Archive Magazine 1997/ARCHIVE_97.iso/text/hints/vol_06/issue05

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 55KB | 1,269 lines

Hints and Tips
6.05
Å   A4 pointer loss Ö Using Impression on an A4, it is very easy to lose
the text pointer. If the pointer is somewhere over the text, it takes
the form of a caret and is very difficult to see. The simple solution is
to click <adjust>. This marks a block of text and your pointer is at one
or other end of the block! Ed.
6.05
Å   Ace printer drivers Ö Many people have asked about the differences
between Risc Developmentsæ printer drivers and the Ace Computing drivers
(including the Pro-Drivers.) In practice, the standard Ace drivers (ú17)
and Risc Developmentsæ drivers (ú23) are the same. However, the Pro-
Drivers (ú44) are somewhat enhanced: they support full background
printing, true 24-bit colour, half-toning, dithering and colour
separations. Ace Computing have also recently upgraded their DJ500C
driver to include facilities for the DJ550C. Simon Moy, Archive.
6.05
Å   Background printing with RISC-OS printer drivers Ö Yes it is possible!
RISC-OS printer drivers are capable of printing in the background far
better than third party software due to the fact that the ROM printing
routines are designed to multitask. However, this is not documented and
requires a particular way of printing. Set your printer driver to print
to a file (choose Connection from the Printer Control menu, select File
and enter a pathname to a temporary file). Print the file in question by
the normal method for the application in question Ö this bit doesnæt
multitask! When it has finished, reset the driver to print to the
parallel (or serial) port. Find the temporary printout file and drag it
on to the printer icon on the iconbar. The printer will begin printing
and you will have full control of the machine. If you are using a RAM
disc or a hard disc, you shouldnæt notice any slowing down at all. Simon
Moy, Archive.
6.05
Å   Dating Ö I can never remember what the time is and so, in common with
a lot of others, I used to have the date and time on the iconbar. This
was not completely satisfactory as it was frequently obscured by
windows. Browsing in the User Guide, I discovered that you could alter
the format of the command line prompt and have the date and or time
displayed before the *. You can do this with:
6.05
SetMacro CLI$Prompt <Sys$Time>, <Sys$Date> *
6.05
This went in my boot file. Now whenever I want the date or time all I do
is, <f12>, read the date and time and press <return>.á Edward Naish,
Gwynedd.
6.05
(On RISC-OS 3, all you do is press <shift-f12> to bring the iconbar
forwards and then <shift-f12> to put it back again. Ed.)
6.05
Å   Draw to sprite conversion Ö In answer to Roger Darlingtonæs plea in
Archive 6.3, several people gave us the öobviousò way of converting
drawfiles to sprites Ö you display the drawfile on screen and use the
screen grab facility within Paint to create a sprite. (This emphasises
again the need for a ÉThis is Obvious But...æ column, as mentioned in
the Help!!! Column this month. None of the Éexpertsæ at N.C.S. thought
of it. Ed.)
6.05
One other solution was mentioned... Drawfile to sprite conversion can be
done with the program Revxtra which is supplied with the Revelation
package. However, this is a copyright program and I donæt know of any PD
equivalent.á Ted Lacey, Southampton.
6.05
To add to that... If you have Revelation ImagePro, you can just drop
drawfiles onto a Revelation picture and save it out again as a sprite Ö
no need for a separate program.á Gabriel Swords, Norwich.
6.05
Å   Easiword Ö The printed effects (bold, italics, etc) only start working
if you go into !Printers configuration window and, in the OptionsÖText
Quality, select NLQ rather than No Highlights which is the default.á
Steve Hutchinson, Gloucester.
6.05
Å Filename dragging Ö If you have version 1.21 of Edit, you can shift-
drag any object into an edit window and the pathname of the object
appears at the cursor position. This is just the job for constructing
command files. Avoid all those typing errors!
6.05
I read in another magazine that this facility is only available in OS3.
This is not the case, although it does not work with version 1 of Edit.á
Edward Naish, Gwynedd.
6.05
Å   Fun School Ö All of the Fun School series (3 and 4) have now been
upgraded to work with RISC-OS 3.10 although some tweaks are still
necessary. For the Fun School 3 range, it is necessary to start in mode
15 before running the programs. In the Fun School 4 range, you will need
to RMKill any VIDC enhancer modules that are running as these cause the
music and graphics to work too fast. Simon Moy.
6.05
Å   Inserting RISC-OS (or any other) chips Ö With the recent introduction
of RISC-OS 3, many Archimedes computers are being returned to dealers
with the pins of the ROM chips damaged. Here is how to avoid that!
Usually, ROM chips are delivered with the pins looking like this...
6.05

6.05
They will not go into the computeræs ROM sockets with the pins splayed
out like this.
6.05
Before handling the ROM chips, make sure that you are not carrying a
static charge. This is easily accomplished by touching an earthed metal
object. You will need a flat area to work on Ö a formica-topped table is
ideal. Grasp each end of the ROM chip with finger and thumb of both
hands, so that the sharp ends of the ROM pins are facing you horizon
tally. Place the bottom row of pins onto the formica table top and press
down gently but firmly and move the body of the ROM slightly towards
you. Repeat this operation until the pins are exactly at right angles to
the chip body. Turn the ROM over and repeat the above exercise. You
should now have a ROM with the pin layout like this...
6.05

6.05
With the chip just above its socket and the chip notch orientated with
the diagram supplied with your computer, insert one side of the chip
pins slightly into the corresponding side of the socket. Once you are
sure that all pins on that side do align correctly then lower the other
row of pins into the other side of the socket. Again make sure that all
the pins are aligned and then press the chip completely home.
6.05
If you have been unfortunate enough to have broken a pin off of a ROM
chip, there is a solution providing that a small amount of pin is left
on the chip. You will need a öturned pinò, wire-wrap header socket with
the same number of pins as the damaged ROM. Before inserting the damaged
chip into this socket, cut down each pin of the header socket to about
4mm length. Insert the damaged ROM into this socket, and with a very
fine-tipped soldering iron solder a jumper wire from the damaged pin
directly to the empty socket on the header. Once this has been achieved
do not ever remove the ROM from this socket. The completed assembly may
be mounted with care into the original ROM socket. I have repaired
several ROMs by this method.á Mike King, Guernsey.
6.05
Å   JPEG Ö Under RISC-OS 3, JPEG only works providing the hourglass is
switched off. This can be carried out by inserting the SWI call SYS
"Hourglass_Off" at the appropriate place.á Marc Evans.
6.05
Å   Paper for inkjets Ö Daler Superline paper produces excellent results
on my Canon BJ10ex Ö I bought it a long time ago, so I hope itæs still
available.á S Freeman, Middlewich.
6.05
Å   Printer drivers Ö RISC-OS 3 printer drivers assume that there is
enough öscrapò space on a disc to store any temporary files during a
printing operation. In practice, a hard disc is assumed. If you have a
system without a hard disc, then !Scrap can be either on a floppy disc
or a RAM disc. If there is not enough space for the temporary printout
file, !Printers will crash with no warning. To avoid this, keep !System
and !Scrap on a separate disc on their own. Simon Moy, Archive.
6.05
Å   Standard crest in Impression letters Ö In Archive 6.3 p28, Brian Cowan
asks how he can save floppy disc space with his Impression letters where
he has a college crest, the drawfile of which  takes up 10Kb of memory
per letter Ö much more than the text Ö and he fills a floppy disc with
such multiple copies of the crest.
6.05
Surely the answer is to have an empty frame in the standard letter file
into which he drags the drawfile of the crest. All he has to do is to
remember to drag the drawfile whenever he starts a new letter and drop
into the frame a simple dummy drawfile Ö a single square or circle will
do Ö that will occupy far less space, before saving to disc. If he needs
to re-load and re-print the document, all he has to do is drop a copy of
the crest in again Ö surely not a fag. The crest and dummy drawfiles can
be held on the pinboard.á Steve Kirkby, Sutton. (Well, it was his idea
modified by Ed.)ááA
6.05

6.05
Using RISC-OSá3
6.05
Hugh Eagle
6.05
Iæve received such a flood of letters in response to my first column
that I probably wonæt have time to refer to them all. I apologise in
advance if I donæt use your contribution; I am very grateful for them
all and will try to use them next month. In the meantime, please keep
the hints, tips, comments, suggestions, etc flowing.
6.05
A number of the problems mentioned only seem to affect a few users and
may result from unusual combinations of circumstances which could be
difficult to diagnose. If you think you might be able to help by talking
directly to the people affected, please let me know and I will put you
in contact.
6.05
Fitting the Upgrade
6.05
Several people have commented favourably on the service they have
received from dealers. IFEL has been mentioned a number of times. Nik
Kelly was specially impressed by Simtecæs facilities.
6.05
G÷tz Kohlberg received his upgrade surprisingly quickly but then had to
wait several weeks for the fitting instructions for his carrier board.
When the instructions arrived, he found the IFEL carrier board very easy
to fit, taking only about 20 minutes. He didnæt have to remove the
backplane or take out the main board.
6.05
Programs That Do Work
6.05
Microdrive ù A number of people have noticed that, while the new version
requires you to keep the program disc in the floppy drive while you play
the game, the new courses work with the original program which will run
properly from a hard disc.
6.05
Others ù various people have reported that the following work without
any problems:
6.05
FontFX 5.05 (latest upgrade, free from Data Store, recognises the ROM
fonts)
6.05
Flexifile 1.04
6.05
Eureka (has someone found it?)
6.05
Home Accounts
6.05
SigmaSheet
6.05
Arcendium (R.áE.áLeo says he finds it works, contrary to the report from
Mike Williams in December)
6.05
ArcScan III
6.05
DiscTree 2.30
6.05
Art Nouveau (Tim Nicholson says he uses it a lot, and doesnæt need the
fix I gave two months ago.)
6.05
Investigator 2 works on an A310, but not an A5000.
6.05
Elite (although Raymond Wright says that it did once seize up after
about an houræs play, which had never happened in RISC¡OSá2.)
6.05
Arc-Comm
6.05
Fortran 77 (Acorn)
6.05
Acorn DTP
6.05
Speech!
6.05
Frances Obee is keen to know whether her most used programs will work:
Pendown Plus, Atelier, Prime Art, Chocks Away and Extra Missions, Elite,
Saloon Cars, and Man Utd. Europe. (I can vouch for two on her list: Draw
Plus v2.12 and Lemmings.)
6.05
Richard Burnell says that a small modification will make version 1.00 of
!Define (the Watford VIDC screen mode definer) work: add to line 17760
of !RunImage ELSE tk%=FALSE so that it reads:
6.05
IF INKEY(Ö256)=162 THEN tk%=TRUE ELSE tk%=FALSE
6.05
Rob Brown says that the original version of Quazer supplied by the
author Julian Rockey, not Impact Software or Fourth Dimension, needs the
screen memory to be set to exactly 160Kb.
6.05
He also says that Corruption and Jinxter will only work with the very
old version of the Shared C Library supplied with the games. You need to
RMKill the RISC¡OSá3 version and RMLoad the old version from disc. (He
recommends that you quit any application that uses the Shared C Library
first!)
6.05
He adds that you can run Terramex by first ensuring that öFreeò memory
is at least 400Kb then using the command *Run Terracode.
6.05
Programs that May Need to be Upgraded
6.05
From the hints I have received, the general message seems to be that if
a program doesnæt work (and this is more likely to apply to older
programs, especially games) it is worth contacting the supplier or the
manufacturer because they can often supply upgrades (sometimes for quite
nominal sums).
6.05
Among those that have been mentioned are:
6.05
Arcade 3 games compilation from Clares
6.05
Artisan, Artisan 2 and ProArtisan
6.05
Interdictor
6.05
a number of Fourth Dimension games (but Boogie Buggy is apparently
incompatible with an A5000, according to Rob Brown.)
6.05
Droom
6.05
Avon/Murdac (adventure compilation from Topologika)
6.05
ChartDraw, GraphDraw and KeyStrip (excellent PD applications from Chris
Johnson).
6.05
Fonts
6.05
Colin Singleton points out that, although Electronic Font Foundry are
selling (more expensive) öRISC¡OSá3ò fonts, the old ones work perfectly
well. The only difference is that the new ones have automatic kerning
information built in (for the use of programs that know how to use it).
6.05
Alan Gentle warns that the way FontMax settings are defined has changed.
They used, in RISC¡OSá2 to be quoted in pixels, but in RISC¡OSá3 are now
quoted in points. The maximum point size for anti-aliasing seems to
refer to the apparent point size on the screen. Thus to make sure that,
say, 15 point text displayed at 130% is anti-aliased he has to set the
appropriate FontMax to 15╫1.3, i.e. at least 20.
6.05
David Shepherdson reports that DrawPlus version 2.00 cannot convert
Trinity, Homerton or Corpus to paths and suggests using Draw to do the
conversion and ösavingò the result into DrawPlus. (The same seems to be
true of version 2.12. A possible alternative would be to ignore the ROM
fonts and load those you want into a disc !Fonts directory.)
6.05
Marc Evans recommends, contrary to Acornæs instructions, keeping the
!Fonts directory in a sub-directory, not the root, to save memory and
time if you are not using the disc fonts. (I would suggest you only do
this if you are sufficiently experienced to understand the
implications.)
6.05
John Winter says that Impression (2.17) and LaserDirect (2.05) work as
well ù if not faster ù with FontSize set to 128Kb.
6.05
(For more on fonts and LaserDirect see the section headed LaserDirect
further on in this column!)
6.05
Filing Systems
6.05
IDE drives
6.05
R.áD.áAttwood noticed that the hard disc icon on his iconbar had öIDEá4ò
underneath it rather than öIDEDisc4ò. On trying to access the disc, he
got an error box with öBad free space mapò. Watford Electronics have
advised him that he needs another chip (cost ú16) for the hard disc
podule.
6.05
D. T. Software recommended alternative courses of action for one
customer whose IDEFS wouldnæt work with RISC¡OSá3.10: either (a)
reformat the hard disc using the formatter supplied with the system or
(b) fit a replacement EPROM incorporating a work-around for a ömarginal
infelicity in the way RISC¡OSá3 mounts discs.ò
6.05
SCSI drives
6.05
C. Purvis has an A3000 with an external 5╝" floppy drive and an Oak SCSI
external interface (fairly old). When he turns his computer on, the SCSI
icon is to the right of the RAM discæs and when clicked on gives a öBad
driveò error. He then runs the following file from a floppy:
6.05
*Mount 4
6.05
*RMLoad $.!System.Modules. SCSIFiler
6.05
*RMReinit SCSI
6.05
*RMREINIT SCSIFiler
6.05
*RMReinit SCSIFS
6.05
*ADFS
6.05
after which the SCSI icon disappears from the iconbar. If he then
presses <shift-break> to reset the computer, SCSIDisc4 appears at the
left end of the iconbar and all is well.
6.05
It has been suggested to me that he needs a new ROM on his SCSI
interface. Can anyone confirm this?
6.05
(One thing we have noticed with the Oak SCSI interfaces is that after a
<delete-power-up>, the SCSIdrive configuration is set to 0 and not 4.
What then happens is that the first time you click the hard drive icon,
it says öBad driveò but then if you click again, it works OK. The
solution is simple: press <f12> and type Configure SCSIDrive 4 <return>
and then do a <ctrl-break>. I think you will find that all is well after
that. Ed.)
6.05
Mike Williams says the Shutdown routine wonæt complete unless he has all
his various SCSI drives mounted, so he has to put a disc into his
removable disc drive and spin it up just so that the system can dismount
it for him! He therefore ignores Shutdown, but asks whether there is a
recommended way of safely shutting down a system such as his?
6.05
Mike has also found that if, after switching off, he changes his mind
and switches on again his computer gets stuck half-way through its
initialisation sequence. Is this a RISC¡OSá3 feature, a hardware fault,
or just because he didnæt shut down nicely?
6.05
Using öFree spaceò viewer on SCSI drives
6.05
(This hint from David Lenthall was originally published in Archive 5.5.)
6.05
If choosing the öFreeò option from a SCSI drive icon gives an old RISC-
OSá2 style textual report and you would prefer to get the new RISC-OSá3
window with sliders, include the following line in your boot file:
6.05
Set Alias$Free ShowFree -FS scsi %0
6.05
SΘan Kellyæs alternative solution (which works beautifully with his A440
and Oak SCSI interface, driver version 1.16) is to copy the SCSIFiler
module from Applications Disc 1 into his !System.Modules directory and
to add the following line to his !Boot file:
6.05
RMLoad SCSI::SCSIDisc4.$.!System .Modules.SCSIFiler
6.05
ArcDFS / DFSReader
6.05
In response to S. J. Furnellæs problem with ArcDFS mentioned in Archive
6.3 p14, Keith Raven recommends !DFSReader on Archive Shareware 31. This
needs one slight adjustment: in line 210 of the !RunImage Basic program,
there is a SYS call that is expected to return 0, 1 or 2 to indicate
whether large or small icons or full directory information are selected
for directory windows. Under RISC¡OSá3 this actually returns 64, 65 or
66. If the next three lines of the program are adjusted to reflect this,
it seems to run perfectly. (Richard Burnell suggests adding a new line
instead:
6.05
215 a=a MOD 64
6.05
to achieve the same effect.) (Keith wonders how many similar minor
changes between RISC¡OSá2 and RISC¡OSá3 will come to light.)
6.05
The Wakefield Acorn Computer Group writes:
6.05
Regarding S.áJ.áFurnellæs problem with ArcDFS there is some good news
here. (These errors are liable to occur when you click on the drive icon
to display a directory window.) The most common error is ÉBad driveæ and
you can overcome this simply by Naming the disc with a blank name, i.e.
press <space> and then <return>. The ArcDFS Name option is selected via
the ÉMiscæ menu option, followed by ÉName discæ.
6.05
This doesnæt cure the other (less common) error which is ÉBuffer
overflowæ. In that case, the only option seems to be to use the command
line, i.e, press <f12> to get a É*æ prompt or bring up a task window
with <ctrl-f12> and type DIRáDFS: (not *DISC as you might expect),
followed by DIRá:1 to select drive 1, (if required), then CAT for a
directory listing, etc. You can then use the manual *COPY command to
move files around, e.g.
6.05
Copy DFS::1.$.Index ADFS::HardDisc4.$.Junk.MyIndex
6.05
copies a file called $.Index on the DFS drive 1 into the $.Junk
directory of an ADFS hard disc, renaming it MyIndex in the process.
6.05
You can just as easily copy onto SCSI, IDE and RAM discs of course. Note
that you should use *COPY and not *CopyDFS. The very good news is that
operations such as Format, Backup and Verify work fine, as they donæt
need to display a directory!
6.05
5╝" discs
6.05
Peter Prewett has been horrified to find that since upgrading to RISC-
OSá3 he can no longer read any of his 5╝" discs (which he uses for
backing up his hard disc) via his Watford interface. He has tried
resetting the step rate to 6 without success. Luckily, he can still read
discs from his BBC via a DFS to ADFS file transfer.
6.05
Gordon Lindsay-Jones also reports problems with his Watford buffer which
used to work well under RISC¡OSá2. Can anyone help? (Have you asked
Watford?)
6.05
Richard Wells initially found that the Beebug DFS Reader refused to work
under RISC¡OSá3, but he has now found that if he runs the Commands
utility from the Support disc first then it will run.
6.05
Richard also says he configures his 40-track 5╝" drive (drive 1) with
6.05
*Configure Step 12 1
6.05
and comments that perhaps
6.05
*Configure Step 6 1
6.05
would work for 80-track discs. He says that to restore normal step delay
you should use
6.05
*Configure Step 3
6.05
In response to Roger Poweræs query last month, Howard Snow points out
that the syntax is
6.05
*Configure <Step delay> [<drive>]
6.05
Rather confusingly, the information on the step delay given by *Status
is just the step delay for each of the drives, so if drive 0 is
configured to the normal delay of 3, after typing *Configure Step 6 1
*Status would give Step 3 6.
6.05
W.áN.áRodger has written with a similar hint and also suggests that
perhaps all floppy drives on a system have to be set if any one is to be
changed.
6.05
Mr Rodger has also noted that he has to leave his Cumana switchable 40/
80 track drive switched to 80-track before selecting Format DOS 360Kb to
format a 40-track MS-DOS disc. When he then runs the PC Emulator, he has
to switch the drive to 40-track to read the disc he has just formatted!
6.05
Compression
6.05
S.áR.áFreeman reports that, when using Compression version 1.10 with his
A400/1, if he launches an application from CFS and subsequently quits
CFS without first quitting the application, the computer can hang.
Otherwise he has no problems with it.
6.05
Mike Kinghan says that his system hangs when he tries to kill any CFS
filesystem from the iconbar. He only has to do this, however, in order
to free up the Filecore when shutting his machine down. Now he uses the
operating system Shutdown routine (via <shift-ctrl-f12>) instead and has
no problems.
6.05
Mike also observes that öit is not a clever wheezeò to compress CFS
files using the !Squash application supplied with RISC-OSá3. This will
report a gratifying reduction in the logical byte count but when the
actual size of the new file is checked, it will usually be found that
the file has got larger. (Has anyone found a use for !Squash?)
6.05
Dave Livsey has been told by Computer Concepts, in response to a query
about CFSæs use of a temporary file as an intermediate step in the
decompression process, that they ö ... are working on an upgrade to deal
with this ... ò
6.05
Marc Evans says CFS version 1.10 has problems with large jobs ù 10
Mbytes, for example ù and suggests turning off interactive filer
operations during a large compression, otherwise you may lose files.
6.05
He also writes: Filer_Run can be used in an alias to run CFSæd files
directly from the normal Filer window. To perform this trick, issue the
command:
6.05
Set Alias$@Runtype D96 !Filer_Run CFS#%0
6.05
and just double click on the file to load it.
6.05
Confusing MS-DOS and ADFS discs
6.05
Marc Evans warns that if you regularly use both DOS and ADFS floppy
discs, it is easy to get confused about which is which. You can easily
find yourself copying to a DOS disc thinking it is ADFS; file and
application icons appear in the destination window just as normal and
you can be none the wiser (apart from the copying being rather slower)
until you run out of space after 720Kb.
6.05
Disc corruption
6.05
Keith Raven has experienced two strange floppy disc faults since
upgrading. After deleting the font manager from a PD fonts disc (E
format), he found that three letters from one font had disappeared
although the disc was otherwise intact and verified OK. He was able to
load the font into !FontEd successfully for patching. The other problem
was a öbroken directoryò on a D format disc, just after deleting a
couple of redundant items (including a !System directory) left over from
RISC¡OSá2. The disc verified properly, but a disc sector editor showed
two chunks of continuous Ns in sector 1 (on track 0 head 0). He has
noticed that ADFS buffers is set to 8 (the default?) and wonders whether
there is still a bug there.
6.05
(We reported two months ago Acornæs telephone help line comment that the
bug which made it advisable to configure the ADFS buffers to zero had
been fixed. We also reported Computer Conceptsæ claim that, unless the
buffers are configured to zero, it is vital to dismount disks before
removing them for good from the machine because, otherwise, there may be
trouble later. Does anyone have any proof either way?)
6.05
XOB Remote Logon
6.05
Raymond Wright says that XOB Remote Logon, which allows a BBC Micro or
another Archimedes to access a hard disc attached to an Archimedes via
Econet, is in trouble. He thinks that it is not loading binary files to
the correct locations in the BBCæs memory.
6.05
Printing!!!
6.05
(This seems to be the area that is causing the greatest grief. If anyone
thinks he knows the answers, please get in touch! A number of people
have commented favourably on the Ace drivers. Perhaps, if the people at
Ace think they have got printing sussed, they might be able to help with
some of these problems.)
6.05
(Funnily enough, Tony Cheal of Ace Computing was hoping to write us an
article about printer drivers. As I well know, when you are running your
own business, things can get very hectic. Anyway, if you do get time,
Tony, your fans are waiting in eager anticipation! Ed.)
6.05
Printer buffer
6.05
Several people have commented that the printer buffer doesnæt work
properly. Can this be true or is it that we donæt understand how to use
it properly?
6.05
Richard Burnell says that if he configures the buffer to, say, 300Kb and
tries to print a draw file with lots of text, the computer hangs and not
even the escape key works. (He owns a KX-P1081 dot matrix printer.)
6.05
Mike Kinghan writes: The RISC-OS 3 feature that I had longed for most
was background printing. Running off a manual on my LaserJet II under
RISC-OS 2 could monopolise the computer for half a day. How annoying
then to discover that prints executed from familiar applications are not
automatically run in background under the new OS. A partial remedy,
however, is to use the new Print Manageræs capability to substitute a
file for any installed printer. First take the Printer Control option
from your printeræs iconbar menu. Then select the Connection dialogue
and nominate a file of your choice in place of the installed printer.
This will make applications write to that file when they think they are
printing, and they will do this much more speedily. At your convenience,
redirect the printer connection to your physical printer and drag your
print files to the printer icon. Now they will be printed in background,
allowing you to get on with your work. (But what a palaver! Surely there
must be a simpler way?)
6.05
Change in printer initialisation behaviour
6.05
T. J. Bennett uses First Word Plus version 1 with an A3000 and a Citizen
Swift 24. In order to make best use of this combination, he has written
a !Boot file which redefines screen characters using VDU23 and also
defines some characters not available in the standard printer character
set as download characters to the printer. He has also modified his
printer driver. This all worked in RISC¡OSá2, the printer buffer
allowing the booting process to continue to completion whether the
printer was on line or not. In RISC¡OSá3, however, the !Boot will not
finish until the printer is connected, switched on and on line. (öA
giant step towards the Neanderthal,ò Mr Bennett comments.) He has tried
setting PrinterBufferSize to ridiculous sizes with no discernable
effect, also RMASize and SystemSize. Does anyone have any suggestions?
(I wonder if this problem is related to that described by Mick Day last
month ù see Archive 6.4 p9.)
6.05
Mr Bennett has noticed that there is a limit to the amount of data in
the printer driver for defining each character (contrary to what the
manual says) so this cannot be used as the source of download character
data.
6.05
Disc swapping
6.05
Peter Prewett reports that, after loading the !Printer application on
the iconbar and then loading Impression Junior, whenever he tries to
print, he is required to insert the floppy disc from which he loaded the
original printer application. He says he ötried loading system and scrap
from the printer and other discs, none of which makes any difference.ò
(My suggestion is that the problem is a misunderstanding of the purpose
of the !Scrap application: the result of running this is simply to tell
the computer that the disc it is on is the place to store temporary
öscrapò files. Thus by öloadingò !Scrap from a floppy you tell the
computer to use that floppy for temporary storage during operations like
printing. If you have a hard disc, it is best to copy !Scrap onto its
root directory and to ensure that the first thing you do each time you
turn the computer on or reset it is to open a Filer window on that root
directory so that the location of !Scrap will be öseen.ò)
6.05
Peter goes on to comment that system and scrap files are difficult to
use and must be made totally transparent to the end user. öNobody should
have to set up the computer with these files as it is certainly not
user-friendly.ò Does anyone want to volunteer to write a user-friendly
article about system and scrap files? Does anyone have any ideas about
how these might be better organised in a future version of the operating
system?
6.05
Mono greyscales (!?)
6.05
A number of people have noticed that the so-called ömonoò option in the
RISC-OSá3 printer drivers actually produces grey scales when rendering
drawfiles (although sprites are printed in black and white as might be
expected).
6.05
LaserDirect
6.05
I may have given the impression in the December column that it is
impossible to print rotated text out of a LaserDirect. John Winter has
pointed out that this can be done fairly easily by creating the text in
Draw and using the Convert to path menu option; this will then print
like any drawfile. Furthermore, the rotated text can be imported into
Impression, again just like any drawfile.
6.05
John Winter has also found that in order to run the RISC¡OSá3 !Printers
application after using a Computer Concepts RISC¡OSá2 driver, you have
to run the following * commands (either at the command line or in a Task
window or in an Obey or Command file):
6.05
*RMKill PDriver
6.05
*RMReinit PDriver
6.05
Several more people have reported problems with the quality of print
from LaserDirect printers. Michael Lowe says he has considerable
problems printing sprites, mostly incorporated into Impression docu
ments: black areas are often patterned, grey areas sometimes donæt print
and occasionally the whole of the text area breaks up giving a granular
appearance. However, the worst thing, he says, is the unpredictability
of the behaviour.
6.05
There may, however, be an answer to this (but no solution until the new
drivers appear sometime this year, with luck): Computer Concepts have
written to Tim Powys-Lybbe saying: öWe are now(!) aware of a problem
with the combination of our LaserDirect drivers 2.05 and RISC¡OSá3.1.
The first Landscape page will print correctly, but on subsequent prints,
black output will be speckled. This only occurs when QuickText is off.
6.05
öI would recommend that you turn on QuickText. If necessary, you should
install RISC¡OSá2 versions of Corpus and Homerton into your !Fonts
application on disc. If you get a speckled output, changing printing
resolution or reloading the driver will restore a black image.
6.05
öThe next release of our drivers should clear up this problem.ò
6.05
Timæs comment is that the output and the problem is a little worse than
their letter concedes.
6.05
(And the problem also occurs fairly predictably on the BJ10 Turbo
Driver. Ed.)
6.05
Alan Gentle recommends inserting a FontRemove statement in the !Boot
file, removing the ROM fonts, and to add Corpus, Homerton and Trinity to
the !Fonts directory on disc, i.e. the boot file should end:
6.05
FontRemove Resources:$.Fonts.
6.05
FontInstall <Obey$Dir>.
6.05
(N.B. the dots at the end of each line are significant.)
6.05
Alan also says Computer Concepts have sent him an update of PrinterLD,
version 2.05s (10-Aug-1992) which seems to work OK!
6.05
When I started printing from Artworks, I found that the greyscales at
600 dpi were rather distinctly graduated. At 300 dpi, the gradation is
much smoother but the individual colours have a much dottier appearance.
On CCæs recommendation, I have found that 600╫300 using Screen 2 gives a
good compromise.
6.05
On the question of how long the upgraded printer drivers are taking to
produce, CC said (in a letter dated 17th December 1992): öWe have only
just received the source code (weæd have preferred proper documentation,
but there isnæt any) from Acorn. All our drivers require significant
changes to allow full RISC¡OSá3 compatibility. Since the RISC¡OSá2
drivers work with RISC¡OSá3, their conversion is not a priority.ò
6.05
Printing after Artworks
6.05
Roger King has found that, after printing from Artworks, computers need
to be switched off (<ctrl-reset> is not enough) before using new
applications that need to print hard copy. If this is not done, spurious
fine horizontal lines of about 4mm length are scattered throughout the
printed page. Has anyone any clues about this?
6.05
Unwanted form feeds
6.05
G. T. Smithæs means of preventing his Brother (Epson FX80 compatible
printer) from spewing out extra pieces of blank paper was to load the
driver into !PrintEdit, delete the formfeed code ö12ò from the End of
Text Job and to add ESCö8ò (öignore paper emptyò) in the Start of Job
line.
6.05
Unwanted line feeds in First Word Plus
6.05
Dave Livsey suggests that the printer driver needs doctoring to remove
the extra line feed that it sends to the printer. Can anyone give
details?
6.05
Editing printer drivers
6.05
G. T. Smith says that he made the mistake of assuming that, having
copied his modified printer driver onto his hard disc, !Printers would
find it and the modification would take effect, but it didnæt. He says
you need to load !Printers onto the iconbar and re-install the driver by
dragging it into the Printer Control window from the !Printers menu.
6.05
Tim Nicholson says that if you change the configuration settings of a
printer which is not the currently selected one (i.e. its icon is greyed
out), then the next time you print, the print manager uses the driver
you have reconfigured not the selected one.
6.05

6.05
PC Emulator
6.05
Mike Small has found that PC programs such as Tetris run first time but
when they get to the point where they ought to re-load, i.e. when he
ödiesò, he gets the messages:
6.05
M2ExHandle abort - Bad Entry Sequence
6.05
*CD \Tetris
6.05
FileCore in use (Error number &108A0)
6.05
*Tetris
6.05
He is using version 1.34 of the emulator, patched in accordance with the
Support instructions. (He assumes that the altering of the filetype of
the DOS partition to DOSDisc doesnæt apply to him because he uses
floppies.) He has a user port and MIDI on a basic A3000. Does anyone
have any ideas?
6.05
Nik Kelly finds that his Quick Basic editor scrolls at a useful speed
now that he has an ARM3 and RISC¡OSá3, but has found that the freebie,
QB, that comes with MS-DOSá5, does not read his .BAS files.
6.05
He also says that his real-time clock is now always wrong (using PC
emulator 1.6 and MS-DOS 3.3) and asks why?
6.05
Richard Burnell says that version 1.81 of the emulator wonæt read Atari
format discs with RISC¡OSá3.10 and asks when the new version of the
emulator is due for release.
6.05
Miscellaneous Hardware Tips
6.05
Ground Control teletext adaptor
6.05
Mike Williams found that his problem with this was a hardware problem
and nothing to do with RISC¡OSá3. He had changed to an A5000 and there
is a subtle difference in the hardware of the printer port. Ground
Control are offering an upgrade to a podule version Ö but he doesnæt
know where he is going to find a fifth podule slot!
6.05
SCSI podule and MIDI board conflict
6.05
Richard Burnell found that his Vertical Twist A3000 Econet MIDI/sampler
board would not work with his 8-bit Lingenuity SCSI podule because they
were competing for use of fast interrupts. Version 2.45 of the SCSI
firmware is now available and the MIDI port now works fine. (This
doesnæt sound like a RISC-OSá3 problem to me, but I will include it
anyway!)
6.05
Pineapple digitiser
6.05
The problem Tim Nicholson mentioned in Archive 6.3 p15 was cured by the
addition of an öextra decoupling capacitorò.
6.05
Brainsoft expansion card
6.05
Tim Nicholson reported (Archive 6.3 p15) that this didnæt work. Raymond
Wright says he thinks his works OK, but he has had problems with the
software in RISC¡OSá2, some of which have righted themselves in
RISC¡OSá3! (The sound module still seems to want to hog all available
memory, though.)
6.05
Maths co-processor
6.05
Raymond Wright says there is no built-in support in RISC¡OSá3 for the
maths co-processor card so he still has to load FPEmulator 3.2 from
disc.
6.05
Impression dongle
6.05
Roger Poweræs problem mentioned last month turned out to be a defective
dongle (apparently it was one of the very early ones), which CC have
replaced.
6.05
G. T. Smith had a similar problem and while he was waiting for a
replacement dongle it was suggested that he should try öshorting all the
pins of the dongle with a piece of earthed kitchen foil.ò Apparently it
worked! (I suggest you only try this if you are confident you know what
you are doing.)
6.05
Roger King reports that he had a problem with both laser printers and a
Deskjet 500 ejecting blank sheets of paper with spurious characters on
the first line of the new page, especially when printing from PipeDream
4 documents. When the Impression dongles were removed the problem went
away.
6.05
Keith Raven agrees that there is something strange. Once, after
switching off the computer and restarting, he tried printing from Basic
using <ctrl-B> but the computer locked up as if the printer wasnæt on
line. Loading !Printers and trying to print from !Edit caused the system
disc to run and the iconbar to flash but no output. Loading Impression
then caused most, but not all, of the previously öprintedò output from
!Edit to arrive at the printer. However, he could not repeat this. Since
he had previously used the printer successfully in similar circums
tances, he wonders if the problem might be something to do with printer
initialisation.
6.05
Miscellaneous Hints & Tips
6.05
Screen modes
6.05
Peter Prewett says that mode 31 öflashes fastò on his A440/1 with an
Eizo 9060s Multiscan. He also says that mode 27 will not run on an A310
with an NEC Multiscan. (I also find that mode 31 is unusably flickery on
my Taxan 770 Plus, but surely one of the purposes in giving us such a
wide variety of modes is to give each user a greater chance of finding
some that suit his own particular monitor.)
6.05
Marc Evans recommends non-multisync users to use mode 35 as their
configured mode because it gives a bit more room to work in without
decreasing resolution in the way mode 16 does.
6.05
Desktop Boot files
6.05
Colin Singleton has been puzzled to find that, after creating a Boot
file and rebooting, a number of applications that were running at the
time he created the Boot file failed to start up. The reason for this is
that only öRISC¡OSá3 awareò applications will be inserted automatically
into a !Boot file. (Apart from any other reason, the operating system
needs to be able to find out where on disc each application was loaded
from and it canæt do this unless the application is programmed to be
able to tell the operating system when asked. Originally, RISC¡OSá3
applications werenæt programmed to behave in this way.)
6.05
If you want your Boot file to run an older application (including, for
instance, current versions of Impression) you have to edit !Boot and add
the appropriate instructions by hand. To do this (assuming you have
already created a Desktop Boot file), load !Boot into !Edit (the quick
way is to <shift-double-click> on it) and you will probably find a
number of lines reading öFiler_Boot ... ò followed by some reading
öFiler_Run ... ò. Immediately after these, add another line reading
öFiler_Run ò followed by the full path name of the application, and
repeat for each application you want to run. The process is described in
more detail in the User Guide starting at page 112.
6.05
Colin Singleton has also tried, as the manual suggests, creating two
!Boot files so that he can switch at will from one öworldò to another.
However, when he tries to run them he gets a message öYou cannot have
two copies of !Alarm at once.ò Does anyone have any suggestions?
6.05
When G÷tz Kohlberg had created a Boot file and tried rebooting, he got
an error message: önot enough memory or not within desktop worldò.
(Could this happen if the configured ölanguageò is not Desktop? (Number
10 in RISC-OS 3.))
6.05
Control of ARM3 cache
6.05
G÷tz Kohlberg found that the *Cache on command turned the cache off and
*Cache off turned it on! He also found that when he installed the Aleph
One hare and tortoise module, the effect of clicking on the iconbar
icons was also reversed. His work-around for this problem is to include
*Cache on as the very first command in his !Boot file and to include the
command *Cache off immediately before the line that runs the !Arm3
application.
6.05
ROM modules
6.05
R. D. Attwood asks how he can find out which modules are in ROM so that
he doesnæt duplicate them in the system directory on disc. Simple: press
<ctrl-f12> to open a Task window and type RomModules at the star command
prompt. A list of modules in the system ROM and in the ROMS on any
podules installed on the machine will scroll past. To read the list and
print it or save it: bring up the Task window menu and choose the
öSuspendò option then treat the contents of the window just like any
other Edit window.
6.05
To see what else is in ROM ...
6.05
... bring up the menu over the Apps icon on the iconbar and choose the
öOpen É$æò option. You can now explore all the resources stored in ROM.
6.05
Toolsprites
6.05
Several months ago, the Archive monthly disc included a nice collection
of ötoolò sprites designed to smarten up the appearance of window icons
(including things like 3D-effect sliders that look pushed-in when you
drag them). I found that the original set didnæt quite work properly,
but that simply by adding one extra sprite (öblicon22ò) copied from a
similar set on a recent Acorn User disc, I got a set which seems to work
fine. This set is on this monthæs program disc in a file called
öWin3Toolsò. To use it, I suggest you copy it into your !System
directory and include the command
6.05
ToolSprites System:Win3Tools
6.05
in your !Boot file. (Note: this file only includes ö22ò definitions for
ösquare-pixelò high resolution modes.)
6.05
Shift key behaviour
6.05
R. D. Attwood has found his left shift key giving a ñ symbol. On
investigation, he has found that under the key there are two contacts:
one gives ñ, the other ú. The !IntKey module on the Support disc seems
to solve the problem but, as he says, it should not be necessary to run
this. Has anyone any ideas?
6.05
Shift-double-clicking into editors
6.05
Marc Evans says that if you shift-double-click on a file to load it into
an editor, the editor can be confused about what filetype it is and can
save an Obey file as Text. (This doesnæt seem to happen with !Edit, but
it does with !StrongEd II. Without the PRM, I canæt be sure but I would
guess that what is happening is that a shift-double-click causes the
Filer to broadcast a message inviting applications to load the file as
if it were a text file. If !Edit picks it up, it presumably then reads
the directory information to find out what the filetype is, whereas
!StrongEd carries on assuming it is a text file. I wonder what other
editors like DeskEdit do?)
6.05
Fix for SciCalc
6.05
Colin Dean, one of the authors of SciCalc, has written in with a fix for
the bug in the +/Ö operator mentioned in Archive 6.3 p18.
6.05
The +/Ö operator should always change the sign of the currently
displayed value, unless you are in the middle of entering an exponent,
in which case it should change the sign of the exponent. In practice, it
can produce bizarre results: e.g.
6.05
enter    display
6.05
1E13   1E13
6.05
+/Ö   1E-13
6.05
=   1E-13
6.05
+/Ö   3E-30
6.05
The last displayed result should be Ö1EÖ13!
6.05
To fix this alter the lines that read:
6.05
5340 IF entry$=ö0ò THEN entry$= FNtobase(dreg)
6.05
5350 IF base%=1 THEN
6.05
5360 IF (INSTR(entry$,öEò)=0) OR (F%=TRUE) THEN
6.05
to read, instead:
6.05
5340 IF F%=TRUE THEN entry$= FNtobase(dreg)
6.05
5350 IF base%=1 AND F%=FALSE THEN
6.05
5360 IF (INSTR(entry$,öEò)=0)THEN
6.05
Copying a directory into itself
6.05
You canæt any more! (Marc Evans says.) (For those who donæt remember the
heady days when RISC¡OSá2 was young, one of its features was that it was
quite easy to fill a disc by recursively copying a directory into
itself!)
6.05
Unplugging !Configure
6.05
!Configure can be unplugged if you do not want the machine altered Ö
useful in a school situation! (Marc Evans)
6.05
Bug in BASIC64
6.05
A. G. Rimmer reports that there is a fault in BASIC64 in that the format
specification given by @% frequently behaves incorrectly for fixed
format (but not for E or G format). This is illustrated by the following
program:
6.05
10 REM >Double precision test
6.05
20 @%=öF30.2ò
6.05
30 PRINT; öWith @% = &ò;STR$~(@%);ö:òÉ
6.05
40 REPEAT
6.05
50 INPUT öNumber input: ò x
6.05
60 PRINT ö prints as ò x
6.05
70 UNTIL FALSE
6.05
This produces the following output:
6.05
Number input: 102.63
6.05
prints as 1.03E2
6.05
Number input: 1234.5678
6.05
prints as 1.23E3
6.05
Number input: 12.25
6.05
prints as 12.25
6.05
Number input: 0.16
6.05
prints as 1.60E-1
6.05
Acorn have acknowledged the fault and have told Mr Rimmer that there is
no work-around or fix for this problem at the moment.
6.05
Limited precision of SciCalcæs display
6.05
Mr Rimmer also observes that, whereas SciCalc calculates using floating
point numbers with 52 binary digits, which are equivalent to 15.7
decimal digits, you can only input decimal numbers with up to 10 digits
plus a two digit exponent and the program can only display results with
10 significant figures (and 3-digit exponents up to the maximum possible
308). What is wanted is a display for both input and results of a 15 or
16 digit mantissa plus an exponent of up to 3 digits (up to the limit of
308).
6.05
Again Acorn has acknowledged the limitation but has said that a version
with extended display is not available. (I wonder whether Colin Dean
might be able to help?)
6.05
Legible menus in 1st Word Plus
6.05
In Archive 6.3 p12 there was a hint on altering the palette for First
Word Plus release 1.1 so that the menus are legible. This involved a
special Obey file. Gordon Lindsay-Jones suggests a different solution.
He first changed colour 14 to black and saved the altered palette in the
Library directory on the 1wp disc. Before he runs 1wp, he opens the
Library window and double-clicks on this palette, then when he finishes,
he opens the menu on the iconbar palette icon and selects Default to
restore the palette.
6.05
(Mike Williams says version 0.01 of First Word Plus works fine!)
6.05
Using RMFaster
6.05
Mike Williams points out that C programs run much faster if you perform
*RMFaster SharedCLibrary and, similarly, programs that use the FPE a lot
(e.g. ray tracers) will benefit from *RMFaster FPEmulator. Under
RISC¡OSá2, these modules were loaded from disc so always ran in RAM. In
RISC¡OSá3, we can choose whether to put them in RAM for speed or leave
them in ROM to save memory.
6.05
Draw crashing
6.05
A number of people have had !Draw crash out on them but luckily it saves
work in progress as a valid drawfile in the Scrap directory before it
exits. Therefore, you should be able to recover your work by opening
!Scrap (shift-double-click on its icon), then opening the directory
called ScrapDir inside it.
6.05
Wimp drag and double-click defaults
6.05
Mike Williams finds that settings of 5 for WimpDoubleClickDelay and 10
for WimpDoubleClickMove make detailed work in !Draw much more manage
able. He wonders if anyone knows how to set them exactly like they were
in RISC¡OSá2.
6.05
Mouse menu button behaviour
6.05
In response to my tip in Archive 6.3 p19, Tim Nicholson says his mouse
menu button still returns a continuous 2. I then wondered if it was my
tracker ball that was at fault so plugged in my clapped out mouse, but
no: both mouse and tracker ball still return 2 for a moment then 0 when
the menu button is held down. Tim wonders if the mouse response is
configurable.
6.05
Opening a root directory without running all the !Boot files (and
avoiding viruses)
6.05
Tim Nicholson points out that just as control-double-clicking on a
directory icon opens a filer window on the directory without running the
boot files of all the applications in the directory, control-double-
clicking on a drive icon does the same for a root directory. As he says,
this is jolly useful for inspecting discs of unknown origin if you
suspect they might contain viruses.
6.05
Keys that donæt work
6.05
Tim Nicholson says that he ökeeps losing his Caps Lock buttonò and
occasionally <ctrl-shift-f12> doesnæt work. Is this a problem with an
application? (Or has he been dropping his porridge into the keyboard,
again?)
6.05
Task manager
6.05
(Tim Nicholson warns: before trying this save all your work!) Try
clicking <menu> over the Task Manager and choosing the Info option, then
click <menu> in the grey area where it says NAME: VERSION: AUTHOR:.
(Donæt get too excited.)
6.05
Alarm
6.05
Colin Singleton writes, in response to Ken Cowapæs comments on !Alarm
(Archive 6.3 p15): öI think he is wrong in claiming that it contains a
malfunction, but it is certainly less friendly than it might be. It does
indeed appear to insist that the start and finish dates are in the same
year when setting summertime, so you cannot set Off Oct 1992 and On
March 1993. Since we have now finished with BST for 1992, this is not
now a problem.ò
6.05
He has found that after setting the two dates for 1993, the Alarm file
contains three dates, the third date being 7th February 1994. He
presumes that at 1 a.m. on that day, an alarm will go off to remind him
to set the summertime dates for that year! Does anyone know what the
date is for?
6.05
Change in behaviour of !Boot files
6.05
Under RISC¡OSá2, J.áLageu used to protect directories using the
principle that, whenever a directory was opened, all the boot files in
it were actioned (unless, I think, a sprite with the name of the
application had been loaded into the Wimp sprite pool). He finds that
RISC¡OSá3.10 on an A5000 only sees the !Boot file the first time it
öseesò the application. I wonder whether it is possible to tell the
operating system to forget that it has seen the application?
6.05
JPEG
6.05
Steve Dommett has written, in response to Roger Darlingtonæs query in
Archive 6.3 p28, to point out that there is a very useful implementation
of JPEG included in !ChangeFSI on the Support Disc. The required files
are cjpeg, djpeg and JPEGinfo (which provides instructions). !ChangeFSI
will read JPEG files in the same way as other file types but will need
plenty of spare space on the !Scrap disc. He has converted many sprites,
saving megabytes of disc space, with no appreciable loss of quality.
6.05
Peter Sturdy adds that if you want to use JPEG from the command line, it
is helpful to add the following lines to your !Boot file:
6.05
Set Alias$cjpeg <Obey$Dir>.cjpeg %%*0
6.05
Set Alias$djpeg <Obey$Dir>.djpeg %%*0
6.05
JPEG files can then be manipulated from a Task window without changing
directory or moving the files into the Library directory.
6.05
(The point of JPEG is that it gives much greater savings in filing space
but the compression process is not completely reversible so the
decompressed image will not be identical to the original. For sprites
this doesnæt normally matter.)
6.05
Directory catalogue display
6.05
Raymond Wright has found an irritating change in the display of a
catalogue listing (outside the Desktop): on an 80 column screen you only
get three columns of files instead of 4 and in a 40 column mode you only
get one. Can there be a good reason for the change, he
asks?ááááááááááááááááááááá áááááááááááááááááááááá
6.05
Two Questions
6.05
Backup and the önextò slot
6.05
If you back up an 800Kb floppy with the öNextò slot set to the standard
640Kb, the backup will take two passes. In order to make the computer
copy the whole disc in one go, you have to set the Next slot to more
than 800Kb. Can it be told to use more than the current Next slot if the
memory is available?
6.05
Icon dragging from filer windows
6.05
There is a configuration option (which I canæt find now that I want it!)
that instructs RISC¡OSá3 öawareò applications to drag the whole icon
rather than just an empty square box when saving a file. Why on earth
isnæt the Filer programmed to do the same when you drag an icon from a
Filer window? ááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááá
áááááááááááááááááááááá á
6.05
Improvements over RISC¡OSá3.0
6.05
Paul Skirrow lists the following improvements:
6.05
Å   after a Shutdown the Restart button works properly and restarts the
Pinboard correctly
6.05
Å   the ADFSBuffers configuration now works correctly and speeds up disc
access significantly (although there may still be a problem in 1Mb
machines).
6.05
Å   Paint handles 256 grey scale sprites correctly and also 256 colour
sprites can have any of their colours changed independently (Iæd
appreciate an article on the changes in colour handling in RISC¡OSá3 ù
starting with the basics like the points mentioned here.)
6.05
Å   an HP Laserjet / Deskjet bug has been cured.
6.05
Å   there is a new X, Y offset facility in the printer driver system,
separated from the öpaper marginsò (which now specify which area the
printer driver should allow printing in, although it would make more
sense to set the top left values to be the same). Paul says this could
have some other benefits: you should be able to specify negative offsets
to indicate that the printer must move the print head some distance to
actually reach the paper, which might be useful when printing on labels.
Unfortunately, there is a bug: the X, Y origin is not stored and always
defaults to zero! (My mind goes numb when I read this sort of descrip
tion. Can anyone help with an idiotsæ guide to printer margins?) (Gerald
Fitton, in Archive 6.4 p39, admitted to not really understanding how it
all worked but gave an empirical approach in his PipeLine column. Ed.)

6.05
Å   Printer drivers now set the page length from the önumber of text
linesò specification, and a number of other printer problems have been
cured.
6.05
Å   Starting up is quicker (10 seconds quicker on an A5000).
6.05
Å   Some useful extra screen modes are provided.ááA