April 8th, 1995. WAG is Wild A__ Guess. TSRoom is the room in which I have all my computer equipment setup. With the definitions out of the way here we go.
When I received the SPRING issue of ZXir QLive ALive! Great except that it always leaves me somewhat depressed since it is an effort by me and there is so little new to me (information that is). Already I am working on the next issue (this material) and Abed has informed me that there is material left over for the next issue.
D. G. Smith has a problem with his LarKen/Oliger disk drive interface. He thought that it might be the fact that he had SAFE v 2.55 but I had used that for a while with both interfaces up and running. With Smitty, his problem is that the Oliger will not work if the LarKen is working. So I was testing that out when my computer quit. Well not exactly quit but if either interface was activated at the time the computer was powered up I got ringing bells. But if they were both turned off then I could get both to operate. I thought that I would swap computers with the one on the AERCO setup but then when I moved it over there the computer would not initialize. But the computer that was on the AERCO would work on the LarKen/Oliger setup. A third computer that was my original computer would work on the AERCO but not if the LarKen board was in the dock port. I was quite puzzled. Then once in a while the computer that I put on the LarKen/Oliger system would give me the bells. I would power down and wait and power up and it would work all right. So I just started to leave the LarKen board switched off just in case.
If I tried to use the LarKen board with the Spectrum EPROM on it on the LarKen/Oliger system the computer would not come up with the initialization. I had known about that for quite a while. Making WAGs I tried to think it through. If it was the computer having been zapped then it would not work part of the time but would fail every time. So I wondered if it could be related to the power supply and/or the power circuitry inside the computer. RMG has in the resale items a COLECO power supply that is listed as being needed by the AERCO system. Is that a hint that the power supply is inadequate? I will have to document my problems and write to Dan Elliott and see if he knows and has a solution for the problems. Seems that there is a 5 volt regulator on the computer board that is marginal. If so maybe it needs to be replaced. A belated thought that inforce my thoughts of the power supply during the summer I could not get the computer that failed (the one with the Spectrum EPROM) to initialize. Heat? It sounds like it Don, there was an article in LIST about replacing the little regulator by a larger one.
Then there is my learning more about programming. I know so little and so I have been typing in the programs from the books that I have (T/S books of course). But nothing is so frustrating than to have a program fail and give some cryptic reason for failure. Such as:
2 Variable not found, 1510;1And line 1510 is:
1510 PRINT "FILE SIZE:"; P-1; "/" ; LEN B$Either ‘P’ or ‘B$’ values were not found. You have to give them a value. Just for a try, in the immediate mode, ENTER, PRINT P and then PRINT B$. One of these will tell you ” Variable not found “. Once you know which is the culprit, ENTER, LET P= a number or LET B$= a number, to define the variable(s). Run the program or GO TO LINE XXX whatever is the right way. Find out in what line the missing variable is and what is supposed to be. I don’t have enough info to go on, but I assume that this program is something like a word processor. “P” might define a PAGE(s) and “LEN B$” might define the length of a line (characters per line) or number of lines per page. Editor