3. System requirements for running History Explorer
4. Installing History Explorer
5. Performance problems
6. Running History Explorer with low memory
7. Sound problems
8. Screen size and color configuration
9. Printing and copying
10. Connecting to the Internet
1. Introduction
About Dorling Kindersley
DK Multimedia titles are available wherever CD-ROMs are sold. New titles will be available on a regular basis. For more information, contact us at DK Multimedia, 9 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8PS.
You may also visit us on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.dk.com
About this Read Me file
This Read Me file is designed to address most of the problems you may encounter when using History Explorer. Please take a look at the table of contents above to see if your particular problem is addressed.
If you are still having problems or need further technical support on any Dorling Kindersley product, please call the Multimedia Helpline with details of the problem, including any error messages that were produced, and the full specification of your Macintosh. If possible, you should be beside your machine when you telephone.
The numbers in New York, USA are:
Telephone: 1-800 DKMM 575
Fax: (212) 213 5240
E-mail: DKMM@phantom.com
The numbers in London, United Kingdom are:
Telephone: 0171 753 3488
Fax: 0171 753 7575
E-mail: DKMM@dkmm.co.uk
2. Care of Compact Discs
Contrary to early reports, compact discs (CDs) are very easily damaged if treated carelessly. Such damage has a much greater effect on the digital data of a CD-ROM than on the information of a music CD. A dirty or damaged CD-ROM is quite likely to malfunction. With CD-ROM drives becoming ever faster and more disc-sensitive, this is an increasing problem.
The surface of the disc can quickly gather dirt and is very easily scratched. To protect the data from scratches, fingerprints, dust particles, and smears, do not touch the read-out side (unlabeled side) of the disc or place it face down on a hard surface.
Should the CD become dirty, clean it with a soft cloth lightly moistened with CD cleaning fluid or ethyl alcohol, working from the center to the edge. Do not use any type of solvent, such as benzine, lacquer thinner, anti-static agents, or LP record cleaners as they may damage the surface.
Never leave the disc in a place subject to direct sunlight, high temperature, or high humidity. Recommended storage conditions are:
Temperature: 10íC to 50íC (50íF to 122íF)
Humidity: 10 percent to 80 percent
3. System requirements for running History Explorer
The minimum computer specification required for running History Explorer is as follows:
An Apple Macintosh 68LC040 25MHz computer, or above, that supports a 640 x 480 pixel monitor displaying 256 colors, 16Mb RAM (24Mb required for System 8.0), a double-speed CD-ROM drive, and System 7.1 or later.
The following Macintoshes have processors that fall below the base specification, and therefore are not supported:
Ñ All Classic Macintosh Systems
Ñ All Macintosh II Systems
Ñ These Macintosh LC Systems: LC, LCII, LCIII, LCIII+, LC520, LC550, Macintosh TV.
Ñ These Macintosh Performa Systems: 200, 250, 275, 400, 405, 410, 430, 450, 460,
466, 467, 520, 550, 560, 600, 600CD
Ñ These Portable Macintosh Systems: Macintosh Portable, 100 - 180c, Duo 210 - 270c
History Explorer also requires a certain amount of free RAM in order to run. You can check the minimum amount of free RAM required by History Explorer in the following way:
1. Insert the History Explorer CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the History Explorer Folder, then click on the History Explorer icon to highlight it.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info.
4. Under the memory requirements section, look for the figure in the Minimum Size box. This is the minimum amount of free RAM that History Explorer needs in order to run.
4. Installing History Explorer
1. Insert the disc in the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the DK History Explorer Installer icon, then follow the instructions that appear on your screen.
3. Restart your Macintosh, then locate the History Explorer folder installed on your hard disk. Open the folder and double-click on the DK History Explorer icon to start the product.
4. If you experience any problems, double-click on the Read Me icon.
5. Performance problems
If History Explorer runs slowly or sound output is interrupted, try the following suggestions:
Ñ Running History Explorer with your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode may cause sound breakup, particularly on older Macs. In Virtual Memory mode, your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive to emulate RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to History Explorer, access to that RAM can be slow. For best performance, use the Memory control panel to turn Virtual Memory off and then restart your Macintosh. However, if you are low on memory you may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Ñ An old or slow CD-ROM drive will impair the program's performance. The only solution to this problem is to upgrade your CD-ROM drive.
Ñ Running History Explorer with less than the minimum amount of free RAM can cause problems (see section 3, System Requirements for running History Explorer). You can check to see if there is any free RAM available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If there is free RAM available you can set the program to take advantage of this. First install the program on your hard disk (see section 4, Installing History Explorer), then select the History Explorer icon and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to increase the amount of memory set aside for History Explorer. Allocating more memory to the program can improve performance.
Ñ Go to the Options menu in History Explorer and turn off map animations, auto-narration, background music, and navigation sound.
Ñ SCSI termination problems can affect your CD-ROM drive. Your CD-ROM drive must be either internally or externally terminated. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on SCSI termination.
Ñ Some performance problems may be caused by low memory conditions. For example, you may get a number error message if there is not enough memory to complete a task. Try reading the following chapter on running History Explorer with low memory.
Ñ If an alert message appears asking you to delete files from "Preferences," or if the CD-ROM is not saving information correctly, try deleting the files named "HistoryExplorerUsers" and "HistoryExplorerPictures" from the Preferences folder in your System folder on your hard disk.
6. Running History Explorer with low memory
History Explorer requires a minimum amount of free RAM to run. You can check how much free RAM is required by doing the following:
1. Insert the History Explorer CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the History Explorer folder to open it, then click once to highlight the History Explorer icon.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info.
4. Under the Memory Requirements section, look for the figure in the Minimum Size box. This is the minimum amount of free RAM that History Explorer requires in order to run.
You can then check how much free RAM is available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If you do not have enough free RAM to run History Explorer, try the following suggestions to free up additional RAM:
Ñ Make sure you have only one application running at a time.
Ñ If you still have less than the minimum amount of free RAM, you can allocate some hard disk space to work as Virtual Memory. You can set your Macintosh to use Virtual Memory by using the Memory control panel, found in the Control Panels folder within your System folder, then restart your Macintosh. However, using Virtual Memory may slow your Macintosh's access time to RAM causing sound and video breakup, so only switch it on if it is really necessary.
Ñ You may be able to reduce the amount of memory used by your system software by removing unused Apple menu items, fonts, extensions, sounds, etc. from your system folder. These items can occupy considerable amounts of memory and their removal may allow History Explorer enough RAM to run efficiently. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on how to remove these items.
Ñ If your Macintosh is set to more than 256 colors you should reduce the amount of memory History Explorer uses by setting the monitor control panel to 256 colors. To do this, select Control Panels from the Apple menu, and then select Monitors. From the list of settings for your selected monitor you should choose 256 colors.
Ñ History Explorer can be set to run in less than the recommended amount of RAM. To do this, first install the program to your hard disk (see section 4, Installing History Explorer). Select the History Explorer icon and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to decrease the amount of minimum and preferred memory set aside for History Explorer. Allocating less memory to the program may allow the program to run, but will also affect the program's performance, and may cause the program to crash.
Ñ Do not set the preferred memory size to more than or equal to the amount of free RAM on your system as this may cause problems.
If History Explorer crashes, or freezes up, the most likely cause is a problem with the disc. You should try the following solutions:
1. If you are stuck in the product and cannot exit, press OPTION (Alt) + COMMAND (APPLE) + ESC to force History Explorer to shut down. Do this only if the application has truly crashed; we do not recommend you try this with other applications.
2. You should try cleaning the disc before trying to run History Explorer again.
If this does not work, use the Monitors control panel to reduce the amount of colors used by your monitor to 256 colors.
3. If you are still having problems with crashes and freezes, from the Apple menu choose Control Panels, then Memory. In the Memory control panel, make sure that the Modern Memory Manager is set to Off (if this is present on your machine). DO NOT click Use Defaults. Now restart your computer and try to run History Explorer again.
7. Sound problems
If History Explorer produces no sound at all, check the following points:
Ñ Use the Sound control panel to check that the sound volume level on your machine is turned up.
Ñ If you have external speakers, check that they are on and that their volume control is turned up.
Ñ If you wish to use either the internal or external speakers, make sure that you have not left headphones plugged in.
If History Explorer produces interrupted or distorted sound, check the following points:
Ñ If the sound volume level in the Sound control panel is set at maximum volume, it may cause sound to distort. The same problem may occur with external speakers set at maximum volume. Experiment with different volume levels until you find a comfortable sound level.
Ñ Running your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode may cause sound breakup. In Virtual Memory mode your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive as RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to History Explorer, access to sounds stored in that RAM can be slow. For best performance, use the Memory control panel to turn Virtual Memory off, and then restart your Macintosh. However, users who are low on memory may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Ñ The built-in speakers supplied with Macintosh computers vary in quality depending on the age and model of the machine. A poor quality speaker may cause distorted sound, especially at high volume levels.
Ñ History Explorer requires the Macintosh to have some spare memory available to generate the sounds. For this reason, do not allocate quite all the available memory to History Explorer when you start it up. See section 6, on Running History Explorer with low memory for more details on how to set the memory allocation.
8. Screen size and color configuration
History Explorer will run on any color monitor with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels or more, and that supports 256 colors. The program will work on a grayscale monitor, but is not designed to work in black and white.
History Explorer is not designed to run on multiple monitors. If you have such a setup, the program will run on your primary monitor only.
9. Printing and copying
Screens in History Explorer are stored and displayed as color pictures. They are optimized for screen rather than print reproduction. Screen images can be printed, however, and will be of the same quality as a picture made with a screen-capture function.
Black and white prints will be of poor quality. If you have a laser printer, better quality images will be achieved by using the color/grayscale option.
Both Print and Copy functions may be affected by low memory. Refer to section 6, Running History Explorer with low memory.
10. Connecting to the Internet
Please note: If you would normally pay telephone charges to connect to your Internet Service Provider, or for the time that you use the Internet, these charges will continue to apply while you are using the Online feature in this product. You should always ask permission from the person who will pay the bill before you use the Online feature described below.
If you are able to connect to the Internet from your computer, and if you have a Web Browser installed, then you can take advantage of a feature of History Explorer that lets you access DK Web pages on the Internet. If you do not have Internet access, or a Web browser, then you will NOT be able to make use of this feature.
Warning: If you have already connected to the Internet and try to connect again, then a second, concurrent browser session will be started. Each subsequent attempt to connect to the Internet will start a new, concurrent browser session; this is a feature of browsers. Running multiple sessions in this way may cause your computer to run out of memory and may result in your computer crashing. Therefore, we recommend that you run only one browser session at a time.
Connecting to the Internet
1. Click on either the DK Web site icon or the Register Online icon before starting the main product.
2. You will see the following message:
"You are about to connect to the Internet. If you click on the button below your browser will open and you will be linked to the DK Web site. You must have a functioning Internet connection and Web browser for this to work.
If you do not wish to continue, just click outside this screen."
If your connection is unsuccessful check the following:
Ñ That you can connect to the Internet and use your browser in the normal way. If you cannot do this, then there is a problem with your Internet connection. For example, make sure that your modem is correctly connected and switched on.
Ñ Try starting your Internet connection and Web browser first, and then start up History Explorer and try the online connection again.
Ñ You may get a number error message if there is not enough memory to open the browser. Try reading the following chapter on running History Explorer with low memory.
If your Macintosh is low on memory the History Explorer program will close when your Web browser starts up. If this happens, you will need to restart History Explorer once you have finished using the Internet.
