Undercolor/850103/Hints Tips and Tricks/filler

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UnderColor, Volume 1, Number 3, January 11, 1985

Filler:

• Title: Hints, Tips, and Tricks
  
• Text:
  

By Terry Kepner

Printer — To route all normal text output from the screen to a printer, type POKE 360,162:POKE 361,191. If you are in Color Basic, add POKE 359,126. To restore normal print operation, type POKE 359,57 in Color Basic; POKE 360,130:POKE 361,115 in Extended Color Basic; or POKE 360,203:POKE 361,74 in Disk Basic.

Programmlng — To protect video information from scrolling off the screen, POKE 359,16 for a cassette system, or POKE 359,0 for a disk system. After this POKE only PRINT @s and POKEs to the video memory will show up on the screen. To restore normal operation, type POKE 359,126.

Printer — To check your printer’s on/off status, PEEK (65314) and PEEK (65318). If you get four, everything is OK, but a five or seven indicates the printer is off, or offline.

Disk Basic — To turn your drive motors on, type POKE &HFF40,60. To turn them off, type POKE &HFF40,0. This eliminates the wait time before reading and writing data to your disks. The drives are also turned off by normal disk commands.

Programmlng — For less consistent random numbers (RND function always starts with the same sequence), add this to the start of your programs: POKE 280,PEEK(275). Location 280 is one of the RND seed addresses, and location 275 contains a constantly changing number.

Disk Basic — To disable Disk Basic without unplugging the ROMpak cartridge, type POKE 298,0:POKE 303,0. This makes Basic ignore all the Disk Basic commands. To restore normal operation, type POKE 298,25:POKE 303,14. Reset won't do the job.

Disk Basic — To get a printed copy of your disk directory and the remaining free granules, type POKE 111,254:DIR:PRINT#-2,"FREE =";:PRINT#-2,FREE(0). This can, of course, be put into a program.

General — To clear all memory and cold start your computer, type POKE 113,3:EXEC 40999.

ROMpak — To dump a ROMpak to cassette, put a piece of tape over pin 1 of the ROMpak (the leftmost pin as you look at the ROMpak connector, label up), plug it into your computer, and turn it on. Set up your cassette recorder and type CSAVEM"filename",&HC000,&HFEFF,&HC000.

Printer — The pens on the Radio Shack CGP-115 printer plotter dry out if not used every day or two. If you turn it on every day, the start-up sequence is enough to keep the ink flowing evenly. The best idea is to buy a power strip and plug all your equipment into it. Whenever you use your computer, your printer will automatically go through its start-up sequence without your having to do it explicitly.

Disk Basic — To protect your disk programs/files from unauthorized access, save them with a graphics code embedded, i.e., SAVE"file"+CHR$(143). The file will list in the directory, but you can’t reload it unless you use the same method as you used to save it; LOAD"file"+CHR$(143). CHR$(143) is a graphics space, so no one will know it’s there but you!