Apple has announced the release of System 7 Tune-Up, a series of enhancements to system 7. Among the features of Tune-Up are better performance under low-memory situations, and improvements to printing, as well as a few bug fixes.

The System 7 Forum's Gene Steinberg (AFA GeneS) interviewed System 7 software engineer Greg Marriott (JusSomeGuy), a member of Apple's "Blue Meanie" team and a frequent contributor to the forums, about the new software package.

AFA GeneS  : What's the purpose of the System 7 Tune-up? Is this a 
             bug fix or an upgradeÑ-or neither?

JusSomeGuy : System 7 Tune-Up is a response to user feedback for 
             7.0. We're offering users improved printing
             performance, improved memory usage by the system 
             (meaning more memory available for use by
             applications), and much better handling of low-memory 
             situations. Also included are a few bug fixes to
             prevent some crashes and data corruption.

AFA GeneS  : What is to be found on the Tune-Up disc? Can you 
             describe the purpose of each of the elements of this
             packageÑ-and how they're to be installed by the
             end-user?

JusSomeGuy : System 7 Tune-Up comes on a single 800K floppy, with 
             an Installer on the disk. All of the new pieces can
             be installed by hand, though, by dragging them to the
             System Folder icon. The pieces include: a LaserWriter
             print driver, a StyleWriter print driver, a File
             Sharing Extension, a Chooser and an extension called
             System 7 Tune-Up. The new LaserWriter driver will
             improve the printing speed for TrueType fonts.

JusSomeGuy : The new StyleWriter driver doubles the speed of the
             printer for most documents. The File Sharing
             Extension fixes some data corruption bugs with shared
             file access. The Chooser is much faster on large
             networks than the previous version (about 8 to 16
             times faster).

JusSomeGuy : The Tune-Up extension implements the new better
             memory handling and a couple of features designed
             to make the user experience better performance in
             low-memory situations (especially 2Mb users). The
             first of these involves printing. When the user has
             background printing turned on, but there is not
             enough memory to launch PrintMonitor. The system will
             now offer to print in the foreground instead. The
             user may still elect to print in the background if
             they wish, but printing will not begin until memory
             is made available (usually by quitting an
             application).

JusSomeGuy : The second of these new features has to do with
             opening applications. Many times novice users 
             will close their document, switch to the Finder, and
             forget that their application is still running. 
             Opening a new application yields the "not enough
             memory" dialog (affectionately known around here
             as the "buy more RAM" dialog :). With Tune-Up
             installed, the system will offer to quit any 
             applications without open windows when the user tries
             to open an application when not enough memory is
             available.

JusSomeGuy : <whew>  ga 

AFA GeneS  : How did you decide what features to incorporate in
             this package?

JusSomeGuy : To answer your question, I should mention the System
             7 AnswerLine. We log every complaint in a database.
             This was the main source we used to decide what to
             put into System 7 Tune-Up. Many of the users who
             called were sent a beta copy of Tune-Up, so we could
             see if we were solving their problems adequately.
             I want to encourage everyone to give us feedback
             about what you like and don't like about the
             system software. We're committed to giving you what
             you need, but we have to hear from you to know what
             that is!

AFA GeneS  : Let's talk about the improvements to printing under 
             system 7. You refer to better TrueType printing with
             the new Laserwriter driver. What about users of
             Type 1 fontsÑ-will they find any improvement in
             performance?

JusSomeGuy : Some general improvements were made to overall 
             printing performance in the LW driver, but most users
             will notice little (if any) improvement if they're
             not using TrueType fonts. In other words Type 1
             performance was already pretty good and we weren't
             able to improve it much.

AFA GeneS  : What about reports by some users of frequent printer 
             errors under system 7. Is there any reason for these
             errors and have you been able to find any general
             cause for them?

JusSomeGuy : If you mean PostScript errors, we've noticed fewer of 
             these with the new driver, but we didn't set out to
             specifically address that problem with this release.
             If you're talking about PrintMonitor becoming
             corrupted, we did fix a bug in the system which could
             cause the PrintMonitor file to be trashed if the user
             quit the application they printed from before
             printing was finished.

AFA GeneS  : The other complaint I hear in the System 7 forum 
             relates to floppy disc performance. Any improvements
             in that area?

JusSomeGuy : A couple of things. We improved the Finder's copy 
             speed for large files (>200K or so) on both hard
             disks and floppies. We also made a couple of changes 
             so that IN MOST CASES the system won't immediately
             ask for a floppy disk right after you eject it.

AFA GeneS  : Are there any specific system 7 bugs of any 
             importance that you are not addressing in this
             release?

JusSomeGuy : The bugs we addressed are the ones we heard the most 
             complaints about. I don't know of any crashing..
             or data corruption bugs that remain unresolved in 
             this release.

AFA GeneS  : What about the issue of the handling of removable 
             disc cartridges when file sharing is on...where
             you cannot eject a removable disc unless file sharing 
             is turned off, or you restart?

JusSomeGuy : Fixing this problem will involve some pretty
             extensive changes, beyond the scope of this release.
             We are working on a solution for a future system 
             release.

AFA GeneS  : When Tune-Up is installed, does the 7.0 user end up 
             with 7.0.1Ñor something in between?

JusSomeGuy : System 7 Tune-Up does not bring 7.0 users up to 
             version 7.0.1. Tune-Up provides the same benefits to
             both system versions, but does not make them the
             same.

AFA GeneS  : Is there any reason for a 7.0 user to upgrade to 
             7.0.1 (other than the needs of the hardware)?

JusSomeGuy : I don't think so. The much talked about SANE 
             improvements are inconsequential to most users. Some
             applications that do intensive floating point math 
             will get a small boost from 7.0.1, but most apps that
             do such calculations already directly address the FPU
             chip, and so don't benefit.

AFA GeneS  : Some published reports say there's a 7.1 in our 
             future? Are these reports true?

JusSomeGuy : Of course there will be a 7.1!  But, we haven't 
             announced a ship date (and I won't do it here :)

AFA GeneS  : Can you speak at this early date of what items you 
             want to address in 7.1?

JusSomeGuy : Sorry, but I can't. Be assured, though, that you'll 
             all want to upgrade! It's got some neat stuff.

AFA GeneS  : Thank you for this very informative chat, Greg. We 
             look forward always to your valuable advice and
             counsel on system 7 and other Mac software issues. 
             And we know that as users have additional ques-
             tions on system 7 and the new System 7 Tune-Up, you 
             and your fellow Blue Meanies will be online to give
             us the answers. Thanks again.

JusSomeGuy : Always a pleasure.