Amiga Collections: MegaDisc/MegaDisc 04 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[m][WB].zip/MegaDisc 04 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[m][WB].adf/Articles/Hints&Tips

Text File | 2007-12-01 | 17KB | 308 lines

           YET MORE HINTS AND TIPS AND NEWS



    ****** Send in any hints and tips that you've come across
    ****** so others can benefit from your wisdom. Any such
    ****** contribution that we use will be worth a free disk
    ****** with the contents of any Fish Disk copied onto it.
    ****** (We've run out of Tshirts...)


     #  CONSERVING RAM - Anyone with a 512K system should know that there
    are various ways to do this, and it becomes important when
    running large programs, such as STARMAP on this disk. For example,
    if you have a couple of windows open on the Workbench, you may
    find that such a program won't run; removing all unnecessary
    open windows may solve the problem (check the title bar RAM
    indicator as you close them). Overlapping windows chew up even
    more memory, and previously run programs which don't restore
    memory to the system when closed are another problem (lazy
    programming). And finally, to squeeze a little more memory from
    your system, you can turn off the computer, remove the external
    drive, and boot up again - a disk drive takes about 30K. Keep
    these things in mind if you have any problems getting Starmap
    to run.

     #  Some people may be unaware of the extent of the possibilities of the
    Amiga keyboard. In the DEVS directory of your 1.2 Workbench disk
    are several different KEYMAPS which can be changed through the CLI
    or through the SETMAP utility in the SYSTEM drawer. The default
    keymap which you're probably using is the USA0 which is pretty
    standard and contains most characters that you need. But the other
    day, I had to prepare a document with a Pound Sterling character,
    but where was it? At ALT-L in fact, but not through my text editor -
    it appeared in Pagesetter's text editor however when I pressed that
    combination. In short, you'll find every character you ever needed
    if you look for it.
    The best way to look is to get the program SETKEY (from Codeworks,
    c/0 Charles J. Carter, 4601 Wilshire Cove, Huntsville, AL 35816 :
    send US$25 & p&p), which is a neat utility which allows you to do
    two things - on a graphical representation of the keyboard you can
    click on any key, using any keymap, and find out what key-combinatios
    are possible in that keymap; and, more powerfully, you can select
    any key and define for yourself a keymap with your own macros and
    assignments. So you can program F2 to be "diskcopy df0: to df1:" if
    you like and a single press will do it.
    A Demo version of the program can be found on Fish 70, along with
    a few custom keymaps. The SAVE function is disabled (to encourage
    you to buy the program), but you can use it to check out all the
    key combinations in your keymaps.
    There is also KEYTOY in the Tools drawer of your Extras disk,
    which allows you to check out the current keymap.
    The GIZMOZ disk (ask your dealer) has a HOTKEY function which allows
    you to do similar tricks in redefining keys, and you can do the
    same again with a couple of CLI SHELL PROGRAMS, such as METACOMCO
    SHELL, or Matt Dillon's CSH shell in the public domain (an excellent
    program). For those who didn't read about shells on Megadisc3,
    they are programs which "wrap around" the CLI, and give you extra
    capabilities, such as keeping a list of previous commands which can
    be retrieved by the arrow keys (history); command line editing, ie,
    you can retrieve a previous command and change it as you wish; and
    the ability to define macros for specific keys and key combinations
    (as described above). Well worth using one if you use the CLI much
    at all.(See "Timesaver" below).


     #  Speaking of key combinations - some may not know that to remove the
    contents of any "dialog box" in any requester (those strips where
    you have to enter the names of files), just click in the box, and
    then press Right-Amiga & X together. This will work for any requester
    and saves a lot of backspacing.
                     - some programs open windows which
    don't have "depth arrangement" gadgets in the top right corner
    (Textcraft, for example). To push the window to the back press
    Left-Amiga & N together; to reverse the process, Left-Amiga & M.
                     - to remove a line you've typed into
    the CLI, just press CTRL-X together.
                     - to move the cursor up the screen in
    the CLI so that a certain section at the top doesn't scroll off,
    just hit CTRL-K a few times - then CTRL-L to remove junk in the
    window.

     #  ESCAPE CODES - This is an area fraught with traps for the unwary.
    For those who haven't yet delved into them, they are codes which you
    embed into  files, such as word processing or database documents, which
    allow control over the various capabilities of your printer - bold,
    italic, underline, tabs, formfeeds, etc. The "CLI-COLOURS" article by
    Ross Kellaway in this issue goes into this for specific cases, and the
    manual for SCRIBBLE! does also. If anyone has conquered Escape codes
    for their own printers or software, please send in the results so they
    can be included on a future Megadisc. Most of the software and hardware
    we have at our fingertips has a lot more power than we use, simply
    because the information is not readily available, so tell us what you
    know.

     # TIMESAVER - This devilish little device just crossed my desk, and
    it's very impressive: a little box which squeezes into a slot under the
    Amiga 1000, "intercepts" the keyboard and allows you to do all sorts of
    clever things:
        * clock-calendar, which updates the Amiga, and lets you
    date-stamp files at any time
        * create up to 500 Macros (commands and keyboard
    combinations) of any kind which will operate across the whole system,
    unlike some software macro packages which only work within specific
    applications - there are also some prepared macros with CLI commands
        * CLI command history and editing capabilities
        * optional intercept of startup-sequence with your own
    prepared macro
        * optional password protection
    This is a fine bit of "firmware", simple in concept and very useful.
    I have noticed that it behaves oddly on occasion, especially in the
    area of CLI editing/history - ie, sometimes some of the history seems
    to get lost. And the date function is a little wayward at times.
    For a fuller review see a future issue. It's available from your dealer
    for approximately $165 (a little steep, but...), and is from C LTD, who
    have developed some other good hardware for the Amiga, such as a SCSI
    controller for US$300, a CD ROM driver soon to arrive, etc.

     # MARAUDER II - for those who find themselves having to do multiple
    copies of disks (like here at Megadisc), say for User Groups or public
    domain disks, Marauder II has the capability of loading the "source"
    disk into RAM:, thereby freeing up the internal drive as a "target"
    drive, along with as many other drives as your machine can handle
    (about 3 maximum). So you can copy 4 at a time, not bad. Going further,
    our local hardware whiz, the "Diskdoctor" has constructed a "disk
    tower" of 5 linked drives which attaches as if it were one drive
    (df1:), thus allowing even more.

     # C64 EMULATOR - Computamart of Western Australia is bringing in a lot
    of good products for the Amiga (such as Timesaver above), and this is
    one which is surely going to be useful to all those 64 users who've
    taken the plunge and bought an Amiga. These people still hold a great
    affection for their 64's, and it is surely a classic machine, and many
    will be interested in running some of their existing 64 software on the
    Amiga with this product. As it says in the blurb: "Full C64 serial port
    compatibility; supports game ports; works with keypad; full C64
    graphics; RGB or Composite video output; complete with hardware and
    software; etc." Anyone who takes one for a run - send us a review.
    Computamart can be contacted on [phone]. There's another C64
    emulator in the pipeline, I'm told.

     # NEW AMIGA MAGAZINE - Called "Enigma", I've seen the first copy and
    it is a good one. Plenty of information, compactly presented, and with
    a good coverage - halfway between AmigaWorld and Amazing Computing in
    appearance and content it seems. These will soon start appearing at
    selected dealers, so have a look. They come from Britain, for a change,
    rather than the US.

     # TROJAN HORSES AND VIRUSES - For some time now, there has been fear
    and loathing on the Amiga telecommunications networks globally, due to
    the existence of a couple of insidious and destructive "viruses". These
    are cute little bits of software that lodge on your disk from, say, a
    downloaded file from a BBS, and if you're lucky just say "Ya! I'm
    here!" or whatever; if you're unlucky, you might find that there's a
    time bomb in your system, and after a while your hard disk is trashed.
    If anyone has any first-hand knowledge of how to deal with these, do
    tell - I'm told that if you use the CLI "install" command on your disk,
    you can get rid of it. The lesson is as usual: back up your important
    disks. (The name of a virus program in the US is STEMMY.ARC or
    ST.EMMY.ARC, according to AmigaWorld.) I believe some local hackers
    have devised a disk that innoculates against the virus - check your
    local user group or BBS.

     # HARD DISK BACKUPS - On Fish 48 there is a good Hard Disk Backup
    Utility called BRU which works very nicely - better, I'm told, than
    "Hardhat" which is a commercial product. Worth doing occasionally, as
    you never know when disaster will strike in the form of the
    above-mentioned virus, or simple crash. BRU takes about 1.25 hours on a
    20-meg hard disk, and needs a STACK of about 50,000 from the CLI.
    Direct any enquiries to the Sysop of Club Amiga BBS, [phone].
    And speaking of Hard Disks, the SCSI Interface/Clock
    Calendar/512K RAM expansion unit from EXPANSION SYSTEMS is probably the
    way to go to get a good SCSI interface for your Amiga - with that in
    the system, you can then add any SCSI device that's around, and there
    are some nice cheap hard disks available these days. See the Review in
    Megadisc3 for more details of this. The same bunch also deals in Hard
    Disks of various sizes. For information call Megadisc.

     # SCSI - For those who wonder what SCSI is: it stands for "Small
    Computer Systems Interface" and is a high speed parallel interface
    originally designed by Shugart in the late 70's and is now an industry
    standard. Such a SCSI bus opens the Amiga architecture to a wide range
    of standard peripherals, such as:
    * All sizes of Hard Disks
    * Streaming tape
    * WORM cartridges: Write Once, Read Many; ie an optical disk for
      massive storage
    * CD ROM drive units
    * In the future, Laser Printers, Networks, etc.

     # THERMAL PRINTERS - Anyone who owns a thermal printer, such as the
    Okimate 20 might be pleased to know that it is possible to use FAX
    paper in the printer when they're not using a ribbon. This turns out
    rather cheaper than buying slim packs of cut sheets, and can often be
    found in one's place of employment...

     # EPSON LQ-2500+ - Recently test-drove one of these, which is Epson's
    top of line printer. A3 width is possible, like any good business
    printer; 5 fonts available online, with more available as plug-in
    modules, including an OCR font (ie, one which will give printout which
    is readable by an Optical Character Recognition scanner system, meaning
    you can scan a page of text into your computer as text rather than as a
    graphic dump); a very neat press-button menu-driven display on the
    front of the printer for manipulating all the capabilities of the
    device. The text comes out fine using the JX-80 Printer driver in
    Preferences, though graphics leave something to be desired. I'm told
    that there is a driver available specifically for this printer, but
    you'll have to hunt for it. A nice fast printer, a little noisy, and
    price around $2500 - just the thing if you can't stretch to a laser
    printer.

     # APPLE LASERWRITER PLUS - Anyone who has an Amiga and access to a
    Laserwriter should use it. The results are excellent using Pagesetter
    and any other package which is Postscript-compatible. The only problem
    is the serial cable to link them up, since a standard serial cable
    won't work. So here are the PIN CONNECTIONS to make up your own cable:
        AMIGA END               LASERWRITER END
        [  1                     1  ]
           2                     3
           3                     2
        [  4                     5  ]
           5                     4
           6                     20
           20                    6
        [  8                     8  ]
    At the Amiga plug end, pin 8 must be "tied" to pin 20, ie run a bit of
    solder between them. The square brackets above indicate "optional", ie
    they don't seem to make any difference one way or another. The
    unbracketed ones are necessary. With such a cable you can get very
    flash output from the Laserwriter.

    While on the subject of Laser Printers, the Texas Instruments 2108/2105
    series are serious contenders - Postscript compatible, along with
    emulations of most standard printers like the Hewlett-Packard, Diablo
    630 and so forth, 3 meg of RAM, and TWO 68020 processors which means
    the output is very fast compared to other printers, and also means the
    printer has a lot more computing power than your Amiga. Price is
    comparable to the Laserwriter at about $11,000 RRP.

    Another Postscript-compatible printer worth waiting for is Mitsui's
    Ricoh 6000 - supposedly available anytime now, it will have 35 fonts
    available, stacks of RAM if you want to upgrade, and a comparatively
    very low price. We'll bring you a review as soon as we can get our
    hands on one.

     # AUDIOMASTER - Aegis is soon to bring out the final version of this
    music editor, which was written by the Australian Peter Norman. The
    demo version allows all sorts of possibilities in editing sounds, with
    freehand graphic editing, sound looping, and practically every kind of
    manipulation of sound that you can imagine. The capabilities are those
    of a much more expensive system, and will be a must for those
    exploiting the Amiga for its musical abilities.

     # SEQUIN - another locally made piece of music software, supposed to
    be an excellent editor. Please send in reviews of this and other
    software. Now!

     # CHOICE MAGAZINE - The most recent Choice consumer watchdog magazine
    has done a feature on low-cost computers, and it seems that the Amiga
    outstrips all the rest in terms of quality and price. As usual, however
    they have fallen into the dreaded trap of claiming that there's not
    much software, especially of a business nature, around for it. Humph!
    Anyone with an epistolary tendency should send a letter correcting
    this hangover from 18 months ago.

     # ALADDIN DISKMAG - Recently saw a version of this, the latest entry
    in the Amiga Diskmag stakes. Rather than approaching it like Megadisc
    with Amiga-specific information, or JumpDisk, with its tenacious
    adherence to Basic, this one is more of a general-purpose mag with
    features like cooking (sic!), a puzzle or two, etc. The "interface" of
    the program is custom-made, and allows text or graphics to be shown and
    paged through. All in all, not bad, though being able to read only from
    the screen is a bit of a drawback, in my opinion, and you're locked
    into the sequence set up. Anyone interested can find the address in an
    advert in AmigaWorld magazine.

     # PRINTER DRIVERS - If you've got an odd printer which seems to have
    no specific Printer Driver available for it, you've got a couple of
    alternatives:      - get the PRTDRVGEN 2.3 program from Amicus 22
    (available for $6.50 from Megadisc like all the other PD disks) which
    allows you to create your own if you're a fairly sophisticated
    user of the Amiga, or
               - ring up some of the user groups listed on this
    disc, or
               - ring up The Software Supermarket, 3162.5 Delaware
    Ave, Kenmore NY 14217, Tel: [phone] in the US. They are said to
    have about 100 available.
    If none of those work, get another printer...

     # ERROR!! Lacetogl was supposed to be on MD2, but it didn't actually
    get on...sorry to those who searched and searched for it. If you want
    it, call.
           Last issue, speaking of Multisoft in WA, the contact name
    should have been Victoria Townsend - they deal in numerous Amiga
    products, including a reasonable hard disk.

     # JENDAY - "Conversations with a Computer", a good disk for anyone
    who's into AmigaBasic, takes you right through many of the techniques
    in an entertaining way. Find it at your dealer.

                              by Tim Strachan

                END OF HINTS & TIPS