"Following your publication (Archive 6.9: p12) of a printer status test routine, I eagerly tried it out on my A540 with RISC OS 3.10.; no joy; it does not crash the machine, but it lies! It tells me printer not on line, whether it is or not; and the printer beeps if it is on line! I have put my version on this disc so you can check what it does on whichever machine it does work on. I suspect that if a printer sink is enabled it will do no good; what is necessary is to use *FX5,1 to point directly at the parallel port!"
I still do not know the answer to the use of that routine ($.BumPrTest). Since then I have looked through some back numbers of R**c U**r, wherein I found the answer to my printer-on-or-off test routine! Simply, you are shut out of the machine as soon as you issue the VDU3! If you test before doing so, everything works OK! Why on earth could not ACORN have said so in the Installation Guide? Particularly since they did say the machine might hang if the parallel printer was not switched on! To go so far but not give the simple truth is typical of their careless attitude to users. I do not know how many days I have wasted pursuing this particular Grail! Anyway, $.PrinTest gives the definitive routine, which seems to satisfy all conditions on my machine, an A540 with Star LC10 on the parallel port.
I use this printer mainly for address labels, and a LaserDirect for correspondence, etc. The dipswitches set it to the Epson character set. However, I sometimes need to use Topbit characters in foreign addresses. I thus have implemented a complete Look-up table for the characters 160-255, trying as near as possible to get the Latin1 set. Interestingly, it is possible to dodge about and use the IBM set in addition to the Epson set! $.Latin1 summarises it; anyone with a Star LC10 should be able to get it going. It might work on some others as well?
I keep a routine on the Icon Bar which enables me to drag an address in text format to the Star and print it, even whilst the LaserDirect is installed.
I wrote some time ago that the operating system did not check for synonymous valid references to the RAMDisc pathnames. This is in fact more general. If full and accurate pathnames are always used, this is no problem; and where removable media are concerned, it is probably necessary. However, comparison of the "Bytes free" or a CRC number could have largely eliminated this. Alternatively, if an abreviated Disc Spec was given, the filer could have filled it in completely and thus discovered identical manifestations of filer windows! It does no harm, but is confusing. If you set the pathnames for your harddisc in $.Click_Me, you will find, on clicking, three identical filer windows on the screen for RAMDisc, three for Fixed disc and two ADFS floppy! I think this is sloppy implementation, akin to not checking the disc before issuing "Free"!
When are Acorn going to fix the bug in CLib responsible for the incorrect Screen redraws in !Edit and !DeskEdit? I no longer show off my machine to Mac and IBM freaks in case it lets me down at a crucial moment. ACORN should realise that bugs they will live with (because they only have to drag a different window across the affected area to clear it), is no way to enhance the reputation of their machines!
Further, try as I might, I cannot get an AZERTY keyboard with *Country/*Language/*Keyboard France. If there are any Frenchmen who wish to use a QWERTY keyboard, they have only to *conf. lang. UK to get it. I know of at least one Belgian colleague who was impressed by my Arc who did not buy one because he could not get the keyboard he has used for 40 years. Try harder, ACORN.
I have spent yet more time trying to stop the PDriver module or its front end from issuing Form Feeds. I think I am big enough and ugly enough to decide when the paper will be bundled unceremoniously on to the desk. Am I missing some glaring instruction, or is it really impossible to configure this simple option? I bet when the first typewriter was built, the mechanism to get the paper through and out under the user's control was completed before any thought was given to how to put marks on the paper!
