Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/hints/volume_7

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Hints and Tips
7.1
• A300/400 floppy drive problems − On the old A310 and A440 machines,
the disc drive has a cover on the head which has a notorious tendency to
fall off but the drive is not affected by a missing cover. A far more
usual fault on A310 drives is that the eject button falls off. This can
easily be fixed with glue. (Do take the drive out of the machine first
so you don’t glue the button to the front of the computer!)
7.1
On the old machines (with only the disc drive button sticking out
through the front fascia) you have no option but to replace them with an
identical Sony drive mechanism (£102 through Archive − Ouch! Ed.) but on
the newer machines, like the A410/1, you can use most 720Kb drives
available. (Are you sure? Ed.) Knut Folmo, Norway.
7.1
• Bespoke appointments’ calendar − I have written a program (on the
monthly program disc) to generate an Impression-based appointments
calendar and would like to share it with other people, courtesy of
Archive magazine. Using the program avoids filling in all those
birthdays, etc every year. It’s all done automatically from a text file.
It’s written in Basic and has no glitzy front end but it works OK.  Ian
Summers, Norwich.
7.1
• Elite − A space station exists in witch space. After killing all the
other ships, switch to one of the status screens (f8?) and the compass
will reappear. By jumping repeatedly in that direction, you can
eventually find it. This station is strange in many ways and, while you
are experimenting, it is worth noting that its existence changes while
you are looking at the status screen. Try docking and shooting while
using <f8>.  Geoff Scott, Northampton.
7.1
• Form feeds in printer drivers − I would like to respond to Mick Day’s
comments about form feeds (6.12 p57). The terminal form feed is
definitively (now there’s sticking my neck out) configurable. Mick does
not say whether he is using text or graphics output to his printer but
for the dot matrix drivers this is what happens.
7.1
Text output:-
7.1
send
7.1
StartTextJob code
7.1
SetLines code plus byte to set the page depth in text lines
7.1
[your text formatted as per option set, eg none or draft highlights etc
using specified line feed/ linefeed cr codes]
7.1
{gets to the end of a page
7.1
[more text as above]}
7.1
       .
7.1
       .  repeat above for number         of pages
7.1
       .
7.1
EndTextJob code (this usually includes a Form Feed in the codes sent)
7.1
For graphics you have:-
7.1
SetLines code plus byte as above
7.1
PageStart code
7.1
[Graphics data using specified control strings]
7.1
@{of a page
7.1
PageEnd code
7.1
SetLines code as above
7.1
PageStart code
7.1
[Graphics data as above]}
7.1
      .
7.1
      . repeat for number of            pages
7.1
      .
7.1
GraphicsFormFeed code PageEnd code
7.1
thus, by defining your form feed character in the driver definition file
to be nothing, form feeds can be suppressed. Remember though that it
needs to be done for each graphics resolution and each text definition.
7.1
I have a dummy printer def file which replaces the genuine control codes
with strings to illustrate what is going on. If it is merged into
!Printers’ Printer control window and set to print to file, output from
it can be viewed in !Edit to see what is going on. If a multipage text
file is dragged to it, the effect of text control codes can be viewed,
and similarly with graphics. The ideal is a two-page document using
outline fonts with, say, just one character at the bottom of each page
so that there is not too much graphics garbage to wade through but
mostly LineSkip codes. The printer def file and a suitable text test
file are on the Archive monthly disc. It includes a ‘Graptest’ file
which is a two-page Wordz “document”.  Tim Nicholson, Cranleigh.
7.1
• Keyboard cleaning − We regularly get asked about keyboard problems,
many of which could be solved by cleaning. That, I think, is the answer
to Brian Cowan’s question in his Hardware Column last month. There have
been three main references to this in Archive (3.9 p10 + 5.1 p25 + 5.2
p28). I think these should cover most eventualities.  Ed.
7.1
In response to Brian’s question, several subscribers sent in
descriptions of how to clean a keyboard. I think that much of it is
covered by the references above but I think Knut Folmo’s comments which
follow may also be helpful.  Ed.
7.1
• Keyboard cleaning (2) − There are three different keyboards on
Archimedes computers.
7.1
(1) KPL keyboard − This was used only on VERY old A310 machines. It can
be identified by looking at the CapsLock LED, which is mounted on the
right hand side of the key-top, as opposed to the left on the more usual
types. This is horrible to type on! If you still have such a keyboard,
throw it in the wastebin and buy a new! (Funnily enough, Acorn keyboards
are on special offer at the moment for £95 instead of £123 − strictly
while stocks last − I have about 10 of them. Ed)
7.1
(2) Keytronics keyboard − This is the normal keyboard on most of the
A310s and nearly all the A400/1 range. If you take off one of the keys,
you will see a rubber cap that is mounted between the key and the
keyswitch.
7.1
These keyboards do not like hair, biscuits and other kinds of dust. If
any keys fail, it most likely to be the CapsLock key because the hole
around the LED makes it possible for dust to get into the keyswitch. If
you have access to pressurised air, you can fix the key for a limited
period of time by taking off the keytop and blowing some air around the
LED. The best cure is to open the whole keyboard and clean it. This is a
lot of work and involves unscrewing approximately 40 screws. (See the
references mentioned above. Ed.)
7.1
(3) Cherry keyboards − All A5000/A540 machines have this type of
keyboard, which use the same mechanics as the A3000. This is a very good
membrane keyboard which seems to be very long-lasting. The use of
membrane technology makes it impossible for dust to enter the electrical
contacts. This type of keyboard is also the best to type on. It can
easily be identified by taking off one of the keytops, which should have
a little spring mounted on the underside. (Cherry keyboards are the ones
we have on special offer at the moment. Ed.)  Knut Folmo, Norway.
7.1
There is a fourth type: the A4000 type keyboard. We haven’t had any of
these go wrong yet, but we’ll report on them as and when they do. Ed.
7.1
• Street maps using Draw − At the risk of being boring, since there have
been lots of articles about using Artworks or Vector to produce street
maps, I offer this solution using plain simple RISC OS 3 Draw. Firstly,
draw your map using ordinary thin lines for the roads. Then group all
the roads together and make their thicknesses (say) 4pt. Switch the grid
lock on and copy the roads. With the grid lock on, a copy is made
exactly one grid distance down and to the right. Therefore you can move
the copy exactly over the original. Now change all the lines in the copy
to colour white and thickness (say) 2pt and, hey presto, there’s your
street map.
7.1
If you want different thickness roads, keep the grid lock on and move
the copy to a different bit of the paper. Then make the copy’s line
colour red (so you can see it) and ungroup both maps. Carefully change
the corresponding road lines to the required thicknesses − e.g. 8pt on
the original and 5pt on the copy for the main roads. Then re-group the
roads and move the copy over the original. Finally, change the copy to
white lines. There may be more elegant ways of generating road maps but
this one is “free” with the Archimedes! Notice also that there are no
problems with joining different sized roads (i.e. the outlines of the
small roads do not project into the big roads.  Cain Hunt, Cambridge.  A
7.1

Hints and Tips
7.2
• ArcDFS under RISC OS 3 − It has been reported on numerous occasions
that ArcDFS doesn’t work under RISC OS 3 − not true! (Or at least only
partly.) If a disc reports a failure, change the disc TITLE (using
appropriate option) to “”, i.e. an empty string, and hey presto!!
7.2
Why is that necessary? I have not yet had a chance to bury myself in the
code to find out, I’m afraid.
7.2
Note: The only other option that doesn’t work is Free, but personally I
don’t think that’s much of a problem. Format and Verify both work OK.
7.2
P.S. Make sure the Step timings are set to those values given in the
original documentation, as they are reset when upgrading to RISC OS 3.
R. George, Cambridge.
7.2
• Grey Scales − I frequently use Draw to produce diagrams for inclusion
in text produced using Impression, or for independent printing. The
drawing package which comes with RISC OS 3 generally satisfies my needs.
7.2
One facility which I often need is a grey scale which will produce
distinct shades on my LaserDirect printer, with the minimum of
‘graininess’. Ignore the adverts which proclaim 256 Grey Shades! If you
need a ‘seamless’ transition from black to white, this is fine, but if
you want to print blocks of greys which all look different, you will be
lucky to manage 16 shades.
7.2
The simplest approach to this problem is to try using the colours on the
palette. It can be helpful to have the features of your diagram
highlighted in blue, red, green, etc on the screen, but how will they
appear printed in black-and-white? If you use the default palette (which
I do not!) the 16 colours come out in various shades of grey, as shown
below. The squares are labelled with the appropriate colour numbers, and
arranged from white to black. These squares appear on my Impression
screen, of course, in glorious technicolour.
7.2
I cannot be sure how this will turn out if Paul prints it in Archive,
but on my printer there are only seven, perhaps just eight,
distinguishable shades. They are all fairly grain-free, printed at
600×600 dpi, so a suitable selection can be used. If you want them to
appear on the screen as shades of grey, use ‘colours’
0  ◰2  1  2  3  4  5(?)  7. If you prefer them displayed in colour, use
the series 0  ◰2  9  ◰4  ◰5  ◰0  5(?)  11  7.
7.2
I have continued this investigation to attempt to find the best possible
grey scale using colours not necessarily on the palette. I have
restricted my investigation to grey ‘colours’, i.e. those using the
same, or similar, intensities of red, green and blue. That is enough to
be going on with!
7.2
!Draw allows you to select each of the three components on a scale
0−255. The !Palette utility only allows 16 intensity levels for each
component (producing the 4096 standard colours), so I have started with
this restriction. Representing the 16 degrees of intensity by the hex-
digits 0−F, and allowing a difference of only one between the three
components, I have devised the 16-grey-shades scale shown below.
7.2
How these colours appear on your screen depends on what palette you are
using. In front of me now, I can see shades of buff/brown, because I
have modified the standard, rather harsh, palette. You could try setting
up a palette using these as colours 0−15. The result on the screen is
pretty horrible! The result in print, however, is quite good, although
the lighter shades are a bit grainy.
7.2
Using the Fill Colour facility of Draw gives us greater flexibility,
because we can select from 0−255 for each primary colour. To keep things
fairly simple, I have tried only ‘pure grey’ shades, in which the
intensities of red­green­blue are always the same. This gives 256 shades
to try.
7.2
Using this technique, LaserDirect clearly does not print 256 shades.
Groups of four consecutive shades always appear identical, so our
selection comes down to 64 shades. I printed blocks of these shades,
each identified by the intensity number used for each of the three
components, 0 = black ... 255 = white. The shades which show the least
grain are, for some reason, those numbered 243  235  227  219  etc, i.e.
those whose codes are 8k+3.
7.2
There are 32 such shades, but adjacent ones are very similar in print,
often apparently identical. In an attempt to create a usable scale, I
have selected ten of these codes (235 219 203 187 171 155 139 123 99 and
67) plus 0 (black) and 255 (white). These are the shades which I will
try for my next few Draw diagrams. Even these shades show little
difference between adjacent pairs, and it is desirable to use alternate
ones only, if possible.
7.2
Colin Singleton, Sheffield.
7.2
• Hard disc usage − How much space do my hard disc files occupy? The
answer depends on how I try to measure them! My investigations resulted
in the recovery of 5.6Mb (13%) from an unexpected source which I don’t
think has been mentioned previously in Archive.
7.2
We all know that the disc usage figures given by *Free and *Count are
different. *Count returns the total number of data bytes in the files,
in my case 22.3Mb. *Free returns the total number of bytes used (or
reserved) on the disc, in my case 42.8Mb. These are different for at
least two reasons.
7.2
Firstly, disc space is allocated to files in units which vary from drive
to drive. In the case of the Acorn SCSI on my A540, this unit is 1Kb.
Hence, on average, 512 bytes is wasted at the end of each file − this is
included in the bytes used returned by *Free, but not by *Count. For the
5,134 files on my drive, this totals 2.5Mb.
7.2
Secondly, some space is reserved for each Directory Header. The Index
occupies 2Kb, irrespective of the drive and filing system which, for my
1204 directories, amounts to 2.4Mb, increasing *Count to 24.7Mb.
However, SCSIFS reserves a larger allocation per directory, as noted by
several Archive readers, including Steve Drain (Archive 5.12). On the
A540, each directory is allocated 15Kb, of which only 2Kb is occupied by
the Index. Some of the rest may, if I am lucky, be occupied by small
files subsequently created within the directory. If I am unlucky, I lose
13Kb per directory. For my 1204 directories, this could amount to
15.3Mb.
7.2
Adding this 15.3Mb to the 2.5Mb noted above, gives a maximum wastage of
17.8Mb. The actual discrepancy, however, was 42.8 − 24.7 = 18.1Mb, so
there must have been something I hadn’t discovered. In order to
investigate, I considered my disc directories in three groups, as
identified in the table overleaf.
7.2

7.2
The largest is headed by a directory called Documents. This contains all
my Impression documents, plus a large number of drawfiles and several
hundred old First Word Plus text files retained for reference. When I
discovered the 13Kb per directory wastage, I realised that Impression,
which normally uses three directories per document, was wasting a great
deal of space.
7.2
I tackled this problem some time ago, by saving most of my Impression
documents as Text only. This Impression feature in fact stores the
Styles with the text, but does not store graphics or frame data. If I
drag one of the resulting text files onto the Impression icon on the
iconbar, this displays the text in its original fonts, sizes, etc. If,
instead, I drag the text of a letter into the document which contains a
‘blank’ letterhead, the letter is restored exactly as it was originally
created − provided it contained no graphics and no frames other than
those defined in the letterhead document.
7.2
I was thus able to store most of my Impression documents as Text only,
and recover several megabytes, without losing anything. This was done
some months ago, before the exercise I am describing here. At that time,
I also compressed all these ‘document’ files, using Compression and they
are now read and written using Cfs. Some of the other directories on my
disc are also held in compressed form and are identified below as Other
Cfs. The rest (mainly fonts and software) are not compressed and are
identified as Non-Cfs.
7.2
The table shows the *Count for each group of files and the *Count
obtained via Cfs, which shows what the count would have been if the
files had not been compressed. For interest, I have also shown the sizes
of the backups for each category. These were obtained using by !Backup,
into a temporary directory on the same disc and noting the *Counts of
the backup data directories created (excluding the recovery software
stored with the backup data). !Backup uses !Spark compression which, we
can see from the figures, has some effect on the Non-Cfs files. For the
others, however, no further compression is possible and the backup
actually uses more space than the live files, owing to the directory
structures and other parameters stored by !Backup.
7.2
In order to assess the Actual Mb used for each group, I copied (by
dragging) each in turn into a temporary directory on the same disc and
noted the decrease in *Free bytes. Then I discovered that the three
figures obtained did not total the Used bytes given by *Free for the
whole disc − the discrepancy being over 5Mb. After some experimentation,
I concluded that the copying process did not produce a precise ‘clone’
occupying the same space as the original. The only way to discover the
space occupied by a group of directories is to delete it and note the
increase in *Free bytes.
7.2
Hence I copied each group in turn, then deleted the original, rather
than the copy, and noted the change in total usage arising from the
deletion rather than the copying. The copies were then retained in place
of the originals. This process not only revealed the true original
sizes, but also gained 5.6Mb free space, because the copies occupied
less space than the originals!
7.2
Where did this windfall come from? The first point to note is that it
was all gained in the Documents directories. These have been very active
in the past. Apart from the usual process of addition and amendment of
documents, the filing system has also had to endure the process of
replacing most of the Impression documents with text files, the
compression of all the files and, recently, a major exercise of
restructuring the directories and renaming most of the files. Many of
the recent changes were made by copying files, then deleting the
originals, rather than by renaming. All this activity must have produced
considerable small-scale fragmentation of the free space, which is
perhaps not mapped and included in the *Free bytes. *Compact (which
should not be needed with this filing system) did produce a
simplification of the free space *Map, but did not change the number of
*Free bytes. Copying the files in sequence, however, produces a new
directory with no fragmented waste.
7.2
As a result of all this, I can now calculate the wasted space as 8.5Kb
per directory, instead of an apparently impossible 13.3Kb. If I could
recover all of this, I would save another 10Mb in total, but that seems
to be impossible. I could recover perhaps three quarters of it by re-
formatting the disc using a smaller File Allocation, except that I don’t
want to do that unless it is really necessary, and in any case, I don’t
appear to have the right Format program ...!  Colin Singleton,
Sheffield.
7.2
• Image enhancement − I think I can offer a solution to Cain Hunt’s
request for a cheap image enhancer (7.1 p26). With hindsight, I might
have included the information in the notes on colour printing (7.1 p35).
Version 0.90 of Acorn’s !ChangeFSI application comes ‘free’ on the RISC
OS 3.1 Support Disc and its many facilities include most of the sprite
processing options I suggested; brightening and gamma correction for
example. It also accepts some foreign formats (e.g. TIFF), converting
them to sprites.
7.2
The documentation is not so hot. There seems to be nothing between the
rather sketchy notes starting on page 207 of the RISC OS 3 Applications
Guide and the detailed but very complex FSIinfo file in the !ChangeFSI
directory. However, this desktop application is intuitive to use, and
trial and error will often produce the desired result. Although it is
possible to apply two or more processing functions in parallel, I do
support the notes’ recommendation to operate on an unmodified file and
try changing only one parameter at a time.
7.2
The only process I would like to see added to !ChangeFSI is Chameleon’s
‘Weaken’ function which, for me, seems to give more effective control of
colour sprites than Brighten.
7.2
I spotted a documented facility in !ChangeFSI which allows very large
output files to be built in ‘strips’ using the parameter ChangeFSI
<source address><destination address>28-max<n> where n is the desired
size of the strip, e.g. 512Kb. I wonder if some very clever person might
be able to use this as a basis for a utility to transfer large
TIFF files between Archimedes/PCs/Macs, split between two or more MS-DOS
floppy discs?
7.2
As a further postscript to the colour printing notes, a reader has
recommended Hewlett Packard HP 92296U transparencies for my Canon LBP-4;
about 32p each. I’ve since tried them and the results, especially on 600
dpi graphics, are excellent.  Jim Nottingham, York.
7.2
• Indelible ink − At long last, there is an indelible ink refill
available for HP Deskjet cartridges. They are available from Misco
Computer Supplies, Faraday Close, Park Farm Industrial Estate,
Wellingborough, NN8 6XH. A two-refill kits costs £13 plus postage.  Mike
King, Guernsey.  A

Hints & Tips
7.3
• Two independent stories with Ovation − Richard Hallas demonstrated an
excellent method of creating two independent stories with Impression in
the ‘Hints & Tips’ column (Archive 6.12 p27). To perform a similar task
with Ovation is not quite so easy but there is a way that this layout
can be obtained.
7.3
Double-click on the Ovation application to load it onto the iconbar.
Click <menu> over Ovation’s icon and select the ‘New Document’ option.
From this menu, choose the A4 page, ‘Portrait’ orientation and single
column options. For this example, I will create two independent columns
on an A4 sized page. Similar layouts can be created with other page
sizes.
7.3
Once Ovation’s main window has been opened, click <menu> and select the
‘Page’ menu. From this menu click on ‘Show Master Pages’. You will now
see Ovation’s master page for the A4 document. Ovation, unlike
Impression, does not allow you to delete any frames on the master page.
Alter the width of the A4 frame by choosing ‘Object’ from Ovation’s main
menu and then from the ‘Object’ menu select ‘Modify Frame’.
7.3
Set the main frame width to 90mm and height to 255mm. After modifying
the frame it will be displayed on the left hand side of Ovation’s master
page. Now create an identical sized text frame, using the text frame
icon on Ovation’s tool bar, and place it on the left hand side of the
master page, making sure that it aligns perfectly with the left hand
frame. Check with Ovation’s ‘Modify Frame’ option that this newly
created frame has identical dimensions to the previously created frame.
At this stage, any header or footer frames should be added to the master
page. You may well have to alter the height of both main text frames to
accommodate the header and footer frames.
7.3
Now quit the master page and return to Ovation’s main window. Ovation
still displays the original A4 frame outline. To display your newly
created dual frame layout, you will need to select the ‘Page’ option
from Ovation’s main menu. From this ‘Page’ menu select the ‘Insert Page’
option and a box ‘Insert Pages’ will appear on the screen. Click on ‘OK’
and the newly created page will now be displayed in Ovation’s window.
7.3
If you have already created two independent text stories with another
word processing package, you will need to have both stories saved as
plain text files, ready to drop into each newly created Ovation frame.
7.3
Click <select> on the first of these text stories and drag the file into
Ovation’s left hand main frame, making sure that this frame is the one
selected. The text will fill the frame and generate the necessary number
of linked frames to accommodate the story. Remember that this left hand
frame was originally Ovation’s A4 master page frame, adjusted to the
required size to accommodate another frame alongside it.
7.3
If you now select and drag the other text story into Ovation’s right
hand frame, you will notice that only the first right hand frame will
fill with text, and that Ovation’s text overflow arrow is displayed at
the bottom of this frame. For the text in this right hand frame to flow
through the length of the entire document, you will need to select the
‘Link Frame’ option from Ovation’s tool bar. Once this has been
selected, you must then individually link each right hand frame
throughout the length of the document. As you link each right hand
frame, you will notice that the text story flows from the previous
frame. Note that you can choose the ‘Link Frame’ option from the tool
bar with <adjust>. If this is done, this option will remain selected,
but will significantly slow down the scrolling speed of pages.
7.3
It is most important to drop the first text story into Ovation’s left
hand frame. This is the frame that generates automatically linked frames
as the text flows throughout the document.
7.3
Ovation can, of course, be used to produce the original stories, with
the proviso that the left hand frames are used to write the first story.
If required, the two frames on Ovation’s master page may be swapped
over, so that the first story can be set in the right hand frame.  Mike
King, Guernsey.  A
7.3

Hints & Tips
7.4
• Backing up PC partitions. When backing up a PC partition (with
filetype DosDisc) from a HardDrive with RISC OS 3 the ADFS sees the
files in the partition as individual files so backs them up as such. So
when you come to reinstate the partition afterwards the PC partition
will no longer work, i.e. it will be a normal directory with files in.
The way to overcome this is to reset the file type to Text before
backing up and change it back afterwards.  Brian Cocksedge, W Sussex.
7.4
• Elite Cheat. On this month’s program disc (£2 through Archive) is a
cheat for Elite v1.02 made with The Hacker program from DoggySoft. The
cheat allows you to do more than the normal game will allow. The
functions are made by using the right Ctrl key and some other keys not
used in the game. Load the cheat module after you have the Elite
commander on the iconbar and read the instructions carefully. It enables
you to stop dead in space, go like a bat out of hell, have loads of
energy bombs (useful for blasting those rock grabbers), have an
indestructible energy unit, unlimited rockets and, as a small bonus,
kills the asking of the word from the book when saving a commander file
after you have run the game, back to the Desktop (saving time).
S Edwards, W Midlands.
7.4
• Epson Stylus 800 cartridge life − When the cartridge I had in my new
Epson Stylus 800 ran out after it had printed only about 300 to 400
sheets (instead of the quoted 700), I contacted Epson to discuss the
matter! They asked whether I pressed Pause before switching off the
printer. I said I did not and asked why it was important. They told me
that it was because the printer goes through the print head cleaning
process on every start-up unless Pause is pressed before switch-off. It
is only necessary to clean the print head “about once a month”. They
admitted that this is not mentioned in the manual(!), so I thought I
would pass this gem of information on to other Archive subscribers!
Stan Haselton, Abbots Langley.
7.4
• JP150 sheet feeder − Owners of JP150 printers may be interested to
know that the sheet feeder for the Integrex Betajet seems to be exactly
the same as the one for the JP150. The good news is that the Integrex
one costs approximately £40 +VAT (£47) as against £77 inc VAT. I wonder
why the Acorn product is so much more expensive?  Alan Shelton, Sutton-
in-Ashfield.
7.4
• Magazine storage − An alternative to the Archive magazine binders is
to use what are called K-Bins which are basically topless cardboard
boxes. They are designed for storing components but work quite nicely
for Archive magazines and cost about £1.15 each. I am happy to supply
them to people at cost plus postage − let me know if you are interested.
Bob Ames, Dept of Music, City University, Northampton Square, London
EC1V 0HB.
7.4
• Mouse mat grooming − Next time you groom your mouse, take a look at
your mat. If it has a layer of stubborn fibres, cat hairs etc, try using
one of those rolling, tacky lint removers that you use on suits and
jackets.  Nik Kelly, Liverpool.
7.4
• PC card and screen blanking − After installing a new hard drive, I had
to re-install everything and set the computer up as though it were new.
While I was restoring some of the PC programs, my screen went blank and
no keypresses would bring it  back. What seemed odd was that the
computer was still working, reading the disc.
7.4
Each time this happened, I reset the computer and then, when I was at
Acorn World 93, I had a word with Aleph One. They explained that, when
the PC card had “input focus” all keystrokes were passed through to the
card and so RISC OS was unaware that keys had been pressed − so the
screen blanker was coming into operation and was locking in the blank
state. Because of this, I would need to disable the screen blanker in
order to use the PC card.
7.4
As I don’t use the blanker very much, it was only a slight nuisance, but
I carried out an experiment and found out that mouse movement was still
done via the main operating system. Because of this, all that is needed
to get the screen back is a very slight movement of the mouse.
7.4
I suppose that if you were wanting to work with text in a word processor
it would be a good idea to disable the screen blanker, but most of the
time it is unnecessary.  David Wild, Hemel Hempstead.
7.4
•  Scanners and Turbo Drivers − A slight problem for users of Turbo
Drivers is that, sometimes, the printout from ArcFax with CC’s scanner
becomes garbled for no sensible reason. The solution is to turn your
printer on. It does not have to be online but just switched on. It works
every time.  Tord Eriksson, Sweden.
7.4
• Time errors − Recently, I found that whilst !Alarm, and indeed most
other applications, could work out the correct time, those I had written
in C were wildly inaccurate (over a year and a half out!).  The same
program would work fine on the office A5000 but on my RISC OS 3 A3000,
it refused to give me anything but 1995.  Finally, I tracked the problem
down to the Territory Manager (literally just by chance, I was actually
looking up ‘time’ in the PRM’s and spotted it.  Somehow the configured
timezone was −23:45, well outside the allowed limits of +/−13 hrs.
!Alarm took off the correct value but when I reset it to zero, the
machine jumped ahead by a day. Why CLib gave such a large error, I don’t
know.  Matthew Hunter, NCS.  A
7.4

Hints and Tips
7.5
• CC Turbo & Laser Direct Drivers − A few people have discovered a
problem that occurs when you try to run the RISC OS !Printers after
having run a Turbo Driver or a Laser Direct driver. The error “Module
PDriver 3.16 or later is required” appears. To clear this, do a
*RMReinit PDriver before using the Acorn driver.
7.5
• File copying on floppies − When copying from one floppy to another,
the overall copy time can be reduced by opening the task manager and
dragging the Next slot to 800Kb (or 1600Kb for an HD disc if you have
the memory). This means that the next task to request space (i.e. the
filer) will have enough space to read in the entire contents of one
floppy, so that you don’t have to swap discs more than once.
7.5
On large copy jobs (say between two hard discs) the larger area the
filer gets, the faster the copying because fewer reading/writing cycles
will be needed. You can either adjust the Next slot or, once copying has
begun, drag out the Filer Action Window task as large as it will go.
When copying is complete, the space is regained.
7.5
• Floptical drives and faulty floppies − An article in a German PC
magazine claimed that, due to their much more elaborate construction,
flopticals drives could handle many discs which caused normal floppy
drives to give up; I can report to all floptical owners that this claim
holds true for the Acorn world, too.
7.5
A software upgrade arrived on a disc which my floppy drive could not
read − a disc error 08 was reported and Verify found a massive 56
defects! My floptical drive, however, had no problem at all with the
disc − it verified OK and the software could be loaded and runs
perfectly. So, when the readability of a disc is a borderline case,
giving the disc to the floptical drive to read might well help.  Jochen
Konietzko, Köln, Germany
7.5
• Printer driver problem − “SWI &42940 Not known”. This error was
reported recently in another printer driver problem. A quick look at the
PRM showed this to be a BufferManager SWI. The buffer module had become
unplugged which was causing the problems. It is not such an obvious
problem though because the error appears to come from the printer
driver. The solution is to press <f12> and type *RMReinit BufferManager
<return> and then another <return> to get back to the desktop.  A
7.5

•  A4 battery life − Many A4 users may have noticed that the charge of
the A4 battery becomes shorter after each recharge. Apparently, if the
battery is not discharged completely it does not run for the full
capacity upon recharge. One solution is to unplug the battery manager
from the command line and leave the computer on until the red light
stops blinking. The battery will then be fully discharged and can then
be recharged as normal.
7.6
I now leave the battery manager unplugged permanently. I just have to
make sure I save everything regularly. When the red light flashes to
indicate the battery being flat, I have a couple of minutes to save the
latest alterations and shutdown.  Awie Bosman, South Africa.
7.6
•  Beware the old module! − I have discovered that some older (slightly
badly-behaved) applications load their own modules in their Run file.
Presumably this is because RISC OS 2 didn’t have all the modules in ROM
and an application needing a module newer than the RISC OS 2 one would
need to load it itself − if it was too lazy to use SysMerge, that is. If
you have RISC OS 3, these applications can have the disconcerting effect
of replacing a RISC OS 3 ROM module with an older version of the same
module.
7.6
I came across this when trying to run Almanac − I got the error message
“Module .....$.!System.FPEmulator not found”. Looking into System
confirmed that there was no such module under this pathname, and several
minutes of panic ensued while I played ‘hunt the module’. Finally, a
hard reset seemed to restore Almanac to perfect behaviour, the module
was restored and I was so relieved that I forgot about the problem for
some weeks.
7.6
The problem recurred but this time, Ovation would not run either, giving
a similar message. I realised that, in RISC OS 3, FPEmulator is in ROM,
so something must have happened to the ROM module. On checking *Help
ROMModules, I found FPEmulator was “Dormant”. Trying to *RMReinit it had
no effect. Then I remembered that I had been playing CIS’s Mah Jong.
Sure enough, in the application directory was a copy of FPEmulator and
in the Run file was the line “RMLoad <obey$dir> FPEmulator”. Inspecting
this module showed it to be version 2.60 (the ROM module is 2.87).
7.6
In the Almanac Run file is the line “RMEnsure FPEmulator 2.70 Error You
need FPEmulator 2.70 or later”. So, Mah Jong had been quietly loading an
old module without this being at all obvious until another application
wanted the ROM version. Deleting the line from Mah Jong’s Run file cured
the bug but Mah Jong seems to get along only intermittently with the new
FPEmulator, unpredictably throwing up “invalid floating point operation”
errors. (Should it do this? What about “backwards compatibility”?)
Putting “RMKill FPEmulator” followed by “RMReinit FPEmulator” at the end
of Mah Jong’s Run file doesn’t have any effect, but running the same two
lines in a separate Obey file does work. Does anyone know why?
7.6
The moral would seem to be to inspect the directories of applications
you have been using if your modules start misbehaving. They may be
loading all sorts of things you don’t want.  Peter Young, Cheltenham.
7.6
•  Computer hang-ups − There’s a hint in Computer Concepts’ Turbo Drivers
manual which suggests that if the printer should ‘stall’, selecting
<f12> followed by <return> will re-start the printer.
7.6
Quite by chance, I found that doing the same thing can occasionally
clear a computer hang-up. Specifically, it may work when you can still
move the mouse pointer but clicking on an icon, etc has no effect.
7.6
The beauty of this is that, rather than having to perform a soft or hard
reset to clear the hang-up and thus losing any unsaved work, you are
returned to the desktop as it was before selecting <f12> <return>, i.e.
all windows and documents are restored.  Jim Nottingham, York.
7.6
•  !FontEd under RISC OS 3.1 − Ronald Alpiar’s problem of invisible
coordinates in last month’s Help!!! (7.5 p8), apparently only occurs in
256 colour modes. In 16 colours they reappear.
7.6
(I think this could be linked with an obscure problem which one of our
subscribers has reported to Risc Developments. When using Ovation in
certain 256-colour screen modes, inverted text, i.e. white on black,
becomes black on black! Risc Developments say they have a partial
solution and are working further on the problem. Ed.)
7.6
•  Keystroke hints − I’ve just started using Keystroke myself, in
earnest, and, quite frankly, it is brilliant! It will save me huge
amounts of time with all the text editing I do from day to day. For
example, contributors often say, “Press the menu button to do such and
such” instead of “Press <menu>... ”. I now click on “the” and press
<alt-f6> and the change is made at a stroke! It is done by making the
key insert the text |D<60>\S-⇨\\⇦\<62>|D. The <60> and <62> have to be
used to create the triangle brackets which, as a beginner to Keystroke,
confused me for a while.
7.6
I find Impression’s <shift-ctrl-Q> useful for inverting charactres (sic)
− a very common typing error! However, I sometimes need to change “to
boldly go” into “boldly to go” (yuk!) so I produced a key, <alt-Q>, to
invert adjacent words by using |D\S-⇨\|V − simple but effective − just
put the cursor somewhere in the first word and click <alt-Q>.
7.6
I often have to delete a comma when someone has put one in the, wrong
place. So <alt-\> generates the string \S-⇨\\⇦\|? which moves to the
beginning of the next word, back one space and then deletes one
character. This has the effect of deleting the final character of the
word in which you have just clicked, so it could also be used to change
a plural to a singular. The only time this falls down, of course, is
when the next word is separated by an extra character like a bracket or
somesuch.
7.6
These special keys may seem a little unnecessary but to someone who does
as much editing as I do every day, they can save quite a bit of time.
7.6
Finally, in the days of programmable function keys on the old BBC Micro,
I used to use |[ to generate an <escape>. This seems to work OK with
Keystroke and avoids having to use \ESCAPE\ in a text string. I remember
it because the [ is like an E for escape.  Ed.
7.6
(There are a huge number of time-saving tricks that could be done with
Keystroke, so do send in your own Keystroke hints & tips. Ed.)
7.6
•  Resultz and Continental numbers − I have just discovered a feature
offered by Resultz which should delight Continental spreadsheet users.
The sixth number format in the list offered by the style editor, which
looks so strange with its character combinations “,.” and “.,” actually
is used to replace the English way of writing numbers with the
Continental one, so that a number like 3,500.50 will appear instead as
3.500,50!  Jochen Konietzko, Köln.
7.6
•  RISC OS !NewLook − Now that everybody has had a chance to play with
the new look desktop as distributed at Acorn World 93 (and numerous
other sources), we would be interested to hear what you think of it. Do
you use it? If not why not? Does it do everything it should? How does it
compare to other user environments (e.g. Windows 3.1, NeXT)? What would
your ideal RISC OS 4 desktop look like? Please write to Archive with
your comments.
7.6
•  Schedule and Spell (Pocket Book) − There seems to be no mention at all
of Spell in any of the manuals, except for a section in the User Guide
on how to spell-check in Write. The Schedule release note says that
“this replaces the Spell application supplied with your Pocket Book”,
but does not tell you that you shouldn’t delete Spell before installing
Schedule. If you do this, as I did, you find, somewhat oddly, that you
can check spelling in Write but that you can’t save to the global
dictionary − you can’t, of course, use Spell as a free-standing
application because it isn’t on the Desktop. If you reinstall Spell,
from whichever drive you have Schedule in, all works as it should,
though you have to learn how to use Spell from the Help facility, which
is very good.
7.6
Nowhere seems to make it plain, however, that to use document
dictionaries, you have to enable this from the Setup/Install menu in
Spell. Incidentally, document dictionaries are not kept in the WRD
directory with “the same name and in the same directory as the document,
but with the file extension D$S”, as the manual says, but in a separate
D$S directory with the same name as the document.  Peter Young,
Cheltenham.
7.6
•  Style − Changing date and time formats − Impression Style allows the
current date or time to be inserted into a document. By default,
Impression Style enters ‘25th January 1994’ for the date and ‘6:52:13
am’ for the time. Both formats may be changed quite easily. You can have
several different date and time formats stored and swap from one to the
other while you work.
7.6
The date is inserted in one of three ways.
7.6
•  By pressing <ctrl-shift-D>
7.6
•  By clicking on the insert icon on the tool bar and clicking on Current
date
7.6
•  From the menu: Utilities−>Insert−>Current date
7.6
The time is inserted in one of two ways
7.6
•  By clicking on the insert icon on the tool bar and clicking on Current
time
7.6
•  From the menu: Utilities−>Insert−>Current time
7.6
The format used for the time and the date is stored in special system
variables called Style$TimeFormat and Style$DateFormat. These variables
are not mentioned in the printed manual and are given wrongly in the
early versions of the on-line help as Impression$TimeFormat and
Impression$DateFormat. If the user does not set these variables, the
!Run file sets them automatically.
7.6
To set the variables, find your RISC OS 3 User Guide and find the
section on System Variables. This gives a table explaining (not very
well!) how to set the time and date variables. There isn’t space here
for a tutorial but the Impression Style defaults are written
%z12:%mi:%se %pm for the time which appears as ‘7:27:07 am’ and for the
date, %zdy%st %mo %ce%yr which appears as ‘25th January 1994’.
7.6
You can reset the two system variables temporarily as follows: press
<f12> and type, for example, Set Style$TimeFormat %z24:%mi then press
<return> twice to return you to the desktop. Now insert the time in an
Impression Style document and you should get the current time in the
format ‘7:30’ instead of ‘7:30:01 am’.
7.6
The “time” doesn’t have to be confined to the time − you can add the
date to the time format just as you can add the time to the date format.
So you could use the “time” and the “date” as two different versions of
the date.
7.6
When writing letters I like <ctrl-shift-D> to give me ‘25th January
1994’ but when I am writing notes from the telephone, which I do a lot,
I like to date and time stamp them so I prefer ‘7:36 Tue 25 Jan 94’.
This means that you can have a keyboard shortcut for entering the time
combined with, or instead of, the date.
7.6
To do this, you just need two Obey files. Load !Edit from the Apps icon.
From the Edit menu, choose Misc−>Set Type and then delete the offered
Text and enter Obey and press <return>. Into the edit window type:
7.6
Set Style$DateFormat “%z24:%mi %W3 %zdy %m3 %yr ”
7.6
Press <return> and save the file to disc calling it DateTime. After you
have double-clicked on this file icon, you should see the current time
and date in the format ‘7:36 Tue 25 Jan 94’.
7.6
You now need another similar file to restore the default. Create another
Obey file in Edit and this time it should say simply:
7.6
Set Style$DateFormat “”
7.6
When Impression Style sees that the variable is set to null, it uses the
format in the !Run file. Save this file, preferably as something
meaningful like DateDeflt.
7.6
Now store the two files on your Pinboard so that you can double-click on
whichever format you want.
7.6
If you want to change the format automatically, as Style loads on start-
up, put a line in your !Boot file, after Style is loaded, to set the
system variables mentioned above. If you want to change the default
format permanently, you can amend the !Run file in Style though this is
not normally recommended and you should always keep a backup copy of the
original !Run file. If you don’t know where to find the !Run file, or
how to alter it, it’s probably best not to do it!  Paul Lewis, London
W3.
7.6
•  Style − Saving files as documents − Impression Style allows files to
be saved as documents rather than directories. The advantage is that a
document takes up far less space than a directory. If you store files
compressed, perhaps as a backup, a file can be compressed much more
efficiently than a directory.
7.6
There is no utility to go through your entire hard disc to convert all
those space-hungry directories into files, but you can convert them as
you use each directory quite simply. Load a number of the old-type
Impression documents − Style will warn you that the document is in an
old format and may warn you about things it can’t convert or find.
Remember that instead of clicking on OK to these warnings, you can just
press <return>.
7.6
You can load up to sixteen documents, memory permitting. Click in the
top document and press <ctrl-shift-Y>. That toggles the file save
routine to save the document as a file rather than as a directory. Press
<f3> then <return> to save it. Although its name still begins with a
‘!’, it is now a file and not a directory and will have the Style icon
instead of the old ‘I’ icon.
7.6
Now press <ctrl-f2> to remove the document from memory and then go
through the stack of documents in the same way. It’s not automatic but
it is quite quick. How much you save will depend on your disc filing
system but I saved about 14Kb per document. Documents can be stored as
files but long documents might be best left in the old format,
especially ones that are so long that you have to load and edit chapters
separately to fit them in memory.
7.6
If you have a backup of your hard disc (and if you don’t, start one
now!) you may find that RISC OS will not overwrite a directory with a
document of the same name. The answer is to alter a system variable
called Copy$Options. To do that, press <f12> and enter Set Copy$Options
F then press <return> twice. That should force RISC OS to overwrite the
directory with a file when you backup. There is more on these options
for copying in the User Manual under *Copy.  Paul Lewis, London W3.
7.6
•  Tables (again) − I often have to make up tables and have always been
frustrated by the fact that wordprocessors work essentially in lines
while data for tables usually comes in the form of columns. It would be
great to be able to pour the data into the WP side by side.
7.6
The only way around it that I have found within Impression is to
generate sufficient side by side columns. If you want a master page to
do this, make one with the requisite number of columns and then unlink
them by cutting and pasting them back with the same co-ordinates and
dimensions.
7.6
An easier way, particularly for numerical tables but also for text, is
to assemble the tables in a spreadsheet which will accept column data
and then transfer the finished arrangement back to the WP in the form of
a CSV file of the block of data.
7.6
I use Schema which is particularly amenable in that CSV files of data
can be input just by dragging them onto a marker and columns (data
separated by returns) will load as columns. It is not necessary to do
any more than ensure that the sheet is large enough to take the longest
line/column. If the basic CSV input filter is set on Impression, all the
commas will be converted to tabs and you get an instant table by
applying a suitable table style. The input filter, CSV+, in the Business
Supplement will automatically generate tables for the non-table literate
− in a somewhat complicated way!  Bob de Vekey, Watford.
7.6
•  Time errors (continued) − Further to Matthew Hunter’s item on time
errors (7.4 p51), the situation is actually significantly more complex
than described. The CLib time commands will not give the correct answer
if the cumulative effect of TimeZone and DST (e.g. BST) is negative.
Setting TimeZone to zero is not going to be a valid solution if you
don’t live in the UK.
7.6
I encountered this problem some time ago during the development of
ArcTrack. The problem is particularly acute in this case since the
program needs to know both UTC (for the orbital mathematics) and Local
Time (to display to the user). I will attempt below to describe the
solution which I developed. It may not be the simplest general solution
but it solved my particular problem.
7.6
This first code fragment determines the difference between local time
and UTC in seconds. It will be necessary to make a new copy of swi.h for
RISC OS 3 if this has not already been done. The SWI_List program
provided with the compiler will achieve this.
7.6
#include “os.h”
7.6
#include “swi.h”
7.6
int utc_offset ()
7.6
{temp ;
7.6
  os_swi2r (Territory_ReadCurrentTimeZone, 0, 0, (int*) NULL, &temp);
7.6
  return temp / 100; /* Output of SWI is in centiseconds */
7.6
}
7.6
The secret of extracting the correct current value of UTC time is to use
os_word 14, thus:
7.6
#include “os.h”
7.6
double utc_time () /* Would be significantly simpler if long ints were
64 bits */
7.6
{{ unsigned int a, b; }
7.6
  double un_int = 4294967295.0;
7.6
  struct five_byte now = {3 , 0};
7.6
  os_word (14, (void*) &now);  /* Determine current UTC time */
7.6
  return((double) temp.a + (double) temp.b * un_int) /100.0;
7.6
}
7.6
The value returned is the number of seconds since 1st January 1900. Of
course, this is not the same as the time_t values returned by the CLib
‘time’ function. To convert to time_t values, you could assume
(correctly) that they are unsigned integers representing the number of
seconds since 1st January 1970. Just remember that, under ANSI C, this
simple representation is not guaranteed and Acorn are perfectly entitled
to change it in future compiler releases.  R C Simpson,  Farnborough.
7.6
•  Writing extensions to PC Discs − Some people have had difficulty
writing to PC discs and giving a file an appropriate extension that a PC
will be able to read − the infamous README.TXT file, for example.
RISC OS 3 gives desktop access to DOS discs but it makes the discs
appear as a standard RISC OS disc. The only way to tell that it is
different is to check the size using free or current format from the
floppy disc iconbar menu.
7.6
The problem arises due to the different way in which RISC OS and DOS use
directory specifiers. DOS uses the ‘/’ character to specify a
subdirectory whereas RISC OS uses the full stop. The DOS path “SOME/DIR/
STRUCT” would be “SOME.DIR.STRUCT” within RISC OS . Therefore, if you
try to write the file README.TXT to a RISC OS disc, what you are
actually trying to do is save the file TXT into a directory called
README − which probably does not exist.
7.6
To write a file with an extension, use the ‘/’ character, e.g. README/
TXT. This can be a little confusing because, if you write the file to an
Acorn formatted disc, the ‘/’ character will be part of the filename but
if you write to a DOS disc, the file will be saved as ‘README’ with an
extension of TXT. The screenshot below shows the RISC OS directory
display and the PC Emulator directory showing that the file does appear
with an extension.
7.6
Many save boxes will only allow you to use names of up to 10 characters
− this therefore limits you to a six character filename (with a four
character extension “/XXX”). However, the DOS filer within RISC OS will
allow you to rename a file to eight characters, giving a total of
twelve.
7.6
It should also be noted that if you copy a file from a DOS disc to a
RISC OS disc and back again, the extension may change. This is again due
to the name length restrictions. README2.TXT would be copied as README2/
TX for RISC OS . When copied back to DOS, the file would therefore be
README2.TX.  Matthew Hunter, NCS.  A
7.6

•  A4 battery pack − There may be people who are worried about the idea
suggested in Hints and Tips last month, p35, of allowing the battery
pack of an A4 laptop to be run completely flat. Let me reassure you − I
used to race radio-controlled model cars which were powered by the same
type of Nickel Cadmium battery and serious model car racers always store
the battery packs completely flat, for weeks on end, precisely to avoid
the ‘memory effect’ mentioned. There is nothing worse than the car
running out of juice on the last lap − especially when you are in the
lead! The only point to mention is that the discharging should be done
as slowly as possible for the best results.  Paul Hobbs, Germany.
7.7
•  A-Link disconnection − The A-Link cable can be disconnected from the
Pocket Book (or Psion 3)  without powering down. However, the computer
end must never be disconnected while the computer is on because the
serial port is quite sensitive. NCS.
7.7
•  A-Link/Psion 3a compatibility − Acorn confirm that for the majority
of uses, A-Link will transfer files between a RISC OS system and a Psion
3a. One area where compatibility is not assured is with some formulae
when transferring a spreadsheet file converted from 3a format to CSV.
NCS.
7.7
•  CC Turbo Driver and a printer switch − The Computer Concepts Turbo
Driver which I bought to go with the Stylus, achieves its protection by
“scrambling” the output to the parallel port, and unscrambling it with a
special cable. I was afraid that I would not be able to use my printer
switch to flip between the Stylus, driven by the Turbo, and my old
(cheaper-to-run) LQ850, driven conventionally. Happily, it seems that
the Turbo Driver, once it is installed, even though it may not be
active, scrambles everything that goes through the parallel port. So,
providing that the “unscrambling” cable is between the Archimedes and
the printer switch, all is well.  Bill Mapleson, Cardiff.
7.7
•  CC’s RISC OS 3 printer drivers − For ages, I had problems with CC’s
RISC OS 3 printers drivers for Laser Direct (at work) and the BJ10
TurboDriver (at home). They both complained that they didn’t like one of
my fonts (Freestyle that I use for my “signature”) and suggested I
switched “Quick Text off”. Unfortunately, unlike the RISC OS 2 drivers,
neither of these printer drivers has any configuration that is anything
to do with “Quick Text”.
7.7
CC themselves couldn’t tell me what the problem was or why it gave the
error or what I could do about it! Dave McCartney of DataFile came to
the rescue. (Thanks, Dave.) All you have to do is switch “Halftone” to
“Graphics only”. This is done by going through Printer Control, through
Printers Configure and then the Halftone Set. option. If you want to
continue to avoid halftones on text, remember to Save Choices.  Ed.
7.7
•  Epson Stylus and RISC OS 2 − I recently bought an Epson Stylus 1000,
a superb printer, able to take A3 paper “broadside”, but I found that I
could not get it to work properly under RISC OS 2. The problem was
solved once I had installed RISC OS 3.1. If anyone desperately wants to
make a Stylus work under OS 2, I can supply a work-around for printing
in text mode, but not in graphics mode. I imagine that the same would
apply equally to the (A4) Stylus 800, and there is some evidence that it
might not work under OS 3.0.
7.7
First thing after switching on the Stylus, send a non-printing character
to the printer by going to the command line (f12) and pressing <ctrl-B>,
<ctrl-L> and <ctrl-C> (and <return> to get back to the desktop). Then
all will be well for text printing except that I suspect things might
hang before the end of a very long file − more than 32Kb or 64Kb. I say
this because, in graphics mode, it hangs after about 32Kb, and in Hex
Dump mode, it hangs after printing exactly 64K ASCII codes. (64Kb is the
default size of the input buffer of the Stylus.)
7.7
The logic behind this is that the Stylus seems to need a pause between
the first and second character that it receives. Thus, immediately after
switching the printer on, typing at the command prompt (after hitting
<ctrl-B>) sends everything perfectly to the printer − although it will
wait until it has a few dozen characters before it will deign to
disgorge any from its buffer. On the other hand, if you program a
function key with a string of characters, switch on the printer, press
<ctrl-B>, and hit the function key (so that there are microseconds
rather than milliseconds between the characters) this will block the
connection: if the string is sent repeatedly, the Archimedes will
eventually lock, presumably with its output buffer full. If you then
press <escape> to clear the buffer, and start hitting the function key
again, all will be well. However, if the first character of the string
was different from the second, you will see that the first character is
printed twice so that the printer received the one character but then
refused to accept any more. Alternatively, if you send a file to the
printer (first thing after switching on) the printer and Archimedes will
lock. If you then abort the print on the Archimedes, and re-print, all
will be well − but with the first character of the file appearing twice.
7.7
Why all this should be so, and why Risc OS 3.1 should solve the problem
is a mystery; but I suspect that Acorn are aware of it because, in the
ReadMe file in “Printers.Canon” on the RISC OS 3.1 App2 disc, there is a
mention that, under Risc OS 3.00 or earlier, the Canon BJC-800 printer
will not print anything larger than about 7K “(the size of the buffer in
the BJC-800 printer)”.  Bill Mapleson, Cardiff.
7.7
•  Equasor − One of our customers recently experienced strange problems
using Equasor. The crosshairs that are used to place the caret when ‘New
Equation’ is selected from the Edit submenu simply locked when select
was clicked rather than disappearing to leave the caret. Equasor
continued to run and the crosshairs were erased when anything was
redrawn over the equasor window. It was impossible to create an
expression.
7.7
The problem was due to the configuration options for WimpDragDelay and
WimpDragMove both being set to zero. Presumably Equasor saw the mouse-
click event as a drag rather than a click and did not know how to
behave. With these set to the default values (5 and 32 respectively) or
any other non-zero values, the caret appeared as expected.  NCS
7.7
•  Impression date format − The hint last month (p37) about date and
time formats for Impression Style actually applies to Impression II as
well. Simply use Impression$DateFormat and Impression$ TimeFormat.
Colin Singleton, Sheffield.
7.7
•  Incorporating formulae into Impression text − For quite some time, I
have been miffed at the trouble I had fitting formulae (both Equasor and
BestForm) into my mathematical texts. Only the intensive work needed to
get thoroughly acquainted with the new Impression Style caused me to sit
down and think about formulae. (Shame on me − such a lot of time
wasted!)
7.7
As there may be one or two amongst you with the same problems, so here
is what I found out:
7.7
a) Size… − I used to have to scale the view to something like 400%, then
change the size of the characters inside the Equasor window by adjust-
dragging, until it equalled that of the main text.
7.7
What I should have done is this: Either use the same font size in
Equasor as in Impression, then make sure that the graphic frame is at
100% (this can be checked by double-clicking somewhere in the frame,
thus opening the “Alter Graphics” dialogue box) or, if the Equasor
setting is larger, scale the graphics down numerically, again with the
help of the dialogue box.
7.7
b) Position… − If you embed a small frame containing a formula into the
text with <ctrl-shift-F>, the text inside the frame will sit above the
line, because the alignment takes place between the bottom of the frame
and the line. Therefore I used to place formulae on the page manually,
which meant that every change to the text above the frame made a new
positioning necessary.
7.7
Here is what I should have done: Embed the frame, put the caret just to
the left of it, then use the manual kerning facility to shift the frame
down with repeated presses of <ctrl-J>. Then all that’s left to do is
put the caret to the right of the frame and press <ctrl-U> the same
number of times to bring the rest of the line back up.  Jochen
Konietzko, Köln, Germany
7.7
•  Inspiration on RISC OS 3 − I have found out how to get the MIDI
sequencer ‘Inspiration’ to work with RISC OS 3.10. Basically, all you do
is to load both of the template files into a template editor and ensure
that the ‘Sprite’ option is switched off for all icons. This results in
a lot of blank icons in the templates, but at least it doesn’t give
address exceptions whenever you click anything. The writers of the
program abandoned the project some years ago and the company marketing
it have ceased trading, so for the moment this is the only fix, unless
anyone else has found a better way!  Richard Millican, Manchester.
7.7
•  Keystroke − (Here is Ed’s monthly crop of keystroking!) If you have
to add and subtract as many commas as I do, you will appreciate the
following ideas that I have used. At first, I used <ctrl-alt-,> to add a
comma at the end of a word. It was just a case of clicking anywhere in
the word to be comma’d and the key inserted the text “\S-⇨\\⇦⇦⇦⇦\,” which
worked except where the word to be comma’d was at the RH end of a line
of text − because it has to go past the linefeed as well as the space.
Instead, I now use “\S-⇨\\⇦⇦⇦⇦\|?, ” as my text string (note the space after
the comma). In other words, instead of moving back one space from the
beginning of the following word before adding the comma, it deletes the
space between the two words and adds comma and space.
7.7
The other change I made to my comma’ing function was to move it from
<ctrl-alt-,> to <ctrl-alt-A>. This means that my right hand doesn’t have
to leave the mouse to hit <,> while the left hand holds <ctrl-alt>.
Instead, I can add the comma entirely with my left hand and I can
continue to look at the text rather than looking down to locate the
comma key. (Similarly, I remove a character from the end of a word now
by using <ctrl-alt-Z> (left hand only) which inserts the text “\S-
⇨\|?|? ”.)
7.7
Other keys I now use include: <ctrl-alt-S> which capitalises (or
uncapitalises) the next word. It consists of “\S-⇨\|S”. The point about
it is that it can auto-repeat and capitalise a whole line of words.
7.7
My invert words keystring has now changed to “|D\S-⇨\|V\S-⇦\\S-⇦\”. If you
compare with the hint last month, all I have done is to add a “move left
two words” at the end. This means that the cursor is brought back to the
beginning of the first of the two words inverted. The reason I do this
is that if I invert two words by mistake, I can immediately see which
two words have to be re-inverted to restore things.
7.7
•  Keystroke again − Just to show what you can do with Keystroke, I have
a key which does the following: load my Impression “envelope” file,
adjust the window so that a frame embedded within the file is in the
centre of the screen, load my standard “letter” file, adjust the size
and position, insert the date and move the cursor to the position where
I want to enter the address. I then type in the address and press
another key which copies the address, brings the envelope file to the
front, types in the address and prints the envelope. For people I write
to regularly, I can incorporate the address in the first Keystroke
sequence so that the whole thing is done with a single keystroke.  Peter
Howard, Fleet.
7.7
•  Print margins on HP DeskJet 500 − I use a monochrome DeskJet 500
printer and I have found that the actual print margins are different
from the “Generic DeskJet” settings as supplied with the RISC OS 3
printer drivers. And their A4 margins are different from their Legal and
Letter ones! The latter are, in fact, close to reality. The Legal and
Letter (Generic DeskJet) settings give the top and bottom margins as 5.1
and 20.1 cm respectively, while the A4 (Generic DeskJet) setting gives
12.5 and 19.9cm. I use the DeskJet+ driver with the colour options
turned off and my settings are 5.1cm for the top and 12.0 for the bottom
margin. The left and right margins, although differing slightly, I leave
as they are, as I (and most people, I think) usually set wider side
margins anyway. I leave the Paper Offsets at the supplied DeskJet (and/
or DeskJet+) setting i.e. 4.23 for X and 0.00 for Y.  Rex Palmer,
Middlesex.  A

•  WordWorks problems − In reply to Dave Floyd’s WordWorks problems
(Archive 7.8 p43) one of our subscribers (I didn’t catch the name,
sorry) called in with a solution that works for him. Once you have
deleted the choices file and got the configurations back as you want
them, quit WordWorks and then load the choices file into Edit. Find the
line that starts NewView followed by some coordinates and comment it out
by placing a colon at the start of the line. Save the file back and all
should be well.  Dave Webb, NCS.
7.8
•  CC Turbo drivers − It has been stated in the past that to print from
Basic (or similar), you need to load the Turbo Driver before it will
work. This is not, in fact, the case. After installation, the !Printers
directory will contain a directory called td, which is where the Turbo
Driver resources are kept. In the subdirectory Resources.Modules is a
relocatable module ‘turbo’ which is all that is required to enable
printing from Basic. If you frequently wish to print in this way, it may
be beneficial to load the module as part of your boot sequence. G.
Smith, London.
7.8
•  Conditional Basic − Following hours of head-scratching and computer-
bashing, wondering why an “IF...THEN...ELSE...ENDIF” did not work as it
should, I made the following discovery. The problem occurs if you are
using !StrongEd when after the THEN, for whatever reason, there is a
space which you cannot see. (It is possible to make it visible in
!StrongEd since you can set the window and text background colours
independently, e.g. two different shades of grey. MH) In my case, it was
left there after splitting the line. The program then seems to ignore
the THEN and just continues its flow, and of course, if the condition
has not been satisfied, the wrong result is achieved. If you delete the
unseen space or spaces it works correctly. The same does not occur with
!Edit. How about other editors?  John Charman, Norfolk.
7.8
(I have tried this with the public domain editor, !Zap. If you edit in
BASTXT mode, the spaces are saved, but the program functions correctly.
If you edit in Basic mode, trailing spaces are removed. Is there a
difference if you run the program from within !StrongEd, rather than
saving the file and running it normally? MH)
7.8
•  Deskjet printing − Examining the printer graphics output for the
Deskjet from the Acorn Printer driver, I see that graphics output ends
with the code <esc>*rB. This was the accepted code until the DJ500 but,
thereafter, <esc>*rC is required. The latter is recommended to cover
both cases. In the !Paint code, it is immediately followed by <esc>E to
reinitialise the printer, so it would probably work OK but, in other
contexts, it could have undefined results. John Laski, London SW1.
7.8
•  Epson Stylus and Turbo Driver − If you are having problems with
spurious formfeeds being sent out to the Epson Stylus printer from the
CC Turbo Driver, don’t despair. It is a known problem and Computer
Concepts have a fixed version of the Turbo Driver. Contact them for more
details.  Michael Pullin, Cheltenham.
7.8
•  Ink Refills for Canon BJC-600 − The Canon Inkjet Colour Printer BJC-
600 is highly regarded as a suitable colour printer for Acorn 32-bit
(Archimedes) computers. It produces prints with 360 dpi resolution and
near-photographic quality in colour of an excellence previously
obtainable only with much more expensive printers. The method of
printing is to eject coloured inks in very small droplets from separate
reservoirs of ink of four colours (yellow, cyan, magenta and black)
through holes of microscopic size in a print-head which is traversed
laterally as the paper is advanced beneath it.
7.8
In the Canon BJC-600, the print-head is retained in the machine and only
requires renewal at long intervals. The four inks are contained in
liquid form in separate plastic cartridges which are conveniently
transparent to show the quantity of ink remaining. These four cartridges
plug into the print head and can be removed and replaced individually.
Each cartridge is sealed except for one hole which feeds ink to the
print head (the ink exit hole). A spongy material which is located
within the cartridge absorbs some of the ink and prevents it flowing too
freely from the cartridge.
7.8
Ink refill kits have become available to save on the cost of new
cartridges. It is particularly important, if refilling is contemplated,
that only inks of the special types used in inkjet printers should be
employed.
7.8
In my experience, it is not satisfactory to attempt to inject new ink
through the ink exit hole: Filling in that fashion can only be done
slowly as air must exit at the same time by the same hole. Furthermore,
there is a risk of disturbing the spongy material within the cartridge
at the critical position in the vicinity of the hole. So, my solution
has been to drill another hole in the cartridge for filling with ink.
Although this and the subsequent operations which I shall describe are
simple in nature, they require some dexterity. If you wish to experiment
at your own risk, proceed as follows:
7.8
To modify the cartridge, peel back the coloured adhesive label to expose
the top of the cartridge. Drill a small hole in the centre of the round
moulding depression on the top of the cartridge (see diagram opposite).
I shall call this the filling hole.
7.8
Take a piece of adhesive tape of about ¾“ square − the common brown
adhesive packaging tape is ideal as it adheres strongly to the material
of the cartridge. Place this tape to cover the filling hole which you
have drilled and bend the tape to extend it over the side of the
cartridge. This extension will facilitate its removal later. Finally,
smooth back the coloured label to its normal position at the top of the
cartridge. This completes the modification of the cartridge.
7.8
Filling a modified cartridge.
7.8
(a) My experience in refilling cartridges is limited to the use of ink
obtained from System Insight of Welwyn Garden City which I have found to
be satisfactory. The ink is supplied in plastic squeeze bottles which
are very convenient − specify that ink is required for the BJC-600 and
the bottles will be fitted with long straight hollow needles (or probes)
somewhat like a hypodermic syringe. Ink of all four colours will be
required.
7.8
(b) Seal off temporarily the ink exit hole in the cartridge with tape.
This requires care as the exit hole is near a corner of the cartridge. A
clamp against a soft rubber washer as a seal is a better solution.
7.8
(c) Peel back the coloured label at the top of an empty cartridge to
expose the brown tape and remove this brown tape to expose the filling
hole. Insert the probe of a squeeze bottle containing ink of the correct
colour (check the colour of the cartridge label carefully) and fill the
cartridge with ink. Do not overfill but move the cartridge as necessary
to ensure that air is not trapped.
7.8
(d) Seal the filling hole again with a fresh piece of brown adhesive
tape. Smooth back the coloured label over the top of the cartridge.
Remove the tape (or other seal) which was placed temporarily over the
ink exit hole.
7.8
(e) Place the cartridges vertically on a flat surface (in the stance
they would normally occupy when in the printer) and leave them overnight
to stabilize. There should be no leakage.
7.8
(f) Place the newly filled cartridges in the printer and perform the
four-colour cleaning operation which would normally be carried out with
new cartridges.
7.8
You should note that you will be unlikely to complete these filling
operations without spilling some ink especially until experience is
gained. So take care to undertake filling where spilled ink is of no
consequence. Toilet tissue is the best material for mopping up surplus
ink. A small quantity of ink on the hands is of little consequence as it
soon disappears with normal washing.
7.8
The amount of money to be saved by refilling cartridges is worth the
effort if the printer is used extensively. On the other hand, success
will depend considerably on your manipulative skill − you may consider
it preferable to employ only new cartridges as supplied by Canon.
George Foot, Oxted.
7.8
•  Laser Direct and RISC OS 3 − Having recently upgraded to the RISC OS
3 version of the Laser Direct printer driver (v2.61), I’ve hit a couple
of snags when using a Canon LBP-4 printer fitted with a paper cassette.
Thinking these were new bugs, I reported them to Computer Concepts but
have been advised that they are ‘features’ of the (RISC OS 3) model.
7.8
In neither case do the problems stop successful printing but they do
need to be taken into account, thus making the system not quite so user-
friendly.
7.8
When the driver is first loaded and the paper cassette is selected, the
printer Alarm LED now remains on and the Status window shows ‘No paper
in multi-purpose tray’. This is not normally a problem as, once the
first page of a document has been assembled, the Ready LED comes on and
the printer fires up (thereafter, the Ready LED remains on). However,
where an application allows individual pages to be selected, e.g.
Pipedream’s ‘Wait between pages’ option, the printer may not fire up
until the final page of the document has been accepted or rejected. With
a large document, many minutes can be lost.
7.8
There are two work-around solutions; put a sheet of paper in the multi-
purpose tray or first print another full document. Either action will
bring on the Ready LED and allow printing to start as soon as the first
selected page has been assembled.
7.8
Secondly, when you use the ‘Print to file’ option, the paper feed
selected at the time is now saved with the file and, on printing, will
override any other setting. So, when printing to file, you must decide
where you want the paper to come from when the file is finally printed,
and pre-select Cassette or Multi-Purpose before printing to file.  Jim
Nottingham, York.
7.8
•  PipeDream to Impression − In Archive 7.7 p56, Paul mentioned getting
files from Pipedream to Impression via DeskEdit. If you have PipeDream4,
there is an option “Paragraph” on the save window. If you click that,
you can drop the text straight from PipeDream into Impression.  Michael
Wright, Teignmouth.
7.8
•  Quieter fans? − David Lenthall (Archive 7.6 p23) asked for a supply
of quiet Papst fans. You could try a company called Papst Direct,
Andover, Hants, SP10 3RT (0264-335714) (0264-332182) who advertised in
Computer Shopper some while back. Their Variofan will “run as fast as
your PC needs”. I haven’t tried them myself so if anyone does, perhaps
they would report back so we can all benefit. Thanks.  David White,
Cambridge.
7.8
•  Rodent sunglasses? − As a person of the bearded persuasion (those who
met Dave at Acorn World or the NCS Open Day can confirm that!) who
sometimes eats digestive biscuits whilst working at my Archimedes, my
keyboard and mouse mat often suffer a shower of crumbs and small hairs
as I scratch my chin. This requires frequent removal and cleaning of the
rubber ball in the mouse.
7.8
I have become accustomed to this so the other day, when the mouse
pointer started moving in jerks I removed the ball and cleaned it. No
improvement. I tried again, this time cleaning the little rollers with a
cotton bud as well. Still it wouldn’t work properly. I washed the mouse
mat but again, it misbehaved.
7.8
The mouse I normally use was actually taken from an A3020 because I
prefer it to the one supplied with my A5000, so at this point, I decided
to try the original mouse and everything worked perfectly.
7.8
A little later, determined not to be beaten, I took the top off the
mouse to give it a thorough clean. This still produced no improvement. I
therefore tried using it with the top cover removed in the hope of being
able to see what was going wrong. All the little rollers appeared to be
turning, but the mouse pointer wasn’t moving, just vibrating as I moved
the mouse.
7.8
The mouse uses an optical sensor with a slotted disc and, with the top
removed, there was too much light for this to function whereas shielding
the works with my hand made it function correctly.
7.8
Suddenly the penny dropped! I refitted the cover, placed my hand
completely over the mouse (instead of just moving it held between thumb
and little finger as usual) and it worked. The trouble was that I work
with my desk in a bay window, and it was the first sunny day of the
year. The afternoon sun shining through the window was landing on my
desk just where I had positioned the mouse mat. Enough of this bright
sunlight was penetrating the casing of the mouse to confuse the optical
sensor. I had wasted about an hour trying to find a non-existent fault
when all that was needed was to partially draw the curtains!
7.8
I have now stuck some kitchen foil to the inside of my mouse casing!
David Holden, Sydenham.
7.8
•  !Spark(plug) 2.22 − John Laski also writes of !Spark “this
successfully unzips some files, but not others.” Unfortunately there
have been later versions of ZIP on the PC than !Spark will currently
handle. If you have access to the PC Emulator, I would recommend that
you use the PKUNZIP program within the PC partition. While slower than
!Spark, it does have the advantage that the decompressed files have the
correct extensions (which !Spark does not (yet?) offer), and if the
software is PC anyway, extracting it via !Spark to the PC partition and
then having to rename all the files is more hassle than resorting to
DOS. If you are sending the files to a Pocket Book (much of the Psion 3
software is distributed through PC media) then with PocketFS2 you can
drag a file directly from the PC partition to the PocketFS filer (not
the translation window), which is another advantage of the PC method.
Hopefully, future versions of !Spark will support extensions, as well as
later versions of ZIP files, thus making my PC partition redundant!
Matthew Hunter, NCS
7.8
•  Taxan 789 problems − I’ve been offered quite a bit of advice on my
Taxan 789 problem; unfortunately, none of it is definitive and some of
it is contradictory. However, the general consensus is that the Taxan
789 should run OK direct from ‘new’ machines, i.e. A5000 or later. It
may run off ‘old’ machines, with or without multisync VIDC enhancers,
but this is unlikely. It probably will run OK with SVGA VIDC enhancers,
such as the version marketed by Watford Electronics.
7.8
Apparently, the clue is whether the computer/VIDC enhancer produces a
composite sync or the preferred separate horizontal and vertical syncs.
This may explain why I had identical problems trying to run it from an
A410/1, with multisync enhancer, or an A540 with built-in equivalent
hardware.
7.8
I’m now running the monitor successfully from a State Machine G16 card
and am extremely impressed with the display quality in the higher-
resolution modes, which is only marginally down on that of my Eizo
F550i. While I agree entirely with Stuart Bell’s rationale on 14“ versus
17” monitors (Archive 7.4 p31), for someone who cannot justify the
expense of the latter, a 14“ monitor and colour card (and, in my case, a
pair of reading glasses...) would make a relatively economical
compromise.  Jim Nottingham, York.  A
7.8

What has happened to the hints & tips? I guess everyone has been too
busy reading and talking about the Risc PC. Please send in your tips for
both machines to maintain this valuable service to other readers. Ed.
7.9
•  TeX − In response to the help plea in Archive 7.6 p31, TeX can be
made to run by dragging the directory containing the TeX file onto the
TeX icon by changing one line in !Wimpman.
7.9
Line 860 should be changed from Param$=“<TeX Source>” +
FNfilename(Param$) to Param$ = FNfilename(Param$)
7.9
This correction comes from Graham Toal, and I have had no problems since
making the change. Kathy Burrows, Bedford.
7.9

Hints and Tips
7.10
•  Cumana CD-ROM 300 (SLCD), Photo CD. I had problems installing the new
module on my A5000. I had followed the installation instructions given
in the help file, putting new lines in the !Boot file but could not
change the module and kept getting error messages. I contacted Cumana
who were very helpful. By a process of elimination, we found out that
the lines added to the !Boot file should be this:-
7.10
RMEnsure SLCD 1.22 RMLoad (Path).SLCD. SLCD1
7.10
RMEnsure SLCD 1.22 error SLCD version 1.22 not found
7.10
where (Path) will be something like
7.10
ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.Cumana
7.10
or whatever the directory is that contains the new module.  Angela
Bareford, Woking.
7.10
•  IDEFS and RISC OS 3. I recently upgraded my A3000 to ARM3, which
proved to be a very harrowing experience due to certain... err...
misunderstandings on the part of Watford Electronics. However, with the
computer back on my desk, I felt more contented, until I discovered that
my hard disc drive disagreed with the new processor. So, I contacted
Risc Developments, who were very helpful, and they sent me a new IDE
controller ROM. I would recommend that all owners of R.D. internal hard
disc drives and RISC OS 3 should get this as it interfaces better with
the new operating system and provides a proper space free window.
7.10
Unfortunately, I can’t do that, as it doesn’t seem to work with my
system. Everything is fine until it has to cope with a file that is
about 1Mb long; this can occur when using ArcFS archives which are
treated as one file or when installing Wordworks − the dictionary file
is massive! RD are somewhat confused by this as they thought they had
fixed it, so my faithful little hard drive must be entrusted to Parcel
Force for the hazardous journey to St. Albans.
7.10
Therefore, I felt I ought to warn Archive readers with a similar
configuration that archiving and WordWorking can be very bad for your
general welfare − no-one likes having to wipe everything! The versions
in question are: IDEFS v:1.27 and IDEFiler v:1.11 on the EPROM v: 1.33A.
7.10
It is, however, nice to see that some companies can be genuinely helpful
− notably those who do not also deal with PC products ...  Nigel Caplan,
Leeds.
7.10
•  Indelible files in CFS − Sometimes, in using Computer Concepts’ CFS,
a file may become corrupted, and end up on the disc as an indelible
file. No direct * command, such as *WIPE, *REMOVE, or *DELETE has any
effect. The simple solution is to create another file in Impression or
Artworks with exactly the same name as the dud file. On attempting to
save the new file, you meet the familiar CC warning message inviting you
to delete the old file and save the new one. When you press OK, the dud
file is replaced by a nice new file which can then be deleted as
normal.  Gerald Moxon, Leeds.
7.10
•  Inkjet problems on BJ10? − If you find that the ink stops flowing a
short time after installing a new cartridge, and if the self-clean does
not work, try removing the cartridge and blowing into the little hole at
the side of the cartridge. This trick has worked every time I have tried
it and was taught me by a printer repair engineer.  Clive Bell,
Stevenage.
7.10
•  Menu Help ...continued. I would like to add a suggestion to the saga
about getting menu help, first raised by Gwyn Williams (Archive 6.11
p11), and followed by two articles by Richard Simpson (Archive 6.12 p33
and 7.8 p42).
7.10
The problem is that the Gwyn Williams’ examples only work for those
mythical owners of the new RISC_OSlib, and the solutions suggested by
Richard Simpson cause other problems which he referred to last month.
7.10
Although I also do not own the new RISC_OSlib, I implemented menu help
using Gwyn Williams’ solution by including my own function for
wimpt_messages.
7.10
(1) Add the header reference
7.10
#include “swis.h”
7.10
(2) Define a new swi
7.10
#define Wimp_AddMessages 0x400F6
7.10
(3) Include the new wimpt_messages routine
7.10
  static void wimpt_messages (wimp_ msgaction *messages)
7.10
  {r ;
7.10
   r.r[0]=(int)messages;
7.10
   wimpt_complain(os_swix(Wimp_AddMessages, &r));
7.10
  }
7.10
I hope this is useful.  Peter Tuson, Fleet.
7.10
•  Saving the desktop state at shutdown − After playing with !Help and
Switcher’s save Desktop file, I discovered an icon that was almost
completely out of view. The icon is at the bottom of the ‘Desktop boot’
save-window below the ‘Auto boot’ icon. (it can be seen by loading the
Switcher templates into FormEd, and altering the window size.) It
transpires that it is possible to make the desktop save the current
state at shutdown. It all revolves around the alias SaveDesk$File.
7.10
By typing
7.10
*Set SaveDesk$File <filename>
7.10
the current state of the desktop will be saved, as a desktop file called
<filename>, whenever a Shutdown (Ctrl-Shift-F12) is performed, or ‘Exit
’is selected from the Switcher menu.
7.10
I have been unable to find any references to this in the RISC OS 3 User
Guide, so I would imagine that it is not fully implemented, or not
recommended by Acorn.  Neil Walker, Wymondham, Norfolk.
7.10
•  Toshiba CD-ROM drives and CDFS − I recently experienced problems in
connecting a Toshiba 4101 SCSI CD-ROM drive to my system. The problem
was that the CD-ROM icon would be displayed on the iconbar but clicking
on it, or trying to play audio discs would cause the error ‘CD-ROM drive
not found.’
7.10
I found out that the Toshiba EE50X driver provided with CDFS does not
work with this drive, (nor apparently the 3401). Luckily, Morley
Electronics sell a new driver for £25 which does work, and so these
cheap CD-ROM drives will now work with Archimedes computers.
7.10
Apparently, the latest CDFS is v2.21 and hopefully allows drives to be
set to double speed, and removes the bug where ejecting an audio disc
kills CDFS.  Richard Burrell, Bristol.
7.10
•  Two dimensional scroll bars − Here’s an interesting ‘feature’ of RISC
OS 3.11. Load up Edit or Impression with a file that covers more than a
screenfull. Now go to one of the scroll bars and click on the ‘thumb’
(the bar) with <adjust>. The pointer will disappear and moving the mouse
will cause the window to scroll in any direction − up, down, left and
right! Impression seems to do this better than Edit, but any offers why
it happens at all?  Nigel Caplan, Leeds.
7.10
This feature is part of the normal Wimp-controlled operation of a
window. It is particularly useful in graphics programs such as Draw,
Artworks and bitmap applications with pages much larger than the
window.  Dave Webb, NCS.  A
7.10

Hints and Tips
7.11
•  Dongled software on the PC card − When running dongle-protected PC
software on the Aleph One PC card, some problems may be experienced
where the dongle isn’t seen. This can be cured by a simple hardware
upgrade to the parallel port. Contact Aleph One for details.  W H
Bradbury.
7.11
•  ImpChars on the Risc PC − ImpChars, included on Archive program disc
7.6, doesn’t work with the Risc PC. The error “Too many nested
structures” appears. This can be solved by changing the value of the
WimpSlot in the !Run file eg. from 24 to 45.  Anon.
7.11
•  Maximising memory using Keystoke − I have used Keystroke for a year
or so and I am now using v2.33. The most commonly used sequence I have
is on booting up. My !Boot file includes the line
7.11
/ADFS::IDEDisc.$.!Keystroke
7.11
My default Keystrokes file sets up <Alt-Q> to quit those applications
which have been loaded during the boot sequence and which are no longer
needed (e.g. the Printer Manager). They are quit either by using the
quit option from their icons menu on the iconbar or, if that is not
available, from the quit task option in the Task window by opening the
window, positioning the pointer over the item and quitting via the menu.
7.11
My !Boot file also contains the lines
7.11
Set $Do0 Alt+Q@Quit Printer Manager
7.11
Set $Do1 Alt+Q@Quit ...
7.11
Set $Do2 Alt+Q@Quit ...
7.11
Set $Do3 Alt+Q@Quit ...
7.11
Set $Do4 Alt+Q@Open Tasks Window
7.11
Set $Do5 Alt+Q@Position Tasks Window
7.11
Set $Do6 Alt+Q@Position Pointer
7.11
Set $Do7 Alt+Q@Quit   (application name)
7.11
Set $Do8 Alt+Q@Close Tasks Window
7.11
which successfully remove those applications and leaves me in the
desktop with the machine set up with all the applications and modules
that I like to have loaded, but also with the maximum amount of free
memory available.  M P Churchill, High Wycombe.  A
DTP Hints & Tips
7.11
James Parry
7.11
James Parry, proprietor of Smart DTP, “Specialists in DTP ware for 32-
bit Acorn machines”, has sent us a whole set of DTP hints and tips. He
admits he has an ulterior motive of drawing attention to his company’s
products but the hints are helpful, so here they are.
7.11
•  Getting organised(1) Fonts − There are now several applications on
the market for managing outline fonts, the leading applications being
Easyfont II (Fabis) and Font Directory (LOOKsystems). I’ve just received
Easyfont II, and it’s a lot faster and has many new features. (I’m not
going start a font management war as I haven’t seen a copy of Font
Directory yet.)
7.11
If you can spare the cash, you would be well advised to invest in a font
management system. The application will help you to cope with the
growing number of fonts being introduced so that you can keep track of
them and, more importantly, use your collection more effectively. If you
can fit all your fonts on one font directory on your hard drive then you
probably don’t need a font management system yet. Before I used
Easyfont, I organised all my fonts into separate !Font directories such
as !Fancy, !General, !Script, !Titles, etc. For those who use a floppy
drive system, you will have to make up different font discs using this
sort of system.
7.11
•  Getting organised(2) Clipart/Resources − Many people have lots of PD
and commercial clipart but is your clipart well-organised? Can you find
that piece of clipart just when you need it? A while ago, I decided I
would have to get my collection into some sort of order. It took quite a
while trying different ways of organising my resources before I decided
on my current system which is quick and easy to use.
7.11
If, as I do, you tend to hoard software and simply can’t bear to delete
anything, make a backup of your entire collection of clipart. Once this
is done, you can sift through your collection, pruning as you go, with
no fear of losing images from your collection altogether.
7.11
If you don’t have a hard drive, your best bet is to sort out your
clipart by topic onto disc. Each disc should concentrate on a single
topic. For example, you may have discs dedicated to sport and leisure,
business, cartoons, etc. If possible, use a compression application to
maximise space.
7.11
Hard disc users have a better option although they can use the method
above to keep backups. I store my clipart in an application on the $
directory called !Clipart. It simply opens a directory, revealing the
clipart. It’s not exciting and it doesn’t do anything fancy but if you
want a copy, send for our catalogue disc (see below) and ask for a copy.
7.11
My clipart directory is made up of many archives, each archive covering
a set topic. Archives or ArcFS archives are the best way of storing
clipart on your machine. To give you some idea of the sort of categories
that you might want to use, here is my list.
7.11
Animals, Arrows, Borders, Buildings, Comms/Media, Computers, Corners,
Drawing, Drop Capitals, Flashes, Food, Fun (animals, cartoons, toys,
party), History, Leisure/Sport, Logos, Misc, Music, Nature (flowers,
insects, pondlife, trees), Objects, Occasions (easter, weddings, xmas),
People (famous & anatomy) Speech, Symbols, Think, Transport (aircraft,
boats, others), War and World (maps & flags). (Topics in brackets are
sub directories.)
7.11
Keep the clipart that you use most regularly on your hard drive.
Depending on the free space available, you may decide to store some of
your collection on floppy disc. Incidentally, Huge Eagle has produced an
excellent application called !PicAPic (available from all good PD
libraries). It is an absolute must for DTP users, allowing you to view a
whole directory of clipart at a time and it includes numerous other
useful features.
7.11
•  Go easy on the fonts and clipart − One of the biggest mistakes for a
DTP user is to use too many different fonts and images in one document.
Try to decide on a set of fonts which you are going to use throughout a
document. By using a good balance of fonts, your work will look well-
structured and attractive yet easy to read. Then, by introducing the
right images, the document can be enhanced still further by making it
more eye-catching.
7.11
•  Ideas − The more DTP work that you create, the more experienced
you’ll get. One of the best ways of developing your ability to produce
different styles of work is to look critically at the literature you see
in everyday life. Just by observing how other people produce leaflets,
brochures, reports etc, you can get ideas for our own work.
7.11
•  The right font for the right image − Typefaces can act as a powerful
communication tool, drawing the readers’ attention by suggesting what
the text is about. For example, an advertisement describing a new
product aimed at primary education might well use a primary school font
as this would give the reader the image of education and learning.
7.11
Because the typefaces that you use can make such a difference to the
first impression, it is important that you choose the correct font for
each job. As an example, it would be inappropriate to use a decorative
font for the titles of an exam paper or a primary school font for the
body text of a business report. Decorative and title typefaces are often
used excessively.
7.11
(As an exercise, can I suggest you look through the adverts in the June
issue of Archive? Ask yourself which ones communicate most clearly and
then try to analyse why that is so. It’s not a case of which advert gets
the largest amount of information into an A5 advert but which one
“communicates” in the broadest sense of the word. Ed.)
7.11
•  Printing and papers − Unless you use professional imagesetting and
printing all the time, the majority of your work will be printed using a
desktop printer. It’s worth remembering that standard A4 white copier
paper isn’t always the best medium. Some excellent effects can be
achieved by using different sorts of paper to add some variety to your
work. You can choose from papers with varying weights, colours, sizes,
and types. Shop around for the best deal − you’ll probably find that
your local paper merchant gives the best choice and price. Viking Direct
(0800-424444), offer a nationwide delivery service and have a range of
colour, graduated colour and designer papers. The designer papers are
pre-printed in full colour A4 pages and are ideal for work that really
needs to stand out.
7.11
•  Are you Smart? (This is the advertising bit! Ed.) − Last but
certainly not least, buy your clipart, resources, fonts & DTP
applications from SmartDTP! We produce our own range of publishing
resources which is complemented by the products in our DTPDirect
catalogue. We supply publishing resources from iSV(Exclusive), Micro
Studio, Tekoa Graphics, Fabis Computing, Design Concept, Southern
Printers, ABC Of Art & Dabs Press. We offer fast delivery which is
backed up by a full telephone support service. To obtain our latest
catalogue disc send your details with a £1 coin stuck to a piece of card
(so it doesn’t get lost in the post) to the following address:- Smart
DTP, Catalogue disc, 36 Park Road, Duffield, Belper, Derbyshire, DE56
4GR.  (0332-842803)  A

Hints and tips (from Multimedia Column)
7.12
•  Genesis Professional − One reader wrote to complain that he was
getting repeated crashes when trying to replicate frames. I must admit,
I was unaware of the problem, so I went back and tested it out. The gist
of it is this: if you open a blank page and pull out a frame and then
replicate it, the program crashes. Now when you first pull out a frame,
by default it is a WORD frame, and if you try and replicate it the crash
occurs as Genesis will not allow you to replicate this type of frame.
The cure is simple, just convert the WORD frame into a TEXT frame by
clicking in the frame itself, then you can copy it as many times as you
like.
7.12
•  Magpie − Some months ago, I issued a challenge to Magpie users about
making a scrolling binder with continuous music. I got no replies to
this challenge, but my solution was a bit of a cheat. Using my CD-ROM, I
set up an audio CD running and then loaded in the Magpie scrolling demo
which had no sound effects! I’m sure there is a better solution so I
will keep the prizes until someone comes up with a better one!
7.12
Hints and Tips
7.12
•  Boot structure on the Risc PC − How many of you have got to grips
with the Boot application on the Risc PC? It’s a little bit messy on
first glance − and even on second and all subsequent glances! However,
it is also very powerful and practical. The following is brief guide to
its contents and what they are used for and goes a little beyond the
discussion in chapter 11 of the User Guide.
7.12
As many of you have discovered, the !Boot application simply runs the
configure utility, enabling you to select various hardware and desktop
options. It has also done an awful lot of work by the time you get to
the desktop, setting up system variables, configuring your preferences
and booting and running several applications, modules and obey files.
Those of you with stronger stomachs may have shift-double-clicked on it
and will have been faced with a bewildering array of nested directories
and files, many of which are named !Boot or Boot, !Configure or
Configure, and all of these are sufficiently dotted with references to
each other to ensure that all who enter are reduced to quivering
technophobes.
7.12
Please note that if you are going to make changes to the insides of
!Boot, you would be wise to take a copy of it first. If you do find that
the contents of !Boot.Choices.Boot are irretrievably messy, you can run
the application !ResetBoot in $.Diversions.Tools which will restore
!Boot to its factory settings. Also, I would recommend keeping a copy of
the RISC OS applications contained in $.Apps if you intend to make any
changes to them − as you do not get a copy of them on floppy disc, as
you did with previous versions of RISC OS.
7.12
Apart from the usual application baggage of !Run, !Boot, !Sprites and
!Help, there are two directories that are of interest (Resources and
Choices) and two that aren’t (Library and Utils.)
7.12
Resources contains the applications that RISC OS needs, but which
needn’t concern the user most of the time, these being !System, !Scrap
and !Fonts. The !Configure application that gets run automatically by
!Boot is also here.
7.12
Choices contains nothing but a directory called Boot and it is here that
the interesting stuff resides.
7.12
The obey file PreDesktop gets run first and sets up aliases and system
variables. Its most interesting job is to control which applications
appear when the Apps icon on the iconbar is clicked. In the following
discussion, ‘Apps’ refers to the directory viewer opened by clicking on
the ‘Apps’ icon on the icon bar, whilst ‘$.Apps’ refers to the directory
called ‘Apps’ in the root of the hard disc. As you will see, they are
not the same.
7.12
By default the contents of $.Apps all appear in the Apps resource. The
easiest way to have one of your own applications accessible through Apps
icon is to copy it into $.Apps. Note that any applications deleted or
moved from $.Apps will no longer appear in Apps after a reset, and
cannot be retrieved. Apps only contains a ‘facade’ for the real
applications which are stored elsewhere. If you have a whole suite of
applications you would like to appear in Apps, and you don’t want them
messed up with the contents of $.Apps, you can ask PreDesktop to add
them from any other directory. Near the end of the file PreDesktop is
the line
7.12
AddApp Boot:^.Apps.!*
7.12
which will place any application in $.Apps into the Apps. If you want to
add to this a single application stored elsewhere, you can add a line
something like
7.12
AddApp Boot:^.MyApps.Impression.!Style
7.12
or to add all the applications in a given directory add a line like
7.12
AddApp Boot:^.MyApps.UsefulApps.!*
7.12
The directory PreDesk contains things which need to be run before the
desktop starts. This is intended for use by applications which need
software, modules or drivers in place prior to the desktop but you may
find you are required to place things there manually when installing
certain new hardware and software products.
7.12
The file Desktop is where the !Boot system filer_boots anything that may
be needed by the operating system, and some of the essentials for the
user. Desktop also causes any applications or obey files contained in
the directory Tasks to be run. Inside Tasks is where applications may
place files they want to be run within the desktop but before the user
gets started. It already contains !ROMPatch and a file called Configure.
If you create a Desktop Boot file from the task manager icon, this is
where it is saved (see page 139 in the User Guide). You can also store
your own goodies here. For instance, if you are using an IDE 105Mb
removable drive in your Risc PC, you may want to place the !SyQuest
Application in the Tasks directory so that it is always present on the
iconbar when you start.
7.12
There is a drawback with placing applications in Tasks that install
themselves on the icon bar. If you choose to create a desktop boot file,
you may find you get a duplicate copy of your favourite application next
time you reset the computer. The best way is to try it and see. !Syquest
doesn’t suffer from this problem.
7.12
You may have tried putting your best backdrop on the pinboard and saving
the desktop to have it appear every time you use your Risc PC, only to
find that RISC OS has decided to put one of its bland wallpapers up in
its place. This is because the ...Tasks.!Boot file containing the state
of the desktop (and therefore your pretty picture) gets run before the
file Configure (simply because the files are run alphabetically). Then
the Configure file simply pastes up the textured background choices you
make from the !Configure utility and thus overwrites your true
preference for a backdrop. You can overcome this either by running
!Configure (by double-clicking on the !Boot application), selecting
‘none’ for background texture in the ‘screen’ options and clicking on
the ‘set’ icon. You could try renaming either !Boot or Configure, so
that they swap positions, but this is not the way to do it because
changing either the desktop boot, or running !Configure, will create the
same problem again.  David Webb, NCS.
7.12
•  Changing ChangeFSI − It is possible to modify !ChangeFSI v0.95 to
enable non-Risc PC owners to create high/true colour sprites.
7.12
!ChangeFSI v0.95 allows Risc PC owners to create 16bpp (32,000) or 32bpp
(16,000,000) sprites, but it will not work on non-Risc PC machines − an
error message comes up if you try and create one! However, a little
modification of the !ChangeFSI Basic file gets over this problem.
7.12
Open up the !ChangeFSI application and look for a blue Basic file called
ChangeFSI. Load this file into !Edit and 21 lines down you will see a
line:
7.12
SYS “OS_SWINumberFromString”,, “OS_SpriteOp” TO spop%
7.12
insert an ‘X’ at the start of the “OS_Spriteop” word so that it reads:
7.12
SYS “OS_SWINumberFromString”,, “XOS_SpriteOp” TO spop%
7.12
and 531 lines down (you may wish to use !Edit’s F5 key short cut here!)
you will see:
7.12
SYS“Wimp_ReadPixTrans”,&100,sar%,n$,,,, ifactors%,pixtrans%
7.12
insert a ‘X’ at the start of the “Wimp_Read...” word so that it reads:
7.12
SYS“XWimp_ReadPixTrans”,&100,sar%,n$,,,, ifactors%,pixtrans%
7.12
Resave the file!
7.12
Now when you enter a 32,000 colour display mode (or set !ChangeFSI’s
output option) and drag a suitable JPEG/TIFF, etc image to !ChangeFSI,
the error will not occur, but a seemingly ‘blank’ white window will
appear. The image is really there − it just can’t be seen! Save this
‘blank’ image and you will have created your very own high-colour
sprite!  Stuart Halliday, Quantum Software.
7.12
•  Replacement mice − With the Acorn mouse costing £40* and both the
Clares and Watford mice costing £30, the survival of our school mice has
been of some concern to me. The oldest mice for the A310s have caused
most problems as they have weak leads and a little stretching breaks the
wires inside the cable. They also go out of adjustment causing the
pointer to stall or go off in the wrong direction. The A3000 mice have
far fewer problems but, after a lot of use, they too can have cable
breaks and one has failed electronically. So far, the A3020 type have
not failed − but perhaps they have not been in use long enough.
7.12
(*We still have a few cut-price Acorn mice at £20. Ed.)
7.12
Repairing mice myself was a time-consuming business and replacement
leads were costly too; one from Archive is £11 or £13 depending on the
mouse-type. I have used a company called CSL to repair all the A310
mice. They are reliable and quick and have a fixed charge of £15 plus
VAT, which includes a new cable. This is strong and thick and definitely
child-proof, if a bit clumsy. Meanwhile, I have kept my eyes open for a
cheap replacement. There are numerous compatible Atari and Amiga mice,
usually selling for about £10 at shows, but they only have two buttons.
Similarly, there are PC mice at a slightly higher price, but the 3-
button variety are for the serial port.
7.12
Thankfully, the latest Maplin catalogue has a cheap 3-button Amiga
mouse. A little investigation worked out the connections and then a bit
of delicate soldering to a 9-pin miniature DIN plug, also from Maplin,
produced a fully working replacement. The mouse is neat and fits well in
the hand. It has a coated steel ball and membrane switches rather than
microswitches. These could be replaced, but the feel is good anyway. A
possible bonus is that the sensitivity is about twice that of the Acorn
mouse, i.e. it moves twice as far on screen for a given movement across
the mat.
7.12
For anyone who needs a replacement, I can recommend this route if you
are a competent solderer with a fine iron. The connections and parts are
shown below. Although the wire colours in my mouse were in a convenient
resistor-code order, you should confirm this before soldering.
7.12
Parts from Maplin Electronics:
7.12
RT51F − Amiga Mouse − £10.95
7.12
JX19V − Min DIN Line Plug 9W − 98p.
7.12
(Prices are inc VAT.)
7.12
Mouse plug connections
7.12
  Pin  Function  Colour
7.12
  9  menu  white
7.12
  8  adjust  grey
7.12
  7  select  black
7.12
  6  yb  blue
7.12
  5  ya  green
7.12
  4  xa  yellow
7.12
  3  xb  orange
7.12
  2  +5v  red
7.12
  1  0v  brown
7.12
Keyboard socket (or rear of plug)
7.12
Steve Drain, Portland.
7.12
(If you have never soldered a mini-DIN plug before, be warned − it is a
VERY fiddly job! Ed.)
7.12
CSL’s address is: 15 Spencer Road, New Milton, Hants, BH25 6BZ.
7.12
•  Resetting the palette on the Risc PC − One of our subscribers happily
ran one of the alternative palette files, such as those given for
Artworks and Impression, only to realise that on RISC OS 3.5 there is no
palette icon with which to alter it, or, more importantly, to reset to
default. We’ve not been able to find any easy way to reset the palette
other than to take a default palette from a pre-RISC OS 3.5 computer and
double-click on it on the Risc PC. This does the job so, for those of
you who do not have the luxury of another machine, a default palette is
included on the program disc.  David Webb, NCS
7.12
•  RISC OS 3 Laser Direct driver problems − If you look at last month’s
Archive carefully, you will see a small printing problem with the new
RISC OS 3 LD drivers from CC. Take page 50 for example and look at line
8 which starts, “Star to average”. As you will probably be able to see,
there is a distortion of the text which looks like a missing line or
lines of dots on the printout. Having once identified it, you will
probably be able to see it on many of the pages of the magazine at about
the same position!!!!
7.12
CC know about the problem and say that they are looking into it. There
is, however, a temporary solution. To stop it, you have to switch off
the half-toning of text. To do this, shift-click on the !Printers icon
on the iconbar and set the options as shown opposite to “Graphics only”.
7.12
The only slight snag with this is that it reveals another (even worse)
bug. If, with half-toning on graphics only, you print something
sideways, it goes completely AWOL and prints the text at the wrong
spacing and in totally the wrong place!  Ed.
7.12
(Stop Press − CC say that they have a beta-release of version 2.65 which
they are going to send me. It seems to have fixed the problems but, of
course, you can never be sure until it is thoroughly tested.  Ed.)
7.12
•  Selecting modes in Basic on the Risc PC − We recently had an enquiry
regarding the effects of the MODE command in Basic on the Risc PC.
Unlike previous machines, the mode can be set using a mode definition
string rather than just a number. The idea is that this gives access to
the whole range of modes available to the Risc PC. If the specific
machine on which the software is running does not support the mode
requested, the closest mode which is available will be selected.
7.12
The mode description string takes the form “Xn Ym Ck” where n is the
desired X resolution, m is the desired Y resolution, and k sets the
number of colours – 2, 4, 16, 256, 32K, 16M are all valid colour
specifiers. For example MODE “X800 Y600 C16” will choose a mode similar
to mode 31 on earlier machines. Note also that the resolutions given in
the string are the required resolutions in Pixels, not logical units as
used by the Basic MOVE/DRAW/PLOT commands for example. More on this
later.
7.12
The mode can be specified either by number or by string. Most of the old
modes are supported, and with some calculation, the new modes are also
accessible by number. The easiest way to find the number is to enter the
mode using the mode string, and then “PRINT MODE” which will display the
current mode number.
7.12
Unfortunately, for users who have worked their way up from earlier
machines, the new system has some strange effects. The new method makes
more sense than the old system which was based on the BBC Micro system
of TTL rgb colours, but you do need to be aware of the changes. When a
mode is chosen by number and the mode has 2, 4 or 16 colours, then the
palette is redefined to be the same as that offered on the BBC,
including, for 16 colour modes, the flashing colours. This is identical
to the operation of earlier RISC OS machines.
7.12
If the mode string is used, however, there are some differences.
Firstly, using the string has the same result as a “*wimpmode” command
being issued rather than a “*mode”. The effect is that (a) the desktop
mode will have changed, and (b) the palette will be redefined to match
the desktop palette for that number of colours, including clearing the
screen to a mid-grey background, and selecting black text on a white
background. Secondly, the computer gets to choose what it thinks is the
best mode for the job. As noted above, MODE “X800 Y600 C16” gives you
the same size and colours as mode 31, however the two are not identical.
MODE 31 specifies a particular mode whereas the string specifies general
requirements for the mode. In this case, where mode 31 has a refresh
rate of 56Hz, the mode string selects a mode which has a refresh rate of
75Hz, considerably reducing the flicker. The important point here is
that, by passing a string, the choice of mode is more independent,
allowing the computer to choose the mode it can support that is closest
to the mode requested.
7.12
If you need to use a limited number of colours, the best method to use
is the mode string, followed by a redefinition of the palette if needed,
using VDU 19,n,16,r,g,b. Individual colours can be chosen as normal
using GCOL a,c. The more “official” method, especially for high colour
modes is to use the mode string and the SWI ColourTrans_SetG-COL since
that will choose the closest colour in the palette defined. (For best
results, you may still wish to change the palette in low colour modes
for particular tasks). An example is shown below in procedural form
which you may find useful. The procedure will work on earlier machines
as well.
7.12
REM PROCsetcolour
7.12
REM r%, g%, b% set the amounts of red green
7.12
REM and blue for the desired colour,
7.12
REM Colourtrans will be used to pick
7.12
REM the closest colour and set it.
7.12
REM effect% is a standard GCOL effect field
7.12
REM Use SWI number for speed :
7.12
REM ColourTrans_SetGCOL = &40743
7.12
:
7.12
DEF PROCsetcolour(r%,g%,b%,effect%)
7.12
LOCAL colour%
7.12
colour%=(b%<<24)+(g%<<16)+(r%<<8)
7.12
SYS &40743,colour%,,,0,effect%
7.12
ENDPROC
7.12
Finally, let me deal with the OS and pixel units conversions mentioned
earlier. Unlike PCs where locations of pixels tend to be addressed
directly, Acorn has always had a level of indirection - the “logical
resolution”. This had two main advantages in the past, firstly that the
logical resolution did not change with mode, so a line across the middle
of the screen would still appear in the middle even if you changed the
number of pixels on the screen. Secondly, the display worked in the same
way as a mathematical graph, with the origin at the bottom left corner
of the screen, y increasing upwards. If absolute pixels are used, the
top left is the origin, and y decreases downwards.
7.12
The first of these two advantages no longer holds. Because of the
dramatic increase in resolutions and the need to fit more onto the
screen mean, the logical resolutions for different modes are no longer
identical. Consider the table on page 525 of the Risc PC User Guide:
Mode 12 is 640×256 pixels but has a logical resolution of 1280×1024.
Incidentally, this was the standard logical resolution for all modes on
the BBC and earlier Archimedes. Mode 27 at 640×480 only has a logical
resolution of 1280×960 i.e. although mode 27 is “higher resolution”, you
actually get less of a page on the screen than you do in mode 12! (You
will have to take my word for the logical resolutions − they have been
taken out of the Risc PC manual, but appeared in earlier versions if you
have access to those – page 221 of the joint User & Applications guide
for RISC OS 3.)
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This has been used to good effect on the Risc PC, allowing large area
desktops such as the X1600 Y600 mode which has four times the area of
the X800 Y600, but only double the number of pixels.
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This means that you do not know what the logical resolution of a mode is
when you choose it, so to make your software as mode independent as
possible, you need to check the actual and logical resolutions using the
SWI OS_ReadModeVariables and set up appropriate scaling factors. If you
do not have the PRMs, you can assume that for rectangular pixel modes
2*X converts a pixel to the correct logical position, and 4*Y gives the
appropriate scaling for the vertical. In square pixel modes, use 2*X and
2*Y for the scaling. If the actual Y resolution is less than half of the
actual X resolution then it is probably safe to assume a rectangular
pixel mode, otherwise assume square pixel.
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On the monthly program disc is a program called “setcolour” which
includes the above procedure. As a demonstration, the program goes
through 2, 4, 16, 256, 32K and 16M colours and displays a slice from the
colour cube. (You may find the program fails to display the higher depth
modes if you do not have any VRAM). Simply double click on it, once it
has finished the first colour square, press a key to move on to the next
higher colour depth. You may need to reset your desktop mode after it
has finished. SetColourN is similar but only uses 2, 4, 16 and 256
colours referenced by number to demonstrate the difference between
desktop and default “BBC” palettes. This version will also work on pre-
Risc PC machines.  Matthew Hunter, NCS.
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•  Sound Boots? − For those of you seeking to boost the sound output of
your computer, may I suggest you take a quick trip to your local branch
of Boots the Chemist. In the music department, you should find a pair of
Boots’ own brand ZX200CD microspeakers for a mere £14.99. These come in
rather a naff cardboard box, but do have a volume control on the front
of each speaker plus a PBS button which enhances the bass sound. They
require four LR6 batteries (about another £3) but as they have auto
power switch off, these last a fair time. The supplied lead plugs
directly into the headphone socket on an Acorn computer.
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The difference is stunning and, certainly in a noisy classroom, they
would be a great help. Even in the home environment, they can make a lot
of difference.  Paul Hooper, Martham, Norfolk.
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• Thumbnail creation − Quantum Software have provided Archive
subscribers with a copy of Executor (the playback-only version of
Keystroke). It has been supplied as seen, with no warranty, etc, for use
by Archive magazine subscribers only, to demonstrate some of the
abilities of Keystroke.
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The application has the ability to produce, from a directory of JPEG or
TIFF files, a multi-sprite file − in effect, making a !Paint ‘thumbnail’
file.
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These thumbnail sprite files are very useful for displaying your bit-map
images quickly and, whilst it isn’t as good as a professional thumbnail
application, they cost money. Because Paint and this copy of Executor
come free, this is an definite advantage!  Stuart Halliday, Quantum
Software.
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N.B. Quantum are also offering Keystroke at a special price of £19 to
Archive subscribers for a limited period. For details, see page 5.  A
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