Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/hints/volume_09/issue_07

Text File | 1996-03-07 | 21KB | 457 lines

Hints and Tips
9.7
Audio balance Ö I recently bought an audio mixer card for my (early)
RiscPC 600. I have just Ö finally Ö managed to balance the output of
left and right audio channels from my CD-ROM drive through the audio
mixing card. The method given in the instructions requires repeated
dismantling of the computer. I gave up after five attempts.
9.7
I have just noticed that !SCSIMgr for the Cumana SCSI 2 cards has an
option for adjusting the audio output. It only took three attempts
(fifteen seconds in total), to get the output accurately set!
9.7
David Crossley <[e-mail]>
9.7
ANT Internet Suite Ö One or two hints, having used this a fair bit for
email and news...
9.7
Old news Ö When you subscribe to a new newsgroup, it will download news
from that group starting from the last time you downloaded any news. If
you want to pick up news from that group from some time ago, you have to
do it by fiddling with the relevant files. (Iæll tell you how to do it,
but canæt accept any responsibility if you mess it up. OK?)
9.7
Assuming you have just subscribed to the new group, go into the
!InetSuite.Internet.Spool.News directory and copy the /active file as /
activeOLD, or somesuch. Edit the original /active file and delete all
the groups you donæt want. Now go into the !InetSuite.Internet.Files
directory and copy the !InetNews file as, say, !IntNewsO. Edit !InetNews
and change the line:
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Last: 960215 140659 GMT
9.7
to read whatever starting time/date you want. (As you can probably
gather, the format is yymmdd hhmmss.) Then load up !IntSuite, connect to
your provider and download mail and news. Finally, go back to the two
files you changed, delete the edited versions and restore the original
versions by renaming them as      /active and !InetNews.
9.7
To avoid duplicating news, you may want to download the news normally
before following the above procedure so that you donæt duplicate the
news from the new group when you download normally next time.
9.7
Mailshots Ö (There may be an easier way, if so, tell me, please, but...)
If you want to mail to a number of different people, you can obviously
have aliases and type, into the CC box on the öMail to fileò window:
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fred, bert, harry, etc
9.7
To simplify it even more, you can set up an alias such as blokes which
is defined as:
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fred, bert, harry, etc
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and then just type blokes in the CC box of the Send Mail to File box.
9.7
If you want to send postings to multiple news groups, you can, again,
either use aliases to avoid all the typing, or prepare the message and
then edit the OUTNEWS file. Simply extend the line:
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.misc[0d]
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to something like:
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.misc,comp. sys.acorn.apps,comp.sys.acorn.
advocacy[0d]
9.7
Note that there are no spaces between the newsgroup names, just a comma.
9.7
Set alias Ö I hope you have discovered this wonderful command! Click on
a window in which a posting or an email is displayed, click on <menu>
and then select ArticleÖ>Set alias or MessageÖ>Set alias and up comes
the Address Book window with the name and address neatly typed out
waiting for you to add an appropriate alias. Wonderfully simple!
9.7
Editing aliases Ö Iæm sure everyone else had sussed this except me! It
seemed that sometimes when I edited an alias, it created a second
version and so I had to delete the first, but then when I wanted to
create two different aliases, it simply edited the one! öWhatæs the
rule?ò, I asked the excellent ANT support team (always, only an email
away!). Itæs simple, and logical, and obvious Ö once you know. If you
alter the alias name, it creates a new definition, in addition to the
old one, but if you edit the definition, it has to just change it Ö it
cannot create a complete new alias, otherwise you would then have two
definitions of the same alias name.
9.7
Ed.
9.7
ScanLight 256 Ö I remember recently an article saying that version 1.15
of the ScanLight 256 software needed upgrading to 1.59 to work on the
RiscPC.
9.7
My scanner is secondhand so I cannot do that. When I tried to load the
application, it put its icon on the iconbar, but clicking on this did
not give the relevant dialogue box. However, when I got my RiscPC, I had
some funnies with Ovation, and one comment from Beebug was to use one of
the old modes. So I thought I would try this with ScanLight.
9.7
Typing in öMode 27ò (rather than 16 colours and 640╫480) allowed me to
get a dialogue box which was partly off the bottom right hand corner of
the screen but could be dragged into full view and seemed to behave
normally.
9.7
Then one day, I had been using Artworks and loaded the scanner, having
forgotten the above. After some time, I realised it was working
perfectly normally despite the fact that I was in a new mode (256
colours, 600╫800). When I loaded ScanLight and then tried to load
Artworks I got an error relating to a module called ABIMod. The version
in ScanLight was an older version than the one in Artworks, and when I
updated the one in ScanLight it worked as it did previously on my A5000.
9.7
So the new version 1.59 of ScanLight may have some tweaks to the
software, but doing the above (if you have Artworks) gets it working and
it saves you ú11.75!
9.7
Keith Baxendale <[e-mail]>
9.7
Toggle-size answer Ö (RiscPC only) Thanks to all those who sent in an
answer to Paulæs toggle-size trouble in last monthæs Help! Column. It
was, indeed, a CMOS RAM configuration setting. However, there is no
simple way of altering it without using a small Basic program of the
following form, but I must warn you that, before playing, you should
save your configuration by using !Configure, so that you can restore it
if you make a mess!
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Byte%=28
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Bit%=4
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SYSöOS_Byteò,161,Byte% TO ,,CMOS%
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IF CMOS% AND 1<<Bit% THEN
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 PRINTöWas 1 now set to 0ò
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 CMOS%=CMOS% AND NOT 1<<Bit%
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ELSE
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 PRINTöWas 0 now set to 1ò
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 CMOS%=CMOS% OR 1<<Bit%
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ENDIF
9.7
SYSöOS_Byteò,162,Byte%,CMOS%
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This program swaps the state of bit 4 within byte 28 of the CMOS RAM
each time you run it, and has the immediate effect of making windows
that are toggle-sized, open as far as, but not obscuring, the iconbar.
Holding <shift> down reverses the behaviour.
9.7
This is by no means the only configuration setting not available by any
other method. If you alter the program so that Bit%=1, it will change
the setting for solid icon drags, so that, when you drag a file icon,
you will either get a moving icon or just a dotted box. This option also
takes immediate effect.
9.7
When Bit%=0, this tells RISC OS whether to truncate filenames that are
too long (i.e. greater than ten characters) and therefore potentially
overwrite an existing file, or to give a (rather meaningless) error
message to prevent you from saving a file unless it has ten characters
or less in the name. You need to reset the computer before this option
will take effect.
9.7
There are several others, and they are all documented on page 1-356 of
the PRMs. I will put a copy of the program on the monthly disc.
9.7
James Taylor, NCS
9.7
Impression non-smart quotes Ö Having crowed about how wonderful it was
that Impression (4.08/5.08) now produces automatic smart quotes, I am
recanting slightly. How are you supposed to get unsmart quotes, e.g. for
5╝ö and 3╜ò, without switching the smart quotes off and on again?
9.7
My partial answer is the abbreviations function. I use ö5oò as
abbreviation for 5╝ö and ö3oò for 3╜ò. But what about 14ö and 17ò
monitors, etc? Well, I tried defining öoò as a single unsmart double
quote, but if you type ö17oò, it doesnæt expand the öoò, so you have to
type 17<space>o<space><left><left><delete><right><right>! Anyway, I have
now defined ö21oò as 21ö, ö17oò as 17ò and ö14oò as 14ö, so thatæs OK
until someone wants to talk about a 19╜ò monitor!
9.7
Ed.
9.7
RiscPC hole cutting Ö I keep reading how difficult people are finding it
to cut the openings on the RiscPC for new drives etc. I must admit I
donæt agree. Forget drills/hacksaws/ordinary knives Ö the tool to use is
a laminate cutting blade in a standard Stanley knife. This is the blade
which looks like a small blade set at a angle (not the curved one). It
is used by scoring through the plastic, it is very controllable and it
doesnæt wander easily as it locates nicely in the grooves. It only takes
a few strokes along each groove to cut through. I then use a small craft
knife to trim any slightly uneven edges and into the very corners. I
have now cut two openings like this and have had no problems. The
computer is the RPC600 and is 12 months old, so I believe it is one of
the thick plastic ones.
9.7
Malcolm Sanders, [e-mail]
9.7
PCx86 Cards Ö Hints & Tips
9.7
Jim Nottingham
9.7
The article in Archive 9.1 p41 led to a fair amount of correspondence
with readers continuing to have problems in setting up their PC cards
and others coming up with excellent advice, so this is a follow-on
article to bring everyone up to date.
9.7
One thing I hadnæt made clear in the original article was that the hints
and tips were aimed at configuring the Acorn PC card for the RiscPC.
However, a reader pointed out that the majority apply equally well to
Alephæs range of standard-size expansion cards.
9.7
Erratum
9.7
Thanks to Mike Clarkson for correcting my careless error in linking
Microsoft with the DOS software issued with the PC cards. In practice,
we get PC DOS which is produced by IBM Ö sorry about that.
9.7
Software and documentation
9.7
There are reports of Acorn cards being sent out with two versions of
support software and user-guides, marked öPC 486ò and öPC x86ò
respectively. Not unreasonably, some PC486 card buyers have used the
former to set up their card. This is a bit naughty of the suppliers as
it should be noted that the PCx86 software (v1.91 or later) and user-
guide supersede those marked PC486 and are applicable to all Acorn PC
card variants.
9.7
Drive formatting
9.7
A number of people responded to my request for a reason for the
formatting funny described in the original article and elsewhere.
Especial thanks go to John Woodgate whose technical explanation not only
fitted the numbers perfectly but was sufficiently clear even for a
simple chap like me to understand! As John points out, there are two
definitions for a megabyte in general use:
9.7
Å The first (which Iæll call Defn 1 for reference) is the simple one
which is that a Mb is a million bytes. Seems reasonable... In decimal
terms, this could be expressed as 106 bytes. So, for example, a 270Mb
SyQuest cartridge would cater for 270 ╫ 106 bytes, or 270,000,000 bytes.
9.7
Å The second definition (Defn 2) is that, in computer terms (i.e.
binary), a megabyte is 220 bytes or 1,048,576 bytes. I hadnæt met this
one before, but we may be more familiar with the equivalent figure for a
Kb which is 210, or 1,024 bytes.
9.7
From these numbers, we see that, numerically, there seems to be roughly
a 5% difference between the two definitions used for a Mb, and this is
what we get in practice. So, for the nominally 270Mb SyQuest cartridge,
we may see either of the following:
9.7
Å Defn 1: 270,000,000 bytes ≈ 106 = 270Mb
9.7
Å Defn 2: 270,000,000 bytes ≈ 220 = 257Mb
9.7
In practice, we see both definitions being used and this has led to the
confusion about drive formatting. For example, if I stick a 270Mb
cartridge (using Defná1) into my SyQuest drive and click on Free on the
drive icon, Size will return only 256Mb. So this appears to be using the
Defn 2 method. However, it seems that, when we come to use !PCConfig to
set up a disc partition, this uses Defn 1 for the partition size. Very
confusing for the punters!
9.7
So Johnæs explanation clarifies why, if the SyQuest cartridge returns
only 256Mb free (using Defn 2), it is possible Ö and indeed sensible Ö
to use !PCConfig to set up a full 270Mb PC partition (using Defn 1). As
proof of the pudding, once the partition has been set up on the drive,
we can perform Count on the partition icon (drive_x) and get ö270xxxxxx
bytes totalò.
9.7
I think itæs worth noting that, although the two definitions apparently
give different capacities, we arenæt actually losing out if we use Defn
2; in principle, we will still be able to squeeze the full 270 million
bytes onto the drive, even though Size suggests only 256Mb are
available. In practice, however, there will always be the additional
overheads for directories and file block size to contend with, reducing
the space actually available for data.
9.7
Configuring for Windows
9.7
The Éfeatureæ of DOS which has caused readers most problems is how to
finish up with the desired Windows desktop display following boot-up
(using Windows v3.xx). As described in the original article, this is
achieved by adding the C:WIN command at the end of the DOS main ÉBootæ
file (AUTOEXEC.BAT). In the event, all the reported problems proved to
have only two root causes, so Iæll look at these in some detail:
9.7
Line terminator
9.7
The first one is my fault (sorreeeee...). Iæd said to add C:WIN to the
end of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file but omitted to say that, if you are using
!Edit to do this, you should end the line with the [0d] line terminator.
Until you do, the WIN command will have no effect. Unfortunately, some
readers had added the [0d] by typing it in as a 4-character string. The
[0d] is in fact Editæs way of displaying the Carriage Return code in
hexadecimal (described in the Text Import article in Archive 8.3 p65). I
should have suggested the complete procedure:
9.7
Å Load the AUTOEXEC.BAT file into !Edit.
9.7
Å With the mouse, <select-drag> to mark a [0d] character present on any
line (any one will do Ö note that it is a single character; not a 4-
character string).
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Å Type in C:WIN at the bottom but, before pressing <return>, press
<ctrl-C>. This will copy the marked [0d] command and add it to the end
of the C:WIN command.
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Å Press <ctrl-Z> to deselect the marked [0d].
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Å Press <return> to terminate the C:WIN[0d] command line.
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Å If present, delete the DOSSHELL command by deleting the line (probably
immediately preceding the C:WIN[0d] command) reading something like
C:\DOS\DOSSHELL.EXE[0d].
9.7
Å Save the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
9.7
Some other text editors (e.g. StrongEd) automatically sort out correct
line terminators so, if you modify your AUTOEXEC or SYS files etc using
an alternative to !Edit, you may find you donæt need to follow the above
procedure for entering the [0d] command.
9.7
Errors in AUTOEXEC.BAT
9.7
This is one of the areas where DOS is not very friendly. If there is an
error in our main RISC OS !Boot file, for instance, this will be
detected during boot-up, RISC OS will bring up an explanatory error
message box and politely wait for us to click on OK.
9.7
Not so with DOS! Any problems in AUTOEXEC.BAT will be detected, and DOS
will throw up an error message (e.g. öInvalid commandò) Ö but will keep
on going. So it is very easy to miss an error message in the fog of the
numerous copyright messages etc and, when everything stops, wonder why
we havenæt finished up with the Windows desktop.
9.7
The only thing I can suggest here, if you hit problems, is to keep a
very beady eye on all the messages that scroll up the screen while DOS
is booting up Ö the cause of the problem may well be embedded somewhere
in there. Indeed, as boot-up progresses, it might help to either click
on Freeze or take one or more screenshots of the DOS window, using
!Paintæs snapshot feature (I find !Snippet ideal for this purpose). Then
you can read the start-up script at leisure and, hopefully, spot any
problems.
9.7
CD-ROM drive
9.7
Configuring a CD-ROM drive so that it has a unique drive letter, and
doesnæt clash with other drives, is another area which seems to have
caused readers no end of problems. My recommendation to leave it until
last and follow the procedure on p24 of the original Acorn PC486 user-
guide to the letter didnæt work for everyone. Colin Bucklandæs method
described in Archive 9.6 p26 worked for him, but didnæt work for me or
others who tried it!
9.7
So where does that leave us? Acorn seem to have picked up the problem by
modifying the procedures as given in the current user guide (PCx86), and
also adding further advice in the Read_Me file included with the CD-ROM
installation files that come with the card.
9.7
Should you continue to have clashing drive problems of the type
described by Colin Buckland, it seems the definitive answer is to add an
extension to the relevant command line in AUTOEXEC.BAT to specify the
CD-ROM drive letter. Thus, for example, if you already have two PC
partitions set up as drive_c and drive_d respectively, and therefore
wish to configure the CD-ROM drive as drive_e, you would add the
extension so that the command line reads:
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C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:MSCD000 /L:E
9.7
The final letter E specifies the drive identifier. This is a handy
option because one reader mentioned that some early CDs for PCs assume
the CD-ROM drive is identified as drive_f. So you could cause your drive
to be correctly identified by giving the command line the extension /
L:F. However, in that event, there will be a Égapæ in the drive
lettering and, for this to work (as described in the Read_Me file), you
also have to add the cryptic command LASTDRIVE=Z to your CONFIG.SYS
file. Isnæt DOS friendly...?
9.7
Boot-up time
9.7
There were various rather uncomplimentary comments about the sheer time
taken for DOS and Windows to boot up. Welcome to the wonderful world of
PCs, say I! Iæm afraid this is an inevitable result of using a complex,
inelegant, disc-based operating system and GUI. So, to a large extent,
we are stuck with it.
9.7
However, there are a number of things we might do to prune at least some
of the excess, and here are a few suggestions:
9.7
Memory allocation Ö During DOS boot-up, much of the time is taken up by
HIMEM testing the extended memory. This appears to be almost directly
proportional to the amount of RAM allocated for use by the PC card. This
is adjusted using the Memory section in !PCConfig, so it is easily
reduced or, if you then find yourself short of memory, just as easy to
restore.
9.7
Single user Ö If you are running the network version of Windows (v3.11)
on a stand-alone machine, you can trim a few seconds by adding an
extension to the C:WIN command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file so that it
reads C:WIN /n[0d]. A by-product of this, is that the pretty Microsoft
logo welcome display is omitted Ö but I think we can live with that...
9.7
Start-up configuration Ö Acorn have given us an extremely flexible set
of options for initiating and modifying the PC card start-up routine.
These have major effects on the time taken, so having got used to how we
wish to use the card, we can configure the start-up to give us the
preferred optimum. This is easily achieved using the three options in
the Start-up section of !PCConfig.
9.7
Start up on iconbar Ö This option is probably best for those users who
wish to go straight into using RISC OS with minimum delay, but who may
wish to use the PC card at some later stage in the session. It is near-
instantaneous in that it simply loads !PCx86 onto the iconbar without
starting up DOS/Windows. When you eventually wish to use the PC card,
clicking on the PC icon as normal initiates DOS/Windows start-up, but
the downside is that it will then take some time to complete the start-
up routine.
9.7
Full screen Ö This option is probably best for those users who wish to
go straight into using the PC card from switch-on. The full screen is
taken over by DOS/Windows but the time taken to complete the start-up
routine is minimised. If, during this process, you wish to revert to
RISC OS, this is achieved simply by clicking <menu> which transfers the
DOS/Windows display into a RISC OS window. Start-up will continue albeit
at a slower rate but, in the meantime, you can use the RISC OS desktop.
9.7
RISC OS window Ö This option is perhaps the most convenient compromise
for general use as DOS/Windows will start up from switch-on and in the
background, albeit at a snailæs pace (time for a cuppa?). But if you
then want to use the PC card straight away, and wish to speed things up,
simply double-clicking in the window converts it to a full-screen
display and minimises the time taken to complete the remainder of the
start-up. However, if you want to use the RISC OS desktop instead, and
the PC window intrudes, simply click on the latteræs close icon to
remove it. This freezes the DOS/windows start-up but, next time you
click on the PC icon to re-open the PC window, start-up resumes from
where it left off.
9.7
Altogether a very flexible and user-friendly set of options; thanks
Acorn.
9.7
Windows 95
9.7
I havenæt yet installed or used Windows 95 on an Acorn machine, so
cannot comment on compatibility etc. However, Mike Buckingham has
written a very helpful article which is published in the February 1996
issue of Acorn User (pp54/55).
9.7
The end bit
9.7
Please keep further queries and ideas coming, either to me at 16
Westfield Close, Pocklington, York, YO4 2EY or to Michael Clarkson at
Riggæs Hall, The Schools, Shrewsbury, SY3 7AZ.áuá