robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) (11/17/89)
I have been leaving my A500 on all the time. (I know that this is OK, but it has highlighted a strange problem, that I haven't, as yet, seen mentioned.) My Clock seems to be REAL slow. I lost 2 minutes in 12 hours just last night. BUT,... when I reboot, the clock gets reset by the battery backed clock in the A501 expansion and starts to deteriorate from the correct time again. How can I get a correctly synced system clock? Also, several weeks ago I asked about a problem I am having with my serial port. When dialed into a remote system, I seem to get spurious characters in a more than acceptable amount. (The characters are always a slanted equal sign [which is the same as the checkerboard pattern character in the TOPAZ font] followed by an open curly brace.) I get these characters when just sitting there, or while typing, and they are only visible on the amiga side of the connection (ie. they are not being echoed to or from the remote system). I HAVE noticed that when I set the serial buffer to 2048 (in VLT4.226 [Great Program, Thanks SLAC]) the frequency of occurance is reduced. This is most annoying because sometimes they come 3 or 4 times in one line of typing, and backspacing over them actually deletes the letters last echoed by the remote system. How can I get the trachcan to show up directly on the workbench screen at startup? (ie. I don't want to have to open the workbench disk, and then move the trashcan to the corner. I want it to show up just like a disk icon. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |The views expressed herein, are the sole responsibility of the typist at hand| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |USNail: UUCP: | |2323 Wells Branch Pkwy., #G107 cs.utexas.edu!romp!ibmaus!auschs\ | |Austin, TX 78728 !sabre.austin.ibm.com!robin | |Home: (512)251-6889 | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
gbbrooks@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (G. Brandon Brooks) (11/18/89)
In article <2833@d75.UUCP> robin@reed.UUCP (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) writes: >How can I get the trachcan to show up directly on the workbench screen at >startup? (ie. I don't want to have to open the workbench disk, and then >move the trashcan to the corner. I want it to show up just like a disk icon. To show the trashcan icon directly on the workbench is not directly possible on an Amiga. The reason for this is because Apple would supposedly sue Commodore over the likeness of the windowing system. The method I use on my screen to make it LOOK like there is a trashcan icon on the screen is to: (1) Use a program such as Image-Ed, on Fred Fish disk #242, to convert the Trashcan icon to a disk icon. Remember to do both the selected and unselected versions of the trashcan if you are using one of the flip-open type of trashcans. (2) Merge the icons together with the Merge Icon program on the workbench disk or extras disk. (3) Put the trashcan icon file on your workbench disk and name it something like "RAMDISK.info". (4) In your startup-sequence, put the following command in it BEFORE the loadwb command: COPY sys:RAMDISK.info ram:disk.info (5) Boot the workbench disk, and it should be on the workbench as the ramdisk icon! If you want to move the trashcan to a certain location, photo the new location, and then resave the icon as RAMDISK.info on the workbench! -Brandon!
will1990@dunkirk.EDU (Mike Williamson) (11/18/89)
Along the lines of A-500 trouble. I own an A-500 with only the single drive. When I first bought the system, the drive made only a small noise when it shifted Cylinders/tracks. Now it seems to hit about a 6 on the rictor scale! Is there any danger that the drive will become unuseable? I have tried cleaners, etc. But they seemed to have no affect. -Mike Williamson
jmelv@madnix.UUCP (John Melvin) (11/22/89)
In article <2833@d75.UUCP>, robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) writes: > [stuff deleted] > > My Clock seems to be REAL slow. I lost 2 minutes in 12 hours just last night. > BUT,... when I reboot, the clock gets reset by the battery backed clock in the > A501 expansion and starts to deteriorate from the correct time again. How > can I get a correctly synced system clock? There isn't a lot you can do about this onw except to occassionally do a "setclock opt load" if leaving the A500 on a long time. It is a software only (interrupt based) method used to keep track of time that isn't good in the long stretch. The A2000 is a little nicer because there is a jumper which lets you pick if you want the clock to run in software mode or, the much better solution, base time off the power line (60 cycles a second is awfully useful in this case -- plus the power company has to keep it pretty close to this value by fixing it up (more or fewer cycles) to get the average correct. If you really want to go crazy, and have the A501 ram expansion, you can unsolder the metal shield and get access to the trimmer (resistor or capacitor -- I'm not sure). A friend of mine did this as well as drilling a hole in the shield for easier access in the future. Only bad part is, the hole faces the inside of the A500 when the A501 is reinstalled :-(. You will only want to make _small_ adjustments or you might *really* mess up the timekeeping. > Also, several weeks ago I asked about a problem I am having with my serial > port. When dialed into a remote system, I seem to get spurious characters > in a more than acceptable amount. (The characters are always a slanted > equal sign [which is the same as the checkerboard pattern character in the > TOPAZ font] followed by an open curly brace.) I get these characters when just > sitting there, or while typing, and they are only visible on the amiga side of > the connection (ie. they are not being echoed to or from the remote system). This sounds like a simple case of line noise, occurring between the host machine and your A500 on the incoming side. Be happy, it's even more of a pain when the junk gets transmitted to the mainframe/BBS and makes it do strange things (e.g. log you out :-( ). > > How can I get the trachcan to show up directly on the workbench screen at > startup? (ie. I don't want to have to open the workbench disk, and then > move the trashcan to the corner. I want it to show up just like a disk icon. > I'm afraid this probably can't be done (at least for now). The garbage can is, after all, just a subdirectory on a disk, not a device of any kind. However, I can't say I'm 100% sure that you're SOL.