Archive-name: NEXTSTEP-Compatibility-FAQ Last-modified: Fri Aug 27 01:27:51 EDT 1993 Version: 3.0 Every four weeks (depending on the phase of the moon) a number of postings are made to comp.sys.next.announce which are a compilation of answers to frequently asked questions in the comp.sys.next.* Usenet newsgroups. The FAQ list is broken into sections and posted separately. These sections focus on various aspects of NEXTSTEP and NeXT machines. Items that appear within sections are not in any particular order, and get added and removed over time. Posting the sections separately allows people to find the sections interesting to them quickly. Within each section each question will be preceded by a "Subject:" field, allowing news readers to break up the file into separate questions. Each question has its own unique number. The FAQ is kept on-line at several ftp sites, including: cs.orst.edu sonata.cc.purdue.edu srawgw.sra.co.jp [133.137.4.3] Many FAQs, including this one, are available via FTP on the archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which this FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-nameline above. Questions marked with a "+" are new to this issue, and questions with changes since the last issue are marked by a "!". Submissions, corrections, comments, input, etc., should be directed to Nathan Janette . Disclaimer: We are not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this posting. This compilation is meant primarily as a service to the comp.sys.next community. We do not collect any royalties, charge any fees, or compensate anyone in connection with this endeavor. TABLE OF CONTENTS: ------------------ A1. Where can I obtain a NEXTSTEP version of X-Windows? A2. Can I run DOS software on NEXTSTEP? A3. Can I run Macintosh Programs on my NeXT? A4. Can I run tcsh, zsh or bash on NEXTSTEP? A5. Can sound files be used on Sun OS and NEXTSTEP interchangeably? A6. Why does talk not work between NEXTSTEP and SUN OS? A7. How do I get the arrow keys to work in csh? A8. How do I view/convert GIF/TIF/jpeg images? ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A1. Where can I obtain a NEXTSTEP version of X-Windows? [Douglas Scott ] A new version of the public-domain monochrome and color "Mouse-X" X server binaries is now available on foxtrot.ccmrc.ucsb.edu as ~ftp/pub/X11R5-MouseX.tar.Z. This tarfile contains the binaries for the two servers, a README file, and a new version of the front end App. The new server version will now work on NeXTs with the new ADB keyboard, as well as NeXTs with the original keyboards. As before, these servers will also run on Turbos and non-Turbos. The new front end App allows you to toggle between machine configurations (but you must restart the server to have them take effect). For those who have not used the "Mouse-X" X servers and are interested, read the README.FIRST file in the same directory as the above file for more information about what you will need. ***** For those who are waiting for the MIT X source patch: ***** I should have this ready by the end of the week, and I will be placing it in the submissions directories on orst and sonata as X11R5-source.patch.tar.Z. Pencom Software of Austin, TX is distributing co-Xist, an X11R4 color server that supports all hardware platforms and runs under NEXTSTEP 2.0 or higher. The rootless version of co-Xist allows you to use not only Motif but also NEXTSTEP as a window manager ie. X-windows are opened on the WorkSpace screen and act completely like NEXTSTEP windows. The Motif Window Manager, development libraries and online Digital Librarian documentation are available as options. A demo is available on sonata.cc.purdue.edu For more information: Pencom Software email: co-Xist_info@pencom.com Voice: 1-800-PENCOM4 or Cub'X in Puteaux, France has a commercial X server. Cub'X-Window's new version 3.01 is now available. Its most important improvement resides in a new option permitting to run X-Window inside NeXTstep. For more information: Claire Normand Cub'x Syst\mes Tour CBC, Cedex 71, 92043 Paris La D]fense, France tel: +33-1-46-93-29-25 Fax: +33-1-46-93-29-21 claire@cubx.oleane.com MIT maintains a ftp server for X distribution: export.lcs.mit.edu It currently does not have any NeXT specific servers. If you compile software make sure the libraries are install in the ld path, and that you use the X provided C pre-processor. There is another commercial X product called eXodus. White Pine Software 603-866-9050. ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A2. Can I run DOS software on NEXTSTEP? NEXTSTEP systems are able to read, write, and format DOS diskettes in addition to UNIX filesystems. Consult the User Manual. There is a product called Soft-PC available for NEXTSTEP. For more information: Insignia Solutions, Inc. Voice: 408 694 7600 ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A3. Can I run Macintosh Programs on my NeXT? NEXTSTEP systems are able to read, write, and format Mac diskettes in addition to UNIX filesystems. Consult the User Manual. Abacus R&D, Inc. offers products called Executor and HFS_XFer that allow some Mac functionality. Executor is a program that allows you to run programs originally written for the Macintosh, on your NeXT computer. Currently the two major applications that we support are Microsoft Word (versions 4.0E, 5.0 and 5.1) and Microsoft Excel (versions 3.0A and 4.0). You must own a copy of these applications in order to use them; Microsoft software does not come with Executor. Executor is actually a full-blown Macintosh emulator, except we have prioritized the bug fixing and fixed all the bugs pertaining to Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel so that we can sell this version now to people who want it. Executor works nicely in the NeXT environment, allowing the use of services and cut and paste of ASCII and Rich Text between Executor and other NEXTSTEP applications. Word 5 can read and print .eps and .tiff files. Reverse engineering the Macintosh is a difficult task. There are some pieces of the software yet to do. Consequently, Executor 1.x has the following limitations: No Color, No Sound, No System 7, No AppleTalk, No Script Manage (i.e. no non-US localizations) and limited Desk Accessory support. HFS_XFer is a Desk Accessory that allows you to transfer files between HFS (Hierarchical FileSystem) Macintosh disks and the NeXT, where they're stored in Apple Double format. This allows you to copy files to the NeXT and later back to a Macintosh floppy without having to worry about reassembling the "resource fork". Naturally HFS_XFer and Executor work well together. HFS_XFer is what you use to load your copy of Microsoft Word onto your NeXT in the first place, but it's good for much more than that because you can use it to transfer any information on a Macintosh disk to your NeXT, and vice-versa. The extensions to HFS that were introduced with System 7 are not supported, and files are transferred over directly without any translation in between. HFS_XFer reads and writes Mac floppies and reads Mac hard drives and CD-ROMs. HFS_XFer is limited to disks that the hardware can read, so you can not read 800k disks unless you have special hardware such as the CubeFloppy Plus from DIT. A complete (multi-architecture-binary), time-limited, release of Executor is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.unm.edu for evaluation. ARDI Suite 101 1650 University Blvd. NE Albuquerque, NM 87102 PHONE: +1 505 766 9115 FAX: +1 505 247 1899 Email: questions@ardi.com Digital Instrumentation Technology vends software called FloppyWorks which can read and write Macintosh diskettes. DIT also offers an external floppy drive called CubeFloppy Plus that can format, read, and write 400 and 800 KB Mac disks. For more information: Digital Instrumentation Technology email: sales@dit.com Voice: 505 662 1459 Fax: 505 662 0897 Bill Roth has written a program called MacinDisk ToshBrowser which read 1.4 Meg Mac disks. A demo version is available on sonata.cc.purdue.edu. For more information: Impact Software email: impact@impact.shaman.com voice: 1-800-822-3385. [From: sanguish@digifix.com] There is also a program on sonata/orst/compuserve called ResDump.tar.Z that will let you snarf individual resources from Macintosh disks under 3.x. ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A4. Can I run tcsh, zsh or bash on NEXTSTEP? If you are simply looking for emacs-like command editing you can do this with the csh distributed by NeXT by typing: set editmode=emacs or set editmode=vi Note that file completion will conflict with vi's use of esc to leave insert mode, so you may want to map file completion to tab by adding the following to your ~/.bindings: bind-to-key FilenameExpansion "\^I" In addition it is possible to bind control keys to commands with a .bindings file. Users should seek the csh(1) man page for more information. People have ported tcsh and bash to NEXTSTEP. bash is available from prep.ai.mit.edu, the current version 1.12.1 makes correctly on NEXTSTEP. tcsh binaries for all kinds of machines are available on tesla.ee.cornell.edu, possibly including binaries for NeXT machines. In addition zsh is also available. Zsh has interactive features very similar to but more extensive than those of tcsh. In addition zsh is based on sh/ksh, not on csh - something which very many even casual shell programmers will consider a great asset. A complete pre-compiled zsh package including documentation is available from the purdue archives. If you install your own shell on NEXTSTEP, you need to add it to the file /etc/shells so that FTP will work. ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A5. Can sound files be used on Sun OS and NEXTSTEP interchangeably? Sun OS 4.0.3 stored only raw mulaw files without any extensions. This format is obsolete; however to convert it to a NEXTSTEP snd format you can: sndconvert -o nextified.snd -f 1 -s 8012.8210513 -c 1 -r sun-sound Starting with Sun OS release 4.1 they adopted a file format like NEXTSTEP's: A comparison of on the Sun and on NEXTSTEP shows the formats to be compatible-- just rename *.au to *.snd for the NeXT. Sun only implements a subset of NEXTSTEP's sound file formats. Currently these seven are interchangeable: SND_FORMAT_MULAW_8 SND_FORMAT_LINEAR_8 SND_FORMAT_LINEAR_16 SND_FORMAT_LINEAR_24 SND_FORMAT_LINEAR_32 SND_FORMAT_FLOAT SND_FORMAT_DOUBLE While they are all _meaningful_ to the Sun, the standard SPARCstation hardware only directly supports 8-bit mu-Law at the CODEC sampling rate. If you have raw soundfiles (e.g. from SunOS 4.0.3 systems, or converted from the Macintosh), you can use raw2audio on the Sun or sndconvert -r on the NEXTSTEP system to add a sound header. ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A6. Why does talk not work between NEXTSTEP and SUN OS? Sun OS may run an archaic version of talk; install a new version. [From: Carl Edman ] Or try installing 'ytalk' available from sonata and orst. It offers many enhancements over talk among which is compatibility with at least some Sun workstation. ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A7. How do I get the arrow keys to work in csh? [This is for people who use a terminal app that does vt100 keyboard emulation - pasc] First, add these lines to your ".cshrc" (preferably between the if and endif): set editmode=emacs set macrofiles=.macros Then create a file called ".bindings" and put in it: bind-to-key ExecuteNamedMacro '\e[Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at E:\listplex\SYSTEM\SCRIPTS\filearea.cgi line 455, line 422. ' And, next, you need to make a file called ".macros" however, this one you need to enter some control characters into, because the csh STILL cannot write a macro file (And I'm using 2.1). Into this file put: A^@^@^@^A^P B^@^@^@^A^N C^@^@^@^A^F D^@^@^@^A^B where ^@ means Control-@ and ^A means Control-A, etc. Also, don't put in the leading spaces. This will set up the left and right arrows to move back and forth on the line, and the up and down arrows will cycle through your history. Then source .cshrc and the changes should take effect. ____________________________________________________________________________ ~Subject: A8. How do I view/convert GIF/TIF/jpeg images? Use ImageViewer by Lennart Lovstrand at Xerox EuroPARC. It can convert between many different image formats. It is available on the archive servers. [Carl Edman ] adds: Instead of using the version of the jpeg files shipped with ImageViewer instead use the latest version always to be found on ftp.uu.net in /graphics/jpeg. The latest version compiles easily and is more twice as fast and less memory hungry than the one shipped with ImageViewer (and with jpeg files this makes a big difference). pbmplus tools does most conversions through filters. Another package to look into is The Image Conversion Tools from: sdsc.edu sdscpub.dir/next.dir/graphics.dir.JPEG software en/decoder has been uploaded to the Purdue archives: pub/next/2.0-release/source/jpeg.tar.Z. A commercial application,PixelMagician, is available from Bachus Inc. For more information: 2210 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 330 Santa Monica, CA 90403 Voice: 310 820 9145 Fax: 310 820 5930 Email: info@bacchus.com, bacchus!info@uu2.psi.com Jef Poskanzers portable bitmap tools are also available pre-compiled from the purdue archives. In addition there is ViewGif2 (also available from the purdue archives) which is about 40% faster and less memory-hungry than ImageViewer but only displays gifs. [From: Robert Wong ] ViewGIF3 (version 3.01) is available now. It requires NS 3.0 There is also GraphicsWorkshop (also from purdue) which is a front end to a set of graphic converter objects that allow you to load, save, and view images in gif, jpg, tiff, pbm, pgm, ppm, and xbm formats. It will also allow you to do some basic image conversions like color to black and white or color to one bit. ____________________________________________________________________________ Editor: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu -- Nathan Janette Voice: 203 432 5065 Systems Manager Fax: 203 432 3923 Brunger Lab Internet: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu Yale Univ Dept MB&B/HHMI "I'm a NeXTstep Man, I'm a NeXTcube Guy"