Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) (05/12/89)
Bill Silvert writes:
"Can anyone shed light on the drastic slowdown that I sometimes get with
WordPerfect, which WP programmers claim is a TOS problem. The symptoms
are an incredible delay, sometimes 5 min. to respond to a single
keystroke or mouse press."
The problem indeed is a TOS problem and has been documented with Flash
and the Mac emulator, Spectre 128. As a fault of TOS, it is a real bear in
that it cannot be easily duplicated at will. Fast and fat-fingering seems
to bring it on, but even at that, it seems to want to come on its own.
I became aware of it a long time ago, during the first days of Flash's
release and thought that it was a bug with that program. WordPerfect
people call it the Phantom Typist because if one is a touch typist, he
may be typing when the thing strikes. His key strokes, being stored in
the buffer will show on the screen, one character/second at a time.
At this point, issuing a 'save' command usually works, albeit delayed.
The system then typically locks up after the 'save'.
Don't fault WordPerfect for the bug. It is a real TOS problem and one
that, as far as I know, Atari has yet to duplicate in the labs. Only
field use under regular conditions seems to engage it. I had it happen on
my Mega2 two days in a row three weeks ago and have yet to have it show
up since. I use my Mega about five hours a day with lots of key stroking.