Hello all,

The following are some questions and comments based on a little 
"real" work in Squeak.  This has occured on a confusing mix of 
versions and platforms.  When in doubt, assume 3.2 gamma, 
Win98 on a P2-400, though I've done some of it on NT4 and some 
on a P-200 running Win95.  The goal was to get Squeak to read 
incoming MIDI data and to display it in a variety of morphs.  It 
works (for a while anyway, see below) but, isn't anything to brag 
about yet.

First, an aside on 3D graphics: the only time that I've crashed 
Squeak was by enabling (well, trying to anyway<g>) hardware 
acceleration on the Explore 3D morph.  I'm actually glad it 
happened, because it showed me that Squeak has a crash dump; 
does the dump feature also exist on Linux?  

I have managed to get Squeak to lock up though.  Some of it is 
probably my fault, but, in 3.0 again playing with the Explore 3D 
morph, I find that by "running into the cube", I can get Squeak to 
freeze to the point that I have to kill it from the task list.  

In 3.2 gamma at least, I've had some less extreme freezes, some 
of which happened while experimenting with Morphic, and I think 
they were definitely my fault.  It was generally possible to control-
c/break into a debugger, at least on a P2-400.  

During some MIDI experiments on a P-200, I've had some freezes 
that control-break won't interrupt.  Squeak's message loop appears 
to be running though, because it will shut down via the [x] on the 
title bar.  It's possible that the work load is too much to ask of the 
machine, though the IDE runs fairly well on it.  The choice of 
machine was mostly due to having a hand-me-down box that 
wasn't doing anything and happens to be MIDI-aware.  A faster 
machine will become available in the near future.

Any suggestions for figuring out why Squeak locks up in any given 
case?  Again, a lot of my trouble could be inadequate hardware for 
the MIDI application.  However, I also get a non-breakable lockup 
when loading Bob's UI into 3.2 gamma.  Any suggestions for how 
one would debug that?

It seems fairly common for window resizing to leave Morphic in a 
confused state; restore display fixes it, but, I find myself falling 
back on that too often.  Disabling "Defer display udpate" appears to 
fix it, but, (I think) at some performance penalty???

Squeak's appearance has improved a lot recently.  The feel is still 
a little off, and my past comment that it would be hard to sell a 
Squeak app to clerical users stands; please don't underestimate 
the value of the kind of data they enter into machines, nor the 
volume of their complaints when asked to reach for a mouse.  

Bill

Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
bills at anest4.anest.ufl.edu
(352) 846-1285