From: ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.digest
Subject: TidBITS#140/31-Aug-92
Date: 1 Sep 92 04:35:05 GMT
Reply-To: ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst)
Organization: TidBITS

TidBITS#140/31-Aug-92
=====================
 
 First, the mundane but useful, with an important tip for Excel
   users, a clarification about Conflict Catcher, a new 32-user
   license for A/UX, and a report of the imminent demise of the
   Portable battery supply. Following that comes the cool stuff, a
   neat in-ear speaker and microphone (i.e. telephone) that works
   via bone conduction, some MacDraw Pro 1.5 speed benchmarks, and
   Microsoft and Tandy's answer to Commodore's CDTV.
 
 Copyright 1990-1992 Adam & Tonya Engst. Non-profit, non-commercial
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Topics:
    MailBITS/31-Aug-92
    Excel Workbook Backup Tip
    Conflict Catcher Article Conflicts
    A/UX... More Is Better?
    Portable Battery Bye-Bye
    Norris Ear PHONE
    MacDraw Pro Speed Comparisons
    Windows Does CDs
    Reviews/31-Aug-92
 
[Archived as /info-mac/digest/tb/tidbits-140.etx; 27K]
 
 
MailBITS/31-Aug-92
------------------
  Mark H. Anbinder writes, "It tells you a little bit about the
  pervasiveness of Microsoft's products in the industry that one of
  the top-level options on their phone menu system is, "If you are a
  hardware manufacturer and would like to bundle Microsoft software
  products with your product, please press 4.""
 
  Information from:
    Mark H. Anbinder, Contributing Editor
 
 
Excel Workbook Backup Tip
-------------------------
  In TidBITS#133 Andy Williams passed on a warning about a
  potentially dangerous bug in Excel 4.0 that could cause you to
  lose data bound into a workbook. The problem arises if your
  computer crashes while saving, because Excel will have overwritten
  the old, complete version with the newer, incomplete version, and
  you then can start on the hair-pulling. At the end of Andy's note,
  I mentioned that a clever macro programmer could probably script
  an automatic backup to ensure that you always had two copies of
  the workbook when you were working on it. Luckily for the Excel
  community, our local Seattle Excel guru Howard Hansen has come up
  with a workaround that doesn't even require a macro and will
  create a backup of the workbook every time you save. To do this,
  follow these steps:
 
1. Activate the workbook's contents page.
2. Choose Save As... from the File menu.
3. Click the Options button. Excel will bring up its Options
  dialog box.
4. Check the Create Backup File checkbox, then click the OK button
  to close the Options dialog box.
5. Click the Save button to save the file to disk (and make a
  backup).
 
  Excel will now take the old workbook file and rename it "Backup
  of" and the name. If anything evil happens during a save, you will
  always have the backup.
 
  Information from:
    Howard Hansen -- HHansen@aol.com
 
 
Conflict Catcher Article Conflicts
----------------------------------
  by Jeff Robin of Casady & Greene -- JLRG9912@UXA.CSO.UIUC.EDU
 
  I want to correct some misinformation in TidBITS#139 about
  Conflict Catcher. The article claims that Conflict Catcher
  automates the process of loading startup documents one-by-one to
  identify conflicts. Conflict Catcher does not load INITs one-by-
  one, but instead loads half of the startup extensions at a time to
  minimize the number of restarts it takes to locate an INIT
  conflict. Here's how Conflict Catcher begins to tackle a problem.
  After you start Conflict Catcher, it loads the extensions that it
  wants while restarting the computer. When the Finder comes up, you
  check to see if the problem exists (and that includes opening an
  application if that's where the problem shows up), and restart the
  computer. Conflict Catcher will then ask you if the problem exists
  or has gone away and enables or disables extensions as needed. It
  usually takes about four or five restarts to pin down a conflict,
  although that of course varies with the number of INITs you use.
 
  Conflict Catcher is always the first INIT to load, so if the
  conflict is between two INITs and causes a crash during startup,
  you can inform Conflict Catcher that the problem exists when you
  restart the machine. If the problem is more subtle (i.e. the
  Finder has a corrupt display), then you tell Conflict Catcher when
  you restart.
 
  Also, Conflict Catcher is able to isolate conflicts between
  multiple INITs. The article also mentioned incorrectly that
  Conflict Catcher somehow traces code after startup. Actually,
  Conflict Catcher only patches a few traps to perform the startup
  file reordering and to do the ICON wrapping. Both of these
  features can be disabled so that Conflict Catcher is guaranteed
  not cause any problems.
 
  [Thanks for the explanation, Jeff. It sounds as though Conflict
  Catcher will help the user identify and solve conflicts, which is
  even better than it doing it automatically because then the user
  will learn from the process as well. -Adam]
 
 
A/UX... More Is Better?
-----------------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder, Contributing Editor
 
  Apple recently announced to dealers a license upgrade option for
  owners of the 16-user license of A/UX 3.0, Apple's Unix operating
  system, bringing the maximum number of users to 32. Until now,
  each A/UX workstation was limited to 16 users, but Apple is
  providing this expanded user license option for customers with
  "growing enterprise-wide systems."
 
  For $2,500, users will be able to order the license kit, which
  enables a single A/UX installation to support up to 32 users. We
  suspect that most designers of "enterprise-wide systems" would
  have selected either individual Macintosh workstations, or some
  other time-sharing system, but for those who felt a 16-user A/UX
  system would suffice and are now discovering they just can't get
  enough A/UX, this license upgrade should fit the bill.
 
  The license kit (item number M8099LL/A) is available directly from
  Apple Software Licensing, but the required form is on AppleLink
  under the path Apple Products -> A/UX -> Ordering & Licensing ->
  Licensing -> A/UX 32 User License & Instructions. Users without
  direct access to AppleLink will need to acquire the form from
  their dealers, who may be miffed that Apple is handling all these
  sales directly.
 
 
Portable Battery Bye-Bye
------------------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder, Contributing Editor
 
  Owners of the discontinued Macintosh Portable will feel even more
  left out this fall, when Apple plans to remove the Macintosh
  Portable Battery from all of its price lists. The separate battery
  was intended for users who wanted the convenience of having an
  extra battery on hand for those long computing sessions away from
  any AC outlets. Of course, most users have found the single
  battery that came with their Portables to be sufficient for
  working several-hour stretches so long as they recharged the
  battery between work sessions.
 
  If you have a Portable, and you've thought about investing in a
  spare battery, now is certainly the time; the 19-Oct-92 price
  lists will no longer include the item, dealers may be unable to
  get the batteries, and we have not yet run across a third party
  supplier of the batteries. We suspect that limited quantities will
  be made available to dealer service departments, in case a
  customer's battery needs to be replaced someday, but you may want
  to get yourself a spare just in case.
 
 
Norris Ear PHONE
----------------
  One of the most interesting technologies I saw at Macworld had
  little to do with the Mac. So why did this company come to
  Macworld? The technology enhances various communications
  applications, and lots of Macintosh companies are working on
  improving communications using the Mac.
 
  The product in question comes from Norris Communications, and they
  call it, appropriately enough, the Norris Ear PHONE[tm]. The Ear
  PHONE is this little item that you put in your ear, much as
  someone might wear a hearing aid or old radio earplug speakers.
  Unlike a hearing aid or radio speaker, the Norris Ear PHONE acts
  as both a speaker and a microphone. At the moment it uses a
  unidirectional microphone that works wonderfully, although I found
  it disconcerting to talk to someone on the phone without holding
  anything. (Norris kindly gave Mark Anbinder and me a private
  demonstration so we could try it.)
 
  As neat as the unidirectional model was, Norris has an even more
  theoretically impressive version in the works. They only brought
  two prototypes to the show, and other people had them when we were
  checking out the unidirectional model, but the prototypes work on
  the principle of bone conduction. For those of you who aren't
  familiar with the principle, when you talk, you set up vibrations
  not only in the air surrounding you (causing the sound) but also
  in the tiny bones in your ear. Bone conduction microphones do not
  pick up any background noise, because that noise doesn't cause the
  bones in your ear to vibrate. You can also speak in a low voice,
  because all you have to vibrate are those bones, not the air
  around you.
 
  I don't have a sense of how sensitive the bone conduction
  microphone will be yet, but I suspect that you won't have to talk
  as loudly. As Mitch Ratcliffe of MacWEEK commented, however, it
  will be hilarious to see gray-suited executives walking aimlessly
  around the streets, apparently mumbling to themselves like
  unstable street people.
 
  The first model of the bone conduction microphone will hook to the
  phone via a cord, but Norris has a wireless 900 Hz spread spectrum
  model in the works as well, so eventually your phone won't hold
  you hostage at all. You may not have to slap your chest as do the
  actors in Star Trek: The Next Generation because Norris hopes to
  have the Ear PHONE be voice-activated, but one way or another,
  your personal connectedness will increase radically. Of course,
  you will then have to decide all the more whether or not you wish
  to accept incoming calls, but technology seldom comes without some
  philosophical involvement. I know people who still refuse to have
  a telephone, and when forced to use one are uncharacteristically
  rude.
 
  As far as applications of the Ear PHONE go, Norris showed some
  relatively simple ones and a few more impressive ones. Many of us
  keep our phone and address information on the Mac now, and some
  people even use their modems (or a little hardware device from
  Sophisticated Circuits) to dial the phone. Eventually Norris wants
  the Ear PHONE to work as both a telephone speaker and microphone
  and also as a voice command microphone for the Mac. Once we have
  Casper voice-recognition technology (about the same time we all
  have Cyclone Macs and a chicken in every pot), I could have the
  Mac dial the phone with a voice command, and without doing
  anything else, suddenly be talking to someone, all without
  fiddling with handsets and keypads and all that. I gather that
  Apple will also better integrate telephony into the Mac via the
  Comm Toolbox and OCE, so that applications will have an easier
  time working with telephone applications.
 
  The more interesting uses of the Norris Ear PHONE include using it
  as the microphone and speaker in a system from Applied Engineering
  that will replace the floppy drive in a PowerBook with a
  communications bay (this is cool stuff, more on CommPort in the
  future) or in a ShareVision system (incidentally, I received some
  incorrect information that I used in the ShareVision article in
  TidBITS#138. Dean Tucker of ShareVision alerted me to the problem
  and offered to clarify and expand on some of what I said, so look
  for another article with better information in the next week or
  so).
 
  One added benefit of the Norris Ear PHONE: those of us with hand
  and wrist injuries from typing too much will not have to hold a
  handset. If you haven't experienced any pain in your hands you
  won't know what I'm talking about, but I find that a long
  telephone conversation can cause me a lot of discomfort. I could,
  of course, get a headset, but they are expensive and not always
  that comfortable either from what Tonya and other tech support
  people have said. A speakerphone would work too, but you can't
  have a private conversation on a speakerphone.
 
  You can't buy the Ear PHONE just yet since Norris hasn't started
  full production runs, but they do have a Partner program that will
  provide you with an Ear PHONE, technical information from the
  company, and both phone and CompuServe tech support. It costs $99,
  and if you're interested, give Norris a call.
 
  Aside from the two minor drawbacks of executive zombies and
  figuring out to deal with always being available, the only
  remaining question has to do with RF emissions. I doubt the
  speaker would cause a problem since hearing aid companies would
  have tested that, but few other companies have put a radio
  transmitter in the ear itself, and even the slight distance of a
  headset radio could reduce the RF emissions enough to eliminate
  potential health problems whereas an in-ear transmitter might be
  too close. And of course, it may seriously impact the career
  opportunities of telephone sanitizers. For that matter, you may
  not want to share Ear PHONEs with other people all that often...
  (Norris actually will provide a number of pads to address the
  cleanliness issue and so people with different size ears can find
  the most comfortable fit.)
 
  These real and humorous concerns aside, I have high hopes for the
  Ear PHONE. Norris has to make sure the voice quality of the bone
  conduction version equals the quality of the unidirectional
  version, and they also have to ensure that the price at least
  competes with traditional headsets. If Norris can meet those
  design goals, everyone will want an Ear PHONE. If not, it will go
  the way of other niche market electronic devices, including a few
  that have used bone conduction unsuccessfully even when you
  inserted the device deep in your ear. I think I'd rather have a
  Babel fish, but barring that, I'll take an Ear PHONE.
 
    Norris Communications -- 619/679-1504 -- 619/486-3471 (fax)
      norris@applelink.apple.com
 
  Information from:
    Jennifer Blome & Randy Granovetter, Norris Communications
    Norris propaganda
 
  Related articles:
    MacWEEK -- 18-May-92, Vol. 6, #20, pg. 4
 
 
MacDraw Pro Speed Comparisons
-----------------------------
  by Nigel Stanger -- STANGER@otago.ac.nz
 
  I just got my upgrade to MacDraw Pro 1.5 and since lots of people
  on the nets wondered how fast it was compared to previous
  versions, I decided to try a few rough and ready benchmarks on the
  two versions. All tests were run on an LC (original, not II). The
  tests I tried were:
 
* "Cold start" - launch to a new blank document
 
* Open four of the sample documents which came with it:
 
    "GeoMosaic" - a fairly simple straight-line geometric
     pattern with gradient fills.
 
    "Rossini" - similar to GeoMosaic but with more curves
     and slightly more complex gradients.
 
    "Dance of Spheres" - I think this was originally an Escher
     print. It certainly looks very familiar. Lots of spheres
     hovering over nested, rotated squares and lots of gradients.
 
    "4 Cylinder Engine" - a rather spectacular cutaway of a four
     cylinder engine. Definitely the most complex.
 
* Scroll "4 Cylinder Engine" one "step" of the scroll bar.
 
* Open a new document (command-N).
 
* Type in some text. The idea here was not so much to get a time,
  but to see how well it kept up with my typing.
 
  It appears that 1.5 gains most of its speed increases from its new
  display options - you can opt for either "best" display of
  gradient fills, or "fast" display (which appears to mean dithering
  as far as I can tell). You can also greek imported images, and
  text below a certain point size. This is basically the same as the
  "picture placeholders" command in Word, where Word substitutes a
  solid box for the actual graphic in order to increase scrolling
  speed.
 
  The default setting for text greeking is six point - anything
  smaller is drawn as a placeholder, which saves a lot on TrueType
  rendering. If you've ever used Print Preview in Word 4.0 with
  TrueType fonts, you'll know how bad it can get.
 
  The test results are below. Times are in seconds, rounded to the
  nearest half second. The degree of error is plus or minus about
  one second depending on my reaction time :-).
 
                          1.0v1       1.5 (fast      1.5 (normal
    Test                              gradients)      gradients)
 
    Cold start             19.5         17.5              --
 
    Open GeoMosaic         12.5         14.0             14.5
 
    Open Rossini           29.5         16.0             30.0
 
    Open Dance of Spheres  29.5         17.5             30.0
 
    Open 4-Cyl. Engine     69.0         62.0             72.0
 
    Scroll 4-Cyl. Engine    6.5          7.5              8.5
 
    New document            6.5          7.5              --
 
  The most spectacular results seem to be in the moderately complex
  (i.e. more or less average) documents. Simple documents and
  highly-complex documents don't seem to be much different than from
  1.0. The overall feel does seem slightly faster though. Text entry
  has improved - I managed to leave 1.0 behind quite easily, whereas
  1.5 kept up fairly well.
 
  Other new features: Publish & Subscribe, QuickTime support, Apple
  Event support (including a HyperCard stack for driving a slide
  show via Apple Events), Balloon Help, and improved text alignment
  (which I haven't had a chance to look at yet). Personally, I think
  Publish & Subscribe is justification enough for upgrading - I've
  been drooling ever since I heard 1.5 had it.
 
  On the downside, MacDraw Pro 1.5 is still significantly slower
  than MacDraw II, but I expected that. The program also checks in
  about 200K larger than 1.0 (which was already 1 MB), but the RAM
  consumption has not changed. The package comes on only four 800K
  floppies as opposed to six for 1.0 because half the stuff is
  compressed, which I consider a good idea. I have enough floppies
  sitting around already. The Installer was up to its usual mediocre
  standards - I installed MacDraw Pro on a partition without a
  System Folder on it, and the Installer went and created a System
  Folder to put all the extra bits and pieces into, which meant
  moving some stuff around by hand.
 
  Oh yes, one nit which I almost forgot - MacDraw Pro doesn't seem
  to understand foreign script systems! I have the Russian script
  system installed (long story), and if you run Key Caps, all the
  Russian fonts appear in the Font menu in Cyrillic - very nice.
  However, both Word 4.0 (surprise) and MacDraw Pro don't do this -
  the fonts appear as gibberish (characters in the >127 ASCII
  range). A bit disappointing, given the quality of the interface
  otherwise.
 
 
Windows Does CDs
----------------
  Apple certainly has the head start on the potentially lucrative
  (at the price of this hardware and software, _someone_ had better
  make some money at it) multimedia market, but as Mark H. Anbinder
  pointed out last week, IBM wants in on the action too. Although it
  turns out that IBM's snazzy full-screen full motion video
  demonstration had some special hardware behind it (more next week
  when we find out all the details), other companies want some of
  the pie too, and where there's a pie, could Microsoft be far away?
  No.
 
  Remember the $800 CDTV, Commodore's primarily unnoticed attempt to
  enter the consumer multimedia market? If not, don't worry, despite
  the fact that CDTV was actually an Amiga in sheep's clothing (see
  TidBITS#62/20-May-91 for the details at the time), CDTV hasn't
  exactly taken the world by storm, due in part, I'm sure, to
  Commodore's inability to sign up enough third party content
  providers. Microsoft and Tandy hope to do just that, although I
  doubt they'll equal Hurricane Andrew in importance.
 
  The hardware comes from Tandy, and they call it the Video
  Information System, or VIS, and hope to sell it for about $700.
  The software, as usual, comes from Microsoft in the form of
  Modular Windows, which Microsoft optimized for use with a
  television as a display device. Microsoft obviously wants certain
  developers already working on Windows products to scale them down
  for use with Tandy's VIS, and since Modular Windows for VIS is
  based on Windows 3.1, developers shouldn't have too much trouble,
  assuming they have already mastered programming Windows, something
  which various programmers of my acquaintance have likened to
  eating okra (that ought to get both okra aficionados and Windows
  programmers, all in one sentence :-)).
 
  Of course, the software interface concerns us the most. Modular
  Windows, being Windows at heart, relies on DOS, and yes, Tandy's
  VIS includes both MS-DOS and Modular Windows in ROM (warning,
  acronym level rising!). So you have no choice about the underlying
  operating system, but the interface? Microsoft claims that they
  have tested the interface with hundreds of users (I wonder who?)
  to ensure that users can see and use the software easily from ten
  feet away. According to Microsoft, multimedia titles will feature
  large, three-dimensional buttons and colorful icons and support a
  simple point-and-shoot operation with a remote control. In theory,
  users won't have to know that VIS uses DOS and Windows at all, but
  frankly, given Microsoft's interface "successes" with computer
  users who are theoretically slightly brighter than the average
  bear, I'd advise average bears to stay in hibernation.
 
  At first, VIS players will look and act much like CD players that
  sit on top of and attach to television sets. Later on the VIS
  player will support alternate methods of delivering information,
  most likely through cable television channels. All of this sounds
  like Commodore's CDTV, although Commodore was a mere rhesus monkey
  to Microsoft and Tandy's 2000 pound gorilla. Supposedly Tandy and
  Microsoft have over 50 developers committed to over 100 VIS
  titles, including a number of children's reading development and
  classic literature titles. Joy and rapture! Can you imagine
  reading the complete works of Shakespeare on TV? My copy of
  Shakespeare's complete works numbers almost 1000 pages of small
  print, not something I'd care to experience in large letters and
  short lines, even if I can switch to clips of various productions
  of Hamlet while perusing the text. Of course, I'm being negative
  here, not having seen what they propose in terms of "classic
  literature titles," but unless they can equal at least what
  Voyager has done with the neat Expanded Books, I'll stick to my
  awkward thousand page book or the free ASCII texts from Project
  Gutenberg.
 
  Even though Tandy will sell the VIS system in consumer electronics
  and department stores, it seems that they plan to market the
  titles as software. I can't imagine that the sort of people who
  buy software will evince all that much interest in VIS - why
  bother when you have a computer that can do as much and more? If
  VIS is to succeed then, it will have to break consumer molds and
  not just try to slip another sheepskin-covered computer into
  consumer electronics stores.
 
  As it stands, the hardware specs sound pretty good, including
  VGA/MCGA compatible video modes on a television; new video modes
  that support up to 16 million colors; hardware-assisted animation
  processing; three types of high-quality audio (CD-Audio,
  synthesized MIDI, and wave-form) played simultaneously for cool
  effects; and DOS, Windows and multimedia PC (MPC) software and
  content capability (what the heck would anyone do with that?). In
  the end, you've got hardware that might approach an Amiga, which
  most people consider the best multimedia machine commonly
  available. But does the Microsoft and Tandy gorilla have enough
  weight to muscle a $700 VIS into the hearts and homes of
  consumers? Not this one.
 
    Microsoft VIS Program -- 206/936-1505
    Tandy -- 817/878-4852
 
  Information from:
    Microsoft & Tandy propaganda
 
 
Reviews/31-Aug-92
-----------------
 
* MacWEEK -- 24-Aug-92, Vol. 6, #31
    HiQ 1.0 -- pg. 37
    LaserMaster Unity 1000 Plain-Paper Typesetter -- pg. 37
    Bernoulli 90 PRO -- pg. 39
    PROmotion 1.0 -- pg. 40
    Silver Cloud 1.0 -- pg. 42
 
* Macworld -- Oct-92
    CD-ROM Drives -- pg. 144
      (too many to list)
    Slide Scanners -- pg. 156
      (too many to list)
    Microsoft Excel 4.0 -- pg. 178
    MacTools 2.0 -- pg. 179
    Norton Utilities for Macintosh 2.0 -- pg. 179
    Accelerators -- pg. 181
      Performance/040 (33 MHz)
      Radius Rocket 33
      TokaMac II FX 33
    HP PaintJet XL300 -- pg. 184
    DOS Disk Mounters -- pg. 188
      AccessPC 2.0
      DOS Mounter 3.0
      Macintosh PC Exchange 1.1
    LetraStudio 2.0 -- pg. 190
    Fair Witness 1.1 -- pg. 198
    The Bat -- pg. 198
    RasterOps CorrectPrint 300 -- pg. 199
    The Miracle Piano Teaching System -- pg. 199
    Super Tetris 1.0 -- pg. 200
    Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? -- pg. 200
    easyPrint 1.0 -- pg. 202
    HiQ 1.0 -- pg. 202
    ConstructionMate 1.2 -- pg. 206
    Ultima Home Office -- pg. 206
    Kid Pix Companion 1.0 -- pg. 208
    Quantum Passport XL 240 -- pg. 208
    DateBook 1.0 -- pg. 209
    Nok Nok 1.0 -- pg. 209
    NueX 1.1 -- pg. 210
    Now Up-to-Date 1.0.1 -- pg. 210
    RouterCheck 2.0 -- pg. 212
    Transparent Language 1.04M -- pg. 212
 
 
..
 
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