1st August 1995Thanks for EUG #20. I trust you received my 'top up' cheque. I sent it off in a hurry as I was about to go walkabout myself so I apologise for not sending an accompanying note. I was pleased to learn your holiday was a great success. Now, re EUG #20:
View Macros. M.W.H.'s text layout does not come up on my screen in a very clear manner. This is a common difficulty when trying to present a View problem. However, I've never used the Macro facility but I believe Mike's problem arises from him trying to do a Page Eject (PE) before he has completed the transfer of info to the printer. The PE should come after the parameter as only then has the printing task been completed in respect of Letter 1.A Stored Command PE should then follow each parameter. Assuming he is accepting the default Page Length, he should then find each letter on a separate sheet of 11" fanfold paper. Thus the bottom of his composition should be:- EM CN Mr M.W.Harris, etc... PE CN Mrs J.Smith, etc... PE and so on.
INTERNET. I would recommend a visit to the Science Museum at South Kensington where they have a presentation running until 3rd September 1995 which is intended, and I understand does, provide a very clear introduction to the internet. I believe it is intended that the show should subsequently tour the UK. I understand that a very good book is published by a company in Andover viz.ITP Cheriton House, North Way, Andover SP10 5BE. It is called ACCESSING THE INTERNET - A GUIDE FOR THE UK AND IRELAND. Price £8.95. Not much more than a travel card on British Rail from Fareham and books on the internet are out of date before they are published, such is the rate of development in this field. Alternatively, I am sure a perusal of the microfiche in Fareham library will find a suitable book at rather less cost!
If he is seriously considering a new computer setup to enable him to "scan the world", I trust he will seriously consider the home-grown product from Acorn - the RISC PC. The RISC operating system is highly thought of throughout the international computing world and has been available for some time in the current Archimedes series. Acorn do an excellent job in upgrading on behalf of their customers and ensure IBM compatibility with their emulators, etc.
View again! Alva Parrott's problem. This is again a matter of STORED COMMANDs. I think Alvar is to be congratulated on getting as far as he has done without the aid of a handbook! The default STORED COMMANDs provide a nominal layout for books and reports (The prime reason for View in the BBC days - see Acorn handbook!) and require amendment when merely letter writing to prevent the cumulative effect of the provision for top and bottom margins, Headers and Footers. When using a tractor-feed printer, there is bound to be a wastage of fanfold perforated paper because of the relative positions of "Top of Form" and the sprocket but wastage due to STORED COMMANDs can be minimised by thoughtful use of DEFAULTS.
The subject of STORED COMMANDs was covered in EUG 2 (Nov 91) and it does seem to me to be a shame that the FREE space on the disks (e.g. 92 Kbytes on EUG #20) is not put to good use by reproducing articles from the previous issues and thereby providing an immediate answer to some of the problems. I appreciate that in the very early days of EUG, some of the contents might not have been recorded on tape or disk but, providing the archive IS available, it would not take more than minutes at the keyboard to put it on the next disk. FREE disk space use is post-free!
Ron Kilroy and his Printer Driver. The program to which Ron refers was for a Printer Driver Generator, repeat Generator. The listed program and the modus operandi for generating the highlights was faultless - but the keying for use of the machine code program thus generated was incorrectly stated and caused many headaches. It was two issues later before a correction was published by Electron User. It's possible Ron never found this correction - it was tucked away somewhere in the correspondence pages. The original said that to use the Driver, key LOAD DRIVER. It should have said PRINTER DRIVER. With due acknowledgement to Julie Boswell, I submitted this program to EUG and it was published in EUG #3. Regrettably again, an error crept in - a line was omitted - it was "Key PRINTER DRIVER"!!
Having constantly used the Driver, I was at first puzzled by the reports of difficulty by at least two of our members and wondered if it was attributable to doing the original article for the benefit of TAPE users. An amendment was published in EUG #6. I can well understand Ron having a problem! N.B. The space between PRINTER and DRIVER is essential. I did a number of demonstration tapes and disks, some of which were returned - I believe the tapes and disks have since been used for other programs but if anyone needs a copy, please let me know. I recall the text was "If I wasn't an Electroneer I wouldn't be here"! The most frustrating exercise was trying to produce a Printer Driver for a member who merely gave me a model number of his printer - which I assumed to be a dot-matrix. Some weeks later, it transpired he had a daisywheel machine when of course a Printer Driver is a very different animal in that it instructs one when to change the daisywheel to get a different style and the printer stagnates until you have done as you have been told - so there!
Tom Boustead
Thanks for the info, Tom. The reason earlier articles aren't reprinted is a matter of principle. Each EUG is published and that's it. The contents belong to that EUG and unless there's a bug or an update, I don't want to copy things onto later issues. That's why there's sometimes articles on correcting the original disks if a problem occurs.
Ok, I may be a little pedantic but that's it. I put a lot of effort into EUG and get a lot of fun out of it. I hope most members get some fun as well but you can never have as much as me. But I have always respected EUG members and no matter how tempting, I don't want to fill a disk with old stuff.
Back issues of earlier EUGs are available at the normal cost. Perhaps someone should write a review of the first twenty EUGs. (Hint, hint!)
Gus Donnachaidh, EUG #21
