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From: umh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Downloading *is* flaky on the Mac
Message-ID: <1991Apr16.215821.4081@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 01:58:20 GMT
References: <91087.123233EHYOUNK@MTUS5.BITNET> <1991Apr2.024426.28729@isc.rit.edu> <1991Apr13.014000.29394@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <3745@ux.acs.umn.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: CIT, Cornell University
Lines: 45

In article <3745@ux.acs.umn.edu>,
oleary@ux.acs.umn.edu (Doc O'Leary) writes: 
> In article <1991Apr13.014000.29394@sbcs.sunysb.edu> dtiberio@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (David Tiberio) writes:
> 
>>  For example, open up a terminal program, such as ZTerm. Then start sending
>>a big file. Next, open a DA. The terminal will stop sending. In fact, even
>>by selecting a menu or the title bar of a window you will freeze the terminal
>>sending process. This is not good.
> 
> I just downloaded the new TrueType fonts with ZTerm in the background without
> a hitch.  I've done background downloading in System 6.0.3 - 7.0b4 without
> any problems.  Are you using the current version?
> 
> Something tells me Dave doesn't even own (perhaps never used) a Mac.  Not a
> flame, but I wish that kind of misinformation didn't get posted.  While any
> experienced Mac user will know it to be false, there are some new-comers or
> potential new-comers that will believe it, wasting their time waiting for
> a download to complete and having, perhaps spreading, a misconception of
> what a Macintosh can and can't do.
> 

While the first poster's contention is not quite true, the second poster is
glossing over the problem. It is simply NOT TRUE that I can set up a background
download then do what I want on my Mac. There's no way I could then format a
floppy, or rearrange my harddrive with Sum Utilties, or run any program that
prevents context switching for long periods- eg load in a 1Meg MS Word file
then save as text. I susect I would get a timeout even if I simplt tried to
copy enough files to floppy at once using Finder. Now many of these problems
are hardware related because Apple would rather leave out autonomous chips on
the motherboard than break into their 50% profit margin, and they could not be
cured no matter how wonderful the OS, but they are real problems. On a Sun I
don't have to watch each thing I do while using a modem to ensure that transfer
is not aborted- on my Mac I do.

Also rather than screaming at this poor guy, remember that we all have
different Macs. When I was using an SE and that SLOW hard drive Apple provide
with it I could do practically nothing while downloading- timeout was too easy.
Moving to a much faster hard drive made things better, as did moving to an
SE/30. Additionally some protocols are more robust than others. Xterm seems
very quick to die on one, while Kermit is very robust. I imagine timeout
periods are also settable by each individual BBS etc. Maybe Dave has been
having experience with BBSs which have their X or Zmodem timeouts set much
lower tha the BBSs Doc uses.

Maynard Handley