Send us in your Hints & Tips, as there are people out there who could really do with what you've found out in your special interest. Preferably on a disk - check out "Contributions" in MD_INFO for details of how, and an incentive. STAR NX-1000 PROPORTIONAL SPACED LETTER HINT -------------------------------------------- by David Barr [Ed: see the review of the NX1000 in this issue] One thing that has disappointed me about the Amiga printer routines is its lack of support for proportional spacing in draft or NLQ mode. Thus most wordprocessors do not allow for proportional spacing and justification in draft/NLQ. (In "graphics mode" they do, though) Although there is no simple way to do proportional justification (involves inserting "slivers" instead of whole spaces between words and letters to make the right edge flush) you can have proportional spaced letters with most word processors (text editors, etc.) with your STAR NX-1000 printer. I believe this makes the print-out neater. ("i"s do not look so i-solated!) When the printer is turned on, press the print pitch button until the "PROP" light is on. (It does not matter what the pitch is, the preference setting/word processor will change this.) When printing starts, the proportional setting is not turned off. (Using the Epson driver, maybe others as well.) This results in the neater proportional spaced letters. But note the margins will be different and normal justification (right flush) should not be used. Centering might not be so good either. Experimentation is recommended. If the driver is turning the proportional spacing off (the "PROP" light goes off when printing starts) then you can use panel lock mode (press the print pitch button while turning the printer on) to select exactly which pitch and proportional spacing, but other software codes are also ignored (you cannot have italics, etc.). MONITOR VERTICAL SIZE HINT -------------------------- by David Barr There is an adjustment you can make to any monitor if the top and/or bottom of your screen is cut off slightly. (ie the whole picture can not fit on the screen) There is a vertical size potentiometer (small variable resistor usually marked "VSIZE" adjustable with a knob or a screwdriver) either on the inside or outside of the monitor. Turning this while the monitor is on you can adjust it until the whole picture fits on the screen. (try turning it both ways) This is useful for adjusting monitors used by other computers to fit the entire Amiga PAL display. (I had to do this for my Roland monochrome monitor) If the vertical size adjustment is inside the monitor (i.e. it's not on the outside) the monitor cover has to be removed. NOTE: great care has to be adopted not to touch the tube or surrounding circuits (to be safe do not touch anything metal) because we are dealing with very high voltages here when the cover is off and the monitor is on. In fact, I recommend taking the monitor to a TV serviceman or electronics technician - they should not charge too much because it is such a simple procedure. So if you are not getting the "full picture" with your monitor there is hope by adjusting the vertical size potentiometer. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% HINT FOR SOLVING A PROBLEM WITH SONIX Firstly I have to tell you that there is nothing wrong with the program. It is not copy protected and easily transfers to any type of disk as far as I can tell. There are of course some things that I would have liked to have it a bit different but I suppose I am what I am and what I like somebody else might not like and might like it a bit different again. (Do you like all these likes ?). It is great to compose some songs, write them out on the printer, let Amiga play your composition and play with that composition. It is amazing to put together a instrument and play that instrument. To manipulate an instrument and finish up with a new sound is possible, and all by using Sonix. And now the problem. One day I wanted to use Sonix and behold, it was very, very slow loading and once it was loaded it was almost impossible to use. The pointer would move jerky and only a few centimeters (inch) at a time and it was almost not possible to make any selections. If by luck an instrument was selected the tones generated would not arrive out of the speakers until a long timespan elapsed. The amazing part about all this was that it was intermittent. Some days the problem was there, other days everything was rosy. On different occasions I took the disk to my supplier and tested it on their machine and surprise surprise, it never failed. Also, they never had encountered the problem. Back at home I sat down and put on my thinking cap. I went over everything that I possibly could have done prior to or was doing whilst using Sonix. I could have saved myself all this agony. I had to disconnect my modem from my Amiga to demonstrate this gadget to someone. And that is where I got my answer. It seems that the Sonix program constantly monitors the serial port on the Amiga. By having the modem set to 300baud and originate (even with the telephone-line disconnected) the program seems to need an awful lot of time to sort things out at the serial port. After setting the modem to 1200/75baud and answer the program works perfectly all the time. Why ? I don't know, maybe some of the experts might know. Chris Sengers %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Peter Goed from Queensland has a few facts about Desktop Publishing, viz, that WORDPERFECT's Postscript compatibility leaves something to be desired, as it is compatible with earlier versions ( before Version 40) but not later versions, such as the AST TurboLaser has (Version 44). The much-vaunted "integrated DTP system" co-ordinated by C LTD, mentioned in Megadisc and elsewhere will have no support for the A1000, will restrict you to their software and is still vapourware. This from a phone call to the people themselves in the US. Peter will be giving us a full rundown on Laser printers & the Amiga in the next issue of Megadisc. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% George Vokalek (see "Oz_Products" in FEEDBACK for info about George's Audio Digitiser) writes from Adelaide: "I suggest you keep away from fast-file-system gamma 4, which bombs if you fill a partition with more than about 12M... By the way, this letter and the info about the MFB (Multi-Function Board: see Oz_Products again) were done using Amiga\TeX\ and printed with the HP DeskJet. I still can't get over how good it looks. I suggest you give it a serious look --- if you have any high-level language programming experience with Pascal, M2 or C, then learning \TeX\ will simply be a matter of learning the command words. \TeX\ files have a similar structure, and follow similar scope rules to these programming languages." It's true, George's letter looks like the output from a Postscript laser printer, and is a good alternative. For the definitive dope on printing look at Jim Bolf's "Print.Manual" in the TUTORIALS drawer. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% EXCELLENCE! SHORTCUTS Since using Excellence! I have found a couple of aspects that have annoyed me. When printing out a document in either draft of NLQ, the output always had an extra linefeed. I use an Epson 24 pin printer. I thought that it was just me and I was doing something wrong with preferences, dip switches etc. However, a couple of other people I spoke to were having the same problem, and they were using other types of printers. I phoned Micro-systems software and they explained the procdure to fix the problem. They advised they had not realized the number of people who would want to use the printers fonts. They assumed that everybody would want to use Normal - ie the graphics font output. To fix the problem: Select Edit All Select Topaz 11 Select Decrease Increase line spacing gadget Click until 12 appears Click in the screen somewhere to get rid of highlighting That's all there is to it and the output will now be correct. The other thing that annoys me is that if you have a big document ie 15 pages and you want to make some editing changes, the changes on screen become very slow. Reason being is the whole program is updated each time a change is made. The way to make the task easier, especially if you have a lot of text you wish to input at a certain point is to: Select page break This gives you the rest of the page to insert text, and the whole document is not being updated each time. When you have finished, delete the page break and the document closes up. Micro-systems tech dept advised me that they were working right now on ways to speed up the changes. This will all be available at the first upgrade. They intimated that they may add more desktop publishing type features, e.g. wrap text around pictures. A REQUEST In one of the next issues of Megadisc can you please get someone to write a simple plain English explanation of the new 1.3 preferences, with special reference to the extra graphics screen options. The explanation that I sent you from excellence! I don't understand a word of!! Can someone tell me by selecting off/on etc, etc, what effect this will have on my input? I have only tried anti-aliasing and I couldn't see that it made any difference. If someone could write an article it would be fantastic. [Ed: John, see the "Print.Manual" by Jim Bolf in this issue, which is the best treatment I've seen anywhere.] NEWSPAPER ARTICLE Enclosed is an article that you may have seen from Saturday's Australian, although not mentioned by name, the picture clearly shows an Amiga. Thought it might be interesting for you. [Ed: this was in an article about an IDENTIKIT setup on the Amiga, devised by a pair of inspired policeman]. JOHN VARCOE Cottesloe, W.A. _________________________________________________________________________ Hi Amigos, Utilimaster - Program written by John Scheib: This is a utility that all Amiga users should have, be they beginners or experienced users. The first thing you see on the screen is two windows, the top one is your source and bottom window is the destination. With a touch of the mouse button you can file, copy or look at IFF graphics, you can edit or read docs, make new directions lock and unlock files, delete files, plus heaps more. If like me you don't have a great fluent talent for typing on the keyboard all of those CLI commands:- e.g. (example MAKEDIR - Creates a new directory) If you use CLI then you have to type in a statement as follows: e.g. > Makedir df1:sorefingers/pleasehelp Well get Utilimaster from MEGADISC and your fingers will hurt no more. To make a new directory all you have to do is point the mouse pointer at Make Dir and utilimaster will ask you for a name, type it in and press return - that's it. Or to edit your startup sequence you would have to type: e.g.> ed df0:s/startup-sequence To change the startup-sequence using utilimaster just double click the S Directory in the root Directory then you will see the file startup-sequence, click it once then point at EDIT on utilimaster. Now your startup sequence is ready for you to make your changes. Utilimaster is also programmable, you have the choice to modify it to your own requirements. Here are some of the changes that I have made: 1) I have changed SHOW and it is now SUPERVIEW, written by David Grothe, this is version 1.0. 2) I have placed Funckey into utilimaster, a very good utility that allows you to program your function keys. 3) PRINT now skips over the perforations and you can select Compressed or Emphasized or a host of other selections. 4) VACCINE a program for looking for the SCA and BYTE virus. 5) NewZap a file sector editor. To use NewZap hust highlight the file you want to look at, then use the mouse pointer and click on NewZap. 6) DFC is a disk copier that you can use to backup your disks and you can also format a disk. Print out utilimaster DOCS and you will find them very useful. I have sent these files and modified copy of utilimaster to MEGADISC maybe you might find it on a MEGADISC in the future. P.S. Here's a tip - go to Fossey's and buy a plastic place mat, turn it over and you will have a great mouse mat and it will only cost you 98c. L. JARVIS Penrith N.S.W. [Ed: Find Leon's disk in our PD collection, with a couple of additions by Eric Holroyd - definitely a well set-up disk. Thanks, gents.] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX END OF READERS_HINTS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX