POWR-DISK Owner's Manual The information has the following significance: Src: The source of the files on the display. If Src is RAM, then you are examining your computer's memory; if Src is TDD, you are examining the disk contents. Type: The type extension of the files displayed. MENU.BA shows .DO files separately from .CO and .BA files. (This is why the file names appear without extensions -- they are all the same type.) If you have files with odd extensions, like .DA or .CA, they will appear with .DO or .CO files respectively, but they will retain their correct extensions. Free: The number of bytes free (RAM) or the number of SECTORS free (TDD). Len: The length of the file that the cursor bar is placed over, in bytes. You can see the length of any file simply by moving the cursor bar over the filename. Manual Page 4 ------------- The arrow keys move the wide cursor bar over the displayed file names similar to the computer's main menu. In addition, there are eight functions available through the function keys: [F1] Change source. If "Src" is RAM, [F1] changes it to TDD, and vice versa. [F2] Load or Save. If "Src" is RAM, [F2] SAVES a file to the TDD; if "Src" is TDD, [F2] LOADS a file into RAM. [F3] Select. It is possible to request most file operations for more than one file. [F3] will cause a file to stay selected even after you move the cursor elsewhere. Pressing [F3] twice in succession clears any previous selects; pressing [F3] three times in succession selects EVERY file. [Load ALL or Save ALL effect - ed.] [F4] Change extension type. MENU.BA shows DO, BA, or CO files separately; pressing [F4] displays files with another type of extension, depending on what is currently displayed. [F5] Kill. Kills selected file(s) from TDD or RAM. [Be careful with the [F3] "tagging" option in conjunction with this! - ed.] [F6] Info. Display information about the selected file. For DO and BA files, you see the first 40 characters in the file. (For BASIC programs, the results will look unfamiliar because of the "tokenized" keywords.) For CO files, you see the TOP, END, and EXE values. [F7] Page. This key is active only when there are more files of the selected type than will fit on the screen. Then, [F7] moves to an alternate page to show the remaining files. [F8] Menu. Exit from MENU.BA to the computer's main menu. Prompts: Whenever a Load, Save or Kill operation will remove or change a file, either in RAM or on the TDD, MENU.BA will "prompt" you to confirm the command. POWR-DISK Owner's Manual Manual Page 5 ------------- For example, if you press [F5] with "MEMO" selected, MENU.BA will prompt, "Kill MEMO .DO?" The prompt protects you against accidental keystrokes. Remember that Load and Save operations will only prompt you if you are overwriting an existing file. Selecting Multiple Files: One convenience of MENU.BA is your ability to Load, Save, or Kill more than one file at a time. The [F3] key allows you to select more than one file; all selected files are then affected by [F2] or [F5]. For example, consider the LCD screen previously shown. If the wide cursor bar is over the EPS file, and you press [F3] to select it, then right arrow, the wide cursor bar will then cover two file names, EPS and ADRS. If you press [F2] to Load or Save those files, you will receive the prompt: "Do all (y/n/q)?" If you press Y or N, MENU.BA will use that response for any prompts that appear during the combined operation. If you press Q, MENU.BA will stop at each subsequent prompt for your response. Manual Page 6 ------------- Section Three Using POWR-DISK without MENU.BA Although MENU.BA is adequate for most file storage and retrieval, there are two reasons to access the disk without it: convenience and memory. When you leave MENU.BA in RAM, you have 3.5K less RAM to work with. Convenient Access from TEXT When editing a file with the TEXT program, you can save a copy to the TDD simply by pressing [F3]. When you do, the prompt: "Save to:" will appear. Respond with the name for the TDD file, preceded by a colon (":"). You need not add the ".DO" extension, POWR-DISK will add it. There are two things to keep in mind: 1. If there is a file already on the disk with the same name, you will get NO INDICATION; POWR-DISK will simply overwrite the old copy. [useful for fast saves of a progressing document, or saving the same file with updated information after editing - ed.] 2. You can save a file under a different name on the disk than the file you are editing. For example, if you are editing a file called "A.DO", and POWR-DISK Owner's Manual you respond ":B" to the "Save to:" prompt, the file will be saved to a new file named "B.DO". Similarly, if you are editing "PART1.DO", you can save the updated file as ":PART2", or whatever name you may choose. WARNING: Disk access from TEXT is convenient, but dangerous! If you work on one file (e.g., "REPO.DO") for a long time, you can get into the habit of pressing [F3] :REPO . You may realize too late that you have just over- written your prize report with a totally different file. Similarly, you can press [F2] to load TDD files into TEXT. The computer will give a "Load from:" prompt. Respond with the file name preceded by a colon. Once again, the ".DO" extension is not necessary. [In TEXT, ".DO" is assumed. In BASIC, ".BA" is assumed - ed.] On files you load into TEXT from the TDD, POWR-DISK will INSERT the text at the cursor location, just as if the disk file's contents had been typed from the keyboard. For example, consider a text file with a single sentence: Manual Page 7 ------------- "The Rain in Spain falls on the plain." Suppose further, that the cursor is blinking over the "o" in the word "on"; and further suppose that you have a file on disk called MAINLY.DO which contains a single word, "mainly" followed by a space, and without a carriage return. If you press [F2] and type :MAINLY , POWR-DISK will load the contents of the disk file at the cursor location, and the screen display will become: "The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." (Think you got it?) This "insert" feature is useful for concatenating files and inserting repetitive material into documents. [similar to a disk-based paste buffer which can be loaded into any portion of a document - ed.] Convenient Access from BASIC BASIC programmers are familiar with the SAVE command, which allows them to name a program on the main menu. Putting a colon (":") in front of a file name allows you to save programs to the TDD. The procedure resembles that for accessing DO files from TEXT, as described above. If you want to load in a BASIC program from the TDD without using MENU.BA, the simplest procedure is to use LOAD to retrieve the program from the TDD, then SAVE to give it a name in RAM. For example, to load CHART.BA from the disk, use the following sequence: Load ":CHART Ok Save "CHART Ok [In all BASIC commands, a space between parts of the command is optional - ed.] POWR-DISK Owner's Manual Normally, the BASIC function keys are set so that you can type the following: [F2] :CHART [F3] CHART Note that you may easily name a file differently in RAM, than on the TDD when loading in this manner. If you are going to run a program only once, you can load it, and run it, in one step: Manual Page 8 ------------- RUN ":CHART However, after running it, it may be necessary to use the BASIC NEW command to clear out the memory in the BASIC "unnamed program" buffer. Manual Page 9 ------------- Section Four BASIC Command Extensions POWR-DISK enhances 12 different BASIC commands. Some commands work exactly as they do without POWR-DISK, except that TDD files may be accessed by putting the extension ":" or "0:" in front of the file name. LOAD "0:fname" MERGE "0:fname" SAVE "0:fname" CLOSE #n (When #n is a disk file) KILL "0:fname" INPUT #n (When #n is a disk file) RUN "0:fname" PRINT #n (When #n is a disk file) RUNM "0:fname" Other commands require more explanation. Either they have entirely new functions, or new options related to the TDD. LFILES The LFILES command provides information about files on the TDD to the screen. Each file name appears on its own line with the length of the file in bytes. [LFILES displays the disk directory with files listed in alphabetic order - ed] You may note that BA and DO files are slightly larger in RAM than on disk. DO files by one byte, and BA files by 2 bytes. This is normal; it's the END OF FILE markers that are added to the file when it's loaded into RAM. LFILES also tells you the number of free sectors on the disk. The number of free sectors is more meaningful than the number of bytes, because all files, no matter how small they may be in RAM, require at least one disk sector. (See the discussion of sectors in Appendix A.) An empty disk has 79 free sectors. [The disk directory also uses 1 sector; there are actually 80 sectors on the disk. Each sector holds 1280 bytes. - ed.]