For the discussion of Mac inits - useful one and conflicts.

47 responses total.

 I have several that are useful-
  
 Smart Calendar- It's an init, and a DA; and if you'll be kind enough to share
your dates with it, it will remind you with a dialog box, or a beeping icon,
which ever you prefer. $10 Shareware.

 SuperClock 4.0- Should come with every Mac. Plays a sound every 1/4 hour,
puts the clock in the menu bar, and is compatable with every init I have.

 Daylight- very handy during the time change.

 Disinfectant- A must for every Mac. 

 True Type Init- Lets you use TT fonts on your Imagewriter II. (I know none
of the Mac users around here, are so behind the times that they still use an
Imagewriter II) ;)

I was trying to enter #1 as soon as I entered this item, but Grex crashed
in the middle. Here is what my inquiry was going to be: 

I have had some very drastic slowing of my PowerMac sometime during
running a bunch of applications, such as having to hold the click on a
menu for 4 seconds before it opens (this recovers on rebooting). I would
like a INIT/DA that *logged* activity on the computer, including the
application running and some measure of system performance. With that I
could get an idea of when the conflict occurs and which inits/cdevs/apps
might be involved. Does such a logging application exist?

 There is a program called Conflict Catcher that may do something like that,
but the only problem is that it costs $95 from MacWherehouse.

From what I read about it, it just acts on bootup. However the slowing I
observe occurs only after a lot of use of different applications. I would
think there'd be an activity and fault logging init as a useful diagnostic
tool. When one gets a BOMB, it doesn't help to just know it is Error 11.

 You could look in the MIT archives, or filepile.com. Two good sources for
files.

I don't run a lot of unnecessary INITs, but one that I do like makes 
menu pull-down behave more like Windows: you click and release on the 
word "File", and the file menu stays pulled down until you click on an
option.  You can still use the click-and-hold method, but you don't 
have to.  It may sound silly, but my button finger gets sore after a
lot of hours of clicking, and that eases the problem significantly.
With multi-nested menus, that can save a lot of button-holding!  If
anyone is interested, I'll look up the name of the INIT; it's available
on the Internet.

 Please do, Rob.

I use [6072 Nov 20 1993 ./system.extensions/init/dropmenus1.2.cpt.hqx] on
my PowerBook with Sys. 7.1, but it doesn't work in Sys. 7.5.3. Do you know
one that does? (That [string] is from allfiles.txt, from the UM Archive,
which I keep on my desktop.) 

  The one I use is StickyClick, from '92, but it works under Sys7.5 (not
sure about 7.5.3).  I put a copy of just the init in /u/ajax/sticky.sit.
It's an 8K file, in Stuffit format.  If it had docs to begin with, I've
lost them, but there's not much to know; either it works or it doesn't!

StickyClick is ALLRIGHT. I pulled it up from the archives, as [10076 Feb
20 1993 ./system.extensions/init/stickyclick1.2.cpt.hqx]. You must have an
earlier version (?). Works fine with Sys. 7.5.3 (so far....). 

WindowPicker [46296 Nov 11 1992 
./system.extensions/init/windowpicker1.02.sit.hqx] provides a menu of all
your open windows, so you can find and bring up one you might have lost in
the clutter. It is (c) Apple and works in Sys 7.x.y., but not just
provided with the system - I wonder why. 

  MS and Apple both release free, unsupported utilities from time to time.
I think they're things someone there wrote, but weren't deemed useful enough
or stable enough to include with the base OS.  (Not that either company's
base OS's are particularly stable, but....  :-)

...but we're all glad they see fit to release such utilities without
charge instead of keeping them locked up in some closet in the basement
of the central office.

My UM Dept comp-guru provided me with an application called YOOZ1.6
(shareware), which logs startup times and durations for applications. It
is not logging any "background" activity - just applications that I open.
I haven't decided if this is useful or not.....

Might be useful if you suspect someone else is using your computer
without your knowledge, or with your knowledge but in an inappropriate
way.  Might also be useful for tracking down what group of apps are
related to system crashes.  Would be useful for billing your time, too.

Exactly. Apparently YOOZ1.56 will also work across networks, so syops
might find it useful for reviewing the use of different applications.
However it does not do what I was seeking. I want an init that works like
an aircraft "black box", that is logging all functions for the last few
minutes before the crash.  (I searched archives for "blackbox", but came
up only with a game and a general file utility). If anyone would like to
check out YOOZ1.56, I'd be glad to e-mail a copy as an attachment. Quite a
few functions are disabled until you pay the shareware fee, but you can
learn what it will do. 

I'll ask my wife (one of the UM mac archivists) and see if she has any
suggestions.  I know she has either done or wished for this capability
also.  I wonder how she solved?

Copmile hooks into the kernel for tracing.  But then you would have to be
using LINUX to do that.  Oh, well.

Install the debugger MacsBug and then hit the interrupt button while the
system is being nonresponsive. The current application is listed on the
screen. If it is hanging due to interrupt activity, this will not help,
but if it has switched contexts and run something that is not cooperating for
some reason, you will at least learn which program is causing this.

Hmm. I think the latest MacsBug has to be gotten from an apple site. It may
be one of those non-redistributable thingies, but it is free. It works on
Power macs, but it shows only emulated code, so if there is a native code loop
it may miss it. However, that is unlikely in my estimation. On most powermacs,
there is still plenty of 680x0 code being emulated.

The UM Mac archive has a file called "mpwmacsbug" but I don't know if it's
"the latest" version.  MacsBug was what my spouse recommended, too.

I appeaars to be a macsbug tool to  run a macsbug command in the MPW Shell.
(Whatever that means>) I haven't located a real live Macsbug yet. It used to
be on CAEN servers, but seems to have been removed.

MPW = Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, a software development environment.
Macsbug is geared more toward developers than users.

I found MacsBug on the ITD software site. Would you explain further how to
use it, Steve? Which is the "interrupt" button on my Mac? It seems as scarce
as the "any" button.

The interrupt button is not it's correct name. It is actually called the
"programmer's switch". On most macs it is not located on the keyboard, but
on the Mac itself, nearby the reset button.

It is not present on all Macs, but should be installable. It's a plastic
button. Where it goes depends upon your Mac model. If you press it without
Macsbug installed it puts you in the rom debugger, which is pretty
featureless. It produces a small window with a > prompt.

I found a note I had from some time ago to put MacsBug into the System folder,
and low-and-behold, the bootup dialog said it was installed! My note also
told me about help, and miscellaneous....but most of the rest of the screen
is still gobble-de-gook. Is there a "MacsBug for Dummies" document available?
The associated  folders and files that came with MacsBug are as cryptic as
MacsBug itself.

Heh. Not that I know of. Macsbug is for assembly-level programming. 
No one who does that ever reads a manual for anything. <g>

What you can do is look at the left side of the screen (left of the 
vertical divider) after you interrupt the program. At the top of the 
strip is the stack, labeled SP. ignore that. At the bottom are the 
registers, labeled A0-A7 and D0-D7. That is what the inside of a 
MC680x0 chip looks like. Ignore the registers, too.

In the middle, between the two, is a line containing the word 
"CurApName" (which stands for current application name) and below it 
will be found the name of the application that is running.

Make a note of the name, then type G and <return> to continue. Then 
interrupt it again as long as it is stuck, and see what the CurApName 
is. Repeat this each time it hangs. You may see a pattern (like it will 
always be the same). If it is not the program you thought was running, 
then you are seeing another program sneaking in and stealing away 
control of the computer. This will be your culprit. Try not running it.

Unfortunately, this is not foolproof. If the hanging is being generated 
by code on an interrupt level, it will not have done a context-switch, 
and so will not have changed the CurApName. This is a distinct 
possibility.

You may be able to learn more by stepping the code one instruction at a 
time and seeing if there happen to be any symbols associated with the 
code that is runnning. There may or maty not be, but if there are, 
these can sometimes yield a clue. Each time you type "s" a new 
instruction should be printed. If it says "no procedure name" it means 
you don't have symbols for it, and thus you lose. But you might get 
lucky.

I hope any of that made a little sense.

I'll try it and see. I have had a couple of interrupts since installing
MacsBug, and have escaped, but not always with an operable system (had to
reboot, which can be done from within MacsBug). I have also had a couple
of freezes - the mouse cursor moved but could not select anything -  that
were not caught by MacsBug. Can I use it to interpret those? 

r
NEW TOPIC: I have an old utility called Macro Maker, which would record
any sequence of keystrokes you entered, and then replay them when one entered
an F-key. This worked with my old SE running Sys. 6.0.8, but it crashes
a PowerBook running Sys. 7.1 on bootup (and MacsBug would only say the
CurApName is Finder - and nothing changed with g or s). So, is there a
"macro maker" that will run on Sys. 7.1? I'd like this for setting up some
demonstrations. 

I recommend Quickeys. It is commercial software, but I find it well 
worth the price. I am running it on my PowerMac using 7.1.2, and it is 
very stable. It can do a lot more than old MacroMaker.

On the previous topic...

You can type "es" to Macsbug, and it will execute the "exit-to-shell" 
call for the surrently running app. This will kill the app, and 
sometimes allows the system to survive. Whether it works or not depends 
on where the bomb came from. If it crapped out in interrupt code, or 
from a driver, this will fail utterly.

If the cursor freezes, Macsbug will not be able to keep you from 
rebooting. This is caused by a program corrupting the system. Something 
that the MacOS sadly still permits. 

To avoid file system corruption, it is a good idea to run something like 
Disk Doctor from Norton after a bug-induced reboot. You run the risk of 
cross-linked files if the bitmap is not correct. The file system checks 
run by the OS are not robust enough, in my opinion.

In my opinion too (though you know a lot more about it than I do). As a
*user*, I think what Disk Doctor does - and lots of other features -
should be built into the OS. Yes, I found es in MacsBug, and found cases
where it helped and where it didn't. I got out of the Macro Maker bomb, of
course, by using MacsBug to reboot, and then doing so with extensions off.

Thanks for the tip on Quickeys. While I have you here...I bought a (cheap) 
_Mac Programming for Dummies_ (1994), and it says I need Think C, or TC+,
or Symantec C++ or....are any of those out there in freeland? I couldn't
even find them in the common catalogs...is this a conspiracy to keep the
guild pure? (I did a lot of fortran programming in the "old days", but
that skill went into disuse when spreadsheets arrived.) 

Those are all commercial development systems. They aren't cheap either.
There is no free development software for the Mac. Those programs are not
even listed in most mail-order catalogs, because there are very few people
masochistic enough to program for the Mac.

The two companies selling development softwware for the Mac are Symantec and
Metrowerks. I like Metrowerks, myself. They specialize in development systems.
http://www.metrowerks.com/ actually has some useful product info.

Symantec's site does not seem to have any mention of their Think C product.
http://www.symantec.com//

(I have a good friend who writes software for the Mac.  He's no masochist!)

I explored Symantec sites at some length - hard to tell what it is they do.
Why doesn't Apple give away development systems? That would expand Mac uses
(and maybe Mac service centers too). 

(And give them some competition, which would reduce the prices of Macs)

  Apple used to give away Hypercard, a very easy development environment,
but now they charge something like $200 for a version that lets you
program.  They also let the software rot into obsolesence.  Microsoft
moved forward with the concept with their "Visual Basic," which rather
revolutionized corporate software development.
 
  There's some similarly easy language for the Mac, called something
like Power Basic, that's gotten good reviews.  C on the Mac has a rather
steep learning curve, figuring out the toolbox calls and such.  I think
Code Warrior is the environment of choice for serious Mac developers.

APple's inability to turn out a truly good development environment is one of
the reasons that people find it a lot easier to write for PCs. Apple has
dropped this ball big time, and it was done years ago. They used to have a
development system called MPW. Everyone has switched to Metrowerks (Code
warrior) or Symante Think C.  (More and more it is code warrior, though --
Rob is right about that, and for good reason.)

  I remember watching MPW programmers work around '87, and
being floored at how much more sophisticated it was than any PC
development environment I'd seen.  It had a lot of features that
were mostly seen only in academic CASE tool prototypes, all
nicely integrated, and I think it really was quite cutting edge
for its time.  But as with many Apple advantages, competitors
surpassed them a while back.

I need Color Quickdraw installed in order to run an app. I looked for it with
Find, but *no* "quickdraw" is present - as a separate app. I eventually
figured out it is built into the system, but I'm not sure if it is color
quickdraw or just quickdraw, in Sys. 7.1 on this *B&W* PowerBook. I found an
INIT called Felix 0.5 (1989!) that reported on the system environment during
bootup, and it said something like 
"There is no floating point processor installed,
and Color Quickdraw"
So, is color quickdraw installed? [I will find out when I run the app, but
this is not so simple, as it is a GPS interface to StreetAtlas 3.0, and I
have to rig for mobile use.....in the meantime, does anyone know of an INIT
that does as much or more than what Felix 0.5 does, but of more recent
vintage, and which doesn't use fuzzy language - and which is freeware?]

What Felix 0.5 really said was
"It has no floating point processor,
and Color Quickdraw."
Felix 0.5 left this on the screen only 3 seconds, which is why I got it wrong
in #37. However it had a little documentation, which said how to change that
3 seconds, using RedEdit. I (actually!) succeeded in doing that, editing the
DATA 128 line in Resources....but I'm still not sure if Color Quickdraw is
installed.

Color Quickdraw is part of Sys. 7.1 - the app ran OK. I also found that
Norton Utilities' app System Info answered the question (though taking
500K to do it).

Re #28: Quickeys costs $93 (though you get a 'free' T-shirt with it).
Macro Maker was free. Why aren't there compromises? The amount of new
shareware being created seems to have fallen off considerably...is this a
valid observation and, if so, why? 

I need an INIT or utility to clear clogged serial ports. In particular, my
modem becomes unreachable if the line drops. Trying to open a comm app to
use it gets a "port busy" error, even though it has hung up. 

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss