Martin Russ brings you the latest Apple news, and shows you how to double your RAM — without severe silicon surgery...
With the current price of SIMMs, adding extra RAM to any computer can be an expensive business — especially since the base configuration always seems to be just too small when you start using more than one application at once. With most Macs now shipping with 4Mb of RAM as standard, this usually means upgrading to 8Mb, which could cost anything up to £300, whilst moving from 8Mb to 16Mb could be £600 or more. Having to remove old SIMMs and replace them with new ones just adds to the annoyance (and cost) — why don't they put more slots in, or let you mix different sizes of SIMM?
Actually, there is a neat solution to many of these problems. It's called RAM Doubler, and is made by Connectix. It's a piece of software which you install on your Mac, and, as the name suggests, it doubles your RAM. As easy as that, and with almost no catches. Of course, if you are doing things that need lots of real RAM, like sample editing or retouching photographs, then you still need to add SIMMs, but RAM Doubler could enable you to run, say, a sequencer and editor, a word processor and a few other gadgets without getting 'Memory is getting low — try closing some windows...' alert boxes. You need at least 4Mb of RAM to begin with, or a hard disk (though you are then just getting a variation on virtual memory), but otherwise it works.
I bought RAM Doubler in an interesting way; by using the latest issue (number three) of the Instant Access CD‑ROM. Using a Hypercard‑style browser, I read the manufacturer's information on RAM Doubler. When I had decided to purchase it, I rang Instant Access by phone, quoted my credit card number, and they told me how to decode the encrypted version of RAM Doubler on the CD‑ROM. About five minutes later, I had a floppy disk with a full UK version of RAM Doubler on it, and after a restart of the Mac, I had twice as much RAM! As simple as that. The Instant Access CD‑ROM comes with over 200 different programs, games, utilities and other applications, all ready to be installed on your system — and with no waiting. If you want to use one of them, you can read about it, try (usually) a demo version, and if you like it, you can buy it and run it within a few minutes. No postal delays, no mail order hassle, no carrier calling whilst you are out — the major problem is stopping yourself buying too much.
So how does RAM Doubler work? Well, apparently it tells applications that they have the RAM they expect, but it only really provides RAM to those that are actually making use of it. It's patented and very ingenious. Since you normally only use one application at once, this means that you seem to have lots more memory. Being cynical and suspicious, I installed RAM Doubler and then started testing it. After a couple of trouble‑free weeks, I have to admit that I am impressed. I have had no problems that could be attributed to RAM Doubler, and sequencers, SysEx dumps, word processing, C++ compilation and even drawing and painting programs have been loaded into my Mac's deceptively expanded memory. There has been only one noticeable effect, and that happens with the sound, especially when associated with heavy use of the SCSI port — the sort of thing you get with an interactive multimedia CD‑ROM. Audio tracks that played back flawlessly before now occasionally mute for a second or two, and then return. It is easy enough to remove RAM Doubler if necessary, so you can have the best of both worlds: RAM when you need it, and audio too.
As you might expect, there are some excluded applications. Photoshop and QuarkXpress are two, and I would not expect anything that uses RAM to hold audio samples to run happily either — but I would be interested in hearing from any reader who takes the plunge!
Powerbooks
The Apple PowerBooks have acquired a bad reputation in MIDI circles, because of the problems that arise from them using the serial ports to carry MIDI data (to fix some of them, use Opcode's OMS and read Guy J. Brown's excellent article in the December 1993 issue of SOS's sister publication Audio Media). But the excellent PowerBooks Duos are fine for MIDI, because they don't have the same battery‑fixated blackouts. Although expensive, the Duo 280 and 280c (the colour version) have low‑power 68040s inside, running at 66/33MHz clock rates — which is Quadra performance! PowerPC upgrades are due soon too, apparently. What Apple will call PowerPC‑equipped PowerBooks is an interesting problem: Power PowerBooks?
Duos look like PowerBooks, but have the ability to 'dock' into a port, which then makes them like an ordinary desktop Mac, complete with mouse, floppy disk drive access, large monitors etc; in short, a Mac that can be used for music. The catch is that you get just one serial port, and that is only available when docked — but on the other hand, each time new PowerBook Duos are released, the older models fall in price, so you may find a bargain (I have seen adverts for a Duo 230 costing just over £800!). Of course, if you already have a Mac, then a portable Duo is a great way of taking it with you everywhere, so that you can free up more space on your desktop Mac for music!
Apple News In Brief
- Apple's new version of the Newton Personal Digital Assistant almost looks like an ill‑timed April Fool. The Newton 110 isn't nearly everything you might expect of it: so, you might expect a new version to be lighter (it isn't); OK, so the screen must be larger (er, nope, it's smaller); or perhaps the whole thing is smaller (wrong again, it's longer); well, at least the handwriting recognition must be better (make that different, according to reports); and it surely has more memory (well, yes, that it does!). The price is about the same as the original Newton used to be, although, of course, the Newton 100 is now cheaper!
- Mac User magazine had a problem with a reader's letter complaining about an article on MIDI and music. In their reply, they said that 'OMS certainly does not provide for routing of MIDI between applications — that's what it's for'. I think that they meant to say that OMS 2.0 is designed to allow communication (MIDI, timing and other information) between MIDI applications.
- AppleScript‑compatible programs are finally beginning to appear. The latest version of Symantec's Think C and C++ (version 7.0) comes with an editor that can be controlled using the AppleScript control language. And Passport's Producer Pro lets you use scripting to control other applications (like the editor in Think C), which extends its multimedia controller possibilities well beyond movies, pictures, MIDI and audio. For example, with Producer Pro, you could use a database to store SysEx dumps (providing you can find an AppleScript‑compatible SysEx dump grabber and database). Since the demise of System 6's MacroMaker, the AppleScript 'command line/macro recorder replacement' has been too long in getting established. Definitely one of the features to ask about, or look for, when you next think about buying a program is: Does it support AppleScript?
- According to recent reports, Apple have recently only just made a profit. The high cost of research into the Newton PDAs, the launch of Power Macs, and the uncertainty over the future direction (Macs, Newtons, both, or neither?) has left a nervous Wall Street and Apple with a profit of about 17 million dollars for the first three months of 1994, despite larger than expected initial sales of Power Macs (145,000 in the last two weeks of March!).
How It Works: The Hard Disk
After several months concentrating on the serial port and MIDI, this month we will look at the hard disk.
The hard disk is arguably what transforms a toy computer into a serious one. Without a hard disk, you have to put everything onto a floppy disk and boot from that — anything else you need has to be on that floppy, or on another... On a Mac, a hard disk is almost an essential, since even a slimmed down System 7.1 does not work well from a floppy, and the miserable disk swapping that can result is really not fun.
A hard disk is really a close cousin of the floppy disk, and a distant relative of the compact cassette. Instead of being a flexible plastic disk inside a cover, there are rigid metal disks enclosed in a dust‑free sealed case. Data is stored on the disks magnetically, using a coating of iron oxide — a posh name for rust. But this is high‑quality, expensive rust! The actual recording and playback mechanism is very similar to a cassette recorder — although the technology involved is more sophisticated. The combination of the rigid disks, the dust‑free environment and high‑quality magnetic material means that whereas a typical floppy can store a Megabyte or so of data, even a small hard disk can store 40Mb. Floppy disks rotate relatively slowly, whereas hard disks spin much faster, so whilst reading from or writing to floppies is slow, hard disks operate fast — and the larger the disk, the faster they tend to be.
Floppies have the advantage of being removable. Most hard disks are sealed inside a cast aluminium case, and are permanently fixed inside the computer, but there are some removable versions. SyQuest Drives are one example of a removable hard drive. The 44Mb and 88Mb versions are quite common for moving large amounts of data around (carefully), and larger sizes are being introduced. Removables suffer from being more susceptible to accidental and dust‑related damage, in comparison to well‑protected fixed disks. Large fixed disks can be measured in Gigabytes (thousands of Megabytes) and can be smaller than you might imagine — some are the size of a thick paperback book...
On a Mac, you get free disk‑checking software as part of the system tools, and you should try to check your hard disk regularly using this to see if there are any problems. Because hard disks store lots of information on small areas of disk surface, any problems with dust particles, imperfections in the magnetic coating, or a record/playback head hitting the disk itself can result in disaster. In case you were wondering, in normal operation the heads are supposed to fly just above the surface of the disk!
Another thing to check for is a virus infection. Hard disks are fertile breeding grounds for a virus, and floppies are one way they can spread. Disinfectant is free, available from a number of Macintosh Public Domain and Shareware suppliers, and is very effective at detecting most viruses. You can pay for a commercial version — but check that the price you pay includes a subscription to the upgrade service. You always need to keep a virus checker up‑to‑date, since new viruses appear all the time.
Storing lots of files on a hard disk, erasing them, adding new ones and basically just using a hard disk gradually clogs it up. It's rather like packing your supermarket purchases into your bags — if you pack carefully you can fit lots more in. Hard disks can become badly‑packed too, and 'defragmenting' them can make them work faster, by removing all the bits of left‑over wasted space, and packing all the files into easy‑to‑get‑at continuous blocks, instead of being spread all over the disk.
The final word on hard disks is always the same. Back them up. Make a copy of the information they hold, unless you really want to lose it!