ComputerHouse Controller Card.¢------------------------------¢¢Review by Dean Garraghty.¢-------------------------¢¢The Computer House controller card was available from Computer House in the UK. Unfortunately, they ceased trading a while back. But, there are still some of these things around, and you may (like I did) get one second hand.¢¢What is the controller card?¢----------------------------¢¢The controller card is a small circuit board which was available for both XL and XE machines. It required some soldering to fit. It also came with a master disk containing various control software. More on this later. A manual was also supplied.¢¢The basic idea behind the controller card, was that special software could be loaded and remain invisible to whatever software you were running normally. This allows you to do some pretty clever things.¢¢ComputerHouse calls the controller card the "Desktop Management System".¢¢The Software¢------------¢¢Supplied with the controller card is a disk of master utilities. This disk is double sided, but each side is the same. Side 1 is for printers with 216/n variable line feed, and side 2 is for printers with 144/n variable line feed.¢¢You simply put the disk in drive 1 and turn the computer on. You then get the main dektop menu. From here, you can change system parameters, or load other desktop utilities from the disk. This is what is available:¢¢System character sets - you can choose from 14 character sets. Once you have set the one you want, it will remain active until you finally turn the computer off.¢¢Control Panel - Lets you alter various parameters. You can turn auto scroll on/off, turn noisy I/O on/off, turn the key click on/off, turn inverse flash on/off, turn fast cursor on/off, change colour defaults, and alter cassette baud rate. Again, these will all remain active until you turn the computer off.¢¢SuperDump II - this desktop utility is very useful. It allows you to stop your main program and dump the contents of memory out to disk. This is useful for software development, but is also a good way of transferring those awkward tapes to disk, because this utility dumps the program AFTER it has loaded, therefore by-passing the muti-part tape load problem.¢¢The O.S. boot menu - This allows you to convert Mutiboot menus to a menu which remains resident under the control of the controller card. This saves you having to keep loading the menu from disk.¢¢400/800 O.S. saver - 400/800 owners are in for a treat here! If you load the desktop software into a 400 or 800, and then select this option, it dumps the O.S to a bootable disk file. Then you just boot this disk into an XL/XE with a controller card and the old O.S remains resident. Your XL/XE is now the closest you can get to a 400/800 because you have the exact old O.S in your XL/XE. This means you have to plug Basic in on cartridge. Also, the self test is replaced by the memo pad! This is the utilmate translator!¢¢Snapshot printer dumper - another excellent utility for those of you with an Epson compatible printer or an XMM801. You install the printer dumper on your controller card and then boot a game or whatever. When you want to dump a screen to the printer, you just press the HELP key. The controller card takes over and freezes the program and dumps the screen to the printer. When it's done, the program just continues! The printer dumper has draft, SHQ I, and SHQ II modes. Draft seems good enough for me, but SHQ must be even better. Unfortunately, these modes don't seem to work on my XMM801.¢¢Disk I/O analyzer - If you load this util in your desktop, any disk you boot will cause the controller card to send data to your printer, with the following details: disk status, command status, hardware status, memory location, sector, memory buffer, commands sent to disk drive, disk status, call addresses. Each sector read from the disk causes a line of data to be printed detailing what exactly is happening. This allows you to find lost or corrupted files. Holding down the HELP key stops it doing this.¢¢Format disk - Formats a disk in non-standard format. Just used for the following option:¢¢Save desktop to disk - this allows you to save your favourite set-up to disk as a boot file. This saves you having to keep selecting from the menu each time.¢¢Direct exit - performs a cold start. This saves all the set-up details for you in the desktop, and then boots your disk in the normal way. You can also hold down START here as well if you want to boot a tape.¢¢The control panel¢-----------------¢¢The control panel is a set of little pins which are mounted on top of the computer. You have 3 little blocks which slot over the pins in various ways. This gives you extra control over the desktop.¢¢Desklock - with this set, your own program is unable to re-set your controller card.¢¢RAM mode - your program is allowed to re-set the desktop with this set. Mainly used if you want to write your own utils for the desktop.¢¢Desktop on - with this set you can use the desktop facilities.¢¢Desktop off - switches the desktop off completely. Computer now acts like a standard XL/XE.¢¢Basic on/off - lets you switch Basic on and off.¢¢You can also switch all these settings while your programs are running.¢¢The manual¢----------¢¢The manual comes as a pile of A4 sheets stapled in one corner. Not the most professional looking document I have seen. It also seems that the author didn't have a very good grasp of English! But, it contains everything you need to know, even if it is a little brief!¢¢Problems¢--------¢¢It appears that the controller card uses the 16K of RAM hidden under the O.S to store the utils you load onto it. This causes problems if you want to use SpartaDos X or Turbo-Basic or anything else which uses this same area. You have to turn the desktop off in this case.¢¢Conclusions¢-----------¢¢The controller card is a technical piece of kit, which may not be of use to everyone. But if you see one available, grab it! The XL and XE versions of it are different, so make sure you know which it is for. Price guide: XL or XE card on its own - 20-25pounds, fitted in computer - 35-50pounds. Make sure you get the utils disk and manual. It's useless without these. Also, ComputerHouse released extra disks for use with the card. I have the 1029 printer dump. This is the same as the dump on the master disk, but this util dumps the screen to a 1029 printer.¢
