TweetFollow Us on Twitter

Jul 94 Editor's Page
Volume Number:10
Issue Number:7
Column Tag:The Editor's Page

What’s Up With That Cover?

By Scott T Boyd, Editor

What’s up with that cover?

By now you’ve probably heard about the USgovernment’s efforts to maintain the ability to tap into communications, even as technology makes doing so ever more challenging. The FBIis sponsoring laws requiring a government backdoor on telecommunications equipment, including phones and networks (even LANs), while the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) is promoting an encryption chip known as Clipper. They would have device manufacturers build the chip into their phone switches, telephones, network routers, and so forth. It would offer low-cost, ubiquitous encryption, while leaving a backdoor for court-authorized decrypting for law enforcement purposes.

So what’s the problem? Can you imagine serious criminals, the technologically-savvy ones the legislation is purportedly aimed at, using Clipper devices? Perhaps more problematic, the encryption techniques that Clipper use are not public (yet). Every other self-respecting technique has been subjected to the efforts of the encryption community to see just how much effort it takes to crack any given method. By not opening Clipper to this kind of scrutiny, it gives rise to the suspicion that there may be another backdoor, one which does not require a court order to get the two “key escrow” government agencies to release the two parts of the key needed to do a legitimate decryption.

It’s a far more complicated issue than I’ve described here. Nevertheless, George Orwell would be proud. Whether or not it’s a conspiracy, it’s clear that the widespread adoption of Clipper could have some far-reaching consequences, and the thought of this has kicked up quite a ruckus on the Net. Some of the most insidious government intrusions have come about as a result of governments trying to be helpful.

One outcome of the furor on the Net is the t-shirt pictured on the cover. Just gotta have one? The shirts are XL and black only, and the creators of the shirt accept COD orders at iplus1hope@aol.com ($14.50) and check orders ($12.50) at PO Box 59152 Renton, WA 98058.

What’s up with apple?

Last week was filled with lots of developers, lots of new technologies, and enough hot air to fill an armada of hot air balloons. Yes, that’s right, WWDC, Apple’s annual gathering of the faithful at the San Jose Convention Center. Over $1000 worth of fun, festivities, and vegan meals.

The conference in a nutshell? Based on reports from those who were there: Three new systems coming: 7.5, Copland (microkernel, new user interface), Gershwin (memory protection, preemption, more interface). Dylan alpha in Q3. PCI in 1995. No ATG night. Games session. OpenDoc, OpenDoc, OpenDoc. Exhibits. Gordon Biersch parties. Metrowerks vs. Symantec. No Taligent.

Apparently, Taligent was positioned as “any other 3rd party developer”, albeit one which might ship a “personality” toolbox for Macs (and other boxes) one day. It’s pretty disappointing seeing it slip away rather than become the next-generation Macintosh.

There were plenty of OpenDoc sessions. The first demos didn’t go so well, and had plenty of good-natured jokes flying about certain résumés getting polished up, but attendees tell us that they were impressed, it’s real, and it’s looking good. We’ll be bringing you in-depth coverage of OpenDoc soon.

Games developers take heart - Apple not only said that games were a fine thing to write, but that they want to help you! Should we all duck for cover, or take them up on their offer? While we’re on the subject, check out develop #17 for Brigham Stevens’ Ten Tips for Game Developers, as well as the Game Development Discussion on AppleLink.

There may be big opportunities coming up in helping people write device drivers. Why? Because 1995 will see the introduction of the PCIbus in Macs of all flavors, from the top to the bottom of the line (not all at once, and not all in 95). Hardware vendors will be scrambling to bring their PCI devices to the Mac, and there’s precious little experience making PCI devices work with Macs out there at the moment.

Holy Wars

There’s nothing quite like the topic of language preferences to get the letters flowing in. Several of our readers have written to complain that MacTech Magazine has caved in and is now attempting to help spread the adoption of C and C++ as the language standard for Macintosh. What languages would they like to see us cover? Pascal. Lisp. Smalltalk. Dylan. Here’s just one of many letters:

You asked us to let you know if we, MacTech subscribers, were interested in coverage of languages such as Lisp, Dylan, and Smalltalk. The answer here is absolutely yes!

I have been a subscriber since Issue #3 (1984!). It boggles my mind that anyone would program the Mac on low level languages like C, C++, or Pascal (except for the people who write Lisp systems!).

[Dylan] sounds hot to me. I hope you guys are on it.

- John sotos@camis.stanford.edu

There’s no denying that C and C++have grabbed their share of the developer market. It reminds me somewhat of a large company in the Pacific Northwest which did something similar with a technology that many people believe is inferior to other available technologies.

Nevertheless, we’ll continue to cover C and C++. That’s most of you seem to use to make your living. That’s reality. However, that’s not to say that we believe that they are the be-all/end-all languages. How could they be? Even the fastest C++compiler is no match for a dynamic, incremental compilation, interactive environment like the ones you can find in Macintosh Common Lisp, SmalltalkAgents, and others.

As noted here last month, WWDC did indeed offer some coverage of Dylan. The future is looking bright for dynamic, object-oriented languages and their interactive development environments. It seems that Dylan sessions at the conference captivated standing-room-only audiences for hours. One Dylan team member claims a six-fold productivity increase when he builds user interfaces over any other environment he’s ever used. That’s a little hard to believe, but it’s also mighty hard to ignore. Count on us to expand our coverage of OODLs, dynamic languages, et al over the next few months.

Quotable

“You know, I’ve already got A/UX 2.0” - [wished to remain anonymous for some reason], heard after a future OSsession.

“When they said, ‘And this is the larger area where OpenDoc will impact on,’ Ihad a vision of a large smoking crater.” - Marshall Clow

“Zero is at the bottom; that’s the way God draws memory.” - Russell Williams, Apple employee with the biggest hair, coolest bow tie, and most excellent tie-dye dress shirt.

And what would the conference be without a reference from the far distant past about getting up to ask a question at the microphone, “You’re not a yogurt-head, though ” - David Shayer

Food for thought

About Apple supposedly profiteering off of developers: “This is not true. This absolutely is not true. Don’t believe what you read [in various publications].” About Apple not investing in developers, Apple spends $50 million per year on developers. “We think you’re worth it. We think it’s money well spent.” - Ike Nassi, VP of Development Products, Apple

 

Community Search:
MacTech Search:

Software Updates via MacUpdate

Dropbox 193.4.5594 - Cloud backup and sy...
Dropbox is a file hosting service that provides cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. It is a modern workspace that allows you to get to all of your files, manage... Read more
Google Chrome 122.0.6261.57 - Modern and...
Google Chrome is a Web browser by Google, created to be a modern platform for Web pages and applications. It utilizes very fast loading of Web pages and has a V8 engine, which is a custom built... Read more
Skype 8.113.0.210 - Voice-over-internet...
Skype is a telecommunications app that provides HD video calls, instant messaging, calling to any phone number or landline, and Skype for Business for productive cooperation on the projects. This... Read more
Tor Browser 13.0.10 - Anonymize Web brow...
Using Tor Browser you can protect yourself against tracking, surveillance, and censorship. Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a third-generation onion-routing project of the U.... Read more
Deeper 3.0.4 - Enable hidden features in...
Deeper is a personalization utility for macOS which allows you to enable and disable the hidden functions of the Finder, Dock, QuickTime, Safari, iTunes, login window, Spotlight, and many of Apple's... Read more
OnyX 4.5.5 - Maintenance and optimizatio...
OnyX is a multifunction utility that you can use to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks, to configure parameters in the... Read more
Hopper Disassembler 5.14.1 - Binary disa...
Hopper Disassembler is a binary disassembler, decompiler, and debugger for 32- and 64-bit executables. It will let you disassemble any binary you want, and provide you all the information about its... Read more

Latest Forum Discussions

See All

Zenless Zone Zero opens entries for its...
miHoYo, aka HoYoverse, has become such a big name in mobile gaming that it's hard to believe that arguably their flagship title, Genshin Impact, is only three and a half years old. Now, they continue the road to the next title in their world, with... | Read more »
Live, Playdate, Live! – The TouchArcade...
In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show we kick things off by talking about all the games I splurged on during the recent Playdate Catalog one-year anniversary sale, including the new Lucas Pope jam Mars After Midnight. We haven’t played any... | Read more »
TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Vroomies’
So here’s a thing: Vroomies from developer Alex Taber aka Unordered Games is the Game of the Week! Except… Vroomies came out an entire month ago. It wasn’t on my radar until this week, which is why I included it in our weekly new games round-up, but... | Read more »
SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘MLB The Show 24’...
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 15th, 2024. We’re closing out the week with a bunch of new games, with Sony’s baseball franchise MLB The Show up to bat yet again. There are several other interesting games to... | Read more »
Steam Deck Weekly: WWE 2K24 and Summerho...
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. The busy season has begun with games we’ve been looking forward to playing including Dragon’s Dogma 2, Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, and also console exclusives like Rise of the... | Read more »
Steam Spring Sale 2024 – The 10 Best Ste...
The Steam Spring Sale 2024 began last night, and while it isn’t as big of a deal as say the Steam Winter Sale, you may as well take advantage of it to save money on some games you were planning to buy. I obviously recommend checking out your own... | Read more »
New ‘SaGa Emerald Beyond’ Gameplay Showc...
Last month, Square Enix posted a Let’s Play video featuring SaGa Localization Director Neil Broadley who showcased the worlds, companions, and more from the upcoming and highly-anticipated RPG SaGa Emerald Beyond. | Read more »
Choose Your Side in the Latest ‘Marvel S...
Last month, Marvel Snap (Free) held its very first “imbalance" event in honor of Valentine’s Day. For a limited time, certain well-known couples were given special boosts when conditions were right. It must have gone over well, because we’ve got a... | Read more »
Warframe welcomes the arrival of a new s...
As a Warframe player one of the best things about it launching on iOS, despite it being arguably the best way to play the game if you have a controller, is that I can now be paid to talk about it. To whit, we are gearing up to receive the first... | Read more »
Apple Arcade Weekly Round-Up: Updates an...
Following the new releases earlier in the month and April 2024’s games being revealed by Apple, this week has seen some notable game updates and events go live for Apple Arcade. What The Golf? has an April Fool’s Day celebration event going live “... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

Apple Education is offering $100 discounts on...
If you’re a student, teacher, or staff member at any educational institution, you can use your .edu email address when ordering at Apple Education to take $100 off the price of a new M3 MacBook Air.... Read more
Apple Watch Ultra 2 with Blood Oxygen feature...
Best Buy is offering Apple Watch Ultra 2 models for $50 off MSRP on their online store this week. Sale prices available for online orders only, in-store prices may vary. Order online, and choose... Read more
New promo at Sams Club: Apple HomePods for $2...
Sams Club has Apple HomePods on sale for $259 through March 31, 2024. Their price is $40 off Apple’s MSRP, and both Space Gray and White colors are available. Sale price is for online orders only, in... Read more
Get Apple’s 2nd generation Apple Pencil for $...
Apple’s Pencil (2nd generation) works with the 12″ iPad Pro (3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generation), 11″ iPad Pro (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation), iPad Air (4th and 5th generation), and iPad mini (... Read more
10th generation Apple iPads on sale for $100...
Best Buy has Apple’s 10th-generation WiFi iPads back on sale for $100 off MSRP on their online store, starting at only $349. With the discount, Best Buy’s prices are the lowest currently available... Read more
iPad Airs on sale again starting at $449 on B...
Best Buy has 10.9″ M1 WiFi iPad Airs on record-low sale prices again for $150 off Apple’s MSRP, starting at $449. Sale prices for online orders only, in-store price may vary. Order online, and choose... Read more
Best Buy is blowing out clearance 13-inch M1...
Best Buy is blowing out clearance Apple 13″ M1 MacBook Airs this weekend for only $649.99, or $350 off Apple’s original MSRP. Sale prices for online orders only, in-store prices may vary. Order... Read more
Low price alert! You can now get a 13-inch M1...
Walmart has, for the first time, begun offering new Apple MacBooks for sale on their online store, albeit clearance previous-generation models. They now have the 13″ M1 MacBook Air (8GB RAM, 256GB... Read more
Best Apple MacBook deal this weekend: Get the...
Apple has 13″ M2 MacBook Airs available for only $849 today in their Certified Refurbished store. These are the cheapest M2-powered MacBooks for sale at Apple. Apple’s one-year warranty is included,... Read more
New 15-inch M3 MacBook Air (Midnight) on sale...
Amazon has the new 15″ M3 MacBook Air (8GB RAM/256GB SSD/Midnight) in stock and on sale today for $1249.99 including free shipping. Their price is $50 off MSRP, and it’s the lowest price currently... Read more

Jobs Board

Early Preschool Teacher - Glenda Drive/ *Appl...
Early Preschool Teacher - Glenda Drive/ Apple ValleyTeacher Share by Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Twitter Read more
Senior Software Engineer - *Apple* Fundamen...
…center of Microsoft's efforts to empower our users to do more. The Apple Fundamentals team focused on defining and improving the end-to-end developer experience in Read more
Relationship Banker *Apple* Valley Main - W...
…Alcohol Policy to learn more. **Company:** WELLS FARGO BANK **Req Number:** R-350696 **Updated:** Mon Mar 11 00:00:00 UTC 2024 **Location:** APPLE VALLEY,California Read more
Medical Assistant - Surgical Oncology- *Apple...
Medical Assistant - Surgical Oncology- Apple Hill WellSpan Medical Group, York, PA | Nursing | Nursing Support | FTE: 1 | Regular | Tracking Code: 200555 Apply Now Read more
Early Preschool Teacher - Glenda Drive/ *Appl...
Early Preschool Teacher - Glenda Drive/ Apple ValleyTeacher Share by Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Twitter Read more
All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.