Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ames!sdcsvax!sdics!norman
From: norman@sdics.ucsd.EDU (Donald A. Norman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Converting between Mac and MS-DOS
Message-ID: <446@sdics.ucsd.EDU>
Date: 26 Dec 87 00:05:23 GMT
Reply-To: norman@sdics.UUCP (Donald A. Norman)
Organization: UC San Diego Institute for Cognitive Science
Lines: 41

The program "Apple File exchange," which Apple now provides on the
system disks, looks like it should do convert diskettes or files from
Mac format to MS-DOS format.  (It also claims to convert between
PRODOS (for the Apple II) and Mac.)

But the MS-DOS menu items are always dimmed.  If I insert an
unformatted diskette, I can format it for the Mac or for PRODOS, but
the MS-DOS option is dimmed.  Similarly, if I format a diskette for
MS-DOS (using an IBM clone, of course) , Apple File exchange says it
is an unreadable diskette and refuses to handle it.  (With a PRODS
formatted diskette, it works just as advertised.)

Am I doing something worng, or is the program not really working as
advertised.  There is a tiny amount of on-screen documentation. But I
can't find any printed documntation (it is suposed to be in the
Utilities manual, but it ain't).

Hypothesis 1: Apple hasn't yet gotten around to impoementing the
MS-DOS translation rountines, so the program is realy vaporware.

Hypothesis 2: I am doing something wrong, like not holding down the
hyper-shift-command key while triple clicking.

Anybody know the answer?  (I have version 1.0.1)

(The Prodos conversion routines seem to work.  They even come with
tear-off menus, as in Hypercard, except there is absolutely no
functionality to them except to show the cleverness of the programmer.
Apple: your user interface guidelines are slipping again.  To say
nothing of your creditbility if it turns out that you haven't
implemented the MS-DOS conversion reoutines yet.)

don norman

Donald A. Norman
Institute for Cognitive Science C-015
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093
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