From: Norbert Mueller <K360171@alijku11.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at>
Subject: Re: MacTCP
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A75601FFCA016205@nmueller.chemie.uni-linz.ac.at>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 17 Dec 92 09:07:59 GMT
Organization: Johannes Kepler Univ., Inst. of Chemistry
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 09:59:41 GMT

Re: MacTCP

In article <1992Dec16.161245.11809@gallant.apple.com> Mike Bell,
bell@apple.com writes:
>Just out of curiosity, what problems are we talking about ? MacTCP 1.1.1
>works fine under 7.1. And Omega SANE, well, I only know of 1 app that it
>broke; is there some other problem ? System 7.1 has been a big win for
me.

Well I think I have to be more specific:


1. MacTCP problem

I am referring primarily to the situation in Europe:

I can get 7.1 at my friendly Apple dealer's, Ok. The same guy just says
"What ?"
when asked about MacTCP. Even the more knowledgeable ones have no way to
get
MacTCP 1.1.1 currently - only 1.1 can be found with some difficulty.
Even legal copies of 1.1 were so difficult to get that most people were
using
illegal copies for a long time - in order to be able to use System 7 in a
networked environment.
Now the first new Macs appear on our network t we have no MacTCP to
distribute
for them - they bought brand new machines which are severely handicapped
by the
virtual non-existence of MacTCP 1.1.1

All this does not yet take into account the new pricing policy, which has
not
yet been fixed for Europe (you can bet it will not be cheaper than in the
US.

Personally I strongly believe that a product like MacTCP should be sold
at a
more reasonable price, with the basic set of features t for the new
features
that fewer users will need you can make add ons and charge prime prices,
if you like. But just raising the price for a minor upgrade 1.1. -> 1.1.1.
drastically I would consider a ripping off policy.


2. Omega SANE

This problem will probably only affect users with older FPU-equipped Macs.
As application using SANE calls (as opposed to direct fpu calls) are 
significantly slower. I agree this does not affect the main stream
applications
but many specialized application we use (computational chemistry) suffer
a lot.


3. Why I do not recomment anyone at our site to use System 7.1

The advantages of System 7.1 (which I do not challenge) do so far not
outweigh the problems, in particular in a networked environment. Not to 
speak about its A/UX incompatibility and the need to upgrade MacX at a
prime price.


4. Considerations as an application developer

As a developer of commercial software (which - FYI- is separated from my 
university position) the recent moves in splitting the system in so many
separately available components not only increases code size by special
casing for different situations it also makes testing an exercise in
combinatorics:
System 6/7/7.01/7.1    w/wo 32-bit QD   w/wo QuickTime     w/wo MacTCP
(This does not yet take into account the different hardware platforms)

This also makes documentation and user manuals a nightmare.

For a very long time we will see System 7.0(1)/7.1 side by side as due 
to Apple's new policy fewer users will switch. The consequence for me
is not to use any of the features beyond System 7.01.

One additional comment in favor of Omega SANE:
The Omega SANE patch increased performance of my application so much
that I considered distributing a single version using SANE instead of
one for non-fpu Macs and one for fpu-Macs, which would have sped up
development considerably - after seeing 7.1 this idea died.              
                                                                         
                                                                         
           


Norbert Mueller
Institute of Chemistry
Johannes Kepler University
A-4040 Linz
Austria 
e-mail K360171@ALIJKU11.bitnet
       K360171@EDVZ.uni-linz.ac.at
       Norbert@soft.uni-linz.ac.at
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