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From: fouts@AMES-NAS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: Re: MAC emulator
Message-ID: <8609230616.AA24405@ames-nas.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 23-Sep-86 02:16:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames-nas.8609230616.AA24405
Posted: Tue Sep 23 02:16:50 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 06:04:15 EDT
References: <275@zen.BERKELEY.EDU>
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     I bought one of the Mac emulators, which is called a Magic Sac. (TM)

     My experience so far has not been good, although I am probably the
exception that proves the rule.  (Don't draw a negative conclusion until
you've read at least the last paragraph of this tale)

     I bought the MS on Saturday (before they sold out) and also got some
rom chips at the show.  I took the whole contraption, as well as my 1040ST
in to where I work and tried to use the supplied download program to download
some software from my MacLisa.

     (The package comes with a Macintosh program which, in cooperation with
a GEM program on the ST will download an image of a Macintosh disk using the
RS232 port.  One of the misfeatures of Magic Sac, resulting from Apple and
Atari using incompatible disk formats is that it requires its own diskette
format, and none of GEM, Magic Sac, or the Macintosh can read each other's
disks.)

     After considerable effort, I was unable to copy the diskette, packed up
and went home.  Sunday, I returned to the show (costing me the price of
another admission,) in the hopes of finding a solution.  Dave agreed that
the code won't work on a Lisa, leaving me no way to download a system
diskette, and thereby no way to use the cartridge.

     However, apparent help was present in the Data Pacific booth, in the
form of Alex Leavens, who offered to sell me a 'starter set' of diskettes in
MAGIC format, which would contain a system and finder image, a couple of
Boston Macintosh users group public domain diskettes, and a diskette
containing Red Ryder and Free Term.  So, for a mere 40 additional dollars, I
was set -- I thought.

I drove home, inserted the boot disk in the ST, booted magic, inserted the
MAGIC disk with the finder and got a Macintosh bomb.  I drove back to the
AtariFest, and convinced someone at the booth that I had bad diskettes.
I set down with one of the other Data Pacific people and used their ST to
make sure I had a complete set of working disks.  (Two of the four diskettes
I had been given were bad)

I rushed home (Milpitas, by the way is about 30 minutes from the show site)
rebooted and sure enough got a 'welcome to macintosh' prompt.  As soon as I
saw the finder, I decided to make backup copies of my four hard won
diskettes, so I went back to gem and formatted six magic diskettes.  (You
can't use the Mac's format routines, because they make hardware assumptions
about the controler which aren't true. . .)

I rebooted Magic, got a finder, tried to copy, and discovered that there is
a bug in magic which makes it impossible to copy files from one diskette to
another on a single diskette system.  (I haven't bought an external drive
for my 1040, because I'm saving up for a hard disk :-)

Back in the car for the third time, and back to the show, where I talked
to Dave Small again.  Showed him the bug, which he said he would get fixed
as soon as he got back home, and asked him if I could use his two diskette
systems to make my copies, since I would still be OK as long as I had
backups and working terminal programs to download with.

While making the backups, someone in the crowd asked if I had tried the
terminal programs yet.  So, we tried the various terminal programs that were
on the starter disk, and sure enough, NONE of them worked!

My situation at this point:  I can't download diskette images because the
downloader doesn't work with a Lisa, I can't backup with a single drive
system, and I can't download at all because the terminal programs don't work.
I pointed this out to Dave Small, and he offered to return my money.  I told
him I would like to give him a chance to fix the problems that we had
identified, and that if he could get me started, I would rather have the
Magic Sac than the money.

Alex, who had been having trouble with other diskette sets also offered to
return my money for the starter set, and I said I would also like to have a
working starter set, rather than the money.

So, Alex is going to get me diskettes within a week, and Dave has four bugs
I discovered (1: No single disk copy under GEM; 2: No single disk copy under
MAGIC; 3: Broken terminal emulators under Magic; 3: No way to download
diskettes from a Lisa) which he has promised to fix.  And I'm going to
borrow a 'real' mac to try diskette downloading from.

If Dave Small can fix bugs 2 and 3, I'm going to keep the Magic Sac just
because of the amount of PD software for the MAC I'm going to be able to run.

(Data Pacific claims that if it runs on a LISA, it will run on Magic Sac,
and I've got a lot of stuff on my MacLisa.)

Even though my weekend was shot, and the thing still isn't working for me, I
have faith in the people that I talked with, and expect to be hearing
positive things back soon.

I'll keep you posted.

Marty