Greetings, once again, to all us aficionados of the Timex-Sinclair Computer, model 2068. Let us proceed with our exposition of Bill Jones’ GREAT software for Word Processing on the 2068, by performing a LarKen NEW operation on the Daisy issue disk #1 from UPDATE magazine. This LOADs the AUTOSTART program in and also begins executing file Daisy.B6.
We are first presented with Bill’s broadside, “DAISY / The TS-2068 Software System / For The / LarKen Disk System” in the form of a screen string or SCREEN file. Press of 3 2 1 y y y in succession, get us to where we want to start this diskussion, the FUNCTION MENU, by initializing the printer and its software.
[Figure: Daisy QUICKIE MENU screen shot]
This time, we diskuss entry #6 on the MENU. It is a short topic, called “Print Typing,” and provides a means to use the 2068 in what Bill calls “Typewriter Mode.”
All it does is PRINT u$. What is u$, you ask? All textual input from the keyboard goes first into u$, before being broken up into manageable pieces by the daisy software.
So, here is how we make use of u$ and Typewriter Mode. First, put something into u$, by pressing #1 at the FUNCTION MENU, which is “Input-Edit”. Then, elect #1, “Daisy DB Manager”, since we are diskussing DAISY here, and UDBM is a whole other program (worthy of its own series of articles.)
OK, now we are looking at the “QUICKIE MENU”, which governs Input and Edit. Do you see #1 “Typing” and #5 “DELETE BUFFER”? Well, they are both talking about u$, the typing buffer, and, as long as we don’t touch #3 or #5, working only with #1, we can build and add to u$ via keyboard input, limited only by available FREE RAM, as shown on the QUICKIE MENU. We can also PRINT the contents of u$ at any time, by going to the FUNCTION MENU (either BREAK, GOTO fm. or PRESS 4 at the QUICKER MENU!)
We see, that punching #5 DELETEs whatever we are working on in u$ and starts us over with anew u$, whereas punching #3 “Stores” the current u$ into the next available buffer, h$ or i$, there being seven of each buffer. In any case, #3 or #5 results in an empty u$, and we have to start all over, if we be only using #6 at the FUNCTION MENU to “Print Typing”.
Next time, we get into #7 on the FUNCTION MENU, which invokes Automatic Printing, the main feature of Daisy
Welcome back !! We LOAD our RAMDISK with the daisy menus, using Richard Hurd’s “rdbkup” and drive #0. Then, we swap disks, putting in our souped-up version of Daisy, and bring up the MAIN MENU on drive #0 as the AUTOSTART file.
Well, let’s see, entry #3 “dbms” doesn’t have any printers or input/edit facilities on board. Entry #2 “Input+Edit” has no printers. Entry #1 “Print+MMrg” has no way of inputting text. Entry #0 “Manl Adrsg” has everything except enough memory. We keep it around for use in bank H, after we develop a bank-switched version, using RAMDISK. We expect a lot of FREE RAM then !!
Now, we are talking about using Typewriter Mode, which doesn’t sound too memory-intensive. So, we punch 0 at on the MAIN MENU on drive 0.
The drive grinds away, as “ManlAd.B6” LOADs, and our broadside comes up, inviting 3,2,1,y,y,y as keypresses, to initialize the printer.
Up comes the FUNCTION MENU. We press #1 for Input-Edit. We press #1 again “Typing” and enter a test message into u$. We exit this INPUT mode for the EDIT mode by pressing Symbol-shift and CAPS-shift at the same time. Thus, we are at the QUICKIE MENU, and we punch #4 “HELP” in order to bring up the FUNCTION MENU.
Here, we punch #6 “Print Typing”, and the on-line printer springs to life, listing u$ in an overwhelming display of the convenience of Bill Jones’ Typewriter Mode on our DAISY software… PERFECT !!