Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:13254 comp.windows.misc:138 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!unisoft!hoptoad!gnu From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc Subject: A/UX window systems, Mac toolbox, etc Message-ID: <4129@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 26 Feb 88 22:11:39 GMT References: <8659@allegra.UUCP> <76000127@uiucdcsp> <7447@apple.UUCP> Organization: Grasshopper Group in San Francisco Lines: 98 phil@apple.UUCP (Phil Ronzone, A/UX Technical Manager) wrote: > Remember - it is a Mac. Under A/UX or the Mac OS, you have the Toolbox > and the Mac look and feel. Ain't nobody else got that ... This claim requires some looking behind the hype. Under the MacOS, you indeed get the Toolbox and the Mac look and feel. Under A/UX, you can run a small subset of Mac applications -- the ones that strictly follow the latest guidelines for cleanliness. However, there is no convenient way to transfer a Mac application from its home on Mac floppies or hard disk, into the Unix file system. There is a program that will read 400K, non-HFS floppies and extract the files therein. There is *no* way to read standard 800K MacOS floppies, or an HFS floppy, or an HFS disk partition, from Unix. I suppose you could get a second mac, and transfer the programs and all their data files over with xmodem, but I doubt many people will bother. It's easier to shutdown A/UX and reboot the MacOS. Under A/UX, you have access to the Toolbox. It's a library in /lib. If you have source for a Mac application, you can do some of the Toolbox calls, compile it, link it with this library, and they work. However, you can only run one such application at a time -- it takes over the whole screen, and you can't get to Unix any more, except over the serial ports or Ethernet. No control-Z. No multiple windows. You are either in the application or you are talking to a Unix shell, not both. There is no equivalent to "switcher" or "multifinder". When you boot up A/UX, you get a "terminal emulator" on your screen. This is just like the terminal emulator you get on a Sun before you bring up the window system -- it looks like an ANSI terminal, with 35 lines and 89 columns, like a slightly bigger VT100. However, they have cleverly painted a mac-looking box around the outside of the terminal emulator. There's a menu bar at the top -- with all the words in grey. You can't hit any of them. There's a box around the terminal "window", with a title bar. You can't hit it. There isn't even a mouse cursor. This is a cute trick, but that's all it is. It doesn't do any kind of graphics, it's just a terminal. So you say you want windows! Well, Apple has provided them. The single Toolbox application, term, that comes with your A/UX port provides multiple windows. However, this is just more VT100's on your screen. You can have up to 4 ANSI terminal emulators in a variety of sizes. They can even overlap. (They have to, unless you bought a third party large monitor, or you like dinky VT100s.) There is no graphics support, however, and you can't run any Mac applications because you are already running a Toolbox program and you can only run one at a time. I would not call this a window system, certainly not in the sense of NeWS or X or SunView or Andrew or the Apollo window system. It's more like "uw". Also, "term" is not a supported part of A/UX. If you find bugs in it, it's your problem. Don't burn up a lot of money buying color graphics boards for your Mac-II yet; A/UX doesn't support them. If your color board supports monochrome, A/UX can use it -- until you try a Toolbox application. It seems that frame buffer manufacturers have to alter the configuration ROMs on their boards before A/UX can put up a mouse cursor. Of course, if your color board does not support a 1-bit mode, A/UX can't use it at all. And it can only handle one screen right now, even if you have several. They have promised to fix this Real Soon Now. The Apple marketing effort here is a masterpiece of hype. I have the brochure they distributed at UniForum. The outer folder ("There are currently more than 50 types of UNIX in the world.") has four pictures of Mac screens. Three of them are running MacOS applications (one from MultiFinder; the others we can't tell), and are photographed from straight above the Mac, so you can barely see the screen. The fourth is running unavailable software from Brown University that brings up pictures and text from British novels, using the Toolbox. (By the way, they are calling the Brown stuff "hypertext" and taking Ted Nelson's name in vain. It ain't hypertext, it's just hype.) Contained in the folder is a short letter and three flyers. The "Apple A/UX Operating System" flyer has a single large picture: the Brown U. software again (which is, of course, *not* in A/UX and not commercially available either). The "Macintosh II Personal Computer" flyer, for once, is free of hype. The "A/UX Support Services" flyer is headed by a big picture of a mailing envelope with an "A/UX Update" tape hanging out of it. Of course, this tape is in the 40MB Apple SCSI tape format, which is not supported by A/UX. In their booth, Apple was demonstrating a version of X windows. However, if pressed, they revealed that it was X.10, not X.11, that it was not available for purchase, and would never be available; and that they could not talk about possible release dates for X.11. I'd hate to be totally negative in this article, so let me just say that there *is* a window system for A/UX. You just can't buy it from Apple. We sell it; it's called MacNews, and it's a straight port of Sun's NeWS, with all of NeWS's problems and all of NeWS's virtues. The first test copy went out last night, and it has a firm release date and a firm price. I'm a techie through and through and I hate to see people get away with marketing bullshit. If you buy A/UX, buy it because you know what you are getting, not because you believed an Apple snow job. -- {pyramid,ptsfa,amdahl,sun,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com "Watch me change my world..." -- Liquid Theatre