scafidi@eosp1.UUCP (Tony Scafidi) (02/17/84)
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I am having a problem using the spooler on my Model 4. Here are the
steps I used and the error I found. I am using TRSDOS 06.00.00 and
BASIC 01.00.00, and forms 06.00.00.
From TRSDOS Ready I do the following:
set *ff to forms/flt
filter *pr *ff
forms(chars=81,indent=0,page=66,lines=66,ffhard=no)
spool(bank=1,mem=32,disk=0)
basic
load"menu"
llist
At this point, Basic prints "Internal Error" and nothing goes to the
printer. Doing a 'print errs$' prints the following : "43 - SVC
parameter error".
Can anyone explain why this is happening? Is this a bug in BASIC or
TRSDOS ? I don't think it is the extra bank of memory, because the
memDISK controller can use and format all the memory. I might also
rule out TRSDOS, because it can use the spooler until BASIC is loaded.
It will resume printing after you re-enter TRSDOS. If someone has a
similar configuration and can test this problem, I would like to hear
from them, and see their results or solutions.
As a side issue, If anyone knows of a good Computer Club in the
Princeton area, let me know. Thanks in Advance.
Tony Scafidi
{..!allegra!eosp1!scafidi}scafidi@eosp1.UUCP (Tony Scafidi) (03/01/84)
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A few weeks back I posted an article about my problems with using the
extra bank of memory as a print spooler. I reported that I received
an "Internal Error" from BASIC and a "43 - SVC parameter error" from
TRSDOS. I posted the article with the hopes of getting back even one
response that could get me on the right track. (I did receive three.
One told me his father sold the system because of this problem and the
other two didn't read my article and told me to read the manual. A
warm *flaming* thanks to those two.)
I did look into the problem further and found out that the @bank SVC
call returns an ERROR 43 when the stack pointer is not less than
'7fee'. I wrote a quick assembly language program to save the stack
pointer and called it from BASIC. It showed that the stack pointer
was at 'f632' or there about. This explains the problem. The stack is
in bank 1 and the spooler cannot swap out the bank.
I have written Radio Shack in Fort Worth, and if I ever get a response
with a fix, I'll post it here. The extra memory is great if you want
the fast disk that the memDISK driver gives you, but if you want 32K
of spooler memory, then you better wait until Radio Shack fixes it or
find a system that really supports it. Next time I am going to wait
until the system is out for a few years and the bugs are out.
Tony Scafidi
..!allegra!eosp1!scafidi
.scafidi@eosp1.UUCP (Tony Scafidi) (03/02/84)
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This will probably be my last submission about the Model 4 Print
Spooler problem. I received a response from Radio Shack and I quote.
"The reason that BASIC will not spool to bank 1 or 2 is that BASIC,
due to its own limitation will only utilize the lower 64K of RAM
(i.e., spool to bank 0)."
The letter goes on to say that I can use the extra memory for memDISK
and with the recently released CP/M Plus. I guess I'll have to be
happy with the way the system works because it sounds like the spooler
is working just the way the Shack thinks it should.
Again, if anyone knows of a TRS-80 club in the Princeton area, I would
appreciate it if they would email me an address or phone number. I
hope to see more items in this newsgroup because I feel that the users
of Radio Shack equipment have to rely on each other to get answers to
their problems. Well, until my next problem or my next system, I guess
I'll just XOFF.
Tony Scafidi
..!allegra!eosp1!scafidi
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