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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
January 24, 1989  10:00 p.m. Eastern time
Topic: Programming Shells, Environments and Utilities
Forum Leader: Gary Jacobson (AFA Gary J)


AFA Gary J Welcome to the Apple II Development Forum.  Our trusty forum
           leader, Jim Luther
AFA Gary J is moving to California to his new job at Apple this evening so
           I'll be the
AFA Gary J referee in tonight's forum.  :)
AFA Gary J Tonight's topic (should you decide to accept it) is Programming
           Shells, 
AFA Gary J Environments and Utilities.
AFA Parik  (Hello DeadHead & C W Hess)
AFA Gary J We'll follow protocol this evening, so if you have a question ,
           type a ?
DeadHead13 ?
AFA Gary J If you have a comment on the current topic, type a !
AFL Scott  q=dead
AFA Gary J I'll prompt you and let you know when it's your turn to talk.
DeadHead13 Is mike on tonight? (Westerfield)
AFA Gary J Anyone have any burning questions this evening?
AFA Gary J Hi Floyd
Bluetamon  ?
AFA Gary J GA, Blue
AFL Floyd  Hi, Gary.
Bluetamon  yeah, what's a real good double hi-res utility
AFA Gary J Hmmm... I've used the Beagle Brothers utility...
Bluetamon  what's it called?
DaviesDoug !
DeadHead13 !
AFA Gary J (Trying to remember....looking...)
AFA Gary J Go ahead with your comment, Doug..
DennisDoms (Beagle Graphics?)
DaviesDoug shells remember?
Bluetamon  (and utilities)
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J Right...utilities too.
AFA Gary J It's called Beagle Graphics, by Mark Simonsen.
Bluetamon  ?
AFL Scott  Q=Blue...  !=Davies,Dead
AFA Gary J DeadHead, did you have a comment?
AFL Scott  Q+Blue
DeadHead13 Real quick, Beagle graphics is on sale for $30 directly from
           Beagle bros!
Bluetamon  Can it disassemble portions of the picture, and show the hex for
           it?
DeadHead13 (special sale)!!
AFA Parik  !
Bluetamon  (waiting...)
AFA Gary J GA, Parik
AFA Parik  no, as far as I know it can't disassemble it.  I wrote a utility
           for APW and
AFA Parik  Orca however that will take any file and put it in its equivalent
           source code
AFA Parik  format. ga
AFA Gary J From what I recall about using the program, Parik is correct.  I
           used the
Clayburn   ?
DwightW1   ?
AFA Gary J Merlin Souceror disassembler to produce Hex dumps of screen
           blocks.
AFA Gary J Anything else, Blue?
DaviesDoug ?
AFL Scott  Q+Clayburn, Dwight..
Bluetamon  !
Bluetamon  oops, ?
Clayburn   Are there any demo shells with the source listings availible
AFA Parik  !
Matt DTS   !
AFA Gary J GA, Parik
DeadHead13 !
AFA Parik  Don Elton should be releasing ECP 8 to the freeware market w/
           source soon if
AFA Parik  not already.  ga
AFL Marty  <hi Joe>
AFL Scott  Q+Davies, Blue..!=Blue, Parik, Matt, Dead...
AFA Gary J I've just heard that version 5 of ECP is available and will be
AFA Gary J uploaded to the libaries soon.
AFL Floyd  <I got it now, Scott>
Bluetamon  Why does everybody here talk about the ORCA/M so much, and not
           Merlin.
AFL Scott  <Thanks Floyd...:)>
Bluetamon  Is ORCA/M really that good?
AFA Gary J It does include the source.
AFA Gary J Matt, did you have a comment?
Matt DTS   To avoid confusion, I'll point out that the SHELL.ASM (or SHELL.C)
           programs...
AFL Floyd  Q=Davies, Blue !=Deadhead
Matt DTS   ...on the Source Code Sampler are not shell programs like APW, or
           ECP or Davex;
Matt DTS   rather, they're a basic shell around which to build your desktop
           programs...
AFA Parik  (Hi Bill!)
Matt DTS   ...for the IIgs.  (trying to avoid any confusion before it
           starts).  GA.
BillP      Hi Parik!
AFA Gary J Ok, GA Doug with your question..
Bluetamon  8:) (zzzzz....)
DaviesDoug Do the runtime libararies exist yet?..........
DaviesDoug what is the best way to make a shell call?.....
DaviesDoug the user tool set?..............
DaviesDoug done
AFL Floyd  Q=(DaviesDoug), Blutamon  !=DeadHead
Matt DTS   ! ! !
AFA Gary J GA Matt
Matt DTS   1.  What run-time libraries?  Some exist, but I don't know which
           ones you mean.
Matt DTS   2.  As far as I know, there's only one way to make a shell call,
           and it's...
AFA Parik  (Hi Andy & Andy :)
AndyWells  Hi Andy..
DaviesDoug The loader runtime libraries your suppose to be able to make
Matt DTS   ...documented in both the APW and ORCA/M manuals (IIgs).
AndyWells  Hi Matt
Matt DTS   3.  What about user tool sets?  (some exist, also).
DaviesDoug No!!
ShrinkIt   Hi to everyone who just splattered a flashnote across my screen...
           :-)
Matt DTS   4.  Try asking one question at a time and making it more
           verbose.
DaviesDoug I want to write my own shell with calls and have others call my
           routines
Matt DTS   Loader run-time libraries:  The APW linker won't create them, but
           the...
Matt DTS   ...MPW IIgs linker will.  Speculation on bringing this to APW
           isn't my dept.
AFL Floyd  Q=(DaviesDoug), Bluetamon  !=DeadHead
BillP      :)
Matt DTS   Writing your own shell:  I'll pass on that one for the time
           being.
Bluetamon  (I don't have a question...never mind..)
AFA Gary J Matt?  Pass?  :)
Matt DTS   I don't know exactly what about writing your own shell you're
           asking, Doug.
AFL Floyd  Q=(DaviesDoug)    !=DeadHead
DaviesDoug about calling routines in my shell...letting other applications
           call them
DaviesDoug like orca lets you do....but he uses the prodos vector
Bluetamon  ?
DaviesDoug Mike W does
AFL Floyd  q+Bluetamon
Bluetamon  Is DOS considered a shell?? and does anybody know where to get
           some good...
Bluetamon  book on making your own dos??
Bluetamon  (not Beneath apple dos or prodos, I have those..)
Matt DTS   I'll pass on this to Dave Lyons, who inexplicably...
Matt DTS   ...happens to be sitting beside me in this very room (life's funny
           that way):
AFL Floyd  Q=(DaviesDoug), Bluetamon   !=Deadhead
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Gary J Doug, did you get your question answered?  
Clayburn   !
DaviesDoug not really
AFA Parik  (yeahhh, the 23 limit has been exceeded... :-)
THE GIBBER (just got dumped)
AFA Gary J Maybe you could put it up on the message boards.
RosenNeil  I thought 23 was a limit?
DaviesDoug just trying to create conversation!...I know how to do it!!!
AFL Floyd  !=DeadHead, Clayburn
AndyWells  50 here
JSchober   (not anymore!)
Matt DTS   Doug, I think you'll end up intercepting the E100A8 vector just
           like APW does;
Matt DTS   can't think of anything better to do.
AFA Gary J Ok Blue...  I don't consider DOS as a shell.  It is an operating
           system.
DaviesDoug user tool set works much better
DwightW1   ?
Clayburn   Maybe someone should give the definition of a shell
AFL Floyd  PROTOCOL!
AFA Gary J RIGHT!
AFA Gary J :)
Matt DTS   !
AFL Floyd  Q=(Bluetamon), DwightW1   !=Deadhead, Matt
AFA Gary J Matt, GA
DeadHead13 I have a comment
Matt DTS   Oh, I'm Matt!  He had to remind me.  You might try requesting that
           your shell
Matt DTS   be assigned a range of command numbers (APW=$01xx, your shell
           could have a
Matt DTS   different range).
Matt DTS   (ga)
DeadHead13 way back, bluetamon asked about source code for a shell.  If you
           get Orca for
DeadHead13 the //, you can also get the source code for the orca shell for an
           extra 20
DeadHead13 <done>
AFL Floyd  Q=DwightW1
DwightW1   my question follows...
DwightW1   why does the latest version of apw running under system v3.1 not
           recoginize
DwightW1   the linked command whereas the earlier version of apw does?
Matt DTS   !
DwightW1   i keep getting 'segment not in module
AFA Gary J GA Matt
Matt DTS   So you're saying that it does *recognize* the command, but that it
           won't work?
DwightW1   yes
DwightW1   all of the segments are present....
AFL Floyd  < Q= is empty after Dwight >
Matt DTS   (Matt's going to look for his APW reference...trying to find a
           descr of that
Matt DTS   error msg, which we've never seen.  He HAS the manual....)
Matt DTS   Dwight, it means "a segment you specified in the SELECT command is
           not in the
Matt DTS   file you are linking."  Does your linked script have some
           SELECTS
Matt DTS   in it?
DwightW1   yes.....but....
Matt DTS   I think there's a LINKED option that will report on the progress
           through your
DwightW1   using the command with the same link file works with....
Matt DTS   script as it goes, which should help you narrow down the
           problem--looking now.
DwightW1   the 'old' apw
Matt DTS   Are you linking C, assembly, both, or what?  Did you change
           compilers or
Matt DTS   assemblers as well as changing linker versions?
DwightW1   assembly only
DwightW1   every thing is the same only update of apw
AFA Parik  !
JeffDWoods !
AFA Gary J GA with your comment, Park
AFA Parik  I thought the only update to APW was the tool interface files? 
           Why not just
AFA Gary J Ooops, Parik  :)
DwightW1   i  read the new apw document carefully regarding the linked
           command
AFA Parik  replace the old AINCLUDE subdirectory with the new one and see
           what happens...
AFA Parik  ga
DwightW1   ...no change from the old apw document
AFL Floyd  < Q=(DwightW1)    !=JeffDWoods >
DwightW1   will try and thank you
AFA Gary J Did you have a comment, Jeff?
JeffDWoods Matt asked if you updated the assembler, too.  Did the APW update
           include
JeffDWoods the assembler update?
JeffDWoods ga
DwightW1   no
AFA Gary J Anything else, Dwight?
JeffDWoods You're just lucky, I guess!  :)
DwightW1   i am still using the original assembler from apw
AFL Floyd  < queue is bone dry >
JeffDWoods ?
DwightW1   no... will try suggestion given
DwightW1   thank you
AFA Gary J Ok, GA with your question, Jeff
JeffDWoods What is everyones FAVORITE shell, environment, or utility?  (How's
           this?)  :D
AFA Gary J heheh
Dan Burton !
JeffDWoods Just trying to stir up conversation!  (or argument since their is
           nothing else)
AFL Marty  !
AFA Gary J What's yours, Dan?
AFA Parik  !
Dan Burton one that hasn't been released yet
DwightW1   i have grown accustomed to apw....(now if i can just learn how to
           use it) :)
AFA Gary J heh..I supposed you can't tell us about it, either?
JeffDWoods Are you being sarcastic, Dan?
BillP      !
Dan Burton Its a secret
AFL Floyd  <Q= (Jeff)   != Marty, Parik, BillP >
Dan Burton It's going to be great thoug
AFA Gary J Ok...Marty, What do you like to use?
JerryK27   Hi Andy (ShrinkIt)... I got your mail and I think I know what is
           wrong.
AFL Marty  basic.system
AFL Marty  (I love AppleSoft BASIC)
JeffDWoods (more VaporWare)  I don't care about things I can't have (or
           afford!)
AFA Gary J :)  That's probably the one shell that most everyone is familiar
           with.
ShrinkIt   ok, I just sent you mail about it.
AFA Gary J (At least I consider it a shell)
ShrinkIt   (to Jerry that was)
AFA Gary J GA with your comment, Parik
AFA Parik  without a doubt, EdAsm.
JerryK27   I bet you aren't turning off the 5.25" drive motor... that will
           cause the
Dan Burton ?
AndyWells  Merlin 8/16 for me..
JerryK27   computer to hang when it tries to access the UniDisk 3.5
AFA Gary J Why do you like EdAsm, Parik?
AFA Parik  It has power.
AFL Floyd  < We're using protocol people :) >
AFA Parik  Its versatile.
AFA Parik  Its easy to use! 
AFA Parik  (and I'm joe Isuzu)
AFL Floyd  < Q= (Jeff), Dan Burton   !=BillP >
JSchober   :)  thought so... I was getting worried, Parik...
AFL Marty  <bless you Parik>
JeffDWoods It won't generate GS/OS applications or DAs.
AFA Gary J How about you, Bill?
BillP      MPW IIGS  I can't live without the automatic help features and
           multiple editors
JSchober   (it won't generate ANYTHING!)         !
JeffDWoods See comment above re: "affordable".  ;)
AFA Gary J Parik, now THAT'S power!  (MPW)
AFA Parik  (the mini-moniter has more power!  :)
AFA Gary J One of my favorite utilites is Dave Lyon's Nifty List CDA.  It is
           great
AFL Floyd  < Q= (Jeff), Dan Burton >
AFA Gary J in trying to disassemble and debug code (and I also know that
           Dave's probably
JSchober   err... !!!
AFA Gary J reading this... :)
ShrinkIt   (shucks, and here I thought parik hand-coded everything... I'm
           disappointed ;)
AFL Floyd  < Q= (Jeff), Dan   != Joe >
AFA Gary J Jeff, do you have a comment?
JeffDWoods Nope.  Good comments.  Except Parik.   :)
AFA Gary J Ok then, on to Dan's question.  GA Dan.
JeffDWoods ga, Dan
AFA Parik  :P
Dan Burton Is there any rules on sharing Tools in a shell enviroment
AFL Floyd  < Joe had a comment >
Matt DTS   !
AFA Gary J Missed you Joe...do you want to slip one in here before we answer
           Dan's 
AFA Gary J question?
JSchober   Yup... about the utils:  My two favorites are Nifty List, for the
           commented
JSchober   disassemblies (and everything else it offers!), and the nice
           simple Monitor/
JSchober   Mini-assembler pair.  Far faster than any commercial product for
           doing quick
JSchober   changes to m/l code, and immediately trying it out again.  That's
           all, GA...
AFL Floyd  < Q= (Dan)   !=Matt >
AFA Gary J Ok, Matt, GA on Dan's question.
Matt DTS   Unlike DAs, there is no "minimum" set of tools that are guaranteed
           to be...
Matt DTS   ..started up when a shell application is launched, so each one
           should...
Matt DTS   ...start any tools it needs which aren't already active, and shut
           them down...
Matt DTS   ...if it started them up.  There are no rules on "sharing" tools
           among...
Matt DTS   ...different applications (as opposed to apps and DAs, for
           example) because...
Matt DTS   ...no one's written a MultiFinder or Switcher type program yet to
           need such...
Matt DTS   ...rules.  GA.
AFA Gary J Does that answer it for you, Dan?
AFL Floyd  < Queue is empty >
Dan Burton What happens when someone writes a Multifinder type
           application??????
Matt DTS   We shoot them for overusing their punctuation.  <evil grin>
AFA Gary J :)
JeffDWoods !
Matt DTS   Hopefully, those people (or that person) will ask us at Apple for
           some...
Dan Burton oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Matt DTS   ...guidelines on how best to do this.
Dan Burton Ok I'm asking.
JeffDWoods !!
AFL Floyd  < !=JeffDWoods >
Dan Burton But it may be to late
AFA Gary J GA, Jeff
Matt DTS   We would need to see it through official channels, phrased more
           specifically,
Matt DTS   Dan, to give the best answers.
JeffDWoods There may never be a Multifinder for the GS as it exists now....
Dan Burton It can and will be done
JeffDWoods TMH2 (Mike Howeth) & I started poking around trying to see how
           close we could
DwightW1   didn't roger wagner write a switcher program for the //gs?
JeffDWoods get to a MultiLauncher (as we called  it).
AFL Floyd  < SoftSwitch is ProDOS 8 only >
JSchober   (can't you have one P16 application?)
JeffDWoods The farther we got in trying to intercept calls to force
           compatible sharing
AFL Marty  (no)
AFA Gary J (depends upon the P16 application)
JeffDWoods of toolsets and OS, the more problems we ran into.  I believe that
           Apple will
JSchober   !
JeffDWoods have to write a new set of toolbox routines and firmware (with RAM
           vectors)
DaviesDoug !
AFA Gary J GA, Joe
JSchober   It's a shame that the Scheduler has such a rotten small queue...
           (4 items?)
JeffDWoods & perhaps a different OS (don't know about GS/OS, yet) to allow
           the cooperation
JeffDWoods needed to implement.  When Apple is ready for the ][ to do it, it
           could.  ga
JSchober   It seems that if that was far bigger, and some other things
           changed, you could
AFL Floyd  < !=DaviesDoug >
JSchober   get away with at LEAST a partial MultiFinder.  But as I understand
           it, Apple
JSchober   deliberately restricted the Scheduler to PREVENT that... (that
           more or less
JSchober   correct, Matt?)  GA...
AFA Parik  <- can just imagine multitasking on a GS.  "Wow, look at AW GS
           print twice as
AFA Parik  slow..."  :-)
Matt DTS   Keep me out of this, Joe!
DeadHead13 ?
JSchober   Ugggh, Parik... don't think about THAT.     :) Matt...
AFA Gary J GA with your comment, Doug
DaviesDoug I agree with Dan, it can and WILL be done (sorta)
ShrinkIt   (multitask?  ewwww... watch it crawl after 3 applications... )
JeffDWoods !
DaviesDoug We do work for the same company though so I must agree
AFA Gary J GA Jeff
DaviesDoug besides Dan's my boss
JeffDWoods Toolbox 
AFA Parik  LOL!
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Parik  the boss is always right...:)
Matt DTS   Yeah, the truth comes out... :)
JeffDWoods Toolbox Ref. Mnl.: "The Scheduler is not designed to support
           multitasking."19-7
AFL Floyd  < Q=DeadHead  >
JSchober   Right, exactly, Jeff...
JeffDWoods page 19-7, that is.  ga
DeadHead13 What's this about Multitasking? Any plans for it Matt??
DeadHead13 Maybe in the next incarnation of the GS?
DeadHead13 ga
JeffDWoods Apple will HAVE to write the system (incl. tools, firmware, and
           OS) to allow it
JSchober   >> Matt DTS  Keep me out of this, Joe! <<  (replace Joe with
           DeadHead.  ;)
AFA Gary J I don't think he'll answer that, Deadhead  :)
AFA Parik  (Matt's trying to find his "I cannot comment..." macro :)
AFA Gary J Ok, I have an announcement to make...
JSchober   (given to all Apple employees... along the same line as the ol'
           cyanide
BillP      more like the "Are you out of your Vulcan mind" button
JSchober   capsules...)
DeadHead13 Does that mean that Apple is working on the "Amiga Killer" and
           can't comment?
AFA Gary J Next week's Development Forum conference (on January 31st) will
           be
AFA Parik  LOL, you heard about that too, eh...
AFL Marty  hahahahaha
AFL Marty  the Amiga killer? hahaha
AFA Gary J held in AppleLink's Cortland Auditorium.  Alan Bird of Beagle Bros
           will be our
AFA Gary J guest.  Alan is the author of D-Code, an Applesoft debugging
           utility, Program
AFA Gary J Writer, a full-screen editor for Applesoft; and the Beagle
           Compiler, a ProDOS
AFA Gary J based Applesoft BASIC compiler.  
AFA Parik  ()()()  :::clap::: :::clap:::  :::clap::: kudo's to Gary for
           running a fine
AFA Parik  show.
AFA Gary J We hope to see you all there in the Cortland next week.
ShrinkIt   apple?  an amiga killer?  hee... hee... please, spare me... lol. 
           but I wouldn'
JSchober   Thanks, Gary!  :)  (and AFA Floyd... ;)
Matt DTS   See y'all later, gang.
ShrinkIt   t mind beeing proven wrong... :)
AFA Gary J The hour for this chat is up, but we'll kill the protocol and have
           it out
AFL Floyd  Joe: :p
AFA Gary J as long as you want now  :)
JSchober   hehehe
AFA Parik  heh
AFA Gary J Thanks, Floyd.
JSchober   (better not anger da boss, tho... :)
DeadHead13 Matt left?
AFA Gary J Bye, Matt.
AFL Floyd  No problema.
AFL Marty  (he got outta here fast!)
AFA Parik  Matt's going to go work on the Amiga Killer.
JSchober   He didn't want to talk about the Amiga killer ANY MORE!  :)
AFL Floyd  :)
JSchober   Right, what Parik said..
ShrinkIt   of course, would you stick around if you were an apple employee
           and you were
AFA Gary J Hehe... what do you expect?  :)
DeadHead13 What doe everyone else think about multi tasking on te future
           GS?
ShrinkIt   going to be peppered with more questions?
DeadHead13 Anyone have inside info?
AFA Parik  I'm not holding my breath...
JSchober   It'll come... AWGS already does it, somewhat...
DaviesDoug party time!!!
DaviesDoug party time!!!
AFA Parik  I'm having problems with the current GS.  :)
ShrinkIt   multitasking?  no before we get a faster machine.  IE - never.
Dan Burton A lot of things didn't get thoug over very well while writing the
           tools
JSchober   Well, so we need a faster processor... picky picky...
DeadHead13 Not problems, just slow
AFA Gary J WE can comment on it all we want, but obviously Matt can't!  :)
JSchober   (hey, could =someone= send me a copy of tonight's log?)
DaviesDoug I think it's very possible
AFL Marty  I multitask on the GS right now.
JSchober   LOL Gary...
AFA Parik  Jeff, what did you want to deescusss?
Dan Burton other wise multitasking would be a lot easier
AFA Parik  So do I marty, but I have multiple GSs.  :)
AFL Marty  Me too!
AFL Marty  :)
DeadHead13 how marty?
AFA Parik  hehe
AFL Marty  Two GS's
JeffDWoods Joe,  I logged everything.  You want a copy?
AFL Floyd  Marty means he can chew gum and use his GS at the same time! ;)
DaviesDoug Apple talk is running in the back ground.  Sorta multi-tasking
JSchober   Yuppers, if you please... thanks!  :)