GENIE & LAMP 4/12

[norman.dodge@techall.wa.com]

>>>>>>>>>> CSplit: Version 2.2 >>>>>>>>>>
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                (J.NELSON56, CAT35, TOP18, MSG:159:/M645;1)


                            >>> HOT TOPICS <<<
                            """"""""""""""""""

SHELL GAMES AND THE INTERNET   I was asked whether it's possible to use
a """"""""""""""""""""""""""""   IIGS to access the incoming e-mail at
an ISP. If yes, how?  It oughta be possible with a shell account and
Spectrum -- or am I dead wrong about this?

Udo  - ... with the IIGS into the next millennium -

                  (U.HUTH, CAT35, TOP27, MSG:101/M645;1)

>>>>>   If the ISP has a shell, then it's definitely possible, and while
"""""   Spectrum will work, it's not absolutely necessary.  What is
needed is a comm program with VT-100 emulation (ANSI usually will work
as well).

Usually the isp will provide the pine program for shell users to access
their mail (type "pine" at the UNIX prompt), which is a user friendly
menu driven program that is fast and easy to use.  If it does not exist,
there is a similar program called elm (accessed similarly), which isn't
as nice, but is reasonable.  As a last resort, you can type "mail" at
the prompt.

Ryan
http://www.keystroke.net/~rsuenaga
"There's no shortage of windmills to tilt at."--Logan
ANSITerm and CoPilot v2.55
                  (A2LAMP, CAT35, TOP27, MSG:102/M645;1)

>>>>>   If you have a shell account at the ISP, all you'd need is a VT100
"""""   terminal and a modem.  Spectrum is undoubtedly capable of
acting like a VT100 terminal, so you should be covered.  If you have the
number to dial, the terminal settings, the username, and the password,
I'm not sure what else you'd be asking for.

Argus
                   (ARGUS, CAT35, TOP27, MSG:103/M645;1)


MORE PUBLISH IT! AND POSTSCRIPT     Two more things to experiment with:
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""     Take any of your PI screen fonts
(e.g. DESPLAINES.xx) and rename it to NORTHBROOK.xx.

Now when you print your PostScript document (either to printer or
disk), you'll get the Helvetica-Narrow font. I'm still playing with how
the spacing and sizing is handled, and was hoping for some input.

Also, renaming any font to Northbrook will get you Avantgarde.

BTW, can anyone suggest a location for 15-20 bytes of code that most
programs or ProDos will never walk on? I've already tried $300 and
struck out.

Hugh...
                   (H.HOOD, CAT8, TOP18, MSG:159/645;1)

>>>>>   Thanks for trying it in the "print" (rather than "send") mode.
"""""   That encouraged me to try your method, and I _did_ get it to
work.

> For your ProTerm printing parameters, set all 4 margins to '0', set the
> page width to '255', set the page length to '66', have _no_ printer init
> string, do _not_ interpret dot commands, do _not_ eject final page, and
> do _not_ strip control characters.

I did a few experiments and discovered that the problem...as you
suggested...was that page width needs to be 255.  (I had previously had
it set to 140.)  I admit that I did not pay attention to your statement
that extra carriage returns in the middle of a line could cause
problems--because I was _sure_ I had read in the PostScript Language
Reference Manual (the "red book") that PS ignored CR's unless preceded
by "\".  Now I checked and found thatwhat I remembered is true, BUT
_only within text strings_.  My apologies [eating my hat if I had one].

Now I took things a few steps further.  I tried printing my file (your
commands/Laserprep/Ctrl-D/modified PS file created by PI) with ProTERM
set to interpret dot commands and eject final page: it still worked!
This is great, because I just changed my default setting to page width
of 255 characters--which works fine for my other uses of PT--and kept
the other settings as they were...no need to change the set-up to print
PI/PS docs.

I then wondered if I could modify your modified Laserprep file so my
printer, set to automatic "personality" switching, would recognize it
as PS, to save mehaving to change things at the control panel before and
after printing a PI/PS file.  A comment line beginning with "%" seems to
do it. My modification of your modified Laserprep begins:

% Laserprep modified to print PublishIt files from ProTERM
systemdict
serverdict begin exitserver
%%Title: "Laser Prep -- The Apple PostScript Dictionary (md)"
%%Creator: Apple Software Engineering
%%CreationDate: Thursday, March 19, 1987
%{appledict version #68 0

It worked just fine!  This leads me to wonder if you (and I do mean
_you_, because this would be way beyond my capabilities) could patch PI
so we could use it for "direct" printing (from PI itself) with printers
set to automatic switching.  I am thinking that if you could insert a
line at the beginning of the very first query (or command) the printer
sends to the printer that the printer would see as an indication the
transmission is in PS language, it might switch.  For example, if you
could insert "% comment<CR>" or "%<space><CR>", or perhaps just "%<CR>"
at the beginning would do it.

Jim Goodman
                 (J.GOODMAN10, CAT8, TOP18, MSG161/645;1)

<<<<<   That is great news about your getting the PI PostScript
"""""   print-to-disk files to print sucessfully from ProTerm, without
having to fire up PI first.

Your sucess in addition to mine was critical to our efforts, as it
shows the repeatability of what we are doing. Thanks for taking the time
to work through all the 'junk' I threw at you. Don't worry about the
confusion over the mid-line CR problem. I got burned several times by
those pesky errors before I figured out that it really made a
difference. Your Red Book explanation about them being outside of text
strings is in fact the cause.

I like your auto emulation switching mod to the Laserprep file. I'm
getting closer to pinning down exactly how, from where (in the code)
and when PI sends certain pieces of the PostScript code, and will try to
work in the mod you suggested.

FWIW, I've noticed that when PI substitutes Helvetica Narrow for any
screen font that you choose to rename to Glenview, it keeps the
character _width_ the same as with Helvetica, but increases the
character _height_ slightly over the Helvetica height. I'm playing with
this since Margot mentioned that many of the fonts she likes to
substitute have widths narrower than Helvetica. I'd like to figure out
where and how PI gets the font width info when doing its line length and
height calculations. I suppose from the Laserwidths file, but...

Hugh...
                   (H.HOOD, CAT8, TOP18, MSG:162/M645;1)


FAST EDDIE COMMENTS     Just a comment: On a 60MHz PowerMac 6100, GUS
(the """""""""""""""""""     other emulator) runs at speeds roughly
equivalent to my accelerated Apple IIGS.

I believe from comments I've seen that GUS uses a hand-coded assembly
65816 emulator.  If the Fast Eddie team follows suit, I expect the speed
problem will pretty much go away.

Mike Westerfield
>>>>>>>>>> CSplit: End part 4/12 crc: 3dc5 >>>>>>>>>>

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