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From: jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: "May" supplement in July
Message-ID: <1008@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 01:36:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.1008
Posted: Thu Jul 25 01:36:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 03:11:19 EDT
Organization: CACI, Inc - Federal, La Jolla
Lines: 64
Keywords: last gasp for your $100

The "May" supplement finally arrived today (posted July 22 via
UPS).  It was about 250 pages and 13 disks (7 Mac, 6 Lisa).

Some general comments:
	1) It's obvious that some very concientious people
	   promised this would be the "last" update and then
	   felt an obligation to make it as complete as possible.
	   It's also obvious that some things didn't make it in
	   their final stable release in time.
	2) The successor to the Software Supplement is MAUG
	   in Compuserve.
***FLAME ON***** An Apple rep (I'll have to check my notes) said
tech support would be via Delphi.  Now the only support seems
to be via MAUG on Compuserve.  My friends say a $50 or $100/month
bill for compuserve usage is fairly common.  I understood Delphi
was cheaper.  Where's the support "FOR THE REST OF US"?  Is
Usenet included?  I'm not talking about custom answers (which I
understand CompuServe provides.)  I'm talking about distribution
of the current bug-free versions of minor things like AppleTalk
drivers, Switcher, Switcher development guidelines, and about 
3 or 4 other things that the supplement says "This is the last 
one we're mailing....get the next one from MAUG."

Who benefits from the policy, other than the owners of Compuserve?

****FLAME OFF****

Summary of the contents (highlights):
	54 pages of <<About the "May 1985" Software Supplement>>
		(their quotes)
	Switcher and Developer guidelines
	A MAUG ad
	AppleTalk info, Peek, Poke
	MacinTalk 1.1 (see separate posting).
	Low Memory maps in alphabetical and numerical order
	The first chapters I've seen on Hardware and the Printing
	   Manager
	Caveats on the right way to print, including with a LazWriter
	Comments on non-400k disk drives

	Guidelines on how not to screw up with future Mac hardware
		(see separate posting)

Plus a bunch of tools:
	Fedit (file and disk editor)
	Dialog Creator
	Redit (a general resource editor; a bound, glossy user
	  manual the size of the MacPaint manual.)

Even ignoring all the Lisa disks I promptly used for my Mac :-)
I feel I got my money's worth.

But, although I have a friend who's a successful software developer
(Airborne) and one of the strongest local user groups in the
country (San Diego), I'd still like to have some sort of follow-on
service that costs $100/year, not $100/month.  (Is anyone listening?)
The Tech notes are a start.  But there must be some other way for
those of us "outside Macintosh" to keep up with what's going on.

(Further flaming truncated in the interests of brevity).

	Joel West	CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego)
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