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From: steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Macintosh and Printers
Message-ID: <15423@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 13 Oct 88 15:50:30 GMT
References: <15098@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <18536@apple.Apple.COM> <914@ccnysci.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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I appreciate the many comments and helpful suggestions I've
received about the problem I posted. To summarize, however,
a general response, I'm not a Mac programmer. I'm sure I
could become one, though it seems hard to justify to my
boss that we spend over $100 to buy Inside Macintosh and
other resources just to print labels. The same applies to
the suggestion of purchasing FoxBase. I have an operating
database in McMax (when we bought it the only choices were
McMax and the new and disparaged dBASEMac from Ashton-Tate).
It doesn't seem realistic to spend the money to buy new
software and the time to adapt 100 or so custom programs
to it. A few people suggested using the serial port to send
directly to my printer. Since my Mac II and my Imagewriter LQ are
connected via the printer port and a TOPS network, that doesn't
appear to be a viable solution. In any case, I managed to print
labels by rewriting my program in such a way that the form
length doesn't matter. And it isn't too much of a hardship
to walk over to the printer and set print quality by pushing
buttons.

I also have a general comment about the Mac system, however.
Unlike other operating systems I've used, there appears to be
a huge gap between the Mac programming level and the system
ordinary users see, a gap both financial--i.e., in acquiring
the necessary tools for Mac programming--and in the
complexity of knowledge needed to program. I question the
design of the system because I question whether this was
necessary. Although personally I can see why the system is
excellent for people new to computers and even that it has
some other advantages, I don't think it would have been
harmed by having an easily accessible command shell
available, too. And, in my opinion, some of these commands
should allow the user to set basic configuration parameters
like the form length of a printer.

What I'm getting at is that Apple appears to have divided users
into two groups: system and application programmers (like most of
those who read this group) and users who don't want to have to
think about how the system works. I suggest that there is at
least one other group: people like me who don't have the time or
need to learn Mac programming but who have a fair degree of
computer skill (I've been programming on various machines and
in various languages for 22 years) and want the kind of control
over the system we had easily available in CP/M or DOS. Perhaps
all that is needed is a set of applications. If so, there may
be a market waiting to be filled.