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Archive Magazine CD 1995
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hints
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volume_08
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1995-02-16
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Hints and Tips
8.2
• A3000 bulging case − My early A3000 had, from the start, a standard
Acorn monitor stand upon which was a AKF17 monitor. Of late, I found the
upper case section, on the left hand side by the power supply, had
started to bulge out from the bottom section. This was caused by the
weight of the monitor supported by the Acorn stand only on the extreme
edges of the case.
8.2
In my job as IT Technician at school, I had noticed (having removed
countless covers for various reasons) there have been two upgrades to
the cases, and one of the upgrades had special strengthening and
interlocking around this area, no doubt with this in mind. The latest,
Mk 3 version is available as an Acorn spare part. The base of the new
case requires a lot of work in removing the PCB and any upgrades, and
the power supply design has changed making the changeover awkward.
However the new case lid will fit onto the old base and this alone
offers enough strength to cure the problem. K R Coton, Solihull.
8.2
• Disabling POST test (and other useful ‘bits’) − One of our customers
found that because the POST (Power On Self Test, or the software that
makes the screen flash pretty colours at switch on and flashes the
floppy light at you when things go wrong), had been partly disabled,
meaning that his SCSI drive was not given sufficient time to get ready
before the SCSI card demanded its attention. Some people may have
disabled this after installing certain versions of the VIDC enhancer.
The POST will always be reactivated by a delete-power on, but there is a
more subtle way of switching it on or off. Byte 188 (&BC) of the CMOS
RAM contains 8 bits which affect various miscellaneous configuration
options.
8.2
Bits 0-1 ROMFS Opt 4 state
8.2
Bit 2 cache icon enable state
8.2
Bit 3-5 screen blanker time: 0=off, 1=30s, 2=1min, 3=2min, 4=5min,
5=10min, 6=15min, 7=30min.
8.2
Bit 6 screen blanker/Wrch interaction: 0=ignore Wrch,
8.2
1=Wrch unblanks screen
8.2
Bit 7 hardware (POST) test disable: 0=full tests, 1=disable long
tests at power-up.
8.2
RISC OS 3 PRM, 1-358, Acorn Computers Ltd.
8.2
The program disc contains a simple program for altering the state of any
of these bits. David Webb, NCS.
8.2
• Inkjet printers and paper quality − A number of items have appeared
here and elsewhere on how to realise to the full the potential quality
of printouts with ink-jet printers. At 300 dpi, one would think it ought
to be indistinguishable from the output from a laser printer with the
same resolution.
8.2
Why is there a problem? All papers are made from fibres, matted
together; thus, if you put a drop of liquid onto a piece of paper, the
fluid will flow between these fibres, carrying with it any dye or
colourant: hence the fuzzy edges of the output from inkjet printers with
unsuitable papers. Coating the paper can eliminate the problem, but at a
substantial cost. However, with careful design of the paper making
process, it is possible to minimise (though not eliminate) this
‘bleeding’.
8.2
I wrote to Hewlett Packard and asked for their recommendations They came
up with two types of paper and their suppliers. I got some samples, and
both were very good but, by a small margin, ‘Versoix Copy’ seemed to me
the better (and cheaper). The other, ‘Reyjet’, is close behind and both
are streets ahead of most ordinary photocopier paper. Neither is very
expensive (about £3.00 per ream for Vesiox and £5.50 for Reyjet) but
neither are very readily available. If you write to the distributors,
they will send you samples and the name of your nearest stockist.
8.2
Versoix Copy − Darent Paper Agencies, Wandle House, Riverside Drive,
Mitcham, Surrey, CR4 4SU. (0181-640-4102)
8.2
Reyjet − Denian Paper Ltd, Unit D2, West Mill, Imperial Business Estate.
Gravesend, Kent, DA11 0DL. (01474-569919) Barry Humpidge.
8.2
• Irregular text frames in Publisher − In response to one of Keith
Parker’s wish-it-did-that moans in the Comment Column (8.1 p31), I would
suggest that whilst irregular text frames would be nice, the use of a
regular frame “framed” by a couple of repelling irregular graphics
frames (drag an empty drawfile into blank frames) does the job, with a
little fiddling. John McCartney.
8.2
• Large banners in Impression − To create a six foot long banner, or
similar, using Impression, create a new master page, “Banner”, width
72“, depth 8”, Landscape, margins 0.5 with one column. Quit the master
pages and alter the chapter of the document, selecting “Banner” as the
master page. Change the font size to around 400 point and centre the
text. Type the banner message. Print out on tractor fed continuous paper
(sideways!). Vector offers some useful banners ready made, or you can
use Impression’s Borders in ‘Alter Frame’, to enhance the finished
article. Irene Quinn, Thetford, Norfolk.
8.2
• Laser Direct on the Risc PC − If you are upgrading to a Risc PC and
have an elderly Laser Direct card, it will not work if it is “Issue one”
(the computer will not initialise after the board has been plugged into
one of the expansion slots). This type can be quickly identified by the
fact that it is the only version where there is a ribbon cable
connecting the circuit board to the printer output socket. Computer
Concepts will exchange this type of board for the latest version for
£100. You will probably also need a copy of the most recent version
(2.63) of the printer driver disc at £10. David Smith, Edinburgh.
8.2
• More Sleuths on the case − If you are lucky enough to have lots of
memory on your machine you can run two or more copies of Sleuth at the
same time, so that if you are OCRing several pages of text, the rate of
OCRing can be considerably increased. On a simple test run, two copies
running saved 36% on the time taken and three copies saved nearly 50% on
the time! It then occurred to me that using more than one copy might be
infringing the software licence, but on checking with Risc Developments,
I was assured that this was not the case. Philip Foster, Cambridge.
8.2
• Turbo charging draft printing with a Deskjet printer − What I didn’t
realise, until I tried it by accident, was that the ‘Draft’ button on
the printer worked with graphic (e.g. output from Impression), as well
as ‘straight’ printing. Thus, with your printer driver set to 150 dpi,
and the ‘draft’ light on, you can produce readable copies for proof
reading in virtually no time at all! Barry Humpidge.
8.2
• Turbo Driver v4 and Dongles − If you are using CC’s Turbo Driver v4
on a computer with a bi-directional parallel port, via a dongle, the
status signals don’t get through. This includes signals, such as “paper
out” and “printer offline” etc. If the driver software is looking for
these signals you may find that printing is blocked. To bypass the
problem call up the configuration dialogue box and configure to ignore
status signals. Nick Harris, Norwich. A
8.2