This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (49 messages)
PICS?
Message #44168
Is the Multimedia Explorer (or Animator) capable of importing MAC .PICS animations? Thanks, – Mark M.
#80413-
Layer+Tag Names?
Message #80481
J.: Layer name restrictions are listed on p. 263 of my Release 11 "AutoCAD Reference Manual". Page 334 offers a little bit of information on attribute tags. Briefly: layer names can be up to 31 characters long, and AutoCAD converts 'em to uppercase automatically. Letters, numbers, and the three special…
Tom: CHAOS: The Software comprises six modules for exploring some of the examples of chaos theory which James Gleick described in his book. The modules cover Mandelbrot (and related) sets, magnets and pendula, strange attractors like the butterfly-shaped Lorenz attractor, IFS fractals that generate ferns and other interesting shapes, "fractal…
'Chasing Bugs…'
Message #17158
Kudos on your "Chasing Bugs in the Electronic Village" article in today's NY Times Magazine. I had parallel experiences with WPWin and NetWare Lite, but I wasn't quite persistent enough on the WPSG and Novell forums to be awarded full "Gadfly" status. Now about that animation bug in the Fractal…
#13583-
#Where is the action?
Message #13811
Mike: The messages in this section have been, shall we say, "sparse" thus far, and anything interesting probably has scrolled off by now. OTOH (CompuServe shorthand for "On the other hand"), there always seem to be a few folks ready to respond, including James Gleick and Rudy Rucker from time…
Mike: Yes, it's a drag when technology abets laziness, mediocrity, and rudeness. Voice mail can be a Good Thing when it's properly designed, but too often it turns into an elaborate and frustrating maze. There's no such thing as "Chaos lab" – "CA Lab" and "CHAOS" are two separate packages.…
Dietmar: >> The attractor itself is used as a graphical aid because it IS the easiest >> way to see what's going on (if I understand that correctly). I don't know whether it's the easiest way or not. Again, in the case of the Henon attractor, I think the image…
Mike: I don't know whether there's a Canadian number. Any of you Autodesk guys know? According to the brochure, 800-688-2344 is supposed to work from Canada. Did you try leaving a message in the voice mail box? Who knows what might turn up! The brochure also lists a fax number:…
Dietmar: Trying to make me contradict myself, eh? If I knew exactly what I wanted someone to learn from a topology primer, I wouldn't need it myself! Yes, visualizing spaces of dimensions higher than 3 is a challenge, but there often are lower-dimension analogues that can help someone "see" what's…
Dietmar: > Do you know of anybody who has read and understood the mathematical > sections of the chaos manual, besides me ? Well, no. But then I haven't spoken to too many people about it, either. > Topology is pure math. If you mean the mathematics of formal notation…
James: >> Very sophisticated and very hard, though … Yeah, I figured it would be. A good afternoon programming project for John Walker, perhaps? – Mark M.
[Continued] I don't really care for the physical format and layout of CHAOS's manual. CA Lab's paperback-sized manual is ideal in my opinion: it gives one the inviting sense of being a book (which it is in many ways), and it's easy to tuck into a knapsack or briefcase without…
#10461-
#Rudy's Here
Message #10866
Rudy: Good to see you on line. My wishes/ideas: ** CA Lab: ** A slicker interface, especially for CA. Don't remove the ability to play RC "like a color organ", though. Higher resolution for RC woud be nice, although perhaps that just means adding RC-like controls to CA. Maybe cell…
#10403-
Chaos brochure/demo?
Message #10865
Bill: There is a brochure, and in case you didn't catch Rudy's message, you can get a copy of it by calling the the order number (800/688-2344). – Mark M.
DVIEW clipping
Message #33816
David: Hmm – maybe it's the graphics card or driver. I'll try it on another machine. – Mark M.
Albert: Here's one from TonyT: (defun beep ( / f) (princ (chr 7) (setq f (open "CON" "w"))) (close f) ) – Mark M.
Evan: Haestad Methods just announced one in Section 9: What's New. – Mark M.
Brian: If you can dream up the algorithms, then you can almost certainly do it in AutoLISP and/or ADS. AutoLISP is a LISP interpreter built into AutoCAD, and ADS (AutoCAD Development System) is a new feature of AutoCAD Release 11 which allows you to write programs in C. Of course…
Paul: There may be some dumb things about AutoCAD's file locking scheme, but the requirement that you use it on a stand-alone station isn't one of 'em. Go to the Configuration Menu and reconfigure server access (or whatever it's called). When you're asked whether you want file locking enabled, say…
Dave: Great wishlist item: I have tons of CFG directories holding just that one, lonely ACAD.CFG file. It isn't just output devices that require different configurations, though – many third party applications have special requirements (prototype drawings, espcecially). – Mark M.
David: I haven't heard of anything like that specific to R. 11 and DOS 5, unless of course HIMEM is hiding all the memory from AutoCAD, in which case *everything* will be V E R Y slow (just use NEWDX). There is the old AutoCAD 386 – polled mode digitizer…
Jeff, Craig: Note that utilities like Mike Dickason's DWGLIST and LISTMENU and Rick Llewellyn's DWGDUMP can let you do a lot of auditing from DOS, without the need to load the drawings into AutoCAD. Of course you end up with a text file which you may need to post-process. -…
Gideon: Omit the colon: LPT1 not LPT1: I don't know if that's your problem, but give it a try and let us know. – Mark M. P.S. I moved your message to section 6: OpSystms/Networks
Allan: I can't tell you much about 3D Studio, but if you saunter over to the ASOFT forum, you'll meet plenty of people there who can. – Mark M.
Dennis: No, I get paid to *guess*. Thinking I do on my own time. – Mark M.
Larry: Believe it or not, you might be out of disk space. Does AutoCAD issue an error message? Is there an ACAD.ERR file left hanging around in the drawing subdirectory? – Mark M.
Loyd: Yes, Superstor might possibly be the culprit, although I don't have any experience with it. Another thing to check is whether you're tight on disk space. Normally AutoCAD will warn you before it runs out of room on the disk, but you never know. – Mark M.
Allan: AutoCAD doesn't even support the Weitek, so it would be money down the drain. According to the programmers, AutoCAD doesn't spend that much of its time doing floating point operations, so there's no compelling reason to support special coprocessors like the Weitek. 3D Studio is another story entirely, though.…
Loyd: I don't see anything suspicious in your start-up files. Is there any message before the lockup? Is an ACAD.ERR file left in the working subdirectory? Do the lockups occur during specific operations? If you upgrade to AutoCAD 386 and a 386-33, about the only thing you'll *have* to change…
Dennis: I *think* the Kurta driver will do something like this…. – Mark M.
Joe: It's just possible that the read/write heads on your diskette drive are dirty – have you cleaned them in a year or so? – Mark M.
Karl: You want ME to pay YOU in order that I might take a mueling (sp?), puking little blob off your hands?! Surely you jest…. Actually, if the drawing does get fixed, you could name the kid Cyco. – Mark M.
From:
Mark Middlebrook[AcadTM]
Autodesk AutoCAD Forum
· What's New/Want Ads
November 25, 1991 11:29 PM
Jeffrey: Reading too much James Joyce lately?? – Mark M.
From:
Mark Middlebrook[AcadTM]
Autodesk AutoCAD Forum
· Hrdware/Drvrs/ADI
November 25, 1991 11:29 PM
David: "Best" for what? You can shoot slides with some slow film and a tripod – average quality, but cheap if you already have the equipment. You can send out AutoCAD SLD or DWG files to a service bureau – should be good quality, but expensive per-slide cost. If you're…
David: DWGDUMP is a utility in the LIBs which dumps AutoCAD DWG file table data (layers, blocks, etc.) to the screen or to a file. I've used it successfully on several R. 11 drawings, so we may have to wait and hope for a reply from the program's author. -…
Mike: If "display and look at drawings from within the app" means from within the Clipper application, that's going to be a bit tricky, since Autodesk doesn't document the DWG file format. There are some "viewing libraries" you can compile into another program, as well as stand-alone viewers you might…
Karl: Sue a man when he's down – naaa, not us. Sounds like you realize that your drawing file has been damaged. Since you've tried the Ctrl-C technique, your other recourse is to get ahold of one of the drawing recovery programs and see what it can do with the…
Walt: You guessed right; you're out of disk space. AutoCAD 386's virtual memory systems can gobble disk space like crazy, especially with enormous drawings like the ones you're talking about. Like Dave said, 3 times the file size is a *very* rough rule of thumb, and in this case it's…
Mike: Not really. "The AutoCAD Database Book" is more about the drawing file *as* database, and how to send some of that data to other programs (a very simple dBASE BOM application, exporting to a spreadsheet, etc.). A substantial part of the book consists of appendices documenting the AutoCAD database…
Shelly: PS-PEN.ZIP is in the ACAD forum, probably LIB 9 or LIB 5 (maybe LIB 10, though). With what prgogram do you intend to use it? – Mark M.
From:
Mark Middlebrook[AcadTM]
Autodesk Software Forum
· Hrdware/Drvrs/ADI
October 14, 1991 10:03 AM
John & Gary: I see. Are there any .IDR digitizer drivers besides the sample Wacom SD42 yet? Is there anything special about how that driver/digitizer works? – Mark M.
Dave (via myself): After some more testing today, I think the cursor "stickiness" in 3DS and AniPro is just the standard Phar Lap VSCAN stutter. Running CFIG386 would probably minimize it. The "float" didn't go away, even after I stripped AUTOEXEC & CONFIG down to a minimum. It's especially pronounced…
James: Hmmm. I played around with the Kurta drivers a bit more today, and found that removing a bunch of TSRs from my AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files made the "stickiness" go away. As far as I can tell, the Lantastic network drivers were the culprit. The "cursor wall" was torn…
John: I haven't ever used a Wacom tablet. Other than its cordless-ness, is there anything special about it? What does it cost, roughly? – Mark M.
Dave: Yes, the Summa seems to work fairly well with 3DS's and AniPro's Summa drivers . I did notice a slight bit of cursor stickiness, as well as the "float" I told you about via Email. I'm beginning to wonder whether there isn't a TSR conflict or compatibility problem in…
James: Interesting, I've had "sticky cursor" problems with the Kurta using mouse emulation in 3DS. Also, in AA Pro and several other programs, I have trouble getting the cursor to all corners of the screen – it's like there's a "wall" keeping me from moving the cursor past a certain…
Craig: Grant and Josh told you what you need to know – no modes to set, since the Chaos modules won't go above 640×480. Sorry I didn't jump in sooner – I don't log onto the ASOFT forum as often as I do ACAD. For higher resolution fractals, you might…
Digitizers w/ 3DS or ANI
Message #4355
From:
Mark Middlebrook[AcadTM]
Autodesk Software Forum
· Hrdware/Drvrs/ADI
October 12, 1991 12:34 PM
Are any of you using digitizers with 3D Studio and/or AniPro, or do most people stick with mice? I'm reviewing a bunch of digitizers, and several of their mouse and Summa emulations seems less than completely compatible with these two programs ("sticky" cursors, etc.). Any experiences good or bad with…
#3809-
Chaos Theory Software
Message #3951
Larry: Autodesk has two programs in which you might be interested: 1) James Gleick's CHAOS: The Software – six modules based on some of the ideas in Gleick's book: Mandelbrot and related sets, strange attractors, magnets and pendula, IFS fractals, cellular automata, and fractal landscapes, planets, & clouds. All of…