Download SuperLab Pro for Mac 1.7x Manual

desk accessories. Use the Control Panel to disable or turn off as many INITs as
you can live without; if they can not be disabled, remove them from your
System Folder then restart your Mac. Examples of INITs that are always
running in the background are: screen savers (e.g. PYRO!, Moire, After Dark),
SuperClock, some screen capture programs, some “cute” programs (e.g.
Eyeballs, Big Foot), etc. If in doubt, disable the INIT or remove it.
Time Manager 1
Time Manager 2
With the introduction of the Macintosh II and the Macintosh SE in March 1987,
Apple also released a new version of the system software. The new release 6.00
contained the Time Manager, a set of functions programmers could use to
perform some timing. Unfortunately, the Time Manager was inadequate for
SuperLab Pro; it did not do what was needed. Thanks to the advent of
multimedia applications (which require accurate timing to synchronize video
and audio), Apple introduced the Revised Time Manager in System 6.03, and
the Extended Time Manager with System 7.0.
The Time Manager timers built into SuperLab Pro are “clean,” meaning that
they are totally device independent, and work with any Macintosh equipped
with System 6.04 or a later version. The only difference between SuperLab
Pro’s Time Manager 1 and 2 is accuracy and range: Time Manager 1 is accurate
to ± 1 ms with a range of about a day, while Time Manager 2 is accurate to ± 20
µs with a range of about 34 minutes. The described ranges are per event, not for
the entire experiment.
Recommended Timer
Without any doubt, the recommended timers are Time Manager 1 or 2. If for
some reason you are not using System 6.04 yet (or a later version), it is worthwhile upgrading your system software. Contact your Apple dealer to obtain
the upgrade.
You may wonder why anybody would want to use Time Manager 1 (± 1 ms) if
Time Manager 2 (± 20 µs) is available. The reason is simple: the system
software has to update Time Manager 2 fifty times more often then Time
Manager 1. Every processor cycle put into updating the timer is a cycle taken
away from the presentation of your stimulus. In other words, presenting your
stimulus will be slightly slower when using Time Manager 2. In normal
situations, this is OK. But if you are placing a lot of demand on SuperLab Pro
and the Mac, especially with long auditory stimuli or complex pictures, you
may want to revert to Time Manager 1.
SuperLab User’s Guide