PMPFax review
By Kevin Noonan
Copyright (c) 1996 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
knoonan@cleese.apana.org.au
It has been a longish wait. We have been promised much by others who have failed to deliver even a fraction of those promises. Elections in the air? Yes, but that is not what I am on about ... just facsimile (fax) software for the Apple IIGS.
Readers with a good memory will probably recall my (very) unfavourable review and update article on FAXination. For those who don't remember let me summarise. FAXination simply did not work on my modem (and, according to reports on the internet, on most other modems as well). FAXination was upgraded to version 0.16, which indicates a beta version of the program still in need of much testing; all this did was very basic send and receive, but did not do any of the other advertised things. Like delayed (or timed) send fax, group send, multiple phone books, and so-on. I really was upset and felt I had bought a lemon; a program that had not been finished; I was paying to test a program!
I got those upgrades at my own expense by ringing the special bulletin board set up in America! The last time I checked no information past July of last year was on the bulletin board ... that, to my mind, indicates that FAXination has simply been dumped by its publisher. I am outraged by that behaviour.
I checked with some (other computer platforms) programmer friends and they all indicated that writing the software for send and receive faxes is not all that difficult a task ... time consuming as bugs needs to be squashed but trust their comments. So why was FAXination such a dud? I don't know the answer to that and I guess I never will.
I know I can send faxes from my (shh) mac easily but as my IIGS is still my main work computer I would prefer to be able to do so from it.
It is with great joy that I can now report that a second programmer (Paul Parkhurst) has released PMPFax and that it works extremely well and does everything one should expect from a fax program.
I ordered my copy directly from Mr Parkhurst in America and it arrived eight days after ordering. I paid by credit card and was able to take advantage of a half-price sale for those who has another GS fax program. There are two other pieces of fax software for the IIGS but as one of those (the Applied Engineering version) only worked with one specific modem sold by AE I assume that Mr Parkhurst had FAXination in mind. If so it was a thinly disguised (and fully justified) attack on FAXination. I donUt care. I now have a wonderfully complete and fully functional fax program for my IIGS.
The main parts of PMPFax are a New Desk Accessory and an INIT file. To send a fax all I have to do is hold down the option key when I choose print from any desktop program. Instead of being sent to a printer, by holding the option key down all print information is sent instead to the fax software. I can send text from a word processor or graphics from paint program or a copy of this magazine from a desktop publishing program. Any program in fact, provided it works in the desktop graphic environment (which means ProDOS 8 programs like AppleWorks cannot be used to send faxes). If you wish it is possible to install PMPFax without the NDA. A stand-alone program is included for those who wish to use it that way. I prefer the NDA but it does take a lot of memory. It should be stressed at this point that unlike FAXination PMPFax does not require fiddling about with changing printer set-up everytime you wish to use it. The INIT patches the printer manager so that whatever printer driver you have selected remains selected.
For all these to work there are a number of other files installed when you set up PMPFax. All of these are not meant to be used or accessed by the PMPFax program but they do take up well over 1Mb of disk space.
I have (so far) used the freeware NDA called Hermes to send all of my faxes. All I do is write my letter; pretty it up with different fonts and styles as I want; and then print while holding the option key down. PMPFax then takes over. The document is converted to a fax document and then sent to the desired phone number. Really simple.
As the user you must set a few things up for PMPFax. You need to tell it your details (like phone number and name; your modem capability ... though if you leave all the default settings for this it should work OK; what to do with faxes ... ie delete after send, print automatically upon receipt, all the fax numbers you may send to, etc) but thats really all there is. Print and double click on the name of the person or group of people you want to send the fax to. Nothing else!
You can easily maintain multiple phone books with all the people and groups you may want to fax and can add more with great ease. You can use the cover sheets supplied or you can create your own (or modify the ones supplied). All of this is really simple to use ... honest!
A few points to note; firstly, fax software is very disk and memory hungry so you really need extra memory in your IIGS and a hard drive is pretty essential. It is also recommended that a Zip chip is very handy.
Secondly; I am not sure that PMPFax likes all the stuff I have installed in my system. When I run PMPFax from a completely clean system 6.01 I have no problems, but when I run it from my system I sometimes get strange things happen, like crashing when returning from some ProDOS 8 programs (I must stress that this happens rarely). I have some non-standard things in my system that I feel I cannot do without so I am not surprised that I get an occasional problem. This is not the fault of the PMPFax software. It would be impossible for Mr Parkhurst to allow for the virtually infinite number of desk accessories and inits and finder extras and so-on that exist in the IIGS world.
There are all sorts of minor features that show Mr Parkhurst has thought about this program. As an example, it is possible to set the modem up so that when it answers the phone it can autodetect if it is a fax ringing or it is a voice phone call. If it is a voice call then the software does not allow the modem to make that horrible high pitched squeal. Of course this depends on whether you modem is capable of doing this. PMPFax is easy to install. The well written manual takes the user through the process step-by-step. It clearly explains all features of the program. I am very impressed with PMPFax and can highly recommend it to any IIGS user who has need of fax software ... heck ... buy it even if you don't think you have a need for it ... its that good! PMPFax sells for $US89 and is available from:
Parkhurst Micro Products
0011 1 510 837 9098
pmp@delphi.com pmp@genie.com
It would be advisable to contact Mr Parkhurst first via email to get an up-to-date pricing, particularly for airmail to Australia. A positive in dealing with Mr Parkhurst is that he does accept credit cards.

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