Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!venus!obrien
From: obrien@venus.ycc.yale.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms.programmer
Subject: Actor problem - can you help?
Message-ID: <663.27592756@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Date: 2 Dec 90 21:09:57 GMT
Organization: Yale Computer Center (YCC)
Lines: 41

I hope someone out there who programs in Actor can help me out on this one.  I
have written an application in Actor, and sealed it off.  It works fine, both
before and after seal-off.  It needs about 400k to run.  Up to now, I was using
a small machine, and could only run one Windows application of that size at a
time.  Now, however, I have a new 386 with larger memory, and now I notice a
problem.  The program still works, in any of the three modes.  However, if I
run my program (either on screen or minimized) and then try to start up Actor
itself, Actor tries to use the .EXE file from MY application rather than its
own ACTOR.EXE.  At first I couldn't trace the problem ("menu not found", etc on
startup) but I finally figured it out - the Actor system in the latter case,
for example, is trying to load the menu resource for the workspace window, but
not finding it because it's looking in the wrong EXE file.  I even explicitly
typed File Run c:\actor\actor.exe actor.ima from the program manager, but same
results.  If I run Actor first, there is no problem when I run my program
afterwards.  My application will not permit multiple instances of itself to
run, by the way, so there's nothing to test there.

I used all of the instructions from the manual (this is Actor 3.0, by the way)
and built my RC file from the supplied USERAPP.RC.  I use almost none of the
default resources except for INPUT_BOX, so I removed them.  Also, I redefined a
couple of the standard string resources for my own purposes.  None of this
seemed in any way non-standard for me.  Of course, my application is flawed if
it can't coexist with Actor, but I can't see why.  Can anyone help?

By the way, I agree with many of the points raised in a recent posting about
Actor.  It will let you compile a method that's too big, and when the running
code reaches the limit of the method size, the application crashes (read
machine for application, if running in REAL mode!).  However, once you've
figured out its idiosyncrasies, it's really an amazing system.  My own major
gripe:  I WANT FLOATING-POINT SUPPORT!  Until that's available, you won't find
most people like me (engineers, scientists) using Actor.  I can't get a
straight answer out of the Whitewater Group as to whether they will have 80x87
support, or when.

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OBRIEN%OBRIEN@YALEVMS                Jim O'Brien, Dept. of Chem. Engrg.
OBRIEN%OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU     Yale University
OBRIEN@YALEVMS                       2159 YS, New Haven CT 06520, U.S.A.
OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU            +1 203 432 4382 (days)
>INTERNET:OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU  (from Compuserve Easyplex)
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