(c)1990 Golden Triangle, Inc. (c)1990 Wilson Van Alst All rights reserved. Fm: Jim Samuel To: All I'm thinking of getting a ROM chip for a M100. Can anyone tell me what the capabilities are of Superrom and Ultimate ROM II? What are the differences? I'd like to get one or the other and am wondering which is the better chip to use. Thanks - 0 - Fm: Paul Globman To: Jim Samuel I think the SuperROM is the better ROM. They both have equally functional text formatters, but SuperROM has a better outliner and database (the UR outliner and database are compiled basic programs that are rather slow by comparison). The UR offers T-View and the SR offers Lucid spreadsheet. There are other messages in the past week that discuss some features of SR. There may be files in the library of past threads which discuss the differences, but I don't know the filenames. - 0 - Fm: Jim Samuel To: Paul Globman Thanks for the reply. Since I can get the UR and the SR chip for the same price, everything I've heard so far indicates that the SR is the better choice. - 0 - Fm: PETER ROSS To: Jim Samuel I have SuperRom, and have examined my friend's URII. As Paul suggested, the outliner in SR is far faster, and just generally easier, as near as I can tell. Both outliners assume that your normal line is short-ish. Both allow you to make a line longer, but in different ways. SR allows you to include a text file as a line, an approach which is convenient, but which takes up a menu slot. URII keeps the long lines in the outline, which in fact is a text file with garbage characters in it. Again, as Paul says, the word processers are roughly equivalent, but have slight differences. SR uses Wordstar-like dot commands, although the command codes themselves are on the whole different from those in Wordstar. URII uses control key codes (e.g. ^B), also borrowed from Wordstar, I think. Personally, I think SR's approach requires fewer keystrokes, and is just generally easier. But then I haven't spent much time getting used to URII's. URII's main advantages seem to be 1) the ability to both PRINT and INCLUDE disk files (a serious oversight in SR), and 2) the ability to us far more fonts within a single file than is possible with SR. Both programs will show you pixel dot maps of what your document will look like. Surprisingly, even though URII is written in BASIC and SR in assembly, the map is written to screen faster in URII. URII is far better integrated with the portable disk drive, or for that matter, any disk drive. The spreadsheet in SR is _EXCELLENT_. Better yet, there is also an MS-DOS version of it available now, although to convert between the two is either painful manually, or expensive (you need to buy another ROM called DISK+ which facilitates the data transfer and conversion). Personally, I prefer SR for it's speed and strong capability in many different areas. I might go with URII if all I ever did was write, and was willing to put up with the outliner. - 0 - Fm: Tony Anderson To: Jim Samuel P.C.S.G.'s Super ROM is currently advertised at $199.95. Traveling Software's Ultimate ROM-II was last available for $99.95, but they discontinued all sales some months ago. Club 100 has indicated they are picking up some of Traveling Software's product line, and will sell the Ultimate ROM-II for $89.95. General consensus among users here has been that the Ultimate ROM-II is better for users who are primarily word-crunchers, while Super ROM, with it's version of the Lucid spreadsheet program, is better for "numbers crunchers". Unless spreadsheet use is a serious consideration, the price difference alone would tip the scales in favor of the Ultimate ROM. - 0 - Fm: Gene Nestro To: PETER ROSS re: DISK+ PCSG will build DISK+ into SupeRom...just call them and ask; they probably will put it on your Super at a nominal cost - there is one drawback - they have to leave out some other application (e.g. THOUGHT). - 0 - Fm: Arnold R. Silverman To: Jim Samuel I've found that I can do almost anything that a MS DOS machine can do with the UR -2/Sardine combination. I have a Zenith MSDOS Laptop with a 20 Meg hard drive and I rarely use it save to back up my pdd files or to work with a document larger than 20k or so. I find the Rom View 80 feature of the UR-2 very useful for laying out tables (Rom View give you an 80 col capacity (with scrolling)). If you're devoted to your MSDOS machine, you might want to stick with TEXT and use LAPDOS (from Traveling Software) for your transfers. There are also a number of good RAM based formatters for the model 100/102 such as TXTFMT.LDR in DL2. - 0 - Fm: Paul Globman To: PETER ROSS Peter - While T-BASE and IDEA are ROM'ed BASIC programs, T-WORD is written in machine language (which explains why it is as fast as SR's WRITE ROM). SR was written before any of the PDD DOS's were written (TS-DOS, POWR-DISK, etc.) but with POWR-DISK in place you can load/save to PDD with the F2/F3 of WRITE ROM's TEXT just like the M100's regular TEXT... Paul - 0 - Fm: Paul Globman To: Jim Samuel Jim - I think that the major part of your printing chores will easily be done with either T-Word or WRITE ROM, and the hassle of transferring a file to a PC for formatting and printing will make the cost of the ROM a worthwhile investment. If you can pick up a SR for under $100 it's a good deal and you should easily recoup your investment if you decide to sell it later. - 0 - Fm: PETER ROSS To: Jim Samuel As Gene says, PCSG will reprogram a ROM for you. The cost is $25, but at least in my case, they seem to be taking their own sweet time about it. If you just want to WRITE on your M100, and don't need to PRINT fromchip for someone who just writes. It gives you a spelling checker, search & replace, pixel dot mapping, word count, etc. in addition to its print formatting functions. Also, you can use a file available in this Forum's library called M100COM that makes your MS-DOS machine emulate a Radio Schlock Portable Disk Drive. This would both facilitate file transfer, and file merge functions, and save you the cost of a disk drive. Still, the outline processors are very nice, and so is having a spreadsheet. Unfortunately, you can't have it all in one chip. Starting message #: 24601 Starting date: 27-Apr-90 08:09:27 Participants: Jim Samuel 72557,1617 Paul Globman 72227,1661 PETER ROSS 72027,3653 Tony Anderson 76703,4062 Gene Nestro 73727,1015 Arnold R. Silverman 76340,356