Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/hints/volume_06/issue07

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 33.2 KB | 799 lines

Using RISC­OS 3.1
6.7
Hugh Eagle
6.7
I know that RISC­OS 3 has caused some problems, but to claim, as one of
my correspondents does, that the upgrade from RISC­OS 2 to RISC­OS 3 has
caused “more incompatibilities than the upgrade from 8-bit to 32-bit
machines” is taking things just a teeny bit too far. People will be
blaming Acorn for the performance of the England cricket team next!
6.7
I have recently set up an A4000 from scratch. It comes with the
operating system and the RISC­OS 3 Apps already installed, and
everything is beautifully logical and straightforward. If you stick to
up-to-date software and use a standard printer in a straightforward way,
everything is perfectly simple to use. On the strength of this
experience, I have no doubt that, for new machines and new users,
RISC­OS 3 is a considerable step forward. (The A4000 Home Office also
comes with a good wordprocessor, Easiwriter, and with the very easy-to-
use Desktop Database installed and ready to run. It’s a very far cry
from my A310, which was configured to start up on the command line and
it took me two hours to find out how to get to the “desktop”!)
6.7
As for us hardened upgraders, the question whether it was worth the
hassle is harder to answer. Perhaps Acorn should have waited until the
new operating system was more thoroughly tested before they released it,
but then they would have been criticised for keeping us waiting. Perhaps
they should have incorporated more radical improvements, but then the
incompatibility problems would doubtless have been far greater. In this
situation, they couldn’t win!
6.7
Anyhow, rather than complaining, we should direct our thoughts towards
the changes we would like to see next time round. I am accumulating a
number of suggestions for the RISC­OS 4 wish list which I hope to come
back to in a future column; please let me know if you have any to add.
6.7
Enough of the waffle, and on with the business ...
6.7
I am afraid that, again, I haven’t had time or space to use all your
contributions. I will in due course. Many thanks for them all.
6.7
Printing
6.7
Paper X and Y offsets and margins
6.7
This subject seems to have caused a lot of confusion, not least, I
imagine, because there is no reference to the Paper X and Y offsets in
the manual. (These were added after RISC­OS 3.0, I think, and seem to
postdate the manual, although they are mentioned briefly on page 20 of
the RISC­OS 3.10 Release Note.)
6.7
Before I go any further, I feel I should point out that this is a
technical area that the vast majority of users (who are happy to use the
supplied drivers and page settings) never need bother about.
6.7
The following explanation is based on contributions from Bruce Brown and
Tom Hughes and on some of the Read_Me files inside !Printers. It is also
based mainly on experience with HP Laserjets, although most of the
principles should apply equally to most other printers. I hope I have
got it right ...
6.7
The purpose of the Paper X and Y Offsets is to tell the printer driver
which part of the paper the printer is physically capable of printing on
or, in other words, to define where the printer will print if it is told
to print at the top left corner of the paper. These are set via the
!PrintEdit application. The Top and Left Margins, by contrast, define in
which part of the paper the user wants graphics to be printed. These are
set via the Paper Size window in the !Printers application. (It is these
that determine where the grey border appears when you choose the “Show
paper limits” or “Show print borders” option in Draw, Impression, etc.)
6.7
When the printer driver is asked to start printing at the top left
corner of the area defined by the margins: (1) first a printer reset
code is sent, then (2) the start of job codes are sent to the printer,
(3) the printhead (or the imaginary cursor in the case of a laser
printer) is told to move to the top left of the printable area (which,
if the X and Y offsets have been properly defined for the particular
printer, will be the same as the place which they define – i.e. point A
in the diagram below), (4) the printhead will then be moved down by
(Top margin − Y offset) and towards the right by
(Left margin − X offset) to point B, (5) the page will be printed.
6.7
If either of the margins has been incorrectly defined to be less than
the equivalent offset, i.e. so that the formula in (4) gives a negative
result, it will be ignored and the cursor will not be moved at all in
that direction.
6.7
How do you find out what the X and Y offsets should be? If it’s not
clear from your printer manual, the file called TopLeft in the Printers
directory on Applications disc 2 (together with the instructions in the
Read_Me file) might help. Alternatively, you could try deliberately
setting X and Y greater than the margins, so that the cursor movement in
(4) defaults to zero (as explained) and the top left of the image will
be printed at the default printhead position.
6.7
Under RISC­OS 2 only the “margins” could be defined and, for practical
purposes, these had to be set to match the physically printable area.
One of the advantages of the new approach is that if you only want to
print on a small part of the page you can set very wide margins and the
printer driver won’t waste time trying to print nothing (i.e. lots of
white space) in the unused area.
6.7
According to Archive 6.5 p37, Paul Skirrow has suggested setting
negative offsets to force the printer to start printing near the middle
of the page when, for instance, printing labels. Arithmetically this
will achieve the right effect, but not in the intended way! What you are
supposed to do is leave the X and Y offsets unchanged and increase the
margins.
6.7
What will happen if you try to set the margins to less than the paper
offsets? Bruce Brown says you must not do so, because this will cause
the driver to send more data to the printer than it can handle on one
page. The Printers.Read_Me file says that if you do, and if you then try
to print something right up to the top left of the margins, the image on
the paper will be shifted down and to the right of where it is supposed
to be, since you have tried to get the printer to print on the section
of the paper that it physically cannot print on.
6.7
The Printers.Read_Me file also notes that the paper offsets can be
negative. Apparently, the natural print position of some printers is
above the top and/or to the left of the top corner of the paper.
6.7
Contrary to what has been said in this column before, you can apparently
set the X and Y offsets to zero.
6.7
Owen Smith says: “You may be caught out by the way !PrintEdit stores the
paper offsets. Having changed the offsets in the main window, you then
have to open up every graphics resolution one by one and click OK in
each of them and then save the new printer definition file. This is
because the paper offsets are stored in the per graphics resolution data
(in pixels) and the graphics resolution data is encoded when OK is
clicked in the graphics window.”
6.7
Background printing
6.7
It doesn’t work – and that’s official!... I’ve been sent a copy of a
Technical Information news sheet from Acorn, which says: “The printer
buffer module supplied as part of RISC­OS 3 does not work correctly.
Even though the buffer has been configured to a large size, e.g. 2
Mbytes, the buffer module waits for the printer to complete its print
job before returning control to the user. Acorn is currently looking
into this problem and details will be made available if a fix is
produced.”
6.7
Jochen Konietzko, however, wonders what all the fuss is about. He
writes: “On my machine, an A410/1 (ARM 3), with the Ace ProDriver and
the HP DeskJet 500C, there is no problem at all! All I have to do is
configure a sufficiently large printer buffer. I’ve just tried it again
and, with a buffer of 1Mb, I can work in a database with just a slight
reduction in speed.”
6.7
The only reason I don’t use this option is that, unlike the font cache,
it is not possible to drag the task manager slider for the system heap/
stack below the limit set by the configuration of the buffer, so that
the memory is lost completely until a reset.
6.7
My standard setting for the printer buffer is 128 Kb, because that does
not slow printing down (with a 1024 Kb buffer, printing takes about 25%
longer than at 4 Kb, even if I don’t touch the keyboard at all) and yet
I have a kind of “emergency multitasking”; at least, when I decide to
cancel an Impression printout, the button responds almost instantly.
6.7
If I have to print several copies of a text, the print from a file is
better, anyway, because then the printer doesn’t try to hog all
available RAM.”
6.7
Perhaps the reason he has no problems is that the Ace ProDriver doesn’t
use the Acorn buffer module.
6.7
LaserDirect and TurboDrivers
6.7
Computer Concepts say that version 2.09b is now available as a free
upgrade to registered owners, as an interim measure. This fixes a few
minor problems (e.g. the patterning effects and the problems with
sprites with palettes attached) but is not a full RISC­OS 3 version. “CC
have a team working on the printer drivers but the amount of work
involved should not be underestimated – it’s going to take a couple of
months yet.” (This was written on 11th February.)
6.7
Printer driver space requirement
6.7
Acorn advises that you can reduce the amount of disc space taken up by
!Printers by removing (if you have a dot matrix printer) the following
directories from within the !Printers directory: lj, ps and PDumpers.
6.7
Checking if a printer is online
6.7
Acorn also warns of a problem that sometimes affects programs originally
written for the BBC micro. If these use the command ADVAL(-4) to check
if a printer is on- or off-line, this can cause the computer to crash
because the program will not be able to understand the information
returned by the command.
6.7
Problems with VDU2 printing
6.7
Roger Power has used a Basic program for years, which now refuses to
print, causing the computer to hang as if the printer had not been
switched on. The program just has a VDU2 command to cause the screen
output to be sent to the printer and doesn’t use any printer driver. (I
wonder if this problem might be connected to the one mentioned in the
previous paragraph?)
6.7
He then successfully printed a listing from Basic, using <Ctrl-B>, but
when he entered the command:
6.7
VDU2:PRINT TAB(10,5)“Archive” :VDU3
6.7
the word “Archive” was printed on the next line down in the first
column. In other words, the TAB was ignored.
6.7
He has an HP Deskjet 500C. (He normally uses a ProDriver and has no
problems with that.)
6.7
Richard Torrens uses Calligraph’s ArcLaser so doesn’t have a RISC­OS 3
driver installed. He also has a Basic program which uses VDU2 and worked
OK under RISC­OS 2, but now gives an error. He says the solution is to
type
6.7
Unset PrinterType$1
6.7
before entering the program (which doesn’t run in the desktop) and reset
on exit from the program.
6.7
1st Word Plus driver for Deskjet 550C
6.7
Barry Thompson has an answer from Acorn to the question he posed last
month: since the Acorn JP150 printer is an HP Deskjet compatible, use
the 1st Word Plus driver supplied on the JP150 support disc. This driver
also works with Laserjets. This driver supports all the printing effects
from 1st Word Plus but will not support the printing of graphics.
6.7
Programs That Work
6.7
The following programs have been reported as working without any
problems:
6.7
Fun School 4 (Under 5’s) – a new version works with RISC­OS 3
6.7
Manchester United Europe (Peter Young’s son thinks the football plays
faster)
6.7
Intersheet II
6.7
Wordwise A Plus
6.7
Mah Jong, The Game (the latest version – but Peter Young found that it
needed deleting from his hard disc and reloading before it would accept
keyboard input)
6.7
Hard Disc Companion from Risc Developments (but Peter Young has found it
to be much slower)
6.7
Thesaurus from Risc Developments
6.7
Chess, CrossStar and Spell from David Pilling.
6.7
It is interesting to observe that all but two of the programs that
Frances Obee asked about (Archive 6.5 p25) have been reported as working
fine. Of the other two: some problems with Atelier were mentioned last
month but I imagine that the publishers of a leading program such as
this must be able to supply a fix if one is needed; and Prime Art hasn’t
been mentioned at all and I imagine no news is good news.
6.7
Dave Wilcox has sent in a huge list of games that work, which serves to
illustrate two points: first, that most programs do work and second,
that lists of this kind are likely to lead to contradictions since he
reports some programs as working which have previously been reported as
giving trouble.
6.7
Rob Brown has begun compiling a database showing which programs work
(showing version numbers) and reporting compatibility problems that he
is aware of. So far, he has only included programs that he is familiar
with, and already the list is far too long to include in the magazine so
Paul is going to include it on the monthly magazine disc. If you have
anything to add to his database, his address is “Valtanee”, Brighton
Road, Lower Kingswood, Tadworth, Surrey, KT20 6UP.
6.7
Program Problems
6.7
David Holden has offered a couple of tips which may help you to get
programs working, especially demos − which seem to be the biggest
offenders.
6.7
Many demos speed up the system ROMs so that they can run faster. If it’s
a Basic demo, try looking for:
6.7
SYS “Update_MemC”,64,64
6.7
If you find it, either remove it or ‘REM’ it out. This call won’t work
with RISC-OS 3 and will make the computer hang. Symptoms are a complete
lock-up − even the mouse pointer won’t move.
6.7
Another is that the old minimum abbreviation for *CHANNELVOICE was
‘*CHA.’ and for *BASIC ‘*BA.’. These no longer work and require more
letters to be properly identified. There is a utility on one of the
RISC-OS 3 Applications discs which is supposed to cure these problems
but his experience is that this doesn’t always work, so you might need
to actually change the program.
6.7
David adds that RISC-OS 3 is also less tolerant of sloppy disc
identifiers, so filenames should always have a full filing system/path
name.
6.7
He also says that many programs give problems when Acorn’s !Alarm
application is running. This seems to be denied by everyone at Acorn but
it is a fact that he has verified for himself. This applies to a lot of
commercial software as well, so it isn’t just a PD problem but something
that !Alarm is doing. If you normally use !Alarm then try again without
it. If that solves the problem there are plenty of PD equivalents.
6.7
David also points out that many PD programs appear to be written in
machine code because, when you look in the application directory, you
see the ‘Application Code’ icon instead of a ‘Basic Code’ icon. However,
these programs are quite often not written in machine code or a compiled
language but have been disguised by a PD utility and are in fact Basic.
This doesn’t matter unless you want to make one of the changes described
above.
6.7
To restore this type of code to normal Basic, first load it into Edit.
If you have RISC-OS 3 Edit, you just need to hold down SHIFT and double-
click on the program icon to do this, if not you will need to drag the
program icon to the Edit icon. Don’t do anything to the original, but
work on a backup copy in case anything goes wrong. Now look at the first
line of the program. If it is disguised Basic, you will see the words
‘Basic -quit’ somewhere in this line. To change it back to normal Basic,
look for the first [0d] in the file − this will normally be at the end
of the first line. Delete everything up to but not including the [0d] so
that it becomes the first character in the file. Now re-save the file
and change its filetype to Basic (&FFB). If you now try reloading the
program into Edit (assuming you have the RISC-OS 3 version) you should
find that you have a normal Basic program to which you can make the
required changes.
6.7
One cause of compatibility problems that I have found is that !SparkFS
is, by default, configured to use the system sprite area for workspace.
Some older programs expect to have this all to themselves. In these
cases, a simple *SNEW command can help to get the program running.
(Obviously you must first make sure that SparkFS has saved any work-in-
progress!)
6.7
Dave Wilcox writes: “This is probably stating the obvious but, if you
have a hard disc system and normally boot up on the hard disc, it may
help to get games working properly if you configure the machine to Drive
0 instead of the Hard Disc and press <reset>. Also, before starting to
play a game, it is a good practice to open the drive holding the !System
directory, so that it enters the !System path into memory. Also, with
some games, it may be necessary to switch off the cache for ARM 3.”
6.7
Dave Wilcox also says that the following will NOT work under RISC-OS
3.10:
6.7
Powerband Mk2   (4th Dimension)
6.7
Saloon Cars      (4th Dimension)
6.7
Rotor      (Arcana)
6.7
Fireball      (C.I.S.)
6.7
Interdictor I (ver 1.01)   (Clares)
6.7
Corruption      (Magic Scrolls)
6.7
Thundermonk   (Minerva)
6.7
Ibix the Viking   (Minerva)
6.7
Brain Drain      (Minerva)
6.7
Grid Lock      (Minerva)
6.7
Freddy’s Folly   (Minerva)
6.7
Superior Golf & Const. Set   (Superior
Software)
6.7
Filing Systems
6.7
No floppy or hard drive icons?
6.7
Acorn advise: first of all, check that you have the correct number of
drives configured! Secondly, newer machines (A5000 onwards), on startup,
check to ensure that the configured drives are connected and if a drive
is not connected properly its icon may not be displayed − so check the
cable connections to the floppy drive.
6.7
ICS IDE hard drive
6.7
David Shepherdson found that, after he upgraded his A3000, his hard
drive didn’t work. Baildon Electronics, who are the service centre for
ICS, quickly fixed it. He adds, “In fact, as I also have a Calligraph
Laser Podule fitted, this also messed up my hard disc and Baildon fixed
that as well.”
6.7
Watford 5¼“ interface
6.7
Gordon Lindsay-Jones wrote to Watford (as Paul Beverley suggested) about
his problems with their buffer and has had no reply. He has come to the
conclusion that it does not work with RISC­OS 3.10! Can any readers help
by telling him which buffer(s) do work, please?
6.7
SCSI filer
6.7
Seán Kelly has discovered that his tip (Archive 6.5 p27) does not always
work. He writes: “Please allow me to apologise and to explain a proper
way to make the free space window work with SCSIFS.
6.7
“Originally, I advised adding a command to load the new SCSIFiler module
to the desktop boot file. This did work, but only − I have since
discovered − because my desktop boot file was also creating a RAMFS
disc. This forced the initialisation of the replacement module.” He
suggests that the answer is to split the boot process into two stages so
that the SCSI filer is initialised before the desktop is entered. (Tim
Nicholson confirms this.)
6.7
To do this first, rename the existing !Boot file as Deskboot, say, and
create an application directory called !Boot in the root directory and
move the Deskboot file into it. Then create an obey file called !Run
inside !Boot containing the following commands:
6.7
RMLoad SCSI::4.$.!System.
6.7
Modules.SCSIFiler
6.7
Desktop -file <obey$Dir>. Deskboot
6.7
(replacing 4 by the appropriate disc name).
6.7
If you want to smarten up the appearance of the !Boot application, you
can copy the sprites file_fea and small_fea from Resources:$.Wimp.
Sprites into a !Sprites file inside !Boot and rename the sprites !boot
and sm!boot.
6.7
The above is the approach which is also recommended on page 16 of the
RISC­OS 3.10 Release Note. An alternative way of achieving the same end
is (1) to rename the existing !Boot file (the one that contains all the
Filer_Boot and Filer_Run commands, etc) DeskBoot, say, (2) to copy it to
a safe place like the !System directory, (3) to create a new !Boot file
in the root directory, (4) to move into this new file the command to
RMLoad the SCSIFiler module and to add the command:
6.7
*Desktop -file SCSI::4.$.!System.DeskBoot
6.7
(replacing 4 by the appropriate disc name). To my mind, this way is
simpler because it avoids the necessity for creating sprite files,
renaming sprites, etc.
6.7
The $.!Boot.!Run file (under the Kelly/Acorn approach) or the !Boot file
(under mine) can now also be used to load or initialise all sorts of
things before the desktop is started − e.g. extra mode modules, virus
protection, ROM speed up programs, etc.
6.7
Miscellaneous Hints & Tips
6.7
Newlines in !Run files
6.7
P N Cousins says that if there is more than one linefeed at the end of
the !Run file of an application, if he tries “to use the menu button on
the icon” the machine locks up. I presume that he means that, if you
choose the Quit option on the iconbar menu, the application won’t quit.
This is something that I have noticed from time to time. (Invariably,
when it has happened to me, simply pressing <escape> has put things to
rights.) However, I have tried adding newlines galore to the ends of
!Run files without being able to repeat the phenomenon. Can anyone tell
us what is happening?
6.7
On page 16 of the RISC­OS 3.10 Release Note there is a cryptic
instruction that you should not enter any newlines after the second line
in a particular two-line !Run file. I wonder if this is connected.
6.7
Ian Hamilton says that, according to Acorn, Obey files with blank lines
aggravate what he calls a bug which can cause applications not to return
from their Obey files. He suspects that this may be the cause of the
problem that was blamed on Compression in Archive 6.5 p28.
6.7
Newlines at the end of !Boot files
6.7
P N Cousins also says that you must have a newline at the end of a !Boot
file or else the last line will be ignored. So, if you find that an
application which ought to be run by your !Boot file but isn’t, this
might be the answer.
6.7
Hiding the Apps in Resources
6.7
We have mentioned in a previous month that you can hide !Configure and
other ROM-based applications from prying eyes by typing *Unplug
!Configure (or whatever). Acorn advise that, if you do not want users to
see the Resources filing system, you can remove it from the iconbar by:
6.7
*Unplug ResourceFiler
6.7
Setting up an application
6.7
Tim Powys-Lybbe offers the following hints based on how he sets up
applications (using Impression as an example).
6.7
The technique I use is to construct an outer directory to hold (a) the
filer of work for the application and into which outer directory I also
place (b) the application as delivered from the supplier. I copy (c) the
!Sprite file from the application, give the outer directory the same
name as the application and make the !Run file do various things
including opening up the directory of working documents, the application
itself and then back up the working documents on exiting the
application. The !Boot file is more or less copied from the application
though you do need to choose a different system variable name for this
outer directory. (I just add Top to the application’s system variable
name for its directory.)
6.7
I have had several problems getting this working on RISC-OS 3, though
the end result is far better as I now have control over where the
directories open on the desktop and I get a nice clean view of the
Impression start-up picture.
6.7
1. Extension of Filer_OpenDir command
6.7
This command, which opens up a directory on the desktop, otherwise known
to Acorn as a filer, has been extended in RISC-OS 3 to allow you to
decide both where you want to place the filer on the desktop and how
large it is to be (the user guide gives details). For example, in the
!Run file, to open up Impression:
6.7
Filer_OpenDir <ImpressTop$Dir>. Templates 1000 700
6.7
This places the Templates filer with its top left at 1000 OS units
across the desktop from the left and 700 OS units up from the base line.
Acorn define 180 OS units as 1 inch on the screen though this must
presumably depend on the size of the monitor. You will have to
experiment with values for the directory position to get it where you
want on your desktop.
6.7
You can add information about the width and height of the directory by
adding two more numbers:
6.7
Filer_OpenDir <ImpressTop$Dir>. Templates 1000 700 1200 130
6.7
The third number is the width of the directory and the fourth number is
its height. In mode 39, 130 OS units high just accommodates a single row
of the large icon size. (Isn’t the height of an icon, in screen units,
mode-independent?)
6.7
2. Opening an ArcFS directory
6.7
I have had some correspondence with Mark Smith, the ever-helpful author
of this excellent package, and have at last found how to make ArcFS
directories open up from within the !Run file. It is done in two stages,
first:
6.7
OpenArchive <ImpressTop$Dir>. Documents
6.7
Documents is the name of an ArcFS archive that is stored within the
Impression outer directory. Note that ArcFS should already be on the
iconbar for this Open_Archive command to work as it is an ArcFS module
command; you can of course start up ArcFS from within this same !Run
file.
6.7
The second command is:
6.7
Filer_OpenDir ArcFS#Documents:$ 600 1400 1800 260
6.7
The syntax is fairly obvious if you look at the top of the directory for
your archive once it is open!
6.7
3. Backing up to a floppy
6.7
I have a little application tagged on to the end of the Impression !Run
file to cause a back up of the Documents archive after exiting
Impression (or any other application I hasten to add). With RISC-OS 2 it
would work with:
6.7
*COPY <ImpressTop$Dir>.Docu-
6.7
ments :0.Documents
6.7
In RISC-OS 3 this produces an error and one must use instead:
6.7
*COPY <ImpressTop$Dir>.Docu-
6.7
ments ADFS::0.Documents
6.7
Setting up Pinboard without a hard disc
6.7
Brian Fielding has developed an interesting use of the Pinboard, which
he says is especially useful for those without a hard disc:
6.7
After ‘playing’ with RISC-OS 3 for a few days and realising some of the
benefits of the PinBoard, which are obviously more beneficial if you
have a Hard Disc, I worked out a mechanism to fully utilise the PinBoard
so that, when the system was first booted, it would contain all the
applications I would want to access.
6.7
The mechanism described below will display the Applications and when an
icon is double-clicked the appropriate disc will be requested and the
application will be loaded.
6.7
This should be read in conjunction with Chapter 7 of the RISC-OS 3 User
Guide, “Desktop Boot Files”.
6.7
Setting up pseudo-applications
6.7
For each application you wish pinned to or loaded onto your pinboard,
set up a pseudo-application as follows:
6.7
Copy the application, say !AppName, to an empty disc and, using <shift>
and double-click <select>, display the contents of the application.
6.7
Delete all files and directories except !Boot, !Run and !Sprites.
6.7
Edit !Boot to contain the four lines, in the order given:
6.7
IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
6.7
Set AppName$Dir ADFS::DiscName. $.!AppName
6.7
Set Alias$@RunType_fff Run <AppName$Dir>.!Run %%*0
6.7
Set File$Type_fff FileName
6.7
AppName is the name of your application e.g. PipeDream
6.7
DiscName is the name of the disc containing the original application.
6.7
fff is the application’s FileType. (This line should be present in the
original !boot file. There may be other Alias$@RunType_fff lines and
these should also be left.)
6.7
FileName is the Filetype name, e.g. PDream. (This is not essential.
Again there may be others and should be left if desired.)
6.7
Note: <Obey$Dir> must only be used as a pathname to !Sprites. The full
pathname to the original Application must be established, including the
disc name.
6.7
Edit !Run to contain (or create an Obey file):
6.7
Run <AppName$Dir>.!Run
6.7
Do not alter !Sprites. Copy !AppName to your Desktop Boot Disc. Add the
following lines to the !Boot file on your Desktop Boot Disc
‘DskTopBoot’. (See note below if using a RAM disc.):
6.7
Filer_Boot ADFS::DskTopBoot.$. !AppName
6.7
Pin ADFS::DskTopBoot.$.!AppName 100 300
6.7
100 300 represents the position on the PinBoard. With the origin at the
bottom left of your screen, this represents 100 units to the right and
300 units up. Your next application should be placed at 300 300. You
can, of course, pin your applications anywhere on the board.
6.7
If you wish your application to be ready for use, use ‘Run ...’ instead
of ‘Pin ...’.
6.7
RAM disc available
6.7
Unfortunately, the above will require you to load the Boot disc each
time you load any application.
6.7
If you have sufficient space available in memory, create a RAM disc of
at least 64Kb. You need, on average, 7 Kb per application.
6.7
Prepare as above but copy your pseudo-applications to a directory, say,
PseudoApps, on your Boot Disc.
6.7
You will then need to modify your !Boot file as follows:
6.7
Ensure you have a large enough RAM disc.
6.7
Change DynamicArea -RamFsSize 64K.
6.7
Add the line
6.7
COPY ADFS::DskTopBoot.$. PseudoApps.* RAM::RamDisc0. $.* ~CQR~V
6.7
Modify both the Filer_Boot and the Pin (or Run) lines from
‘ADFS::DskTopBoot’ to read ‘RAM::RamDisc0’.
6.7
Notes
6.7
Ensure that you have configured the system to boot from Disc by loading
your Boot disc and executing *Opt4,2 in command line mode.
6.7
Some applications, e.g. Lemmings, are set up to delete RAM disc on
startup and tidy up when QUITed, e.g. UnSet Directories. These should be
altered:
6.7
For Lemmings, the file !Lemmings.!Run should add | at the start of the
line TequeMen and Unset Lem$Dir.
6.7
If memory is a problem, the amount of RAM space can be reduced by adding
a line Delete RAM::RamDisc0.!AppName.!Sprites after the corresponding
Filer_Boot line. This will approximately halve the required space.
6.7
If you have sufficient RAM disc space, it would be helpful to place
!Scrap in it.
6.7
ROM/RAM podule available
6.7
If you have a ROM/RAM podule, with battery backup, then setting up the
pseudo-applications onto the RAM will make application selection much
more user-friendly.
6.7
If you have a ROM/RAM podule, make this your Boot system. Simply follow
the above but change ‘ADFS::DskTopBoot.’ to ‘RFS:’ and remember, in
Command Line mode, to:
6.7
*Configure FileSystem RFS
6.7
*RFS
6.7
*OPT4,2
6.7
*ADFS
6.7
Examples
6.7
The monthly program disc has examples for disc, RAMDisc and for the ROM/
RAM podule.
6.7
Matters Arising
6.7
Backing up in one pass (Archive 6.5 p36)
6.7
Put the following command in your !Boot file:
6.7
Wimpslot -next 800K
6.7
Solid sprite dragging (Archive 6.6 p61)
6.7
(This gets even more bizarre!) Would you believe that, to turn sprite
dragging off, your new friendly operating system requires you to issue
the following commands?
6.7
SYS “OS_Byte”,161,28 TO ,,R2
6.7
R2=R2 AND 253
6.7
SYS “OS_Byte”,162,28,R2
6.7
(Thanks to David Shepherdson for that!)
6.7
!CMOS_Edit: WARNING!
6.7
Bruce Brown warns that, although !CMOS_Edit can be used as I mentioned
last month (Archive 6.6 p60) to save, load and view the CMOS RAM
effectively, if you use the Edit and Update feature, you will be in
trouble. This is because Acorn have now implemented the (previously
reserved) checksum byte at the end of the CMOS RAM. When you “Update”,
!CMOS_Edit will overwrite the correct value with the old incorrect
value. Since the checksum routine is relative, it will then always be
wrong until the power on/delete routine is performed. Until then,
whenever you startup, the operating system will find that the checksum
is wrong and will use default settings rather than those stored in the
CMOS.
6.7
!CMOS_Edit is easily fixed to overcome this: look in the !RunImage
(Basic) file for the loop which writes the values to CMOS RAM and change
the loop counter from 0 TO 239 to 0 TO 238. Leave the loops for saving
and loading alone − they obviously must load and save everything as
previously.  A
6.7
Hints and Tips
6.7
•   Configuring the main Edit window − The RISC-OS 3 version of Edit makes
no provision for preferences concerning the size and the place on the
screen of a newly opened Edit window.
6.7
However, this can easily be rectified. If you run Edit from your hard
disc, the Templates file can be edited according to taste. The nice
thing is that, even from the hard disc, Edit still occupies the same RAM
space (64 Kb on a 4 Mb machine).
6.7
Here is what you do: drag the Edit application from the Apps directory
to your hard disc, click <menu> on the Apps icon, then <select> to open
the root directory, open the Resources directory and copy the three
files inside the Edit subdirectory into your new Edit application. (For
Acorn newcomers, you open an application directory by double clicking
while holding down <shift>.)
6.7
Then drag the Templates file on to the iconbar icon of FormEd (an
application available from N.C.S. on Shareware 20) and drag the Text
window (the one which is filled with a web of diagonal lines) into the
desired position. Save the edited Template file.
6.7
If you always use Edit, don’t forget to change your configuration so
that, after power-on, the correct version of Edit is loaded.
6.7
Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany
6.7
•   Faxpack − Did you know that if you manually dial 0336−400−445 and
then, at the prompt, select ‘Receive Fax’, you will receive a 24 Hour
Surface Forecast Chart from The Met. Office. It is very useful if you
want to know what the weather is going to do. Dial 0336−400−401 for the
Marine Index Page of all the forecasts and charts that are available.
Although it is a bit expensive (calls are charged at 36p per minute
cheap rate and 48p per minute at all others times) I find them
invaluable. This only works with FaxPack v2.00 − with earlier versions,
it causes “A Line Error occurred” fault. Steve Monks, Tobermory.  A
6.7