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- 07/08/94
- To start of this month's column, here are two points regarding the Digital
- Research Disc Operating System (DR DOS) that is supplied exclusively for use
- with BBC A3000 Learning Curve Systems.
-
- 1. DR DOS requires an extra command to be entered before the Putfile and
- Getfile commands can be used effectively on a system with one floppy disc
- drive. The command that needs to be issued is APPEND which needs to be set
- to NULL. This can be done by typing:
-
- APPEND=;
-
- The command can be entered every time you start the PC Emulator and wish to
- use either Putfile or Getfile. Alternatively it is possible to change the
- AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is executed every time the PC Emulator is run and
- therefore sets APPEND to NULL straight away. This AUTOEXEC.BAT file can be
- changed by using DR DOS's in-built editor. To edit the file, insert the
- backup of your DR DOS disc and type:
-
- EDITOR AUTOEXEC.BAT
-
- When the editor has loaded the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, one of the settings shown
- will be:
-
- APPEND=A:\
-
- This should be changed to APPEND=;. The file can then be resaved to the disc
- using CTRL kx, this will also exit the editor back to the DOS prompt. Help
- on how to use the editor can be found by using CTRL J.
-
- 2. When the DR DOS package is first run from the original, DR DOS requires
- you to setup the system and make a backup of the DR DOS disc as the first
- operation. The screen informs you that you must have a blank disc or a 720K
- PC format disc ready to make the backup copy. If you are going to use a
- blank disc it must be totally blank, not even have been formatted to
- ADFS. If the disc has been formatted before the error message 'Cannot run
- DISKCOPY.COM, or unexpected error returned from DISKCOPY'. This message may
- also occur in other software if any ADFS formatted disc is put in the drive
- while running PC software.
-
- A number of Archimedes and BBC A3000 owners also have an Epson JX80 or
- compatible printers. Many of these users are not aware that it is now
- possible to purchase a RISC OS Desktop printer driver for this printer. The
- driver can be purchased from Ace Computing whose address is: 27 Victoria
- Road, Cambridge,CB4 3BW. The printer driver is called !PrinterJX but also
- supports JX80 compatibles such as the Epson EX800 and Star LC10 with colour
- option.
-
- As I mentioned before, the success of our support strategy is very important
- to Acorn and we rely on our dealers and retail outlets helping us in our
- endeavours. This is why they get telephone hotline support from either
- Acorn, their support centres or their distributor to answer any queries you
- may pose to them. So, if you go to a dealer and get less than satisfactory
- support from them, please let us know by letter at the normal address If we
- don't know what problems you are experiencing we cannot sort the problems
- out. Of course, if you want to praise the service you get from a dealer, let
- us know!
-
- Just a reminder about writing to Customer Services. To ensure the mail
- reaches us faster, the correct address is "Customer Support, Acorn
- Computers Ltd, Acorn House, Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge, CB4 4AE".
-