Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/hints/volume_01/issue_06

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 14KB | 363 lines

•   (1.2 OS) If you want to look at the desktop manager programs and
perhaps modify them and run them from disk, the following information
may be of use:
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The DESKTOP has its own filing system activated by *DESKFS. If you do a
*CAT, you will get:   DeskTopMgr
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DeskTopMgr2
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&.!palette
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Icons.Desktop
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Icons.Calculator
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Icons22.Desktop
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Icons22.Calculator
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You can then LOAD the DeskTopMgr2 program and LIST it. (DeskTopMgrÊis
just the 5-line startup program that gets left in BASIC when you exit
the desktop.)
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If you change back to *ADFS, you can then save the program. To copy the
palette and/or the Icons, you have to use commands such as:
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*COPY DESKFS:I*.Desktop $.I*.Desktop
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(assuming you are in ADFS and have created a directory called Icons)
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To run the program from disk, you need the icon and palette files to be
copied across then if you fancy tackling 76k of “crunched” BASIC
program, you can try editing it!
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•   If you are using the decrement or increment (+= or −=) in a BASIC
program and you get a “Mistake” error on that line, the chances are that
you have forgotten to initialise the variable. Try typing X=X+1:PRINT X
and it will give the value 1 but if you type Y+=1 it will say “Mistake”.
What it really should say is “Unknown or missing variable”, but still,
good programmers won’t get the problem because we always remember to
initialise all our variables, don’t we? (We do?)
1.6
•   Testing multi-sync output without a multi-sync monitor! If you are
writing software and hoping to sell enough of it to be able to afford a
multi-sync monitor(!) you have the problem of testing your software in
modes 18 to 20. If you use *Configure MonitorType 1, modes 0 to 17 are
still displayed as normal then when you select modes 18 to 20 and
generate the screen output, you can use a screendump (such as Gerald
Fitton’s minidump or *HardCopyFX) to look at what you’ve got. If you’re
worried about damaging the monitor, switch it off before changing mode.
1.6
•   Using large printer buffers etc. If you’re using a buffer that’s
larger than 64 kbytes, it’s no use trying to use ADVAL with a negative
number (e.g. PRINT ADVAL(-4) for the printer buffer) − it only returns
the least two significant bytes. Instead, use SYS “OS_Byte”, &80, &FC TO
, X%, Y% : bytes_free%= X%+256*Y% where &FC is the − 4 value. (Actually,
instead of working out that − 4 is the equivalent of &FC you can, it
seems, be lazy and use − 4 in the SYS command. Ed.)
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•   Easy loading of modules: To enable you to load the emulator and fast
BASIC easily, you can create some library programs on your Welcome disc
(or better still, a copy of your Welcome disc!). This is what you do for
fast BASIC:
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*BUILD LIBRARY.FAST
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*FX225,1|M
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*KEY1 QUIT||M*MODULES.RAMBASIC
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||M*KEY1||MCLS||MHELP||M
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*FX138,0,129
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<escape>
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and then change it into a BASIC program with
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 *SETTYPE LIB*.FAST &FFB<return>.
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Note that there are double pad characters before each ‘M’ in order that
when the program line is run, each double pad character is interpreted
as a single pad character for the actual key definition.
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The bits after calling the module are optional. The first is to clear
key1 again in case you press it accidentally. The second is to clear the
screen and the third is to give a help message to show that you are
actually in RAM_BASIC. (See below).
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Once this is set up, to get into fast BASIC all you do is type
*FAST<return>.
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For the 6502 emulator, use the name LIB*.6502 and don’t put the HELP
command in because that does not work on BASIC IV.
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•   Tidying up after ArcWriter! You can do a similar thing to the above
hint in order to tidy up after using ArcWriter.
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*BUILD LIBRARY.RESET
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*FX225,1|M
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*KEY1 QUIT||M*CONFIGURE FONTSIZE
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2||M*RMREINIT FONTMANAGER||M
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*RMTIDY||M*BASIC||M
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*KEY1||MHELP||M
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*FX138,0,129
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<escape>
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Typing *RESET will do the tidy-up for you.
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•   Identifying RAMBASIC. To get RAM_ BASIC to tell you that it actually
IS the RAM version and not the ROM version, you can change a few bytes
so that it prints out ‘RAM BBC BASIC’ instead of ‘ARM BBC BASIC’ on the
startup and HELP messages. To do this, proceed as follows:
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*LOAD MO*.RAM* 20000
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?&202B0=ASC“R”
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?&202B1=ASC“A”
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?&23F78=ASC“R”
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?&23F79=ASC“A”
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*SAVE MO*.RAM_BASIC 20000 +E434
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*SETTYPE MO*.RA* &FFA
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•   Reversing the CAPS lock. If you hold down the shift key when you put
the CAPS lock light on, you will find that the shift key now has the
opposite effect, i.e. letters typed without pressing shift come up as
uppercase letters, but when you press the shift key you get lower case
letters. This can be useful if you are programming and mostly work in
upper case but with occasional use of lower case.
1.6
•   Displaying screens in different modes. If you have a screen that has
been SCREENSAVE’d, you can display it in another mode. (e.g. Artisan
screens in 256 colour modes!) Assuming you have configured spritesize to
at least 11, proceed as follows:
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MODE 13
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*SLOAD filename  \ NOT
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 *SCREENLOAD
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*SCHOOSE screendump
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PLOT &ED,0,0
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You will note that the palette has changed and that it is a lower
resolution, however, it will still be quite decent and you will have all
those lovely colours to play around with!
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If you choose mode 15, you will get the same picture displayed in 256
colours but squeezed into only half the screen width.
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If you want to change the colours you will have to load it into the
sprite editor (SEDIT) and change the colours manually.
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•   Using the View Series. You will find that after coming from the
desktop, TAB does not work. The solution is to type *FX219,9.
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ViewProfessional works fine if you use the second processor version −
the VP file on the 5.25“ disk − however it should be *LOAD’ed at 4000
(not 8000) and called with *GO 4000. (See page 5, Archive 1.1)
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•   Diary/Notepad problems. Beware: If you are printing something from
notepad or diary, check that an active printer is on-line before
starting to print otherwise the system may hang up and the only way out
is to press <ctrl-break> − frustrating if you haven’t saved the text
first!
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•   Slower listings. I know this is obvious to ex-BBC users, but I’ve
not seen mentioned anywhere the fact that holding <ctrl> and <shift>
keys down together will stop the screen scrolling. Archimedes lists
programs so quickly that even if you use <ctrl-N> to get a paged
listing, you may well get two pages instead of one if you hesitate on
pressing the shift key, so using <ctrl> and <shift> allows you to
control the listing yourself.
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•   File transfer between wordprocessors. If you have Wordwise Plus or
View files and you want to import them into GraphicWriter, use *SETTYPE
filename &FFF to ensure that GraphicWriter sees them as text files.
(Actually it should already see Wordwise Plus files as text because of
the save address that Wordwise Plus uses − check by doing *INFO *.) Then
you can simply load the files into GraphicWriter using the file menu. To
transfer the files back to View or Wordwise, you need to save them as
ASCII files. This is done by opening the file menu then clicking on the
word “TEXT” with the ADJUST button, typing in a filename and pressing
<return>.
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(I tried to do the same sort of thing with ArcWriter but it kept
crashing each time I tried to load a file, so I gave up!)
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•   Smart ON ERROR routine. If your ON ERROR routine includes the
following, you get the usual error message and then, if you press any
key other than <escape> it will drop into the ARM BASIC editor at the
offending line. So if you do not want to go into the editor, press
<escape> instead.
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ON ERROR OFF
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PRINT REPORT$+“ at line ”;ERL
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dummy%=GET
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SYS 5,(“KEY0 EDIT ”+STR$(ERL)
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+“|M”)
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SYS 6,138,0,128
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END
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If you prefer to move into EDIT a few lines above the offending line,
use STR$(ERL−50) or whatever.
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•   Dual purpose boot files. It is quite possible to have a boot file
that will work equally well from within the desktop or as a conventional
boot file operated with <shift-break>. What you do is *BUILD the file as
usual but then *settype <filename> &FFB which gives it a link to BASIC.
If you then double-click on it in the desktop, it adds line numbers to
it and runs it as a BASIC program. However, it will only work with
<shift-break> if the machine is configured to start up in BASIC, not in
the desktop (i.e. *CON. Language 4, not 3).
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•   With the PC emulator you can get more space than Mark Sealey
reckoned in his review last month by *unplugging various of the modules.
On reader reckons to get almost 590,000 bytes free (= 576k).
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•   Disabling Modules. Archive no.5 explains how *Unplug can be used to
disable Modules, but this method needs a <ctrl-break>. An alternative is
to use *RMKill and *RMTidy from the operating system *-prompt (not from
BASIC), e.g.
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*RMKill FontManager
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*RMKill StringLib
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*RMKill Percussion
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*RMKill ARMBasicEditor
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*RMKill WindowManager
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*RMTidy
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This typically releases 96 Kbytes of memory on an A310 machine and
doesn’t need a <ctrl-break>. It is particularly useful if you’re short
of space in BASIC, Pascal or FORTRAN, etc and aren’t using fancy sound,
the WIMP environment or the BASIC editor. Each module can be reinstated
by using *RMReinit <Module name>, or all can be restarted by <ctrl-
break>.
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•   GW BASIC on the PC Emulator. There is an undocumented way to get
back into the MS-DOS operating system after using GW BASIC. Try pressing
function key f-11.
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•   PC Emulator. Version 1.09 (which existing users can get by sending
back their old disc plus £15 to Acorn) runs, amongst other things,
Ability Plus, dBase 3 Plus, Kermit, Word Perfect, LTS NewsMaster (see
separate review). (Can anyone add to this list?)
1.6
•   RS423É yet again! If you have the 1.2 operating system and if you
have the version of the serial chip that is made by GTE (it’s the 28 pin
IC at the back left of the pcb) and if you change over from using the
CTS line at the Archimedes end to using the DSR line (i.e. link 1, 4 and
8 and join pin 6 to the RTS line from the other machine) then Acorn have
a fix which you load in as a module. Send a blank disc to Customer
Services to get a copy. The version they sent me didn’t work the first
time I tried it with some data transfer software so I pressed <escape>
and tried again and it worked perfectly at 19,200 baud. Then I tried
again and it wouldn’t send anything, pressed <escape> and away it went!
Still, when you do get it going it sends and receives at 19,200 baud in
both directions without any data corruption. I left it running for a
couple of hours and there was no corruption at all.
1.6
•   After the desktopÉ simpler than the list of FX commands that we gave
last month is to call SYS“Wimp_CloseDown” (which is what Acorn should
have put in their desktop program in the first place!!!) but if you
don’t fancy trying to type that every time, getting upper and lower case
exactly correct, you can create a one line BASIC program with 10
SYS“Wimp_Close Down” and save it on your disk as $.library. undesk and
then just type *undesk (or whatever abbreviation you can get away with)
and all will be restored to normal.
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•   Using the Seikosha 250X printer is a bit of a problem. When you plug
it into the Archimedes, all power is lost. This seems to be because of
the +5.0 volts on lines 18 and 36 of the printer connector − these are
earthed at the Archimedes end and so have to be disconnected somehow.
One reader, Adrian Moreton, has succeeded but it is too complicated to
explain here. If you want the information, send us an s.a.e. and we’ll
send you a photocopy of his letter and the excellent diagrams he has
drawn.
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•   ADFS wildcards. Had you gathered that ADFS will take * or #
wildcards anywhere in a filename? On the BBC, you could only put them at
the end of the filename. So, for example, if you’ve got PROGRAM1,
PROGRAM2, PROGRAM3 etc you only need to say something like LOAD “PR*2”
or even LOAD “*2” if none of the other files have numeric endings. That
makes life much easier, doesn’t it?! (Thanks to Benjamin Finn for
pointing that out. The next hint is his, too.)
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•   Errors in library procedures. If an error occurs in a PROC or FN
that is installed using LIBRARY or INSTALL, the correct error message is
given but the line number quoted is the last number in the main program.
Although we cannot get a line number pointer to the error, we can at
least find out from which procedure in the main program the library
routine was called when the error occurred.
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At the beginning of each definition of a PROC or FN you should put
something like:
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   DEF PROCdosomething
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   LOCAL ERROR
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   ON ERROR LOCAL PRINT REPORT$
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 “ in PROCdosomething”:END
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      .
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      .
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   ENDPROC
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•   Help with Econet is offered by Michael Ryan of XOB, Balkeerie,
Eassie, By Forfar, Angus, DD8 1SR. Michael says, “Here are some comments
about Archimedes on Econet in response to comments in Archive 1.3, page
8.
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“RDFREE is part of the Econet filing system module and hence not a disc-
based utility as with the BBC version. Issued with a user identity as
parameter, it gives the total disc free space and that user’s allocated
portion of it. Issued with no parameter, it returns the user’s own free
space and the total free space.
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“Acorn are supplying a number of other utilities including SETFREE,
SETSTAT, USERS, PROT and UNPROT, though they have not yet made it clear
how they are to be distributed, so don’t hold your breath.
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“Though it is very unlikely that they will supply the more sophisticated
utilities (VIEW, REMOTE, NOTIFY etc) all is not lost. XOB already have a
wide range of utilities for the BBC/Master series and have already
implemented several of them on the Archimedes. More details from us on
0307−84364.”

•   Most of the keys on the numeric pad have secondary functions if used
with the Num Lock off. In BASIC, 1 gives copy, 2 and 3 are both cursor
down, 4 is cursor left, 5 doesn’t seem to do anything, 6 is cursor
right, 7 is ‘cursor home’ and 8 and 9 and cursor up. In View, the single
cursor movements are 2, 4, 6 and 8 while 3 and 9 are page down and page
up respectively.