5 January 2001
A few items are "not tested"--I include them only because I think that others may want to check them out--let me know. You can use your browser's search command (Command-F) to search this page. Use Version Tracker to find updates of any program. Some of the free & shareware stuff is available from Info-Mac, which has a good search command. Use AltaVista to search the web. (Use Anarchie to quickly search most of the world's public ftp sites.) - Denis Pelli
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Apple Game Sprockets - (not tested) software library for double buffering, CLUT control, fast keyboard input, etc. See August '97 interview with Game Sprockets technical lead, Chris De Salvo. (Get it from Apple's SDK site.) Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Apple Developer-World Search quickly find all of Apple's documentation on any topic. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Apple Displays - (formerly called AppleVision) latest update to Apple's system software for maximum compatibility with a wide range of displays. (To install, you'll need Disk Copy 6.1.3 or newer.) Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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AppleScript - Apple's scripting language gives you programmatic control of Macintosh applications and the Finder. It's very useful, but maddening, because there is so much variation in the degree to which various applications support it, and because the documentation from Apple (AppleScript and Finder) and the companies selling the applications often omit key details, and rarely include enough examples. The best AppleScript editor seems to be Scripter [link broken as of 10/27/00], but the template scripts that come with Script Debugger are invaluable. Useful tips at ScriptWeb, Bill Cheeseman's AppleScript Sourcebook, and Walter Ian Kaye's snippets. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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AppleShare IP - a more powerful server than the personal fileshare that's built into the Mac Os (since System 7.5). (I'm presently a happy user of personal fileshare IP.) AppleShare is available from most Mac software outlets 5/50 clients: $799??/$1,349?? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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ATM - Adobe Type Manager. High-quality on-screen rendering of PostScript fonts. $50 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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BBEdit - best text editor (not word processor). Compare files and folders. $119 regular /$79 academic. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CodeWarrior Professional - everyone's favorite C compiler. (Now includes C, C++, Pascal, and Java for both Macs and Windows/NT.) There's a newsgroup. $599 regular/$119 academic. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Compression (or try here) - lists programs to decompress anything anywhere. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Conflict Catcher - best startup manager. $63 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Cross-Platform Page - lists programs for reading and converting image, video, audio, and data compression/encoding file formats on most common computer systems. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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GoLive - my favorite web page editor. Adobe. $299 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Default Folder enhances Open dialogs with shortcuts. Doesn't conflict with anything; I even use this on my server. (Like SuperBoomerang in the good old days, when it was shareware.) Shareware. $25 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Easy Errors - explains all the Systems errors. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eudora - (not tested) this is the current standard email client, widely liked. (I'm still using Emailer, but it became an orphan when Claris became Filemaker Inc.) Qualcomm. Free/$39 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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EndNote Plus & EndLink - copy PubMed references into your paper. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Excel - massage data before plotting it. Included in Microsoft Office 98. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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File Buddy - handy way to change file type and creator. $25? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Finger - lookup someone's email address on their server. Peter Lewis. $10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Fontographer - create your own font. Macromedia. $329 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Gestalt Selectors (or here) - fuller documentation of Apple's Gestalt trap. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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GraphicConverter - converts graphic files among 80 formats. $35 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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IconToGIF - create a GIF image file representing a file's icon. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Installer VISE/Lite - creates a software installer. Used by more companies than any other. Mindvision. $500/free educational | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Interarchy (formerly Anarchie) - makes ftp uploading and downloading as easy as using the Macintosh Finder. Peter Lewis. $10? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Internet Config - one-time configuration of all your internet-access programs. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Internet Explorer - my favorite browser. Microsoft. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Kaleidagraph - plot data. Our favorite program to produce publication-quality graphs. Kaleidagraph is at version 3.5 (released 3/00). OTHER PLOTTING PROGRAMS: Geoff Loftus did an informal poll of Mac users (in June, 2000), asking which graphing programs they used. Among the 162 respondents, the top eight programs were: Excel 34%, CricketGraph 17%, SigmaPlot 14%, KaleidaGraph 10%, SPSS 10%, MATLAB 9%, PowerPoint 6%, and DeltaGraph Pro 6%. OUR COMMENTS: We use Excel and MATLAB for quick graphs, but we always switch to Kaleidagraph to achieve publication quality. CricketGraph was once very popular, but Computer Associates no longer lists it on their web site. We haven't tried graphing in SigmaPlot, SPSS, or PowerPoint. DeltaGraph Pro is similar to Kaleidagraph; it's now at version 4.5, released 12/98 by SPSS, which acquired it in fall of '97 from DeltaPoint. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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KeMo - library of C routines (and good technical explanation) for millisecond timing of keyboard responses on the Mac. Also see the Keypress page. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Kermit - exchange files between different computers. Slow but universal. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Klutz - view the contents of the clut (Color Lookup Table). Free | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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LaserWriter - see Printing. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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MacInTouch - news about Mac software and hardware. Ric Ford. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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MacsBug - Apple's low-level debugger. See MacsBug for non-programmers. There are good articles, for programmers, about using MacsBug in Apple's develop 8, 13, 17, 22, 26, 27. Also see MacsBug Tips & Tricks, or Stefan Anthony's How to use MacsBug. Or buy a book, e.g. Apple's MacsBug Reference and Debugging Guide. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mathematica - modeling. $495 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mathematica: Cinematica - show grayscale movies from within Mathematica. Free. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mathematica: Psychophysica - a collection of Mathematica Notebooks containing functions for collecting and analyzing data in psychophysical experiments. Includes QUEST and Cinematica. Free. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Mathematica: ShowTime - create QuickTime movies in Mathematica. Free. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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MathType - create equations for use in any word processor, especially Word. $70? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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MATLAB - analyze data and filter images. Crude but effective. There's a newsgroup. The academic price for MATLAB is $495 plus $195 per optional toolbox (as of 7/97), including one year of updates. If it's to be used for teaching, there's a roughly 60% discount. Volume discount is 26% for 5 copies, 49% for 10, and 62% for 20. [To evaluate MATLAB and the Psychophysics Toolbox you may want to buy Student MATLAB 5, which costs less than $100 and includes the Signal Processing Toolbox (among others), but is artificially limited to matrices of no more than 16,384 elements, i.e. 1282, and has bugs.] Unhappily Mathworks has announced that they won't continue development of MATLAB for Mac beyond version 5.2.1, which was released in July, 1998. However, 5.2.1 is an excellent release, fixing essentially all known bugs. Also see our PsychToolbox note on buying MATLAB. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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MATLAB: Psychophysics Toolbox - use the VideoToolbox from within MATLAB. David Brainard and Denis Pelli. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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mcvert - a unix program that converts Binhex files. There's a man page. (Suggested by Tony Movshon.) Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Memory. Memory now costs about $1/MB. I suggest having at least 128 MB of RAM. (Consider that Adobe Photoshop likes to have 24 MB of real memory for itself.) To figure out what kind of memory you need, and where it goes, look at either of these free guides to adding memory to Macs and Apple printers: Apple Memory Guide and Newer Tech's GURU. Then look at the latest prices at RAMWatch. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NetPresenz - web server (http, ftp, and gopher). Peter Lewis. $10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Netscape - internet browser. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Network Time - control panel uses any Unix time server to automatically set Mac clock when you boot. $5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NiftyTelnet - nice telnet client. (There's also an SSH version, which is safer.) Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NIH Image - image processing. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Norton Utilities - Disk Doctor repairs disk directories. Everyone agrees: this is the best. $100 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Numerical Recipes in C: Set for Mac - great book and math subroutines in C. $90 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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PageMaker - wonderful for typesetting and page layout, e.g. posters, abstracts, and flyers. (Unfortunately most service bureaus prefer Quark Xpress.) It's about to be superceded by Adobe's soon-to-be-released InDesign. Adobe. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Patches - these innocuous patches to the Mac OS prevent crashes by fixing two common programming errors in applications. WDEF_Leopard. MercutioHUnlockPatch. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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PhotoShop - easily modify images. Adobe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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PopChar Pro - access any character in the current font. $29 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Printing. Apple's installers only provide PPD (PostScript Printer Description) files for Apple printers. To use 3rd-party printers it's best to add the appropriate PPD files to your "System Folder:Extensions:Printer Descriptions:" folder. Usually you can download the latest PPD file from the web, e.g. HP LaserJet or Tektronix Phaser. Apple's printing software is LaserWriter 8. It supports IP printing via the LPR protocol, collating, and the new Desktop Printer Utility. The new Apple Printer Utility 2.2 and the Desktop Printer Menu must be custom installed. Source: Macintosh Resource Page. (To install, you'll need Disk Copy 6.1.3 or newer.) Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Processor upgrades. Several companies are selling 604e, G3, and G4 processor cards that replace the existing processor in most PowerMacs. The speed that matters to us is MATLAB, which is mostly doing floating point, so I use my own benchmark which times an FFT in MATLAB to determine MFlops. (If you have the Psychophysics Toolbox, run ScreenTest.) I ran this on four computers. Clock rate is the most important determining factor, but processor type matters too. After dividing by clock rate, the PowerMacs 6100/66 and 7500/100 are the same, both doing 0.07 flop/tick, which makes sense since both use the 601 processor. I also tested a 7500 upgraded with a 604e processor running at 195 MHz, and a PowerBook G3 Series running at 250 MHz. They do 0.13 and 0.12 flop/tick, respectively. (Yes, the 604e is slightly faster at floating point than the G3, when normalized for clock rate.) Thus, when you upgrade a 601 processor to either of the newer kinds (604e or G3) you get a factor of 1.8 speedup in floating point speed over and above any speedup from higher clock rate. The G3 cards cost $500+, and the 604e cards cost $200+. For applications that care mostly about floating point speed, the 604e cards are the best deal. I've just ordered six 604e 200 MHz cards to upgrade all my 7500 computers. (Note that many L2 cache cards, including any that you've already got installed, may not work at such high speeds. Everything else, including memory, won't care what the processor speed is. See speed.) MacWorks, DMS, Starship, MegaWatts.
Note that Apple has no plans to support Power Macs other than its own G3 models in Mac OS X, regardless of G3 processor upgrades. During a Macworld question and answer session with Avie Tevanian, the question of whether Mac OS X would support 603- or 604-based Macs was posed. Tevanian, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, clarified: "It will definitely not run on 603. It's unlikely to run on 604, although there is a slight chance that, if we wanted to, we could push hard and have it run on some subset of the 604's, but it's not currently planned." In regards to OS X compatibility with Macs using G3-based upgrade cards, Tevanian said, "There are no guarantees as to whether or not it will run on a third party G3 card. We have no plans to test any of those, so theoretically by luck it might run on some, but there's no plans to support that." (Macintouch 7/9/98) |
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Psychophysics software review - Faith Florer's list of psychophysics software for Power Macs. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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PS2EPS+ - converts plain PostScript to an EPS file, i.e. adds a PICT preview. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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QC - control panel stress tests your application's memory management. (They also have a fancier product called Spotlight, which looks good, but which I haven't tried yet.) $100 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RAM Doubler - seems to double RAM memory. Memory is now cheap, so I just bought 128 MB for each machine, and set RAM Doubler to file-mapping only. $54 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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RandomNumberLib - (not tested) C source for very fast random number generator. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Retrospect - best backup program. $139? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SCSIProbe - mount and unmount SCSI disks. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sleeper puts your monitor and computer to sleep when idle. Replaces Apple's trouble-prone Energy Saver. Shareware. $25 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Snitch - extends Finder's Get Info to include file type and creator. $20 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SoftwareFPU/SoftwareFPU.fat/PowerFPU - emulates 68881 floating point unit. Incompatible with Quid Pro Quo. Free/$20/$75 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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StuffIt Expander & DropStuff - popular universal de/compression. Free & $30 Aladdin Expander for Windows - Free |
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SwitchRes - manually control the screen resolution and frame rate. $15 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synchronize! / SynchronizePro!- merge updates of folders on different computers. $30/$100 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Timbuktu Pro - use your office Mac from home. Like being there. (Includes ARA, above.) $100 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TimeVideo checks out all your video drivers. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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UpdateAgent - quickly downloads latest updates for all the software on your hard disk. Very easy to use. Insider Software. $30/year | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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URL Manager Pro - a simple database of your URL links, which integrates well with Netscape. $25 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Version Tracker - web site provides the latest update to all software. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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VideoToolbox - C subroutines for visual psychophysics on Macs. Denis Pelli. Free | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Word - popular word processor compatible with MathType and EndNote. Included in Microsoft Office 98. |