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From: jdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Inside Macintosh "phone book" edition
Message-ID: <1559@mordor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 11:15:50 EST
Article-I.D.: mordor.1559
Posted: Thu Apr 25 11:15:50 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 01:59:16 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: S-1 Project, LLNL
Lines: 33

I haven't seen a description of the new *Inside Macintosh* in this
newsgroup yet.  Two days ago I received my copy.  Although I don't
regret purchasing it, I was a little disappointed.

Officially this is the "promotional issue", although the term
"phone book edition" is very descriptive.  The paper and binding are
approximately the same quality as a typical telephone book.  It is
essentially a bound version of the loose-leaf edition.  There is no
global page-numbering scheme (each "chapter" is numbered independently).
(They didn't even use page numbers of the form "1-1", which would make
it a lot easier to look things up.)  The chapters are printed just like
in the old *IM* (not typeset), although the dates on them are more
recent.  There are a couple of new sections, including one on the
Appletalk protocol (as seen by software).  The various chapters have
been updated, but they still aren't complete.  (There are still instances
of "*** this hasn't been written yet ***".  For example, the OS Event
Manager manual is supposed to describe how to set up an alternate
keyboard map [I want to redefine CAPS-LOCK as CTRL] but they haven't
written that section yet.)

The cover states that Apple will be coming out with a "final" edition
of *IM* later this year.  This "final" edition will be higher quality
and will be available for sale in bookstores.

If you don't have a copy of *Inside Macintosh* yet and you want one now,
or if you want a more up-to-date version than the loose-leaf one, then
you'll probably want to buy this.  However, if you're not in a rush you
may want to think seriously about bypassing this promotional edition and
waiting until the higher-quality (and more complete) one comes out.
-- 
  John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
  MILNET: jdb@mordor.ARPA [jdb@s1-c]	(415) 422-0758
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