johnj@knor.prl.philips.nl (John Janssen) (04/19/91)
As I stated in a previous message I finally run into the phantom typist, which I always thought did not exist. I am using the same machine (ST520 with 1MB) for 5 years, now and stil using the same version of first word plus. And I always do a cold reboot before starting First Word plus (from floppy A) to kill possible virusses (I even wait some time before switching on again). That floppy only contains the First Word Plus program, the First Mail program and only one accesoire (Snapshot). There is no auto directory on the floppy. The only difference in those years is the upgrade from TOS 1.0 to TOS 1.4 a few months ago, and that I use the automatic program start-up facility that TOS 1.4 offers to start First Word Plus. What happens: - During (even very slow) typing, suddenly the last few characters (sometimes 2, 3 4 or 5 chars) typed in being repeated automatically rather slow on the line I was working. If I'm aware of it soon, I can do a (cold) reboot by the Ctrl-Shift_ALt-DEl key press that TOS 1.4 offers. But in most times, it results in 9 bombs on the screen and a hard (=switch) reboot is required. After having it rather often in the last weeks, I think I found a cause of the problem. Although I'm not 100% certain, I try to believe that the symptom always started after typing a character very fast after pressing the backspace key!!!! This rang a bell in me! In first word plus (and probably other texteditors aswell) all keys are queued, to allow fast typing. However, the delete and backspace key (as I noted) are not queued (not visibly anyway). This is done to provide you from deleting too much characters. This inconsequent keyhandling mechanism may be the cause of the problem. Although the above still does not explain, why I never saw the phantom typist for all those years I used TOS 1.0, it finally may give a(nother) start point for some investigation in this matter. Any ideas? Who? -- John Janssen Check the email address in the header, as this J.v.Deventerstr.1 may have been filled in wrong by the system. Venlo Holland +31 77 513177 Reply to: johnj@idms.prl.philips.nl
pegram@kira.UUCP (Robert B. Pegram) (04/27/91)
From article <2737@prles2.prl.philips.nl>, by johnj@knor.prl.philips.nl (John Janssen): > > As I stated in a previous message I finally run into the > phantom typist, which I always thought did not exist. [most of post omitted] > > After having it rather often in the last weeks, I think I found a > cause of the problem. Although I'm not 100% certain, I try to > believe that the symptom always started after typing a character very > fast after pressing the backspace key!!!! Yes! Yes! Thats my experience exactly! > This rang a bell in me! > > In first word plus (and probably other texteditors aswell) > all keys are queued, to allow fast typing. > However, the delete and backspace key (as I noted) are not > queued (not visibly anyway). This is done to provide you from > deleting too much characters. > > This inconsequent keyhandling mechanism may be the cause of the > problem. > > Although the above still does not explain, why I never saw the > phantom typist for all those years I used TOS 1.0, it finally > may give a(nother) start point for some investigation in this > matter. I believe I *did* see this when I was running Tos 1.0, but things are rather fuzzy now - it's been a while since I got 1.4. It would bomb if I got really fast with the backspace key. > -- > John Janssen Check the email address in the header, as this > J.v.Deventerstr.1 may have been filled in wrong by the system. > Venlo Holland > +31 77 513177 Reply to: johnj@idms.prl.philips.nl Keep up the good work! Bob Pegram pegram@griffin.uvm.edu or ...!uvm-gen!pegram P.S. (and you thought I had a .sig!) Hi Tracy, can you email or post to the net at all? I'd like to hear from you on the net occaisionally. Bye, Bob