the GS needs

(1) Inexpensive 3.5" drives.
(2) 320x200x256 and at least a 640x400x2 mode. Editing on a gs is unacceptable
    on the eyes. It needs a "productivity" mode.

Of course other things would be nice. One can only hope for the Avatar.

Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu


Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
From: bazyar@teal.csn.org (Jawaid Bazyar)
Subject: Re: Orca/C Linker Problems?!?!
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 06:52:47 GMT

irsman@iastate.edu (That Ian Guy) writes:

>In article <uerics.718754775@mcl> uerics@mcl.ucsb.edu (Eric D. Shepherd) writes:
>>Um.  I didn't notice any curses in _my_ copy of GNO.  It _does_ support
>>termcap though.
>>
>>Did I just miss curses in there, then?

>Yeah, you did.  Jawaid will no doubt tell you more :)

  No, curses isn't in GNO 1.0 :-)  I ported it, and tested it with the
"robots" game, but there's one point where it crashes and I can't determine
if it's robots or curses doing that.  So it sits.  I'll get back to it
sooner or later :)

-- 
 Jawaid Bazyar              |   Ask me about the GNO Multitasking Environment
 Procyon, Inc.              |   for the Apple IIgs!   
 bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu         |   P.O Box 620334
 --Apple II Forever!--      |   Littleton, CO 80162-0334   (303) 933-4649
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
From: sknkwrks@unlv.edu (Scott Alfter)
Subject: Great! :-P (was Re: MODZap fiasco?)
Organization: Skunk Works Software Co.
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 07:56:04 GMT

In article <01GPQI06Q7JM009EUK@mc.duke.edu> POSTMASTER@MC.DUKE.EDU writes:
>********************* DEMPO Error Message ***********************
>UNSENT MAIL!                            
>NO NAME SPECIFIED!                      
>From:	BITNET::INFO-APPLE@APPLE.COM
>To:	
>Subj:	Re: MODZap fiasco?
>
>********************* DEMPO Error Message ***********************

Just great...we're starting to get this shit in the newsgroup again?

To the people at Duke U.: Fix your news server or pull it off the net!

  _/_   Scott Alfter                             Internet: sknkwrks@cs.unlv.edu
 / v \  Call the Skunk Works BBS today!
(IIe (  (702) 894-9619 300-14400 V.32bis Apple II/IBM/Star Trek/Aerospace
 \_^_/  Ask me about SoftDAC--digital audio for your IIe/IIc! Apple II Forever!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2