Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!cognos!alb
From: alb@cognos.UUCP (Al Belyea)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Mac->GS port, MicroBArtender2.0
Message-ID: <9427@cognos.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 91 21:04:45 GMT
References: <1991Mar17.180241.14057@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Reply-To: alb@cognos.UUCP (Al Belyea)
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 58

In article <1991Mar17.180241.14057@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wieser@fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Bernhard Wieser) writes:
>
>MB2.0 is now being beta tested, and one of my collaborators uses
>a GS.  I would appreciate if someone could tell me the procedure
>for porting a Mac stack to the GS.  I assume the MB1.0 was easy
>since it had to XCMDs.  I did write two XFCNs for MB2.0.

I've never actually ported a Mac stack to the GS (yet), but this is my
understanding of it from various articles and discussions on CompuServe.

The procedure for porting a Mac stack to the GS involves 2 utility stacks
called HyperMover on the GS and another HyperMover on the Mac. To convert
a Mac stack to the GS, you run HyperMover Mac against the stack which 
(supposedly) disassembles it into a text format. You then use AFE on the 
Mac (or A2FX on the GS) to move the 'text' to the GS. You then run 
HyperMover GS on the 'text' to re-create the stack on the GS. At that
point you're about 2/3rds done. The fun part is colouring the GS stack 
objects - the Mac version doesn't allow that. And any non-colour stack on
the GS wouldn't look good. If there's any graphics in the stack, they'll
have to be modified to adjust for the different aspect ratio on the GS. You
may have to do some work with various fonts too - depends if they exist on
the GS or not.
  
If the stack uses XCMDs or XFCNs, then they must be converted to the GS too.
If they're written in C or Pascal then it shouldn't be too much trouble to
port them.

The HyperMover stacks are available on the latest d e v e l o p CD-ROM from
Apple DTS. 

Oh yes, the GS version of HyperCard is compatible with v1.25 of Mac HyperCard,
although it does have some extended HyperTalk functionality that 1.25 doesn't.
I think you'd run into trouble if you tried to port a v2.0 stack that used 
v2.0 features.

>
>I would like to get in contact with the person(s) who ported
>MB1.0 to the GS.
>

If you can't get a hold of him, then I wouldn't mind taking a crack at it.
I haven't been able to get my hands on HyperMover yet but I should be able
to soon. If your XFCNs are written in C then I should be able to port them
as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a Pascal compiler, and I'm not all 
that familiar with Assembler.

>-- 
>(    Bernie Wieser, wieser@cpsc.ucalgary.ca, BSWieser@uncamult.BITNET    )
>(    4rth Year Dbl.Mgr Cpsc Clhc University of Calgary     |             )
>(    S/H Developer Dept. of Psychology, "   "   "         \|/            )
>(    Octavian Micro Development Group                  --- o ---         )


-- 
Allan Belyea              UUCP:                          3755 Riverside Dr.     
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"... when in a Desparate situation, challenge." Sun Tzu  CANADA  K1G 3Z4