Re: [NTLK] NCX Blues...

Well, my goodness, why do these things always happen. Guess it's all the
SPAM in my inbox everyday that keeps me from spotting important messages...

I spoke too soon about Simon not having replied. He sent me a person reply
this morning. Here are some highlights of what he wrote (Simon in quotes):

* WHEN CONNECTION BREAKS NCX DOESN'T REPORT AN ERROR

"The UI (the part of NCX that talks to you) and the Docker (the part
of NCX that talks to your Newton) run in separate threads. If the
Docker gets stuck, it can¹t update the UI, so you get misleading
messages like that left up on the display. Similarly, cancelling an
operation from the UI under these conditions won¹t update the Docker.
This needs sorting out, but is non-trivial."

* WHY DOES NCX BREAK CONNECTIONS?

"That¹s the question. I¹ve just had a conversation with someone who
says transfers work fine with their MP2100 but fail with an eMate.
What I suggested there is that there might be something wrong with
their serial cable, or their USB driver software might be out-of-
date. I have a Keyspan adapter, the Serial Assistant reports Status
version 3 Verstring 2.0 [08/06/2003 03:02p
16,384 USA07] {USA-07 2003aug06 15:02}

"I haven¹t had a response yet, but you might want to check those areas
too."

"All I can say is that I use serial exclusively when
testing, and I don¹t experience these problems."

Here's my (James Wages) Keyspan Serial Assistant data:

Device Type: 3
Device Name: USA28X18223P1.-Port1
DialIn Device: /dev/tty.USA28X18223P1.1
DialOut Device: /dev/cu.USA28X18223P1.1
Fifo: 0
Tx Ack: 0
Status: USB Device Added (vendor 6cd product 102 devRelease 0)

* WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP SIMON?

"... you could check the console log to see what NCX reports there."

* CONCERNING BROKEN UP SCREEN SHOTS

" I see Bob Chen chimed in on this on NewtonTalk. He tells me that if
he freezes Dashboard then the screen shot works -- I don¹t know if
you¹ve tried this. I don¹t know what Dashboard could be doing to
cause this. Interesting that your plea for more screen shot
experience didn¹t elicit a single response from the list!"

All I (James Wages) can say to the list is: shame on all of you! :-(

I personally don't have time to tinker. Indeed, I don't have much time to
do anything outside of work. So I have to MAKE TIME. I expect it's the
same with everyone on this list. Folks, please MAKE TIME to test these
things. NCX isn't just any Newton package. NCX is THE software for every
Newton user who also uses OS X. Therefore, it should be our priority to
test thoroughly. Even if you don't need to make a backup, make one. Even
if you don't want to use Serial, use it. Even if you don't normally
transfer data over 1 or 2MB in size, give it a try. All this will work to
help Simon make NCX even better. For me along? Nay, my friends. For the
entire Newton community.

Thanks,

James Wages

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Received on Mon Oct 29 18:36:53 2007