SB BBC @ GBR Oldie hints/tips #149-153 Hints and tips from the archives of Wakefield BBC Micro User Group... 149. When is a 1770 FDC not a 1770? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When it's a 1772! My Master would not work properly with an old Teac full-height drive. I tried using both *CONFIGURE FDRIVE and *FX255 to select 30ms head-step time to suit the slow drive, but that made matters worse. On examining the FDC, (Floppy Disc Controller), chip in my Master, I discovered it was a 1772 and not a 1770. Page C.5-4 of Part 1 of the Reference Manual has a little table relating to the *CO. FDRIVE parameter:- Value Head Step Time Precompensation (WD1770) (WD1772) (ADFS only) 0 or 4 6ms 6ms yes 1 or 5 6ms 6ms no 2 or 6 30ms 3ms yes 3 or 7 30ms 3ms no The normal values to use are 0 or 2, but instead of increasing the step time from 6ms to 30ms, I was actually decreasing it to 3ms! Most 80-track drives will work fine on 6ms, and many are OK on 3ms, though not when switched to 40-track mode, (due to the double-stepping), but many older 40-drives won't work on either. This is a bit naughty of Acorn, as it could force Master buyers to change their drives. Whilst there are considerable advantages in upgrading to double-sided 80-track drives, people ought to be able to do this when they are good and ready! If you want to check which FDC chip is fitted, take the lid off, and peer under the back of the keyboard, more-or-less under the red key. You'll need a torch, and the keyboard ribbon cable does get in the way a bit! 150. Incorrect capacitors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the Master, the capacitors C85 and C86 are located either side of IC43, near the UHF modulator can. They should be 10nF, (same as 0.01uF or 10,000pF) and may be marked "103". Some machines were accidentally fitted with 100pF capacitors, which may be marked "101". These cause overheating problems when a Turbo 2nd processor board is fitted, and should be changed. 151. Interword tab hint ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The manual tells you that you can delete TAB markers from a ruler, (as opposed to the TAB codes in the text), using , or . What it does not tell you is that you can also add them with the key, after positioning the cursor at the desired place on the ruler. 152. InterWord line hint ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With Wordwise-Plus, (though not version 1.4E), you could draw an unbroken horizontal line across the page with {G}us{G}fi{G}ue{W}, which would automatically conform to any changes in margins and line length. NB: {G} & {W} represent Green and White codes. You can achieve a similar result in InterWord as follows. Make sure the line to be used is blank, and that there is, (temporarily at least), a blank line immediately above and below it. (It helps to have the RETURN and TAB codes visible, ie Screen codes ON.) Press Insert Marker, , Align Right, Insert Marker, Cursor Left one space, Underline. You can now remove the blank lines above and below if you wish. 153. View extended highlights ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Within VIEW there are two commands known as Highlight-1 and Highlight-2, which are used to mark parts of the text to be printed in a special way. The printer is controlled by a printer driver routine within View, which interprets the Highlight commands and converts them into codes which the particular type of printer in use can understand. Normally, Highlight-1 inserts an underline "_" character into the screen text and sends a code 128 to the printer driver, which in turn produces underlined text on the printer. Similarly, Highlight-2 inserts an asterisk, sends code 129 and produces bold printed text. To improve on this limited situation, use can be made of what Acorn call Extended Highlights. By resetting Highlight-2 to produce code 130, and loading one of the Acorn Printer Driver routines from disc, (costs about #10-00), various printer effects can be called upon by using combinations of Highlights 1 and 2. For example, italics can be created using Highlights 2+1+2, which would appear as "*_*" on the screen. The Acorn Printer Driver disc contains routines for most common printers, and a program is available to create your own if you wish. Highlight 2 is reset by entering as the first line on the edit screen:- HT 2 130 . The function keys, in conjunction with and , can be used to provide the appropriate codes, which can be installed using a !BOOT setup; *FX228,1 enables the facility. For further explanation of the facilities, refer to the Printer Driver User Guide and your Printer User Guide. Remember to include all the spaces when typing in, as they are vital, and don't confuse "!" with "|". For clarity, spaces are shown as a "-", and note that some definitions have a space at the END, not just in the middle. *WORD *FX228,1 *KEY0|!|- *KEY1|!!|!!|!! *KEY2|!! *KEY3|!!|!|- *KEY4|!!|!! *KEY5|!!|!!|!|- *KEY6|!!|!|-|!|- *KEY7|!!|!|-|!! *KEY8|!!|!|-|!|-|!|- The facilities created using + Function keys are:- f0 f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 Under- Bold Next character Begin Begin Cancel Sub line On/Off to extension Subscript Superscript or Super- set script f6 f7 f8 Alternative Italics Reset Font on/off on/off 73 Rick G4BLT @ GB7WRG