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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
October 24, 1989  10:00 pm eastern time
Topic:  Beginner's Night
Forum Leader:  Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)


Coach101   Kind of an interesting collection of people for "Beginners Night" 
           :)
A2GS       Any II Technical subscribers out there?
AFA Parik  yeah. have you got vol 2 yet?
AFA Parik  i wasn't able to contact Randy nor Brian.  :(  I want issue #2 
           :)
A2GS       Nope...was just going to say that it started shipping last week.
AFL Dyfet  Well, we can adjust to the crowd, coach :)
A2GS       Waiting for mine...Desperately!!!
AFA Parik  great!
Coach101   II Technical ?
AFA Parik  II-Tech is a great mag btw.  Best info I've seen. 
A2GS       Any idea what's in this issue?
AFA Parik  I know they continue their GS graphics discussion, some AppleTalk
           stuff
AFA Parik  Its a magazine put out by Randy Hyde (Lisa) and Brian Fitzgerald
           (HAL Labs).
A2GS       Anything specific?
AFA Parik  Its got pure techie info, assembly mainly, and is a bi-monthly
           mag.  Its real
AFA Parik  good, I'll post subscription info in misc
A2GS       I thought it was quarterly, parik?
AFA Parik  whatever
A2GS       :)
AFA Parik  has anyone hear written Gs/OS drivers for the SSC?
A2GS       Got some articles, I'm going to submit... 
AFL Dyfet  Parik: Do you mean a 
AFL Dyfet  'true' GS/OS device driver, or simply interface code for a GS/OS
           application
AFL Dyfet  that uses the SSC?
Coach101   SSC or SCC?
AFA Parik  ssc.  Not SCC
AFA Parik  I'm not sure Dave.  I guess a interface.
AFA Parik  anything to talk to the SSC without firmware.  :)
AFL Dyfet  Hello there Dave!!  I take it things have recovered a bit at
           Apple!!??
AFA Parik  (the modem port works great with texttools... not a lot of luck
           with GS/OS so
AFA Parik  far)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Parik, I take it you want something that doesn't genorate
           65k unclaimed
AFL Dyfet  interrupts as well :)
Coach101   :)
Dave Lyons Howdy!  Yup, most of Apple is about back to business as usual
           (except we
Dave Lyons have refugees from another building moving into our floor).
AFA Gary J Hi Dave.
Coach101   Evening Dave...
AFL Dyfet  One of my weekly rags (free trade publications foisted upon me)
           suggested that
AFL Dyfet  the R&D group at Apple lost their building...
AFA Parik  Did you feel the earthquake that just struck half hour ago Dave?
AFA Parik  4.4 on the scale
AFA Gary J Still quaking, huh?  Wow.
Coach101   Yep.....    Up/Down...   pause.....   horizontal motion....
Dave Lyons "The R&D group" isn't a very descriptive term, but there is at
           leas
Dave Lyons er...least one uninhabitable building at the moment, and the
           people have been
Dave Lyons redistributed to other buildings (including mine).
AFL Dyfet  True, since there are many R&D groups, but that's the way the
           weekly rag pu
AFL Dyfet  t it :)
Ted38      I remember Jim Merritt mentioning they had to move out of his
           building
Coach101   What was the vintage of the damaged building...   Was it
           structural damage
Coach101   or the likes of water/plaster damage?
Dave Lyons Yup, Jim was in that building...there was water damage and some
           structural
Dave Lyons damage, too.
Dave Lyons It's pretty old, but it was reinforced in the late 70s, I think.
Ted38      How long will it take to fix--do they know yet?
AFL Dyfet  I heard they had a whole floor flooded...ah well, at least nobody
           was hurt.
Dave Lyons I don't know.
AFA Gary J Are they even going to fix it, or is it totaled?
Dave Lyons I think they're going to fix it.
DwightW1   fix what?
Coach101   Dave, every tried NiftyList ~w on a NewWindow2 (rez) window?
AFA Gary J One of the Apple buildings
GEMs Daddy "Help with getting started in the event of an earthquake" :-)
AFL Dyfet  What brought you here?  We've been sidetracked by the quake, but
           tonight here
AFL Dyfet  is (or was :) 'beginners night' :)
Dave Lyons Coach, I've got it working better in a version I (unfortunately)
           haven't
Dave Lyons cleaned up enough to release yet.  Window titles can be handles
           now, and they
Dave Lyons are for created from resources.

AFL Dyfet  Okay, I think we can get started here now :)...Good evening and
           welcome to
AFL Dyfet  'Beginner's" night at the Apple II Development Forum :)...Tonight
           we will be
AZWOODY    Thank you both. I know so little that I will not expose my
           ignorance at least u
AFL Dyfet  paying special attention to helping those new to programming.  We
           will be using
AZWOODY    until I get my software.
AFL Dyfet  PROTOCOL starting NOW, which means if you wish to ask a question,
           simply enter
AFL Dyfet  a '?' on a line by itself, and if you wish to comment on what is
           currently
AFL Dyfet  neing discussed, simply enter a '!' on a line by itself.  The
           floor is now open
AFL Dyfet  for those who may have questions :).
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Doctor Why, you have the floor now, go ahead...
Doctor Why When starting to learn GS tools, is there a recommended order of
           toolsets?
Doctor Why I mean, should one learn Memory Manager before all others?
AFL Dyfet  GA A2GS.
A2GS       My personnal preferrance was to study the Memory Manager first and
           then go on
A2GS       to QD...and from there to other things like PDM's, etc...
A2GS       GA
AFL Dyfet  Memory Manager is an essiatial starting point in my opinion, too
           :)...QD would
AFL Dyfet  be a good place to go after that since you can then have some
           'fun' doing
AFL Dyfet  interesting things with it :)...GA Dave.
Dave Lyons Basically, you can learn them in any order you want, and for some
           of them you
Dave Lyons will find you need to learn other stuff before you can make much
           sense out of
Dave Lyons it.  Memory Mgr and QuickDraw II are excellent places to start,
           since many
Dave Lyons other toolsets build on them.  A few others stand alone (like SANE
           and the
Dave Lyons Misc Tools, and Integer Math).  ga
Doctor Why Thanks! GA
AFL Dyfet  GA Coach!
Coach101   I can not remember the formal title of the publication from Apple,
           but
Coach101   the book goes through the tools in a rather straightforward
           manner
Coach101   explaining them and what they do in the context of the HodgePodge
           program.
Coach101   You might find the book to be a good instructional workbook... 
           ga
Doctor Why Programmer's Introduction to the Apple IIGS. I believe.
Coach101   Thats it....
AFL Dyfet  Okay, GA Scott!
AFL Scott  The Lichty Eyes, Book is good too.  (Done)
AFA Gary J ^^ Book is called "Programming the Apple IIGS in Assembly
           Language"
AFL Dyfet  Does anyone else have a book to recommend?
Doctor Why Got that one also. Great book!
AFL Dyfet  GA Marty, but please return the floor when you are done :)
AFL Marty  Apple IIGS Technical Reference is very good also...
AFL Marty  written by some guy named Fischer :)
AFL Marty  ga
AFL Dyfet  Good choice Marty!  That was the first book I got, actually
           :)...In fact, I
DwightW1   i liked Programming the Apple IIgs in C and assembly lanu
DwightW1   guage
DwightW1    by Mark Andrews
AFL Dyfet  was using it today to answer a question for somebody :). 
AFL Marty  Actually, it was the first one I got also.
AFL Dyfet  GA Gary!
AFA Gary J As far as the order of learning the toolsets goes, you might get
           a copy of
AFA Gary J the IIGS Tech Note #12, "Tool Set Interdependencies", to give you
           some ideas
AFA Gary J on what relies on what.  A knowledge of an underlying toolset
           isn't always 
AFA Gary J necessary (sometimes the operation is transparent), but it may
           help.
AFA Gary J GA
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe our next question is from Windrider...GA
           Windrider.
Windrider5 one of the great things about the Dev.forum for a beginner is the
           Let's Discuss
Windrider5 section.  The advice from people like dave lysons and coach has
           certainly
Windrider5 help me.  However, it is also very difficult to go back through
           old discussion
Windrider5 Would it be possible to compile these discussion into a single
           folder?
AFL Dyfet  You may as well take that one, Gary :)
AFA Gary J (I can take the blame for some of this not being done yet!)  One
           of the things
AFA Gary J that we are trying to do is archive the older messages and make
           them avaialble
AFA Gary J in the software libraries for download.  The discussion area I've
           been trying
AFA Gary J to tackle lateley is the Operating systems folder.  But we only
           intend to do
AFA Gary J this to older folders, as there is usually a lot of activity in
           the newer ones
AFA Gary J and would be hard to keep up with.  GA
Windrider5 That would be great! Thank you
AFA Gary J (BTW - some of them are available now... older ones
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe our next question is from Jeff Davies..GA JD :)
AFA Gary J from the Miscellaneous Discussion area from a few months ago)
           GA
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe our next question is from Dwight.  GA Dwight :)
DwightW1   someone give me a loaddown on the 'instrument' data used to make
           sound?
DwightW1   i do not understand it at ALLLL!
AFL Dyfet  You mean on how to model an instrument for the sound tool?  GA
           A2...
A2GS       You for using the Note Synthesizer?
DwightW1   yes.... 
A2GS       You=You mean
DwightW1   yes
A2GS       GA  for now...looking it up.
AFL Dyfet  Okay, GA Die Mac...
Die Mac    Dwight, I'd recommend waiting for the new sound tools which will
           be arriving in
DwightW1   example, do you have to figure out the time intervals for the
           segments?
Die Mac    December.  A PROGRAM will be included that will allow you to
           digitize instrum
Die Mac    ents, and a library of instruments will be included!  wow!  Right
           now its a
Die Mac    very complex beastie that has to be manually coded, it specifies
           the envelope
Die Mac    for the sound which is how long each segment takes to play
Die Mac    ga
Die Mac    (the program also lets you sequence thru MIDI and play through
           note seq!  yah)
AFL Dyfet  Any other comments?
DwightW1   will look for that program in December.  Thanks!  ga  :)
AFL Marty  Excellent!
AFL Marty  ::air guitar::
JSchober   <snicker>
AFA Gary J :)
Die Mac    Imagine - get a cheapo keyboard and turn your GS into a music
           studio.
AFL Dyfet  That will make a nice christmas present :)
AFL Dyfet  GA A2 :)
A2GS       Don't have a lot of resources on the subj. at hand, but if you
           don't want to
A2GS       wait till Dec. (although, I would) I would recommend getting the
           book...
A2GS       "Exploring the Apple IIGS" which has a chapter dedicated to sound
           and discusses
A2GS       the Note Synthesizer and offers some sample code.  GA
A2GS       BTW the book written by Gary Little
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe our next question is from Ted38!  GA Ted :)
Ted38      Any advice for making the jump to assembly language from BASIC?
DwightW1   will do and thanks.
Ted38      I got the IIc and Prodos tech manuals, and understand some of
           them, but not a
Ted38      whole lot.
AFL Dyfet  Hmmm...GA A2!
A2GS       Would recommend Compute's Apple IIGS Machine Language for
           Beginners, by Roger 
A2GS       er...Roger Wagner....clearly describes how to make the transition,
           step by step
AFL Dyfet  The Merlin Assembler would also be a good place to start, as it's
           a MUCH
A2GS       GA
AFL Dyfet  simpler environment to work with than APW :).
AFL Dyfet  GA Gary!
AFA Gary J Also, your stepping from BASIC to assembly doesn't have to be a
           big "jump". 
AFA Gary J I consider assembly a natural addition to fill the limitations of
           AppleSoft
AFA Gary J BASIC.  There is much to be learned from studying the "peeks and
           pokes" of
AFA Gary J BASIC programs you may already have, and then program some of your
           own routines
AFA Gary J that you can "CALL" from BASIC.  You don't have to write a whole
           bunch of
AFA Gary J code to test something out that way.  GA
AFA Gary J the = then
AFL Dyfet  Yes, one can put together short simple routines in the monitor and
           then call
AFL Dyfet  them from Basic and learn a LOT that way :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  (then=them :)..Okay, any further comments?
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe our next question is from A2 :)...GA A2 :)
A2GS       Yes, Dyfet, you were right the first time  (then=then)
AFA Gary J :)
A2GS       Anyone have the slightest idea on how to change the insert cursor
           (blinking
A2GS       inverse "I") into the solid inverse cursor, aside from going into
           the parms.s
A2GS       file and changing it that way, under Merlin 16+...never had
           problems changing
A2GS       the cursor under regular Merlin 16.  GA
AFL Dyfet  The old Merlin also did not default to 'insert' mode :)
A2GS       Have lost several IQ point while programming and having the mind
           altering "I"
AFL Dyfet  I think the person to ask might be Glenn himself :).
A2GS       blinking hypnotically in front of me.     :)
A2GS       point=points
AFA Gary J That "I" is for self-centered programming.
Coach101   :0
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  The most fundimental statement in ANY AI programming language,
           actually :)
A2GS       whatever  :)    (how do you change it, under Merlin 16+?)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  Well, I don't think you can, other then switching out of insert
           mode :)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, do we have any other questions or comments for tonight?
Mac Hater  the bug of "save as" if you run a p8 program before gs/os still
           exists in
Mac Hater  5.02  :(
Mac Hater  (before = after gs/os loads up)
A2GS       what bug?
Mac Hater  It won't save the file.
Mac Hater  I just realized it happened today after I ran CII+ and then DPII
Mac Hater  It'll work fine if I don't run any P8 programs.
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
A2GS       first you run the p8 program and then you back into gs/os?
Dave Lyons That problem is still one my "this is very strange--investigate
           it" list (which
Dave Lyons is not terribly short, unfortunately).  ga
AFA Gary J I guess Apple is trying to get us to stay away from P8 programs
           :)
AFL Scott  That's a version control feature in my book!:)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  No, it keeps users and beta testers alert :)
DwightW1   good night and thanks for the info :)
AFL Scott  Maybe... the world does need more lerts, tho!:)
AFL Scott  (did I just say that?)
AFL Marty  gmta :)
AFA Gary J It must not be too obvious to fix, or I would think it would have
           been fixed in
AFA Gary J 5.02
A2GS       Yeah, but Beat testing an OS has got to be the most difficult
           thing, next to
A2GS       writing the OS itself!
A2GS       beat=beta
Ted38      What's a version control feature?
AFA Gary J beat sounds better :)
A2GS       :)
AFA Gary J more accurate, anyway :)
AFL Scott  A bug, Ted.  Sorry for the confusion.