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About this Read Me file
This Read Me file is designed to address most of the problems you may encounter when using Bible Stories. Please take a look at the table of contents above to see if your particular problem is addressed.
If you are still having problems or need further technical support on any Dorling Kindersley product, please call the Multimedia Helpline with details of the problem, including any error messages that were produced, and the full specification of your Macintosh. If possible, you should be beside your machine when you telephone.
The numbers in New York, USA are:
Telephone: 1-800 DKMM 575
Fax: 212 213 5240
E-mail: DKMM@phantom.com
The numbers in London, United Kingdom are:
Telephone: 0171 753 3488
Fax: 0171 753 7575
E-mail: DKMM@dkmm.co.uk
2. Care of Compact Discs
Contrary to early reports, compact discs (CDs) are very easily damaged if treated carelessly. Such damage has a much greater effect on the digital data of a CD-ROM than on the information of a music CD. A dirty or damaged CD-ROM is quite likely to malfunction. With CD-ROM drives becoming ever faster and more disc-sensitive, this is an increasing problem.
The surface of the disc can quickly gather dirt and is very easily scratched. To protect the data from scratches, fingerprints, dust particles, and smears, do not touch the readout side (unlabeled side) of the disc or place it face down on a hard surface.
Should the CD become dirty, clean it with a soft cloth lightly moistened with CD cleaning fluid or ethyl alcohol, working from the center to the edge. Do not use any type of solvent, such as benzine, lacquer thinner, anti-static agents, or LP record cleaners as they may damage the surface.
Never leave the disc in a place subject to direct sunlight, high temperature, or high humidity. Recommended storage conditions are:
Temperature: 10íC to 50íC (50íF to 122íF)
Humidity: 10 percent to 80 percent
3. System requirements for running Bible Stories
The minimum computer specification required for running Bible Stories is as follows:
An Apple Macintosh 68LC040 25MHz computer, or above, that supports a 640 x 480 pixel monitor displaying 256 colors, 8Mb RAM (12Mb preferred), a double-speed CD-ROM drive, and System 7.0 or later.
The following Macintoshes have processors that fall below the base specification, and therefore are not supported:
Ñ All Classic Macintosh Systems
Ñ All Macintosh II Systems
Ñ These Macintosh LC Systems: LC, LCII, LCIII, LCIII+, LC520, LC550, Macintosh TV.
Ñ These Portable Macintosh Systems: Macintosh Portable, 100 - 180c, Duo 210 - 270c
Bible Stories also requires a certain amount of free RAM in order to run. You can check the minimum amount of free RAM required by Bible Stories in the following way:
1. Insert the Bible Stories CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the Bible Stories Folder, then click on the Bible Stories icon to highlight it.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info.
4. Under the memory requirements section, look for the figure in the Minimum Size box. This is the minimum amount of free RAM that Bible Stories needs in order to run.
4. Installing Bible Stories
1. Insert the disc in the CD-ROM drive.
2. Drag the My First Bible Stories Folder to your hard disk.
3. Open the folder and double-click on the My First Bible Stories icon.
4. If you experience any problems, double-click on the Read Me icon.
Before running Bible Stories, you should ensure that any screen saver and electronic mail applications are turned off. Other applications may be left open, but may slow down the performance of Bible Stories, or cause problems associated with low memory conditions.
5. Performance problems
If Bible Stories runs slowly or sound output is interrupted, try the following suggestions:
Ñ Running Bible Stories with your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode may cause sound breakup, particularly on older Macs. In Virtual Memory mode, your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive to emulate RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to Bible Stories, access to that RAM can be slow. For best performance, use the Memory control panel to turn Virtual Memory off and then restart your Macintosh. However, if you are low on memory you may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Ñ An old or slow CD-ROM drive will impair the program's performance. The only solution to this problem is to upgrade your CD-ROM drive.
Ñ Running Bible Stories with less than the minimum amount of free RAM can cause problems (see section 3, System Requirements for running Bible Stories.) You can check to see if there is any free RAM available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If there is free RAM available you can set the program to take advantage of this. First install the program on your hard disk (see section 4, Installing Bible Stories), then select the Bible Stories icon and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to increase the amount of memory set aside for Bible Stories. Allocating more memory to the program can improve performance.
Ñ Go to the Options menu in Bible Stories and turn of music and auto-narration.
Ñ SCSI termination problems can affect your CD-ROM drive. Your CD-ROM drive must be either internally or externally terminated. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on SCSI termination.
Some performance problems may be caused by low memory conditions. Try reading the following chapter on running Bible Stories with low memory.
6. Running Bible Stories with low memory
Bible Stories requires a minimum amount of free RAM to run. You can check how much free RAM is required by doing the following:
1. Insert the Bible Stories CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the Bible Stories folder to open it, then click once to highlight the Bible Stories icon.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info.
4. Under the Memory Requirements section, look for the figure in the Minimum Size box. This is the minimum amount of free RAM that Bible Stories requires in order to run.
You can then check how much free RAM is available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If you do not have enough free RAM to run Bible Stories, try the following suggestions to free up additional RAM:
Ñ Make sure you have only one application running at a time.
Ñ If you still have less than the minimum amount of free RAM, you can allocate some hard disk space to work as Virtual Memory. You can set your Macintosh to use Virtual Memory by using the Memory control panel, found in the Control Panels folder within your System folder, then restart your Macintosh. However, using Virtual Memory may slow your Macintosh's access time to RAM causing sound and video breakup, so only switch it on if it is really necessary.
Ñ You may be able to reduce the amount of memory used by your system software by removing unused Apple menu items, fonts, extensions, sounds, etc. from your system folder. These items can occupy considerable amounts of memory and their removal may allow Bible Stories enough RAM to run efficiently. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on how to remove these items.
Ñ If your Macintosh is set to more than 256 colors you can reduce the amount of memory Bible Stories uses by setting the monitor control panel to 256 colors. To do this, select Control Panels from the Apple menu, and then select Monitors. From the list of settings for your selected monitor you should choose 256 colors.
Ñ Bible Stories can be set to run in less than the recommended amount of RAM. To do this, first install the program to your hard disk (see section 4, Installing Bible Stories.) Select the Bible Stories icon and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to decrease the amount of minimum and preferred memory set aside for Bible Stories. Allocating less memory to the program may allow the program to run, but will also affect the program's performance, and may cause the program to crash.
Ñ Do not set the preferred memory size to more than or equal to the amount of free RAM on your system as this may cause problems.
If Bible Stories crashes, or freezes up, the most likely cause is a problem with the disc. You should try the following solutions:
1) If you are stuck in the product and cannot exit, press OPTION (Alt) + COMMAND (APPLE) + ESC to force Bible Stories to shut down. Do this only if the application has truly crashed; we do not recommend you try this with other applications.
You should try cleaning the disc before trying to run Bible Stories again.
2) If this does not work, use the Monitors control panel to reduce the amount of colors used by your monitor to 256 colors.
3)If you are still having problems with crashes and freezes, from the Apple menu choose Control Panels, then Memory. In the Memory control panel, make sure that the Modern Memory Manager is set to Off (if this is present on your machine). DO NOT click Use Defaults. Now restart your computer and try to run Bible Stories again.
7. Sound problems
If Bible Stories produces no sound at all, check the following points:
Ñ Use the Sound control panel to check that the sound volume level on your machine is turned up.
Ñ If you have external speakers, check that they are on and that their volume control is turned up.
Ñ If you wish to use either the internal or external speakers, make sure that you have not left headphones plugged in.
If Bible Stories produces interrupted or distorted sound, check the following points:
Ñ If the sound volume level in the Sound control panel is set at maximum volume, it may cause sound to distort. The same problem may occur with external speakers set at maximum volume. Experiment with different volume levels until you find a comfortable sound level.
Ñ Running your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode may cause sound breakup. In Virtual Memory mode your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive as RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to Bible Stories, access to sounds stored in that RAM can be slow. For best performance, use the Memory control panel to turn Virtual Memory off, and then restart your Macintosh. However, users who are low on memory may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Ñ The built-in speakers supplied with Macintosh computers vary in quality depending on the age and model of the machine. A poor quality speaker may cause distorted sound, especially at high volume levels.
Ñ Bible Stories requires the Macintosh to have some spare memory available to generate the sounds. For this reason, do not allocate quite all the available memory to Bible Stories when you start it up. See section 7, on Running Bible Stories with low memory for more details on how to set the memory allocation.
8. Screen size and color configuration
Bible Stories will run on any color monitor with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, or more, and that supports 256 colors or more.
Bible Stories is not designed to run on multiple monitors. If you have such a setup, the program will run on your primary monitor only.
9. Printing
Screens in Bible Stories are stored and displayed as color pictures. They are optimized for screen rather than print reproduction. Screen images can be printed, however, and will be of the same quality as a picture made with a screen-capture function.
Black and white prints will be of poor quality. If you have a laser printer, better quality images will be achieved by using the color/grayscale option.
If you see the following dialog box when you try to print from a story:
"Printomatic Xtra Error: Couldn't take a picture of the stage"
then your system is low on memory. Try following the advice in section 6, 'Running Bible Stories with low memory' and then try printing again. If you are using a low specification Macintosh with only 8Mb RAM, then you may need to upgrade your RAM to 12Mb.
