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From: lim@iris.ucdavis.edu (Lloyd Lim)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: avoid IM DA 2.0
Message-ID: <8416@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 21 Feb 91 22:07:37 GMT
References: <0101000D.6so0z4@nan.co.uk> <141@sierra.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: usenet@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: lim@iris.ucdavis.edu (Lloyd Lim)
Organization: U.C. Davis - Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Lines: 29

In article <141@sierra.STANFORD.EDU> siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman) writes:
>Inside Mac (IM) is actually a neat DA, and if one invests a little
>trouble in figuring out the garbled description of the file formats
>one can use it to access one's own data base and create an "Inside
>Pascal" or "Inside TeX" or whawtever DA, with useful information for
>other subjects stored in it and immediately accessible.

I modified IM DA 1.2 extensively so that it was a complete reference for
volumes I-IV.  (IM DA uses the text of prerelease version of IM which makes it
a little inconsistent and different from the published versions.  Volumes I-III
looked almost exactly like the phone book - remember that?!)  Unfortunately,
the format of 2.0 is not well documented and seems sort of inflexible.  The
conversion from 1.2 to 2.0 is also rather buggy.  Consequently, I use both
1.2 and 2.0 on my system - 1.2 for vols. I-IV because it's much more organized
(IMHO) and 2.0 for anything else.

>I too wish Bernard Gallet would surface and make his whereabouts
>known, however.  (I also sent him money, quite some time ago, and got
>something back at that time.)

I sent him a long letter regarding various bugs after I got 2.0 and I haven't
heard from him either.  IM DA is great but I think he's lucky to still have it
considering that all of IM is copyrighted material and IM DA directly copies
it.

+++
Lloyd Lim     Internet: lim@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu
              Compuserve: 72647,660
              US Mail: 215 Lysle Leach Hall, U.C. Davis, Davis, CA 95616