Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ut-sally!ut-emx!jcc
From: jcc@ut-emx.UUCP (Chris Cooley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: macii programmers button
Message-ID: <744@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 5 Feb 88 14:17:42 GMT
References: <14270@oliveb.olivetti.com> <76000111@uiucdcsp>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 31
Summary: Mac Labs & Programmer Buttons

In article <76000111@uiucdcsp>, gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> 
> It is IDIOTIC POLICY not to document this in the macintosh user's
> guide.  I have never seen a machine WITHOUT these buttons installed.
> Apple is dreaming if they think they're doing someone a service!
> Every macintosh owner installs this button.  In a macintosh lab, if
> need be, the system administrator can avoid installing the buttons!

Having worked in a Mac lab, I feel compelled to make a note here.
Installing the programmer switch on the Macs is nothing short of
MANDATORY.  In our lab, we had all but one Mac with programmer
switches.  That little sucker, the switchless one, was more trouble
than anything since resetting machines after a user leaves so we
can put in our required screen saver/wait-for-disk-stuck-in program
was standard procedure.

Before we went to buy another switch, our choices were either poking
the reset switch with paperclips, turning the machine off/on, or
letting the screen burn in.

> This oversight is as serious as not documenting the PRAM.  If Apple
> would only write SOMETHING about these trouble spots in their manual,
> maybe the traffic on comp.sys.mac would decrease by 50%!

Ah, but you forget.  Being the center of attention, even BAD attention,
is better than getting no attention at all. :-)

> Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois
>             {gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu}

					--Chris Cooley