From: Ben E. Colley <tpmaint@mizzou1.missouri.edu>
Subject: Re: System 7 "map" control panel
Originator: news@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: Univ of Missouri-Columbia
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
     <1992Jul30.142733.27834@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
     <1992Jul30.221711.4539@msc.cornell.edu>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 06:05:03 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.142733.27834@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Timothy Allen,
Timothy.Allen@dartmouth.edu writes:

>The Map Control Panel does a lot more than just set your Mac's time
>zone -- It also sets your Mac's location (Latitude and Longitude). 
>This kind of information will undoubtedly become important as the world
>becomes increasingly internetworked.  
>
>The Map control panel has some very useful applications, too:  you can
>use it to find out the current time anywhere else on the globe (gee,
>it's 5:00 here, can I call my sister in Timbuktu still, or will she
>have gone to bed already?), and it can compute the straight line
>distance between two locations (approximately how many frequent flyer
>miles will I get for this trip?)

I'm frequently asked to ballpark leased line circuit costs from any two
locations in our state as my responsibility as technical coordinator for
our state network's connection to the internet.  I've found Map to be a
useful assistant with its distance calculations.  I simply enter the
city(s) into the Map, select one as "where I'm at" and then search for
the other.  Bang, mileage provided.  (FYI, telnet to
martini.eecs.umich.edu, port 3000 and try their geography server to get
latitude and longitude for Podunk, YourState!!!)
 
In article <1992Jul30.221711.4539@msc.cornell.edu> Maynard J. Handley,
maynard@esther.msc.cornell.edu writes:
>
>Am I the only one who thinks this control panel sucks? I hate the thing.
>Every time I use it I have to get the manual. How do you set the time
>right? How do you set your location? How do you blow up the mapsize?
Which
>of the various flashing thingies corresponds to what? This is, to my
mind,
>the single most user-hostile product put out by Apple right now. It
should
>not only be resized to make use of the variable size control panels can
now
>have, but it should have massive amounts of balloon help added.

Probably not.  But, while I don't think it "sucks", it could certainly be
made more useful.  RE, my above comments.  I've (briefly) tried to
ResEdit the resources and see about adding lots of locations in my
state/region.  ResEdit chokes on the size of the data.  Personally, I'd
remove everthing outside of (minimally) North America to suit my needs. 
I can always get a distribution copy from my system disks if I'm *really*
pressed to determine the time in or distance to some far away place.
Actually, Apple could distribute the current version, and a "continental"
version (ie, one continent only, but with more locations) for the
continents they market in at least.

Enlarging the Map view (movable with scroll bars, or view is controlled
by Lat/Long, etc) would be very useful.  Being able to import cities,
with lat and long, etc. would be very useful for my application.
 
You realize of course that Map must be doing spherical geometry to
provide accurate distances around the globe? (Well, I suspect it must be
anyway)
 	
Ben
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc