UR2INF.THD --- Copyright 1987 by Phil Wheeler An original compilation of Compuserve Model 100 Forum messages for use by Forum members only. A member recently asked why there is no reveiw of Ultimate ROM II in DL13 (or anywhere in the DL's). The answer led to more questions, etc. What we have here is a potpourri of topics relating to commercial ROM's, outline processors, and disk operating and file management software. Not incredibly well structured, but useful. Message range: 161717 to 162094 Dates: 11/29/87 to 12/6/87 Sb: #No Review of URII? Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: All Why hasn't anyone uploaded a review of the Ultimate Rom II? Is it that bad or what? I would be interested in knowing how good it really is. I'm particularly interested in the Outliner Program and T-80. Thanks for your input. Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 I don't know what you mean by T-80: T-View 80? UR-2 has an excellent WP, T-Word. The outliner is the part I like least, preferring THINK-IT in DL2 better (get THINK.IT3 for latest version, THINK.DOC, & THINK.DO3). Best outliner for the M100 is THOUGHT, in SuperROM, I think. Probably no reveiew due to being a BIG job -- and due to mag reviews that covered it well at the time of release. Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 As an experienced user, I trust your perspective. So I'll ask some questions. I have used THINKIT (ver 3) and do use it daily. Its great as long as my outline is only 2 pages (or less). I have had it "break down" on me several annoying times when I have gotten past 1 1/2 pages of outline. I don't know if the number of entries can be increased or not. The other think is this: I ask about URII because I need to decide about a DOS and possible ROM programs to free up some of my RAM. I want POWR-DOS which seems the best, but the URII seems tempting because it includes a "80 Col" screen (actually 60x10). If I went with URII, I know there are conflicts of various sorts in the UR environment, but with URII I would naturally use TSDOS instead of POWR-DOS. Does SuperRom run into conflicts with Powr-DOS or Powr-Disk? Anyway, thats why I asked. I have no access to any "old" portable magazines so I can't read the reviews. Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 Think-It is a very memory-demanding program. It keeps a copy of your outline stored in memory (menu copy) and keeps another to modify (working copy). And the program itself is 6K in length. Because of this, the number of ideas you can have in THINK.IT3 is limited to 200 (assuming you don't run out of memory first) by the DIM statements in line 1 [DIMP(200),N(200), etc.]. There is a commercial version which improves this a bit (See message in Line 0). But to really go beyond the limitations of this program, you really need to go to Thought in SuperROM, or such. Another trick, with a TDD and an OS (or with a Chipmunk) is to keep the outlines on disk, and load them with the name 0:?????? from disk. Then only the working copy is in the computer, and you can increase the 200 above to 300-400. There have been some reported conflicts of SuperROM with POWR-DOS. The file SUPER.PD (DL9) tells how to fix one of them, easily. I have heard of others, but I have not experienced them. And TS-DOS is he best all-around OS, in my opinion -- giving a super menu approach to file management. But POWR-DOS has the advantage of being unobtrusive (hides in low RAM). Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Thanks for the input. Just so you know, with Thinkit and nothing in memory except my disk manager program, Thinkit3 still has problems getting past 2 pages of outline which for me is usually only 5075 entries. I have tried taking 2 of my outlines and putting them together, but I don't have enough memory. BTW I only get a chirp when I try the cut and paste option in Thinkit3. Am I doing something wrong? Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 You are probably running up against a limit of some kind. How much memory do you have? In any case, I've given you all the suggenstions I have! Fm: Denny Thomas 76701,40 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To give you an idea, I have some Thought files that run to 20K and about 15 pages. Of course, if I want to get them into printable form, I have to send them out the RS232 port to another computer. For that I send them off to another M100. Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 I have only 32K. Last time I looked (about a year ago) memory extensions were too expensive. Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Denny Thomas 76701,40 Thanks for the info. You are using 32K only of Ram? Fm: Denny Thomas 76701,40 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 Actually, I'm using it with the Booster Pack, but I limit the files to around 20K since some kind of DOS is needed to be able to store the Thought files in a regular machine. In the BP you can use the full 29K because the DOS is in ROM also. Fm: Al Pound 75715,1077 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 Just thought I would jump in here for a moment. I use SuperROM and PowrDOS. No problem with supplied DMENU file management program but SuperROM does mess up some of the PowerDOS hooks. Entering BASIC and typing LFILESV fixes everything. SuperROM has a good spread sheet and data base and the outlined "Thought" is good as well. I also like the word processor but T-Word is bragged about by others more often than WriteROM. I think both are available on a 30 day trial so order both ab nd return the one you don't like. Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Denny Thomas 76701,40 Is that Traveling Software's Booster Pak? Fm: Denny Thomas 76701,40 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 Yep! Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Al Pound 75715,1077 If I remember correctly one thing SuperRom doesn't have is the 80 (60) col display. Also, Is there any location Powr-Dos can sit in that doesn't conflict with the RAM hooks? You can still, with Superrom, write files to disk via Powr-dos? Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 You cannot, "With SuperROM", write files to anything but RAM. SuperROM does not support file names with the needed prefix (0:). This is a design feature (deficiency!) of SuperROM; makes is "incompatible" in this sense with the Chipmunk (sold by PCSGuntil recently). Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 So even with a DOS its no good to write directly with disk? I assume with TSDOS and UR II thats no problem? Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 Bad assumption: T-Word will print from disk, and let you look at disk files, but will not write to disk. T-BASE and Idea! do not, I believe, support disk files. Basic programs will work to disk via TS-DOS. Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 thanks for setting me straight. Fm: Al Pound 75715,1077 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 Your're right. SuperROM doesn't have an 80 (60) column display. I didn't think of that because I down loaded an 80 column display from this sig and tried it and didn't like it. I don't think the ram hook conflict relates to the location of PowerDOS although it is a machine language program but it sits in low ram where Basic programs reside. It's just that PowrDOS sets ram hooks to enable certain functions and SuperROM sets hooks to enable other functions. With SuperROM, you can copy spread sheets into text, text files into spread sheets, outlines into text, etc. which is probably why ram hooks are set. PowrDOS does offer an easy way to reset the hooks and most programs written to work with PowrDOS incorporate the reset. SuperROM can output (print) to LPT:, CAS:, COM:, MDM: and filename.DO but not 0:. Phil Wheeler made it quite easy to transfer files from and to MS-DOS computers with his "FLTIBM" so I print most of my SuperROM files to my T1K. Fm: Bill Henderson 72215,341 To: Al Pound 75715,1077 I appreciate the input. How do you like the WRITE part of Superrom? What version is it? Fm: Al Pound 75715,1077 To: Bill Henderson 72215,341 I have V1.8 of SuperROM. Lucid, WriteROM, etc. all show the same version number. I've used "Write" for everything from short reports to complex quotations which include many printer control commands with different indents, tables, charts, etc. It has a "MAP" function that replaces letters with pixels and maps a complete page so you can decide on page breaks, margins, etc. It's "search and replace" function is a feature that I find very handy because it lets you search for a . Sometimes, the only definitive feature about a search is that the character or string is proceeded by a . It would be nice if it would print a disk file but I haven't needed this capability enough to spend money to get it.