From: Tony Lindsey <TLindsey@cts.com>
Subject: Mac*Chat#106
Mac*Chat#105/07-Mar-96
======================
Welcome to Mac*Chat, the weekly electronic newsletter for everyone
interested in using a Macintosh computer professionally, no matter
what their situation or profession.
See the end of this file for further information, including how to get a free
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Any [comments in brackets] are by Tony Lindsey.
Highlights Of This Issue
------------------------
I announce the new Mac*Chat mirror site for Mac fans in
Australia, readers tell us about their favorite computer games that
don't involve killing things, we wind-up the discussion of
making color-t-shirts for your Mac, Frank Nagy defends DLT
tape-drives for backing-up a network, we hear
from several folks who have good information about the SCSI
cables connecting your Mac to your external drives and scanners,
we learn about System 7.5.3 from Apple and several Faithful
Readers, and we get several great ideas about printing big,
professional jobs on a network.
Topics:
Highlights Of This Issue
Editor's Notes
Mac*Chat Is Now Found On A Mirror-Site In Australia
Non-Violent Games For The Mac
Color T-Shirts, Final Installment
Backup Tape Drives, Continued
Technical Section Starts... Here
SCSI Cable Tips
Printing Big Jobs Quicker
Legalisms
Free Subscriptions To This Newsletter
Editor's Notes
--------------
By Tony Lindsey <TLindsey@cts.com>
I'm still receiving an avalanche of messages in response to the
bad words I said about QuickDraw GX. I'm going to wait for
another issue or so until I can find time to sort through the
pile.
------
This issue contains a goodly amount of technically-oriented
writing toward the end. I've included it because the information
is timely and important, in my opinion. Please skim it, at least!
Mac*Chat Is Now Found On A Mirror-Site In Australia
---------------------------------------------------
By Tony Lindsey <TLindsey@cts.com>
Folks in Australia should check it out:
<http://wais.sensei.com.au/macarc/macchat>
Thanks to Tim Tuck <Tim.Tuck@sensei.com.au> for setting it up,
since the folks in Australia have such a slow connection to the
USA.
Here's a few words from Tim on the topic:
------
We have a veerrrry slow connection to the rest of the world. The
problem is that *ALL* traffic bound for anywhere in the world has
to go through the USA first !!
We have no connections to Europe or Asia (now, that's silly since
we are so close) and the only country we are directly connected
to is New Zealand! (although some Australian wags will insist
that Tasmania is a separate country :-)
Typical download speeds from the well connected USA sites average
800 - 1k bytes/sec and UK sites rarely go over 100 bytes per
second, the one I was using yesterday was 50 bytes/sec. Aarrggh!
[For comparison, I typically get up to 3,600 bytes/second on my
Mac IIci and 28.8 modem here in San Diego.]
Non-Violent Games For The Mac
-----------------------------
[In issue #100, we asked for non-violent, sensory stimulating
games for the whole family.]
------
By: sking@direct.ca (S.M. King)
Shanghai II works great on the Mac! I've got my girlfriend's
little old Hungarian mother hooked on it. She plays for hours at
a time, "trying to get a cookie". The newest version awards a
Fortune Cookie whenever you clear the screen.
------
By: Scott_Baltic@troubbs.org (Scott Baltic, Chicago Area
Macintosh Area Users' Group)
<http://www.cmug.org/cmug>
**Pinball games**: The one I have is Tristan, which is out of
print, so to speak, but the more recent designs by the same
designer -- Crystal Caliburn and Loony Labyrinth -- have gotten
consistently favorable reviews. Colorful and fun.
**Slick Willy**: Great shareware game. You use the mouse to move
a little Bill Clinton head around and gobble up all the
cheeseburgers before time runs out, while evading various enemies
(Ross Perot heads, scandal-mongering newspapers, hovering
microphones). Great fun, more than worth the five bucks.
</info-mac/game/arc/slick-willie-20.hqx>
**Ishido**, by MacPlay: Not so much for hand-eye coordination,
but a nice strategy game. You place tiles on the playing field
according to some simple rules. The object is both to form
certain configurations that maximize your point total and to
place all your "stones" before you get locked out and have no
legal place for the next one. Fairly absorbing.
------
By: rpiester@prairienet.org (Rick Piester)
<http://www.prairienet.org/~rpiester/homepage.html>
I highly recommend two games from a company called Discis
Entertainment. (I have nothing whatsoever to do with the company
but they sure make neat stuff!)
The first one is called _Jewels of the Oracle_. It "feels" like
Myst with rich renderings and contains about 20 very challenging
puzzles supposedly created by an ancient people of "extraordinary
intellect." This is one of those games that you won't want to
stop playing and the puzzles really do offer a satisfying level
of difficulty. It's one of my favorite demos to show friends on
my Mac.
The second game was just released, called _Karma: Curse of the 12
Caves_. It's similar to "Jewels" but is more challenging. I
received it for Christmas and have only been through a few of its
15 or so puzzles. But I've really enjoyed it so far. This one
does a require a minimum 25 MHz 68030 machine. And some of the
animations are a little "jerky" on my 32 MHz 68030 with
dual-speed CD.
-------
By: aeddy@iftw.com (Andy Eddy, Editorial Manager, New Media Group
Infotainment World, Publisher of GamePro and PC Entertainment
Magazines)
I've been covering the video-game business for a while now, and
the prevalence of "macho" games is a self-perpetuating cycle
that's akin to action movies: The perception throughout the
industry is that mostly teenaged males play these games, so they
keep making "superhero" games where the object is to beat
up/kick/punch/shoot bad guys, often to rescue a kidnapped girl or
< insert member of a royal family here> (though often a princess,
ergo "kidnapped girl" again). The more that these types of games
are created, the more that the audience stays mostly teenaged
boys. The more that teenaged boys are the audience, the more the
companies make these games, and so on.
Granted, the computer industry seems to expand this a bit,
because computers are more expensive and not just the realm of
teenagers, but there is a similar trend of adversarial games
rather than "experience" games like Myst.
Yes, Pac-Man and Tetris crossed gender boundaries.
But to date, no one seems to know the magic ingredient(s) to make
more games attractive to men and women.
------
By: scoop@nkn.net (Shane Cooper)
I've always been partial to Maxis Inc.'s games using simulations.
I specifically enjoy SimCity 2000 as it is a constructive game
rather than a destructive game. All of my nieces and nephews come
to my house and head straight to our Mac to play SimCity. The
concept of building a city based on real life experiences and
needs of a city really seems to stimulate their awareness of the
world around them. While driving downtown Dallas, my nephew would
look out the window of the car and wonder out loud where the
water lines were. He's made several comments and references to
our towns library, museum etc... and related it to his own
simcity. He's aware that it costs municipalities money to build
these parks and services. It's been very interesting to see them
actually acknowledge the world around them using a game.
-------
[I've decided to allow the following
blatant plug, since I'm feeling arbitrary today!]
------
By: rick@pop3.kagi.com (Rick Holzgrafe)
<http://www.opendoor.com/Rick/Semicolon.html>
I'd like to put forward my own shareware "Solitaire Till Dawn."
</info-mac/game/crd/solitaire-till-dawn-21.hqx>
<http://www.opendoor.com/Rick/STD.html>
Obviously, solitaire is non-violent. Less obvious to some people
is that it is an exercise in logical thought, and can teach basic
concepts like association, matching, and progression to small
children. My four-year-old plays some of the simpler games in
Solitaire Till Dawn: "The Wish" is a favorite intended for
youngsters, and he also enjoys "Pyramid" which, in a lop-sided
way, is teaching him to add to thirteen. (Well, you gotta start
somewhere.) My seven-year-old has been playing "Klondike" and
honing his powers of observation and concentration.
Many people also don't realize how many solitaires there are. I
have books in my library that give rules for hundreds of
different games that can be played by one person with a deck or
two of cards. Some are simple and relaxing, while others are
puzzles of great complexity. Solitaire Till Dawn 2.1 contains 26
different kinds of solitaire, offering a wide variety of games
with something for everyone.
Color T-Shirts, Final Installment
---------------------------------
[In issues #98-101 and 104, we have discussed the different ways
to make color t-shirts with your Mac. The following responses are
the last ones on the topic for a while, since it has been covered
thoroughly.]
-------
By Crystal Heald <crystal.heald@nettwerk.wimsey.com>
If you are looking at doing a full colour process [meaning
photographs and the like], you should scan your photo and
separate it into CMYK, then tone down your blacks a bit as this
is where most of the problems occur. If you are doing text
around the image as well, make this a spot colour separate from
the full colour image. Then you get the film work done at a lab
and most screen printers can manage from there. Make sure you see
a sample before they go ahead with the project.
The other option is to separate all your colours as long as they
are solid colour blocks you can do this and not more than 4
colours or you may as well go full colour. You can print PMT's
for this...
A PMT (photo mechanical transfer) is something you can do on your
own printer. Use the type of paper you need, which has a shiny
surface. This gives you the cleanest line possible.
Just give them to the printers and they will make the films right
there. The films are expensive but after that it is just the
screening cost. Oh, and depending on the colour of shirt you are
printing on you may want to lay down a solid colour for the image
to sit on. This sometimes helps the image stay clean.
------
By Jannie Curtin <janniec@pinpub.com>
My suggestion to you is to call several t-shirt shops and ask
them which kind of art works best for them (and is also
cheapest): hard copy (laser or lino) or film. Then it's just a
matter of either printing out the hard copy yourself (if you have
a good laser printer) or having a service bureau output the lino
or film. If it's a good t-shirt shop, they may even have an
in-house service bureau.
I'm assuming you know how to prepare a file for a service bureau.
If you don't, the service bureau can walk you through it, or you
can ask a graphic artist you might know.
---------
By: Joel K. Furr <jfurr@acpub.duke.edu>
Ways to reduce cost:
1) Go with a white shirt instead of a colored shirt -- white
shirts are cheapest.
2) If you must have a colored shirt, go with a light color
instead of a dark color -- dark colored shirts cost more.
3) Go with a 50/50 blend instead of 100% cotton.
4) Have art only on the front -- putting art on the back raises
the cost more than adding just one more color on the front does.
5) Don't get carried away with colors -- often, a simple design
is best.
You pay for each screen and each color that goes on your shirt.
Therefore, the shirt costs less the fewer colors you use.
I'm not suggesting that you *ought* to go with a 50/50 blend or
anything -- just that it's cheaper that way.
When I do shirts, I typically take a PC Corel Draw disk to my
screen printer and they print off black and white separations,
then shoot films, then make the screens from the films. You can
do the same thing with a Mac -- printing off the separations,
then giving the printouts to your printer to make the films from.
If you can find a screen printer with Macs, you can take them a
disk instead.
-------
By LaVerne B. Kehr <lbkehr@snac.mv.com>
An elderly neighbor of my mother's in Hawaii (who became a Mac
fanatic in his 80's) used to print birthday t-shirts for his
numerous grandchildren, and he told me the book he used for
guidance was:
"How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit" by Scott and Pat
Fresener, $29.95, paperback, at
US Screen Printing Institute, 1200 North Stadem Drive, Tempe AZ
85281
<800-624-6532/602-929-0640>
<http://www.usscreen.com><sales@usscreen.com>
He said he made the design on his Mac, printed it, then took the
design to a copy shop and had a positive transparency made, then
used the transparency to silkscreen the design onto the t-shirts,
using the instructions from the above book.
-------
By Roger Holmquist, Sweden <roghol@lin.foa.se>
[In response to a comment by Clark Buchanan in issue #99;]
There can never be a "better" picture from a paper copy than from
a file because the file-representation is in a general meaning
always closer to the "realworld" than a paper-copy. That´s
because the papercopy is first transformed to a digital form in
the printer/copier and then retransformed back to paper again.
This 2-step- transformation creates errors in both steps.
The REAL reason why you get worse results when direct-printing is
certainly lack of knowledge about the correct treatment and the
limitations of your printer. Zum beispiel, you shoudn't print a
RGB-file in CMYK-mode! Nor should you expect the colors of your
screen to appear on your print-papers. There is a lot of traps to
fall in when you handle colors on your MAC. But we all know about
this, don't we? :-)
Backup Tape Drives, Continued
-----------------------------
By: Frank J. Nagy <NAGY@fndcd.fnal.gov>
A message from Gregory Johnson [in issue #104] stated that if DLT
tape drives are used for backups on slow networks, tape capacity
is wasted. This is not true. These devices are true start/stop
tape drives and not streaming tape drives. If the incoming data
rate does not keep up with the tape speed, the tape will be
stopped and the data cached until sufficient (?) data is
available for the tape to be restarted after the previously
written record. DLT drives are looking quite good, being fast (if
you can feed it data fast enough), very large capacity and very
reliable (so far).
Technical Section Starts... Here
--------------------------------
SCSI Cable Tips
---------------
By Jan Janosh Ivan <janosh@alphamedia.com>
I'm using products from Granite Digital.
Granite Digital, 3101 Whipple Road, Union City, CA 94587-1291
<510 471 6442/FAX 510 471 6267>
They deliver with each product also description what is important
on SCSI cable and termination. All information what you need on
one sheet. My highest recommendation. Best product for normal
price.
Standard disclaimer, only a happy user.
-----
By Pete Rethorn <pbrethorn@CCGATE.HAC.COM>
Granite Digital makes very high quality cables and active
terminators. These both have diagnostic indicators for visual
checking of cable integrity etc. After having many SCSI problems
with a high end scanner, removable hard drive, and digital
printer in the chain, all the cables and the terminator were
replaced with Granite Digital stuff and I have not had any SCSI
problems since. They were well worth the investment.
They were very responsive to my initial catalog request and when
our department IT person called their tech support people to ask
some questions before ordering, the Granite people were very
helpful.
------
By: Simon Cousins, Sydney, Australia <scousins@ozemail.com.au>
Thin SCSI cables have 25x pairs of wires, twisted and bunched,
then shielded with foil.
Thick cables have each pair shielded with foil, then bunched,
then all shielded again.
Using thick and thin cables in the same chain can cause impedance
problems, resulting in unwelcome signal reflections.
We've seen equally good results using all thick, or all thin. We
repeatedly see horrible SCSI problems with a mix.
The best solution is to use an external 7-bay chassis (200w power
supply, 3x fans), and mount all of the external devices in the
one chassis. All devices are then linked with the one multi-tap
SCSI ribbon, resulting in excellent SCSI signal characteristics.
------
By: <Edwinw9@Aol.Com>
Mac users often have an array of SCSI devices. This may include
scanner, Syquest drive, external hard disk, etc. These devices
may have been purchased over a period of years. Sysquest drives
have proved especially problematic with System 7.5 (as if there
weren't enough problems with earlier System versions).
When you experience mysterious problems, look for the obvious.
Are the external devices turned on? In some cases, depending on
the arrangement of drives on the SCSI chain, you may not be able
to get away with leaving boxes powered off. Sometimes, simply
moving a device from one position to another in the chain can
result in System bombs, startup freezes, etc.
Take a look at the SCSI cables. You may find a cable that is bent
near the connector and is beginning to pull the cable right from
the connector. Another concern is the cable shielding and wire
diameter. Many cables are longer than needed. Shortening the SCSI
chain is a good idea.
The cost of a cable is $20-30 now. How valuable is the data which
is stored on your SCSI devices? Compare this to the cost of new,
quality cables.
------
By: David Howland 726-2151 <howland@ekfido.Kodak.COM>
Keep your cables SHORT. SCSI devices usually come with long
cables that are fine by themselves but likely to cause trouble if
you use several of them. For any computer cable, you should use
the shortest available length that doesn't cause sharp bends.
SCSI is especially sensitive to excess length.
This is very true about Single Ended SCSI, which I gather is what
is in the MACs. Differential SCSI is *MUCH* more forgiving about
cable length. And no you can't mix and match Single Ended and
Differential SCSI devices on the same SCSI bus. The SCSI bus is
either Single Ended or Differential not both.
One more note. Don't buy a cheap-o SCSI cable unless it is
returnable. What you save in buying a cheap cable is not worth
the frustration.
------
By: Espen H. Koht <ehk20@cam.ac.uk>
We used to have a whole drawer full of cables, some of which
where obviously not so reliable, so one day I grabbed an external
hard drive and tested the read/write loops on it (using
Silverlining) with each cable and threw out the ones that gave
poor results (or even failed some of the handshakes types). Its
the closest I have come to find something that could be
considered a SCSI cable tester.
Printing Big Jobs Quicker
-------------------------
[Back in issue #014, I mentioned:
One of my clients has a shop that does a huge amount of printing.
He hates to have everybody click on their "Print" button and then
wait and wait while monstrous jobs are sent to the hard disk for
spooling to the printer.]
------
By Ryan Lanctot, Kelowna, BC, Canada <rlanctot@awinc.com>
If they're using Power Macs, tell them to get Speed Doubler from
Connectix. As of 7.5.1, the spooler isn't native, as far as I
know. When I installed it on my 5200CD, the speed bump was
nothing less than remarkable.
-----
By: Quaintance, Vernon (CSO) <QUAINTANCV@oldpeter.agw.bt.co.uk>
Whilst I don't know of any method of speeding up the initial
spooling to disk from the application, there is a neat trick
available under System 7 to offload the background printing from
your own Mac.
Designate a spare, or little used, Mac on the network as the
Print Spooler (this doesn't need to be the fastest machine, but
the delivery rate of prints will naturally depend on its speed
and memory - A Mac Plus with 4Mb will do at a pinch!)
Setup file sharing on the Macs and share the System Folder (and
its contents) of the PrintSpooler Mac. [Make sure the
PrintSpooler Mac has all of the fonts installed that the other
Macs are using.]
On each other Mac make an alias of the Print Monitor Items folder
from the Print Spooler Mac.
Move the normal PrintMonitor Documents folder out of the System
Folder to a place of safety and replace it with the newly made
Alias file, removing the word 'Alias' from the name. Then
re-start.
Now, when you send something to the printer it will be put in
what your machine thinks is its own PrintMonitor Documents
folder, however this will actually go into the Print Spooler
Mac's folder and ITS Print Monitor will pick it up and print it.
WARNING: This might only work if there is only one printer on the
network. Furthermore, all the Macs MUST be running the same
version of the printer driver.
The problem for many people with the normal background printing
is that it uses machine cycles and either slows down the
application you want to get back to on your machine, or slows
down printing while the machine works on your next job. In some
cases printing can be slowed down so much that the printer times
out - with obvious frustrating consequences.
By using another machine as the Print Spooler you save time on
your own machine.
Another potential saving is that the print spool file sits on the
STARTUP DISK. If you don't have much spare space here you could
have problems with the temp files some programs also insist on
putting there. Until only recently, the internal hard drives
supplied with machines were woefully inadequate for the job as
system folders blossomed with inits/extensions, control panels,
preference files and fonts. I find even a 250Mb internal hard
drive to be tight when running several apps at once (like
Photoshop, Pagemaker, etc.) and wanting to print too.
------
By: Randy Chevrier <maxmacs@iAmerica.net>
If you have a copy of MacWorld Oct. '95, check out page 157,
"Efficient ARA Printing". The idea is to replace the PrintMonitor
Documents folder on the users' Macs with an alias of the "Print
Server Mac". This _should_ send all print job spools directly to
the PrintMonitor documents folder of the print server.
The alias idea will only help eliminate the print monitor from
hogging processing time in the background, since that will be
done on the PrintServer. I think your problem is the amount of
time you sit watching the dialog box saying:
Document: XXXX
Number of pages spooled: X
------
By Jon L. Gardner <jgardner@kairosnet.com>
<http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/toolbox/kairos/>
Here's a cheap(er) solution: put Windows NT Server 3.51 on the
PC, load the Services for Macintosh software (Control
Panel-->Network-->Add Software), create a printer (Print
Manager-->Create Printer), share it on the network, and connect
to it in the Chooser on the Macs. The Windows NT box will now act
as a print spooler for the Macs, so the users will only have to
wait about half as long to get back to work. Put a 100Base-T
ethernet card in the Pentium and install a switching hub (like
3Com's LinkSwitch) and you'll speed up the process even more.
This, by the way, is the best use I've found for Windows NT
Server...a slave to a bunch of Macs. Eat your heart out, Bill.
NT Server 3.51 lists for about $900, I think, but you should be
able to find it for $400-$500. Out of the box, it includes
support for Windows and Macintosh file and print services (they
can even share the same volumes), TCP/IP networking, a gateway
service for Netware which allows a client to the NT machine to
access resources on a Netware server, and a bunch of other cool
stuff. The Mac is the best desktop box and Internet server, but
Windows NT Server's a darn good file/printserver, especially in
mixed environments.
---------
By rob j van den berg, Germany <rob@pooh.muc.de>
I have a software solution that is freeware. But there is a
drawback: you need a separate UNIX machine for it. Maybe you have
heard of it? It is called CAP (Columbia Appletalk Package), it is
a pd package that makes a UNIX machine an appleshare server; I
run it on my SUN where it functions a file and print server for
my Mac. It also runs on linux, which as you probably know is
being ported to the Power Mac. In which case no other hardware is
needed. In any case the total cost will be substantially lower
that $10.000.
-----
By: Steven Holder <Steve@runusa.com>
Adobe Print Central is only about $700 - Last I checked anyway.
Even the OPI version Color Central is only about $2000 I think.
Good news from Adobe and Apple, version 3.0 CC is actually faster
on a Mac than on an NT. What a pleasant change, the pendulum
swings toward Cupertino, CA and away from Redmond, WA.
Legalisms and Information
-------------------------
Copyright 1989-1996 Tony Lindsey.
The contents of Mac*Chat may not be republished, either in whole or
in part, without the express permission of the editor. Small excerpts
of Mac*Chat may be reproduced for personal use, or by nonprofit
groups (such as Mac User Groups) if full credit is given, including
this notice, how to subscribe, and how to make donations. Please contact
the editor <TLindsey@cts.com> for any publication requests.
This newsletter is intended purely as entertainment and free
information. No profit has been made in return for publication of
any of these opinions. Time passes, so accuracy may diminish.
Publication, product, and company names may be registered
trademarks of their companies.
-----
This file is formatted as setext, which can be read on any text reader.
I'd enjoy hearing your feedback and suggestions. Unfortunately,
due to the massive numbers of messages I get every day, I can't
guarantee a personal reply. Send all such messages to:
Tony Lindsey <tlindsey@cts.com>
<http://www.cts.com/macchat>
3401-A55 Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116-2429
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