How to use the Macintosh for the Computing Course

First Steps

An animated demonstration illustrating the first few steps is available as;

Also at this stage, check that no other programs are running before starting, otherwise you may have insufficient memory available for the session. You can ascertain this by viewing "About this Macintosh", from the Apple menu obtained by clicking anywhere on the "desktop" area.
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This has to be done once only

This section assumes you are familiar with very basic operations on a Macintosh. If you are not, consult the Macintosh documentation, and familiarise yourself with simple operations, including how to insert and format a floppy disk.

To start, select from the Apple menu the following sequence;

Chooser
Appleshare
ch.ethertalk2
AUFS Server Neon
and finally hit the OK button.




Type your Indigo account name and its password;

and click on OK. An icon with your id as its name will appear on the Mac desktop representing the Indigo hard disk system, and containing your Indigo files. The colour of this icon is dark, indicating it is "selected". Your very next step must be to make an alias of this item;


Next, insert a floppy disk into the Macintosh (you may have to initialise it) and copy the alias to the floppy disk.
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This has to be done at the start of every session

If your Indigo filebase has not already been mounted as above, insert the floppy disk with the Indigo alias and double click it. After prompting for your password, the Indigo files icon should remount ready for use again. Double click on this icon to open the folder and reveal the contents of your Indigo directory.



. Remember however that Indigo files have a different end-of-line character to Macintosh files, and so cannot be automatically interchanged.
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Starting the Editor

There are four ways of starting an editor.
  1. If you have not previously created any programs, click on first.f whereupon BBedit should start up to a blank screen.
  2. If you have a previously created a file in the Indigo disk area, double clicking will open BBedit directly.
  3. Invoke BBedit from the Word Processing items of the Apple menu.
  4. Invoke an editor directly on the Indigo workstations. Click here for details.
BBedit is quite similar in operation to most word processors. The display at the bottom of the editor indicates both the line and column position of the cursor

. Fortran programming statements must appear in column 7 onwards, and must not be wider than column 120. The editor window can be resized by placing the mouse cursor on an edge or on the bottom right hand corner and "dragging" the window to a new size. To move or delete a portion of text, select it first with the mouse and then use the Edit menu to manipulate the text;

Cutting text copies it to a "clipboard" ready for pasting elsewhere, whilst clearing selected text removes it entirely. Note that if you make a mistake, the last command can be "undone". Particular occurances of strings in the text can be found using the Search menu.
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Saving Your Work

To save your work, select first the file type;


.
This is important, because Macintosh and Unix files have a different "invisible" end-of-line characters, which are mutually incompatible. Next select the save as item;


.
You must select a file name for your program ending in .f and also select the Indigo file base you have previously mounted as your directory.
WARNING: If you do not save your files on the Unix file base, you will not be able to compile them. Double check that you have not mistakenly saved your file on the Macintosh disk instead. Backup files will also be created with names such as first.f (5/11/94)-1. These WILL be stored on the local hard disk of the Macintosh in the User's folder. If you suffer a major disaster during editing, you can always go back to any of the backups. After you are confident you will not need them, you should delete them by dragging the icons to the wastebasket. At regular intervals, you should save (instead of save as) your file in order to update the Indigo disk. Only after this has been done can another Indigo based program (e.g. the Fortran compiler) access the changes you may have made to it. Likewise, any changes in a listing or data file produced during compilation will not automatically appear in an editor window unless the file is opened again in the editor. You can have several files open in the editor simultaneously, but you need to "open" each. For example, you may have the prog.f file in one window, and the prog.lis file in another. Remember to re-open the file every time it changes (it is not updated automatically).
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Printing Program Listings.

From the file menu, select print. The output should appear on one of the Deskwriters located in room 170. You may find a delay of about 30 seconds occurs during the preparation for printing.
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Compiling and Executing

To compile and run your program, you will need to log into the Indigo systems. You can do so by clicking for argon, or neon or sodium. You will need again to supply your Indigo account and password in response to the prompts. In the Indigo window that appears, type;
ugfor yourprogname


Note that everything should be typed in lower case! This will assume that you have previously saved your program with a .f qualifier. A file called yourprogname.lis and an executable called yourprogname.uxe will be produced if there are no errors, and your program will automatically run and produce a file containing appropriate values. If compiler errors do occur, you should inspect the yourprogname.lis file using BBedit and correct the errors in the original yourprogname.f file, moving between the two editor windows to do so. It is most important to note that before you can re-compile this program, you must save the file again to disk in the editor, since the editor and compiler communicate only via the Indigo disk. If you have previously compiled your program and successfully produced an executable file, running ugfor again will produce a prompt asking whether you want to run it again, or whether you wish to re-compile your program to incorporate any modifications etc.
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The Projects

Both projects will produce additional disk files containing numerical information that will need to be plotted. Project A requires plotting using the Indigo Explorer program and you canot use a Macintosh for this purpose. Project B requires Cricket Graph III or similar, which can only be done from a Macintosh. To inspect any data files produced by your program, you can either open them in the editor, or issue the command from the console window;

page horbit.dat


To end paging, type q. Once your calculated data looks reasonable, run the Explorer or Cricketgraph programs.
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Finishing Your Session

Before leaving the Macintosh, be sure to drag-n-drop the
icon in the wastebasket, otherwise someone else could come along and delete your files (performing this action only dismounts the server, it does NOT delete your files!). Also, exit from the Indigo terminal session by selecting Quit from the File menu.
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Project Requirements.

This would normally involve writing about 100 to 150 lines of Fortran code. The deadline for submission of completed projects will be announced during the lectures, but will not be before mid-February. Your final report should include a program listing and hard copy of any graphical output. If you have other suggestions for a programming project, check with Dr Rzepa before starting.
Copyright (c) B. P. Levitt, H. S. Rzepa and ICSTM Chemistry Department, 1994.
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