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Panorama - Disk 13A (1987-01-14)(Pacific North-West Amigas Club)[WB].zip
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Panorama - Disk 13A (1987-01-14)(Pacific North-West Amigas Club)[WB].adf
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Questions&Answers
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AMIGA QUESTIONS & ANSWERS FOR THE BEGINER
Everyone has questions when they start something new. Most beginners have
the same, or at least similar questions. Unfortunately, most manuals are
organized in very formal ways that often overlook obvious concerns. We want
to remedy this problem for new AMIGA users. Keep a log of questions and
problems and turn them at every PANORAMA meeting. Or send the questions or
answers to Carl Chaplin #61 on Mindlink's. We will obtain the answers from
our "gurus" and assemble them in a format that will supplement other sources
of information.
-Prefix your questions with one of the following catagories:
SOFTWARE; HARDWARE; CLI; UTILITIES; AMIGA BASIC; COMMUNICATIONS;
GRAPHICS; MUSIC; WORD PROCESSING; SPREEDSHEETS; MISCELANEOUS;
My first question is for CLI:
I'm typing up this file in ED. When the text is typed it is only one
screen wide. However, if I insert an addition the text for that line
scrolls to the right and off the screen. Also when I DOWNLOADED part of
this file it was wider than the sceen. How do I keep the text only one
screen wide?
Carl Chaplin 1695 W. 7th, Vancouver 736-1399
CLI QUESTIONS
How do I enable and save the CLI so that your workbench boots to a CLI promt
and NOT to the Workbench icons?
On a new Workbench disk, the CLI is not enabled. In order to make it
visible, double click on the Preferences icon and when the Preferences
screen appears, click on the box that indicates CLI On. This may be found
in the lower left part of the Preferences screen. Now, click on the box in
the lower right that says SAVE to save the current Preferences settings.
The preferences screen will disappear, and you will find the CLI icon by
double clicking on the System drawer. Double click the CLI icon, and you
are in business. If you want a disk to come up in the CLI environment
rather than WorkBench, you will need to modify a file called "startup-
sequence" that will be found in the "s" directory of your WorkBench disk.
Use ED to do it, calling it by typing (in a CLI)...
ED S:startup-sequence
The last two lines of this file should be deleted. They are the ones that
say "LoadWB" and "ENDCLI >NIL:". from then on, your disk will boot to a CLI.
If you don't want this permamnently set, you can type a CTRL D (Hold the
CTRL key down and strike the D key) as soon as you see the first blue
screen - with text on it. This action will stop the processing of a script
file, and the LoadWB command will never be executed.
Larry Phillips
RAMDISK (RAM: device) How do I create this and what good is it?
The RAM: device is created any time the device name is used for the first
time after a reset. In other words, the commands...
CD RAM: or
DIR RAM:
will both create a RAMDISK.
The usefullness of it is that it serves as another logical disk device,
able to store files in the same way that any disk does. It may be used for
keeping commands in memory for quick access without having to keep putting
the disk in the drive.
Larry Phillips
When using the TYPE command on a file, I get strange characters.
What causes this, how do I stop it and how do I get normal characters back?
If you get strange characters it means that the file you wanted
to type contains binary information, this switches the Amiga to
the alternate character set. To stop it just hit the control key
and the letter "C" key simultaneously. This will stop the
printout. If you are using Dos 1.2 it will automatically switch
back to the normal character set. If you are in 1.1 and if you
hit the control key and the letter "N" key simultaneously it will
switch you back to normal characters. If you want to switch to
the alternate character set intentionally just hit the control
key and the letter "O" key and it will switch you to the weird
set.
Tom Gowdyk
The order of those two keys are CTRL O for going to normal mode and CTRL N
for the funny ones... The way I remember it is that when I need to go back
to normal I usually hit CTRL N... this stands for
"(N)o, that's not it!"
I then try CTRL O and It's back to normal. It stands for...
"(O)h, there it is!"
<grin>
Larry Phillips
What does "NOT AN OBJECT MODULE" mean?
It means it is not a loadable program file or it's been corrupted and it's
discription does not match its contents in some way?
If "NOT AN OBJECT MODULE" is not a loadable program of what use is it? Or
if its been corrupted, was it something I did or do they come that way?
HARDWARE QUESTIONS
What can be done with disks that have "CHECK SUM ERROR", and won't format?
The best solution I have found for this problem is to take a bulk
eraser, available quite reasonably from Radio Shack. Activate
the eraser and pass the magenetic field over both sides of the
disks several times. Then take the disk, put it in your drive
and use the format command:
Format Drive DF#: name "diskname"
Your disk should now format properly. If this does not work I
would say you have a defective disk and should return it to
wherever you bought it and ask for a refund.
Tom Gowdyk
UNANSWERED HARDWARE QUESTIONS
How to best set up a single drive system?
C-PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS
How do you get the system date to your program?
Easiest way is thru the DOS function DateStamp(). The following
function will do the job:
void GetDate()
{
struct DateStamp dsp;
LONG day, month, year, temp;
DateStamp(&dsp);
day = dsp->ds_Days;
if (day < 0) { /* will be 0 around year 2045! */
puts("Bad date!");
return;
}
for (year = 78; (temp = 365 + (((year & 3) == 0) ? 1:0)) <= day; ) {
year++;
date -= temp;
}
for (month = 0; day >= days_per_month[month]; month++) {
day -= days_per_month[month];
if ((month == 1) && ((year & 3) == )) {
day--; /* leap year */
if (day < 0) {
day = 28;
break;
}
}
}
printf{"%2ld-%3s-%02ld", day + 1, months[month], year);
}
And you will need the following arrays:
UBYTE *months[12] = { /* or just char * */
"Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun",
"Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec"
};
UBYTE days_per_month = {
31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30,
31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31
};
Sorry... the last line of the function, printf(something) will
display the date in the form dd-mmm-yy, where dd and yy are numeric and
mmm is character. 'Nuff said.
Anson Mah
UTILITIES
How to best clean-up "junky" disks?
Please define "junky" disks further.