INTRODUCTION
I have been using three TRUMP cards now for about a year and a half now, and I have noticed that there is no real ‘USER GUIDE’ available. The very small manual that comes with the TRUMP card outlines the syntax ( sometimes incorrectly ) but gives very few examples. These series of articles will bring to light some of the very powerful features of the TRUMP CARD and TOOLKIT II via real usable examples. The articles may be assembled into a user guide at some future time, if enough interest is shown.
I welcome all critiques and suggestions. I want this user guide as accurate as possible. Feel free to write via UPDATE MAGAZINE or my home. If you wish an answer please include S.A.S.E. envelope.
Tim Stoddard
[address omitted]
You can also reach me via CompuServe ( [e-mail address omitted] ) or Genie ( [e-mail address omitted] ).
NETWORKING
Perhaps one of the most useful and powerful feature of the QL is the built-in networking facility. The QL’s ROM however contains many bugs that make using the network difficult, at best. Qjump’s TOOLKIT II ( refered to as TK2 hence ) corrects the bugs and makes the QL’s network very useful.
First I should describe my set-up, which is in use daily. A total of three QLs are networked over about 75 feet of bell wire.
QL station #1, where I do most of my work, consists of a 768K TRUMP, 2400 baud modem, dual TEAC FD235 3 1/2″ drives, Tandy CGP-220 color ink jet printer, and a QL Vision monitor.
QL station #2, located in my shop is used to isolate printer noise ( my wife hates the noise of those dot matrix printers ), consists of a 768K Trump, TEAC FD135 3 1/2″ & TEAC FD-55F 5 1/4″ drives, EPSON LQ500 on ser1, EPSON FX286e with a scanner attachment on ser2, Magnavox 80 monitor.
QL station #3, also located in my shop, is an ‘open-frame’ QL where I do hardware experiments and new product evaluations, consists of just a 128K QL, TOOLKIT II ROM, and a QL Vision monitor.
SHARING RESOURCES
After a reset the QL will be set to a default station assignment of 1. This is fine for my work station but the two shop stations must be set to different station numbers to avoid conflicts. This is done with the command:
net (station number)
Once the station number has been assigned you can allow access to your station’s resources ( serial ports, drives, even RAM ) by other stations with the command:
fserve
For instance my shop QL ( station #2 ) is set-up in the boot file with the following commands:
TK2_ext ( enables TOOLKIT II )
net 2 ( sets it as station #2 )
fserve ( allows resource access by stations
1 and 3.)
PRINTERS
In order to use these remote resources, just proceed the desired device with the station number it is attached to. For instance, on my system, to use the LQ500 from the main QL I would send the output to n2_ser1. Page 2 of the TRUMP user manual touches on this incorrectly! It states that instead of using the ‘default’ printer option within QUILL you should key in ‘n1_ser1’ or, in my case, to print to the LQ500 I should key in ‘n2_ser1’. If you try this ( go ahead and try it now ) you will end up with the file ‘n2_ser1’ on the default data drive! So what do we key in? The Psion programs look for the underscore character as the first character and then assumes a device name follows. So the proper device name that the Psion programs look for is:
_n2_ser1
*** MANUAL CHANGE *** PAGE 2, 4th paragraph, second to last sentence change N1_SER1 to _N1_SER1.
*** NOTE *** It appears that only the PSION programs look for this begining underscore. All other programs accept the N1_SER1 format.
The entire squence for printing to the LQ500 from Quill would be:
<F3> command mode
<p> print
<ENTER> default current
<ENTER> default whole document
_n2_ser1 overide the driver default and send
output to station #2 ser1 device.
If you wish to always use that destination (as I do), you can change the driver with the install program. After you start the program it will ask you if the device is a serial device ( Press <ENTER>) or the device is a parallel or non-standard serial port ( Press <SPACE>). PRESS the <SPACE> bar. Select your printer driver with the arrow keys and press the <F2> key to edit. Use the down arrow to select the port option and press the right arrow key to change. Now key in the station number with the device name in the same format as we did previously. Don’t forget this is a PSION printer driver so use that leading underscore! Key in:
_n2_ser1 for my set-up.
DYNAMIC PRINTER BUFFER
This facility works very nice but does have some limitations not described in the manual.
PRT_USE like the other ‘USE’ commands in TK2 will match a ‘device string’ to a ‘usage string’ for any device calls. The syntax of this command is PRT_USE [usage],[device]. The default at TK2 initialization is PRT_USE PRT,SER. TK2 will substitute any device names containing ‘PRT’ with ‘SER’ before giving the device name to QDOS. So if you were in QUILL and wanted to send output to your printer on SER1 buffered, you would key in the sequence:
<F3> <p> <ENTER> <ENTER> _PRT1
TK2 would see the ‘PRT’ and substitute it with ‘SER’ and open the SER1 port to take output from the print buffer where it has stored the document. The end result the user sees is that the cursor has returned much sooner and you are able to continue work while the printer is printing away.
TK2 uses a text ‘trap’ facility in it’s USE commands ( PRT_USE, PROG_USE, ETC ). ANY device name used in the TK2 environment will be checked against all of the ‘USE’ variables. Note that this is strictly a text match and does not have to be a real device! This is why sending output from QUILL to ‘PRT1’ works. You could use almost any name. For instance:
PRT_USE buffered,ser
will allow you to be descriptive from QUILL:
<F3> <p> <ENTER> <ENTER> _buffered1 ( or _buffered2 )
will send output VIA the printer buffer to SER1 ( or SER2 ). These names will, of course, also work in the printer driver itself since TK2 will trap ALL device names before they go to QDOS. Try it now! Re-install your QUILL printer and use _buffered1 as the ‘port’ name in the driver.
*** THE LIMITATION *** PRT_USE will not accept network names!! For instance:
PRT_USE PRT,N2_SER WILL NOT WORK
It’s too bad too! It would be a nice command. There is a way around this. On my set-up I use the following command in the boot file for station #2:
PRT_USE SER,SER
This will buffer any device calls for SER1 or SER2 transparently since it substitutes ‘SER’ for ‘SER’. This includes device calls VIA the network! Since my device driver on station #1 is set-up to send output to _n2_ser1 and station #2 buffers any device calls to SER1, all output from QUILL on station #1 is sent through the network to station #2 where it is buffered and then sent to SER1! All invisible to the user. I get my cursor back at station #1 fairly quickly while station #2 prints out my document in another room where printer noise is not a problem.
Can you send graphics through the network and then through the printer buffer? YES. I send output from several graphic programs including: EYE_Q, THE PAINTER, PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHER, PAGE DESIGNER 2, and TK2’s built-in screen dump facility SDUMP. Transfer through the network is about the same speed as saving the file to microdrive which is considerably faster than waiting for your cursor while printing a screen dump or Desk Top page locally!
Finally, the command PRT_ABT works as the manual states: it cancels the currently printing file. The command does force a form-feed thus allowing any subsequently queued files to start on a new page.
FILES SYSTEM
File system handling via the network is quite straight forward, however, the example given in the User Manual is misleading.
Access to any other QL’s ( running FSERVE ) directory devices is quite easy. You simply preceed the path name with the station number. For example to get a directory of station #2’s disk:
dir n2_flp1_
Simple! To copy a file from station #3 to station #1:
copy n3_flp1_filename,flp2_filename
for a lot of files:
wcopy n3_flp1_ to flp2_
There is a command available in TK2 to simplify nameing conventions, especially for end-users in a large network having no knowledge of QDOS or TK2: NFS_USE. It is similar to the other ‘USE’ commands in that it substitues physical device names for a logical name. It is different in that it allows a list of up to 8 physical device names to be substituted for the logical name and a trailing number of 1 to 8.
The example from the manual was:
NFS_USE mdv,n2_flp1_,n2_flp2_
TK2 will now ‘trap’ all device calls containing ‘mdv’ and substitue the logical name. For instance:
dir mdv1_ (after executing the above NFS_USE)
will give you the directory of n2_flp1_.
dir mdv2_
will give you the directory of n2_flp2_!
Nice, but you’ll now notice that you no longer have access to your microdrives! Substituting ‘flp’ for ‘mdv’ has the same affect…..you have lost access to your station’s disk drives. There is a use for this, of course! For stations that have no drives or a number of stations that you want to limit access to only one set of drives, this is ideal.
The manual implies that ‘USE’ name must be a physical device ……not so! The boot file for station #1 in my set-up contains:
NFS_USE LAN,n2_flp1_,n2_flp2_,n2_mdv1_,n2_ram1_,
n3_flp1_,n3_flp2_,n3_mdv1_,n3_mdv2_
To access flp2 on station #3:
dir LAN6_
TK2 traps ‘LAN’ and substitutes the physical device from the list matching the number following ‘LAN’ giving us a directory from the physical device n3_flp2_.
wcopy LAN8_ to LAN4_
is the same as:
wcopy n3_mdv2_ to n2_ram1_
but easier to understand and faster to type in from a user’s point of view.
Although the manual states that only directory devices should be used, other devices will work. For instance:
NFS_USE LAN,n2_flp1_,n2_ser1
does work and printing from QUILL substituting the last option ‘printer’ with ‘_LAN2_’ results in sending the output to n2_ser1_!
Editor’s note: I am sure that the readers appreciate this first part of Tim’s Trump Manual and we look forward to the next episode. My impression of the Trump user manual supplied by Miracle Systems is that it is “good for as far as it goes”. After “blowing up” the pages exactly four times their original size the pages are 8 1/2 X 11″, readable and carries a wealth of information that is given in very brief form.
We have always needed an in-depth expansion of the Trump manual to better learn and take advantage of the outstanding tools and procedures of the Trump card System. I highly recommend that ALL trump Card owners take their little manual to a copy shop and have the pages enlarged to full size pages. Then it and Tim’s “Advanced Trump Guide” will become a complete reference.
Update will continue Tim’s articles until he is finished with the expanded manual. The pages will be arranged so that there are no continuations or other articles mixed in. This way you can take the pages to a copy shop and build your manual as it is presented. Last pages such as this one can be mashed off and the blank space used for notes. This series promises to be one of the most valuable references for Sinclair QL Users. _BJ-