ITEM: FASTLOAD
FROM: International Publishing and Software.
PRICE: $19.95
Getting programs into the computers memory is a problem we are all too familiar with. It is not a problem related to just the TS-1000, but most others load at the same rate. The new TS-2068 however, operates a bit faster so owners of the 1000 may want to speed this process up. The product “Q-Save” has been known to work for some, but I went through 5 units with the same problem and eventually withdrew from the effort. CAI has a very nice unit called a stringy floppy that uses small (matchbook size) cassette wafers and loads reliabley and quickly (as fast as some disk systems I have known).
Some other alternatives are the software versions such as the one I would like to share with you. Acopy of “FASTLOAD” was provided me and this may be one you would want to get. It took me 2 tries to get the volume set correctly, but after that it loaded fine eaverytime (1 monute 37 seconds). The documentation included requires an eyepiece for those with less than 20/20 vision and you have a dozen or so pages to deal with. For me, this was more than I cared to deal with since I honestly feel that user friendly software should require little more than loading.
In an hour or so, I figured the intructions out and loaded what is called a monitor porgram, a program that resides in the memorey for as long as the computer is on but is not a part of that currently beging used. You have to”NEW” the machine afterwards and load your regular program (and hope that it doesn’t use the same part of memory that the monitor does). Now you must transfer the program back onto tape in the “FASTLOAD” form. This is taken care of very fast and the monitors screen really goes crazy, indicating that everything is working just fine.
But just how fast is “FASTLOAD”? One tape I used normally takes four minutes 18 seconds and with “FASTLOAD” it loaded in 55 seconds. Not bad. Keep in mind, the convert all your tapes to the “FAST LOAD” format (and I have 48), will take quite a time. Another thing one should mention here is that some tapes will use that upper part of memory and can not be “FASTLOADED”. If you have “THE ORGANIZER”, “VU-VALC” or “FLIGHT SIMULATOR”, forget it.
Overall, “FASTLOAD” does pretty much what it claims to do and some small changes can be made to reduce those 64K loading times. 64K is a lot of memory for even the modest user and who really enoys spending 15 minutes for it to get transferrrd from tape to RAM? “FASTLOAD” rates an 8 on my ten scale.