Happy 37th Anniversary WWDC! (for those who celebrate). I was in the Apple II Developer Technical Support group at that time, and got a t-shirt 😄
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Jim Luther
@jimluther@techhub.social
mastodon 4.7.2Retired Apple software engineer. I used to polish, refine and fix things, and sometimes I created completely new things (virtual memory, HFS Plus, iDisk, CarbonCore, parts of CoreFoundation/Foundation, and lots of stuff nobody sees but must work correctly).
Now I cook a lot, play fast paced video games, and play bass guitar.
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50 Posts
Joined December 17, 2022
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Replying to
@rjblaskiewicz My English teacher from 1984 assumed using a computer to write papers was cheating - she thought it was writing papers for me. I explained it was just a writing tool like a typewriter that made editing easier.
42 years later and she is correct.
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@samhenrigold@hachyderm.io I’m reminded again of a change I made in Mac OS 8.1 for HFS Plus.
I had to change the Start Manager code that loaded extensions so extensions would continue to load in MacRoman order. To keep Conflict Catcher working, I had to add new API it could use to control the order of extension loading.
Another engineer at Apple (IIRC, Mike Pucket) saw the new Start Manager API and changed the boot progress bar code to use the new API to make the progress bar’s updates smoother and more accurate, and that made Mac OS “seem” to boot much faster.
It’s funny how small UI changes can fool the mind.
Boosted by @octothorpe@mastodon.online
To those who hate it when someone posts a news article as an Apple News link, stop posting Flipboard links.
Instead, please take the extra few seconds to get the link to the source article and post it.
Flipboard doesn’t need the clicks; Apple News doesn’t need the clicks.
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I replaced routines that moved blocks of memory 1-byte at a time in loop with calls to BlockMoveData for improved performance. Someone at sometime thought BlockMove/BlockMoveData couldn't be called at interrupt time and added that slow memory copy routine -- they were wrong.
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I replaced BlockMove calls with BlockMoveData wherever possible (BlockMove was only needed when moving code) for improved performance.
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I locked out loading on Mac OS versions earlier than 7.6 (this version of AppleShare was only tested with Mac OS 9.1/9.2.x but it should work back to 7.6). That's because code in the AppleShare client had required features only in 7.6 and later.
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I removed dead pre-System 7.6 code (much of it still ran during initialization but did nothing).
4/5 🧵
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I replaced multiple INIT resource with a single INIT resource that loads the other code (now in CUST resources) in the correct order. If the AppleShare client was edited with a resource editor on Mac OS 9.1 or later, those INIT resource might have loaded in the wrong order.
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Fixed a few other random bugs I saw that probably wouldn't be noticed by anyone else but they bugged me.
5/5 end of 🧵
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I made MakeFSSpec much faster. When System 7.0 first shipped, I got a developer bug that showed MakeFSSpec (new in System 7) was very slow on AppleShare. I filed a bug for the developer and even explained what the problem was. The code would enumerate a directory to find a matching filename to the filename passed to MakeFSSpec. If the filename was the last to be seen in a directory enumeration, that resulted in many transactions. With my rewrite, making an FSSpec is accomplished with only one or two transactions with the server. This bug effected creating FSRefs, too.
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Increased size of response buffers used for ATP to hold 8 full-sized ATP response packets (it was 1) to increase network performance (reduce the number of transactions with the server). Why was it so small? The code had not changed since 1987.
3/5 🧵
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@joe@f.duriansoftware.com @marioguzman@mastodon.social I was told the changes I made to virtual memory for Mac OS 8.1 killed Ram Doubler.
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@atax1a It was! I was in a very small group tasked with improving performance and stability from 7.5.5 through 9.2.2. We fixed bugs wherever they popped up if there was nobody already working on that code (mostly non-UI code). We also helped other teams find and fix those kinds of problems.
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@bitsavers@oldbytes.space When I worked as a field service engineer, I was amazed at all of the crazy products just IBM came up with. IBM printers, let me count the ways they could work.
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@dan@discuss.systems I take it pretty much daily (a low dose) for arthritis pain. Most other pain relievers make my ears ring.
Boosted by @octothorpe@mastodon.online
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@Cdespinosa@mastodon.social @scottknaster@hachyderm.io @shawnhooper@fosstodon.org if I remember correctly, Don Lancaster’s “Enhancing Your Apple II” explained some interesting video tricks, too. The Internet Archive has his books available for viewing.
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@iaincollins@mastodon.social @joe@f.duriansoftware.com @marioguzman@mastodon.social When I started working in the System 7 update group, I asked users on AOL and CompuServe what features on the Mac they did NOT use because of stability or performance issues. The number one feature not used was virtual memory. As one reply said (as I remember it), “I’d like to use VM but when I turn it on, my Mac runs really slow until it crashes.” So, that’s what I ended up mostly working on from 7.5.5 to 8.1 through 9.2.2.
Help my friend Becky fight her recent cancer diagnosis. Like many, I played games Becky helped create on the Apple II/IIgs, Macintosh, and other personal computing platforms.
@burgerbecky@mastodon.gamedev.place
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@jerry@infosec.exchange @briankrebs@infosec.exchange As long as it works with current up to date browser apps, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Check out this podcast about Atlantic Records and the producers, engineers, songwriters, etc. who worked there. https://offtherecordonthecharts.podbean.com
The hosts are the children of 3 of Atlantic’s most important producers from the late 1940s through the 1970s.
The first full episode is an interview with Jerry Wexler’s son.
The second episode is with Mike Stoller (of Leiber and Stoller).
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@theirongiant @atax1a if anyone tests performance using the last client with my changes against an old client over an internet connection (not a local connection), I’d be interested in the results. The higher the ping to the server, the more difference it should make.
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@Starcade@sfba.social @mac84tv@bitbang.social Steve Sheets would know. I’ll ask him on FB.
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@cstross@wandering.shop I was recording radio and tv audio on a reel to reel tape recorder in the early 70s
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@pierrenick Apple used to pay much more attention to backwards compatibility. However, getting the testing resources to test changes on older systems is hard, so that's why it isn't done as much as everyone would like.
The AppleShare extension code I changed had been tested with systems back to 7.6 (at least I was told that) and the changes I made to the AppleShare extension did not depend on anything new, so I feel fairly safe saying the AppleShare extension v 3.9.2 will work with Mac OS 7.6.
@mdavis@mastodon.social I plan to cancel accounts with several companies whose services are sometimes useful, but I don’t like who the profits are going to. PayPal and Venmo top my list.
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@mtconleyuk@mastodonapp.uk @spamsieve@indieapps.space I *really* enjoy using “train as spam” on something that gets by because I know I’ll only have to do it once 😀
@Stattenf my tip for the day for online merchants: Make it easy for your customers to update credit card info. Don’t make it hard for your customers to give you more money.
A relative had to get a new card today (because of fraud) and I got to help in the game of “find the page on the website where the cc on file could be changed.” I don’t like that game.
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@dgentry Nope. The Blue Meanies group was around from before System 7.0 to maybe just before 7.5. I was in the Developer Technical Support during that time, and joined the System Update team (which became Mac OS Release Engineering after Copland was cancelled) just as 7.5.3 was being wrapped up.
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@tevruden Engineering usually sent notes to DTS for what became Technical Notes like this one https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn/tn2010.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS10003049
There was no 9.2.2 Technical Note. Otherwise, I would have just pointed at it (although the details of why the AppleShare client was faster, or used less network resources wouldn’t have been noted).
I remember the changes I made to AppleShare because it was one of the last things I did on 9 and because the performance differences for some operations were so great. (the last 9 code I changed had something to do with how package directories were recognized - I don’t remember any details about that change)
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@iaincollins@mastodon.social @joe@f.duriansoftware.com @marioguzman@mastodon.social Ram Doubler’s memory compression was a great feature for years because it didn’t require as much disk space for backing storage. However, as disk space became much cheaper and faster, that advantage over Apple’s VM became less of an issue.
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@octothorpe@mastodon.online a good reminder that I still have a few apples from our tree to convert into a pie.
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@octothorpe@mastodon.online our neighbors use a local service with the initials ELM. I’ve decided the L stands for LOUD. The have the loudest mowers and blowers know to man.
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@octothorpe@mastodon.online I live near the Everett airport and flight paths sometimes go over the house. I woke to a dream the other day that I was looking out the window and missiles were flying over the house. Too much news and jet sounds lately. 😬
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@atlauren Anyway, after I quit working on webdavfs, it never really got any faster but we came up with a way for webdavfs to communicate with the Finder to show progress during close on the PUT request to the server. Bill Conway, who had taken over responsibility for webdavfs and implemented that change in webdavfs. The Finder team showed that progress during close to let the user know something was happening during file copies.
Sometimes showing something is happening in UI makes users *think* things are faster 😀
2/2
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@haineux @RealJimMurphy @NanoRaptor It was enough floppies that it was difficult to find a working set.
Jim, do you remember if 7.5 had the fix for the 660/840 AV floppy disk driver?
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@tveskov@mastodon.social @marioguzman@mastodon.social Or, just don’t have the meeting and handle the issue in a short email exchange.