4]------------------------------------------ 3]HOW I RUN: With Special Tips for Beginners 4]------------------------------------------ This is the May 1990 issue of JUMPDISK, the Original Disk Magazine for the Amiga. It is the 46th consecutive monthly issue. JUMPDISK requires a minimum of 512K memory to work and is designed to work (and well) on a 512K system with one external disk drive. If you have a meg or more of memory, it will work with additional drives active. If you have only one drive, more memory will be available, but there may be times when you find disk swapping onerous. But that applies to many of your Amiga activities already. 3]TEXT 80, NOT 60 If you're a beginner . . . Can you see the letter X at the end of this line? -----------------> X If not, your Amiga Preferences is set for TEXT 60, while you should have it set for TEXT 80. To make the needed change: 1. Remove JUMPDISK, and put a COPY of Workbench in DF0:. Don't use the original Workbench. 2. Open the Workbench window, and in that window double-click on the Preferences icon. 3. In the Preferences window, see the characters TEXT 60 80. Click on the `80' so it changes color. 4. At right of screen, click on the word `SAVE'. This returns you to the Workbench screen. 5. Click off the Workbench window. 6. Restart JUMPDISK. 3]TROUBLESHOOTING This article is meant to help you troubleshoot problems that may occur when you're running activities on your Amiga -- not only JUMPDISK, but any program that may appear to cause problems. You might scan it quickly now and return here in depth if you experience any frustration with this issue. 3]WE TRY TO BE WELL BEHAVED Each JUMPDISK issue is designed to be as well behaved as possible. However, a given issue usually contains the work of 20 different people who all have different styles. If a program does something strange, read its DOC file and look for a beginning JUMPDISK NOTE which will probably clear up the problem for you. If a JUMPDISK ever signals a READ/WRITE error, first eject the disk, firmly put it back in the drive and try again. If you have another drive, try it also. If the READ/WRITE error keeps cropping up, then you have a bad JUMPDISK. We apologize, and we will replace it. We sector-check every JUMPDISK that is shipped, but sometimes a disk just goes bad, no matter what. Who knows if it's heredity or environment? 3]MEMORY CONSTRAINTS If your Amiga has 512K memory and you're running it with more than one external drive, we suggest you turn off any drives beyond DF1: and use only the internal drive and one external drive. This saves memory and may preclude program crashes due to insufficient or fragmented memory. If the system does crash for these reasons, reboot with Workbench and start over. A fundamental way of conserving memory is to close any windows not currently being used. When you open a drawer and find a program within it, consider clicking off the main J window (click the box at its northwest corner). Then run the program, after which close the program's drawer, and only then open the main J window again. Another memory saver is to shut down any multitasking or background tasks. If you're smart enough to have invoked these through your startup sequence, you need no help in closing them. For beginners, this just means you should turn off any activities that may be running before you go on to something else. The memory problem is that each running event occupies memory. When memory gets too low, the system responds sluggishly and may even lock, producing a Guru message. Guru messages are not fatal to anyone or anything. Just restart the system. 3]THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING ICON The main J window is crowded. Sometimes, you may click on an icon and find that it disappears. It's a bad habit the Amiga operating system has, and it's not fatal. The icon and its attached file contents have been copied into a nearby drawer, usually to right or top of the position of the disappeared rascal. Open nearby drawers in turn. If the either slider gadget at bottom or right of the drawer shows blue (or whatever your palette 0 color has been changed to), it means the missing icon is in the drawer but outside the showing range. Open the window wider by clicking the left mouse button on its southeast corner, holding and moving the mouse southeast. The missing icon will be revealed when you release. Click and drag it back to its original position in the J window. That is, put the mouse pointer over it, click and hold the left mouse button, roll the mouse to reposition the icon where it originated, and release the mouse button. The icon will then be recopied back to its intended position. If you try this and it doesn't work, send the disk back to us, and we'll do it for you and mail back the disk. But try hard before you give up. 3]READERS This issue contains three ways of reading articles. The Articles (named jd) program offers a menu of text and art contents. PPMORE has icons attached, and double-clicking an icon triggers PPMORE to display the specific text file. Also in this issue is LIREPIC, which combines text and images. Most text and programs on the disk have been crunched, saving nearly 50 percent in disk storage space. Both Articles and PPMore decrunch text and present it as plain text. Both offer ways to send text to the printer. Also see the Article Menu item on decrunching text files. No duplication is made nor space wasted by offering multiple readers. The same text file is called by each. Some doc files are best left in drawers with the programs they explain, but most of these can be also accessed from the Articles Menu. 3]BASIC We have discovered that Amiga Basic programs may not work on 68030 machines. The fault is not with JUMPDISK, nor with the manufacturers of the boards. Microsoft apparently used some coding in Amiga Basic which conflicts with 68030 protocol. Basic programs on JUMPDISK ask you to insert your EXTRAS disk where Basic must be loaded to run a program. Screen requesters appear, so the explanation of how to do it is contained in the process itself. However, do double-click the icon labeled ABOUTBASIC in the main J window for instructions on renaming a COPY of your EXTRAS disk to ensure it will load Amiga Basic. 3]WE'RE INNOCENT Most computer viruses spread through the boot blocks of disks. JUMPDISK is not bootable unless someone not of this organization INSTALLS it. Because JUMPDISK is not shipped with a boot block, it is not susceptible to bootblock viruses. There are viruses which work by adding bytes to existing disk files, but we attempt to thwart or limit them by filling JUMPDISK disk issues, leaving little or no room for the virus to operate. If you find a virus on your machine while JUMPDISK is in a drive, please look elsewhere for the culprit. 3]THANK YOU! Sincere thanks for trying JUMPDISK. This issue would be nowhere near its level of sophistication without the suggestions and help of many readers. A special note to beginners. We all were once exactly where you are right now. Don't give up. Every mistake you make will teach you something important. It WILL become clearer sooner than you imagine.