---------------- Question 1.1: Why is my system taking up so much memory? I've corrected the cross-reference to the info about reinstalling the system software. The assertion in earlier releases that a Mac II required a PMMU to use 32-bit addressing and more than eight megabytes of RAM was incorrect. Contrary to misinformation in earlier versions of this FAQ The Mac II can use up to sixty-eight megs of real RAM without a PMMU. Bank A can only use one-meg SIMMs but Bank B can use larger sizes. Virtual memory does, however, require a PMMU. I've added info about the 32-bit enabler for System 7.1. ------------------------------------ Question 1.2: What is MODE32? the 32-bit 7.1 enabler? Do I need them? I've added info about the 32-bit enabler for System 7.1. ----------------------------- Question 4.3: Easy Access: One Answer, Many Questions I've added some additional "symptoms" and uses of Easy Access. comp.sys.mac.faq Part 2: comp.sys.mac.system Table of Contents I. Memory 1. Why is my system using so much memory? 2. What is MODE32? the 32-bit 7.1 enabler? Do I need them? 3. How much memory should I allot to my cache? II. System Software 1. Why does Apple charge for System 7.1? 2. What does System 7.1 give me for my $35 that System 7.0 doesn't? 3. Where can I get System 7.1? 4. How can I use System 6 on a System 7 only Mac? 5. Non-US scripts and systems 6. What is System 7 Tuneup? Do I need it? 7. Why do my DA's disappear when I turn on MultiFinder? 8. Do I need System 7.0.1? 9. How can I get System 7.0.1 on 800K disks? III. Hard Disks, File sharing, and the File System 1. Help! My folder disappeared! 2. Why can't I throw this folder away? 3. Why can't I share my removable drive? 4. Why can't I eject this SyQuest cartridge? CD-ROM? etc. 5. Why can't I rename my hard disk? IV. Miscellaneous: 1. What does System Error XXX mean? 2. What is A/ROSE? 3. Easy Access: One Answer, Many Questions This work is Copyright 1993 by Elliotte M. Harold. Permission is hereby granted to distribute this unmodified document provided that no fee in excess of normal online charges is required for such distribution. Portions of this document may be extracted and quoted free of charge and without necessity of citation in normal online communication provided only that said quotes are not represented as the correspondent's original work. Permission for quotation of this document in printed material and edited online communication (such as the Info-Mac Digest and TidBITS) is given subject to normal citation procedures (i.e. you have to say where you got it). Disclaimer: I do my best to ensure that information contained in this document is current and accurate, but I can accept no responsibility for actions resulting from information contained herein. This document is provided as is and with no warranty of any kind. All tradenames are trademarks of their respective maunfacturers. Corrections and suggestions should be addressed to erh0362@tesla.njit.edu. This is the SECOND part of the this FAQ. The first part is also posted to this newsgroup under the subject heading "Introductory Macintosh frequently asked questions (FAQ)" and includes a complete table of contents for the entire document as well as information on where to post, ftp, file decompression, trouble-shooting, and preventive maintenance. The third part is posted every two weeks in comp.sys.mac.misc and features many questions that often erroneously appear in comp.sys.mac.system as well. Please familiarize yourself with all three sections of this document before posting. All pieces are available for anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu (18.172.1.27) in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers/macintosh. Except for this introductory FAQ which appears in multiple newsgroups and is stored as general-faq.Z, the name of each file has the format of the last part of the group name followed by "-faq.Z", e.g the FAQ for comp.sys.mac.system is stored as system-faq.Z and the FAQ for comp.sys.mac.misc is stored as misc-faq.Z. RTFM stores files as compressed (.Z) BINARY files. If you leave off the .Z at the end of the file name when "getting" the file, rtfm will automatically decompress the file before sending it to you. You can also have these files mailed to you by sending an E-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the line: send pub/usenet/news.answers/macintosh/"name" in the body text where "name" is the name of the file you want as specified above (e.g. general-faq). You can also send this server a message with the subject "help" for more detailed instructions. ====== MEMORY (1.0) ====== ---------------------------------------- WHY IS MY SYSTEM TAKING UP SO MUCH MEMORY? (1.1) Under system versions earlier than 7.0 or under System 7.x without 32-bit addressing turned on the Mac cannot access more than eight megabytes of real memory. If you have more physical RAM installed, the Mac knows it's present but can't do anything with it. When About the Finder is selected from the Apple menu, the system reports all the memory it can't use as part of the system memory allocation. To use the memory you need to get System 7 and turn on 32-bit addressing. If you have a Mac with dirty ROMs (a II, IIx, SE/30, or IIcx) you also need MODE32 for System 7.0 or 7.0.1 or the 32-bit enabler for System 7.1. Both are free from ftp.apple.com (/dts/mac/mode32 and /dts/mac/sys.soft/7.1.32.bit.enabler) and from the increasingly mythical friendly neighborhood dealer. If you're staying with System 6, Maxima from Connectix ($45 street) allows use of up to fourteen megabytes of real memory and can allocate anything beyond that to a RAM disk. If you have an LC or an LC II with four megabytes of RAM soldered to the motherboard, you still need to add two four-megabyte SIMM's to reach the ten megabyte maximum imposed by the LC ROM. This means you'll always have two unused megabytes which About this Macintosh and About the Finder report as part of the system memory allocation. Unfortunately there is no current means of accessing this extra memory. If you've turned on 32-bit addressing or if you have eight megabytes or less of RAM, check your disk cache (RAM cache in System 6) in the Memory Control Panel (General Control Panel in System 6) to make sure it isn't set exceptionally high. All memory allotted to the cache comes out of the System's memory allocation. Finally if you recently upgraded to System 7.1 by updating your system software rather than by doing a clean reinstall, (See question 4.6 in the general FAQ) you should move all fonts out of your system file as these can take up an extraordinary amount of memory. ---------------------------------- WHAT IS MODE32? THE 7.1 32-BIT ENABLER? DO I NEED THEM? (1.2) MODE32 and the 32-bit enabler are system extensions that allow Mac II's, IIx's, IIcx's, and SE/30's to access more than eight megabytes of real memory under System 7. If you have more than eight megabytes of real memory in an SE/30, IIcx, IIx, or a Mac II, you need MODE32 if you are running System 7.0 or 7.0.1 or the 32-bit enabler if you're running System 7.1. Otherwise you don't need either. MODE32 and the 32-bit enabler are free from your local Apple dealer and can be ftp'd from ftp.apple.com in the directories /dts/mac/mode32 and /dts/mac/sys.soft/7.1.32.bit.enabler. -------------------------------------- HOW MUCH MEMORY SHOULD I ALLOT TO MY CACHE? (1.3) One of the Memory Control Panel (or General Control Panel in System 6) settings is the mysterious cache, Disk Cache in System 7, RAM cache in System 6. This is memory the system sets aside to hold frequently accessed data from the disk. The cache acts like a 7-11 for your hard disk. It's quicker to get a quart of milk at the 7-11, but it costs more so you don't do all your shopping there. And the 7-11 doesn't have everything you want so sometimes you need to go to the A&P (your hard disk) instead. Unfortunately Apple's cache isn't really all that fast. For most people the RAM cache would more appropriately be called the RAM thief. Its effect on performance seems to be much like the canals of Mars. You have to want to see it before you can. However there are a few applications and inits such as Dayna DOSMounter that actually make use of the cache and will run much faster when it's turned on than when it's off. Thus I recommend setting your cache to 64K, turning it on, and forgetting about it. I hope that in 1993 most Macintoshes have enough RAM that they don't need to worry about losing 64K. If, however, your Mac is a IIsi running a color monitor from the internal video, then you may possibly speed up your Mac with an appropriate cache setting. The IIsi and the IIci use system RAM to store the video image on your screen. (Other Macs with internal video have video RAM separate from the main system RAM so this trick doesn't apply to them.) The internal video competes with the System for use of this RAM, and that competition slows down your Mac like two children fighting in the back seat of your car adds an hour to the time it takes to get to the beach. To stop the fighting a smart parent will put one child in the front seat and one in the back. A smart Mac owner will put the internal video in the front seat and the system in the back seat. To push the system out of the front seat set a IIsi's cache to between 384K and 768K which will take up all the space in the front seat not occupied by the internal video and force the system to sit in the back. The exact value depends on the type of monitor you have installed. Experiment to see what works for you. Unfortunately this trick doesn't work when virtual memory is turned on, but if you're using virtual memory you're probably more concerned about saving memory than gaining speed anyway. ----------------------------------- WHY DOES APPLE CHARGE FOR SYSTEM 7.1? (2.1) Apple is charging for System 7.1 because Apple's policy makers suspect they'll make more money by charging for it than by not charging for it. Apple is a publicly held corporation in a capitalist economy where the law requires corporations to make reasonable attempts to maximize profits. To give away something Apple could make more money by charging for would be a breach of the fiduciary responsibility of Apple's Board of Directors and actionable by Apple stockholders in a court of law. -------------------------------------- WHAT DOES SYSTEM 7.1 GIVE ME FOR MY $35 THAT SYSTEM 7.0 DOESN'T? (2.2) Not much. System 7.1 provides a base for many planned enhancements to the MacOS. These include a new printing architecture, an advanced version of QuickDraw, and easy localizability into foreign languages. All of these will be separate, optional add-ons which may or may not cost more money. (Actually most people at Apple and elsewhere say these will be free, but that's what they said about system software before 7.1 was released for $35. After 7.1 was released a lot of them started backpedalling and claiming that no promises of free upgrades were ever made. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.) The only added feature of System 7.1 that you can use now is the ability to store fonts in a Fonts folder rather than the System file. For this Apple wants $35. There are also about a thousand various bug fixes over System 7.0. (i.e. 7.1 shipped with only about 400 known bugs instead of the 1400 known bugs in System 7.0.) Some of these fixes were included in the various System 7 tuners. The most significant bug fix not present in System 7 Tuneup fixes the Quadra 950's SCSI manager. If you have a Quadra 950, you need System 7.1. Otherwise you probably shouldn't waste your money. ---------------------------------------- WHERE CAN I GET SYSTEM 7.1? (2.3) Apple rationalizes its decision to charge for System 7.1 by claiming that most people have been unable to get System Software updates from online sources or authorized dealers (and of course they rationalize their refusal to authorize low-price mail order dealers by claiming that Macs require dealer support) and by claiming that charging for system software will make software retailers more willing to stock Apple system software and thus make it easier to obtain. This denies the reality that System 7.0 was in fact readily available from the primary sources of payware Mac software as well as being freely available online. And I doubt a full-page ad for System 7.0 in the software catalogs costs Apple any more than an ad for System 7.1. This rationalization also ignores how previously in large organizations only one person needed to be able to get the system software from a dealer, online, or bundled with a new CPU before others could freely and legally copy it. So, despite Apple's protests to the contrary, it is now harder to get a current copy of the system software thus creating a FAQ where there was none before. If you want the manuals as well as the disks (high density only) for System 7.1, you can order the entire package including a copy of At Ease for about $79 from the usual mail-order houses such as MacConnection (1-800-800-2222) or MacWAREHOUSE (1-800-ALL-MACS). If you only want the disks you can upgrade from System 7.0 by calling Apple at (800)769-APPL and asking for the 7.1 upgrade. To "verify" that you already own System 7, you'll be asked what's in the right hand corner of your menu bar. The answer is of course Balloon Help and the application menu. The disk only upgrade costs $34.95 plus $3 for shipping and handling plus local sales tax. If you bought a non-bundled copy of System 7.0 on or after September 1, 1992 (or if you have a scanner, an old software receipt, and some familiarity with a photo retouching program) you can upgrade for $3 by sending your dated proof of purchase, a check for $3, and your name and address to Apple Computer Attn: Free Upgrade P.O. Box 720 Buffalo, NY 14207. Alternatively you can fax that information and a credit card number and expiration date to Apple at (716)873-0906. ----------------------------------------- HOW CAN I USE SYSTEM 6 ON A MAC THAT REQUIRES SYSTEM 7? (2.4) The PowerBook 100, Classic II, LCII, Performa 200, and Performa 400 all work with System 6.0.8L, a special foreign version of System 6.0.8 that was hacked together because these machines beat many of the internationalized versions of System 7 to market. System 6.0.8L used to be available for anonymous ftp from wuarchive.wustl.edu in the mirrors/rascal.ics.utexas.edu/support-of-products/Apple/sys.soft/6.0.8L directory but was removed recently. If you find an ftp site for 6.0.8L or even a bulletin board that carries it, please contact the author of the FAQ so I can include it here. ------------------------------------ WHERE CAN I GET NON-U.S. SYSTEM SOFTWARE AND SCRIPTS? (2.5) For a company that's as hip to the international marketplace as Apple, it sure has a difficult time comprehending that its customers might need to work with more than one language. Most pre-7.1 international software except Chinese-Talk, Hangul-Talk and Kanji-talk is available for anonymous ftp from ftp.apple.com in /dts/mac/sys.soft. Your best chance to get Chinese, Korean or Japanese system software is to have a friend in China, Korea or Japan mail you the software. Apple has not yet revealed how or even if it intends to distribute System 7.1 script systems outside their native countries. ----------------------------------------- WHAT IS SYSTEM 7 TUNEUP? DO I NEED IT? (2.6) If you use System 7.0, 7.0.1, or the System 7.0 printer drivers, you need System 7 Tuneup. The tuneup includes a number of fixes and enhancements to System 7, including substantially faster printer drivers, a StyleWriter driver that supports background printing, a fix that saves several hundred kilobytes of memory on non-networked Macs, and, most importantly, a vaccine for the disappearing folders bug. These fixes and many others have been rolled into System 7.1 so the tuneup does nothing for Macs running 7.1. -------------------------------------- WHY DO MY DA'S DISAPPEAR WHEN I TURN ON MULTIFINDER? (2.7) You need to put the file "DA Handler" in your System Folder. It should be on one of your System 6.0.x disks. Under Finder the Desk Accessories load into the memory provided by your application. Under MultiFinder they load into their own memory space provided by DA Handler. ----------------------------------- DO I NEED SYSTEM 7.0.1? (2.8) Officially if you don't have a Quadra or PowerBook, you don't need System 7.0.1. Unofficially some changes were made that speed up SANE (numerics) operations on 32-bit clean Macintoshes with a floating-point coprocessor. These include all IIci's and IIfx's plus LC's and IIsi's that have had a coprocessor specially installed. (Neither of the latter machines ships with a coprocessor.) ----------------------------------- HOW CAN I GET SYSTEM 7.0.1 ON 800K DISKS? (2.9) You can't because all machines that gain any benefits from 7.0.1 come equipped with high density floppy drives. You can however use the utility MountImage to mount the images of the 1400K System 7.0.1 disks (available from ftp.apple.com) on your hard drive and install from the image rather than a floppy. Be warned, however, that MountImage is notoriously unreliable when doing installs. Be sure you make a complete backup of your hard disk and have a set of System disks on genuine floppies before attempting to install from mounted images. ---------------------------------------- WHY CAN'T I THROW AWAY THIS FOLDER? (3.2) Possibly the folder contains items that are locked or in use and can't be thrown away. Turn off file-sharing (if it's on) and quit all applications. Then try to throw the folder away. If that doesn't work and you're using System 6, hold down the option-key and drag the folder into the trash; or, if you're using System 7, hold down the option key while selecting "Empty Trash" from the special menu. Holding the option key down lets you throw away locked items. If that doesn't work restart the computer, hold down the option key, and try again. If you still can't throw away the folder, try throwing away the items in the folder (if any) one by one until you find the ones giving you trouble. Remove them from the folder, and then throw the folder away. If you still can't throw the folder away, you've discovered a "Folder from Hell." Create an empty folder on ANOTHER disk with the same name as the Hell Folder. Then copy the new folder onto the same disk in the same folder as the Hell Folder. Click "Yes" when asked if you want to replace the Hell Folder. Now you should be able to throw the just copied folder away. If that doesn't work, get a copy of John Jeppson's HellFolderFix utility, available from the usual FTP sites. -------------------------------------- WHY CAN'T I SHARE MY SYQUEST DRIVE? CD-ROM? BERNOULLI BOX? ETC.? (3.3) Apple originally planned to treat removables like floppies rather than hard disks for file-sharing. At the requests of beta testers file-sharing on removables was hacked into System 7.0 at the last minute. However, since file-sharing was originally to be implemented only on fixed drives, no means were created for the host Mac to tell other Macs when a new volume went on or off-line. Therefore sharing a removable volume requires that the disc or cartridge be inserted and mounted when filesharing is turned on. Turn filesharing off and on with the drive powered up and the cartridge inserted and you should then be able to share the removable. ---------------------------------------- WHY CAN'T I EJECT THIS SYQUEST CARTRIDGE? CD-ROM? FLOPTICAL? ETC.? (3.4) When file-sharing is turned on it makes all disks larger than two megabytes available for remote access by the owner even if they aren;t specifically shared. This prevents the dismounting of removeable media. Turn off file-sharing first. Then drag the volume icon to the trash. -------------------------------------- WHY CAN'T I RENAME MY HARD DRIVE? (3.5) Turn off file-sharing as described above. If the disk you can't rename is not shared, Kazu Yanagahira's freeware utility Unlock Folder will also unlock your hard disk so you can rename it. ------------------------------------- WHAT DOES SYSTEM ERROR XXX MEAN? (4.1) Typically it means nothing at all of any use to the end user. Your time is much more productively spent trying to figure out what actions in which application caused the crash so that you can avoid them in the future rather than deciphering system error numbers. After all, knowing that Error 16 means a math coprocessor is not installed doesn't help you much in fixing the problem. Knowing that this happens in QuarkXPress 3.0 every time you try to link two text boxes on a master page when copies of those text boxes already contain text does. (And in this case the error message isn't even accurate.) If you really want to know what that number means, get Dr. Pete Corless's System Error 7.0.1 utility available in the usual places. ------------------------------------------ WHAT IS A/ROSE? (4.2) Apple's Realtime Operating System Environment is not needed by 99.9% of the people who stumble across it. It's only needed if you have an MCP NuBus card of which there were about three at last count. The only even moderately common one is Apple's TokenTalk NuBus card. If you don't have such a card, feel free to trash it. ------------------------------------------ EASY ACCESS: ONE ANSWER, MANY QUESTIONS (4.3) Easy Access is a WONDERFUL system extension from Apple, useful for far more than its intended purpose. Unfortunately it's also the source of a lot of confusion and strange behavior on many Macs. It's even been suggested that anti-virals should detect and report the presence of Easy Access since it produces more false virus alarms than any other software in Macintosh history. If you're using System 7, your Mac will probably emit an ascending whistle for about two seconds when Easy Access is turned on. and a descending whistle when Easy Access is turned off. You may also hear a beep after some keypresses. Easy Access has two pieces, Sticky Keys, which is turned on by hitting the Shift key five times in a row without moving the mouse, and Mouse Keys which is turned on by hitting Command-Shift-Clear. Sticky Keys lets you type things like Command-Shift-Clear without doing the Rose Mary Wood shuffle. Just hit the modifer keys you want to use and then hit the regular key. For example if Sticky Keys is turned on, you could also turn on Mouse Keys by typing Command, then Shift, then Clear rather than by hitting them all at once. When Sticky Keys is turned on an icon appears in the menu bar to the right of the application icon/menu. Mouse Keys lets the numeric keypad substitute for the mouse. This is especially useful for making precision, single-pixel adjustments in draw and paint programs. .