Re: Spectrum 2.2?

[CUTjefbla@bconnex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 5 Dec 1998 21:19:46 -0500, dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave
Althoff) wrote:

>Here is a question...
>
>I currently use Paul Parkhurst's ANSITerm (in fact I am using it right now.).
>
>I do not presently have access to SLIP or PPP service.
>
>Apart from the fact that Spectrum runs in GS/OS and ANSITerm runs in P8,
>and the existence of SIS, why should I order Spectrum?  Or should I? 
>ANSITerm is the *best* VT-100 emulator I have ever used on ANY
>computer...but then I have never used Spectrum.
>
>Looking for a sales pitch...

Well, as a satisfied user of Spectrum ever since v1.0 was released, I
can tell you that I've never regretted choosing Spectrum over ProTERM
or ANSIterm.  Here are some of the reasons why:

o gives the user the choice of working on a text or graphics screen
  for faster or better displays respectively (I prefer to use the
  desktop display for quick and easy access to the menu bar and other
  windows but do sometimes switch to a text display when I want full
  speed for file transfers or capturing of large chunks of text)
o full GS/OS support including NDAs and FSTs (on a stock IIgs I have
  actually been running Spectrum through a TCP/IP connection via
  Marinetti with Spectrum's editor window and an NDA window open all
  at the same time with the ability to access HFS volumes)
o has drop in terminal emulation support (comes with colour ANSI,
  text, VT100 and ViewData and SIS adds another called Browser)
o has drop in XCMDs that allow programmers to expand the capabilities
  of Spectrum without having to upgrade to a new version of Spectrum
  (many third party XCMDs have been written including the GSPlus XCMD
  to control Cool Cursor, Twilight II XCMD to control Twilight II,
  Balloon XCMD to allow scripts to pack and unpack ShrinkIt archives,
  NiftySpell XCMD to allow scritps to spell check documents)
o the most incredible scripting capabilities I've seen in ANY
  communications program (using the built in commands as well as XCMDs
  you can write a script that will look and act almost exactly like a
  stand alone IIgs desktop application; the possibilities of neat
  things to do with scripting has been expanded with support for
  Marinetti - you could write your own "bot" to search web pages to
  create your own web page search engine for instance; until GSoft
  BASIC was released, I used to use Spectrum scripts to whip up quick
  utilities that could do more than an Applesoft program could)
o now has support for TCP/IP through Marinetti which gives you a very
  nice telnet application so you only have to learn to use one
  communications program (almost every menu item is identical in
  serial and TCP/IP mode)

There are lots of extras that I haven't covered that might be all that
you need to convince you that Spectrum is THE best communications
program for the Apple IIgs.  Things like support for automatically
stripping MacBinary headers off of files that you download (just like
Binary II wrapped files with most Apple II communications programs),
the BinHQX XCMD for encoding and decoding BINscii, BinHex, UUencode
and Base 64 (MIME) files.

Now, to be fair I will mention one thing that is a slight disappoint
to me but it isn't something I would use a lot and it can be fixed by
writing an online display that can be added to Spectrum at any time
after it is written.  VT100 is only available as a text display.  This
means things like bold, underline, double-width, double-height (or
both) characters and such cannot be accurately reproduced.  To correct
this, all that needs to be done is have a SHR VT100 display written.
However, for the most part, you can use the ANSI online display to get
some of this functionality.

I'm sure there must be some good reviews of Spectrum and its
capabilities out there somewhere that would give you more info but if
you can't find any and want more info, let me know.  I know Juiced.GS
reviewed Spectrum v2.2 not too long ago.

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    Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University on Delphi
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