At the User Level, you gain access to several more braille translation features. You can translate inkprint source chapters to grade 2 and grade 1 braille target chapters. You can also switch between grade 2 braille and no translation within a chapter. A new option is available on the Main Menu: option H - Heading test. It allows you to do almost instantaneous braille translation. It's a quick way to find out how BEX translates a particular word.
Also new at the User Level is option B - Back translate from Grade 2. You supply BEX with grade 2 braille source chapters, and BEX creates inkprint target chapters. You can create grade 2 source chapters on a braille-oriented device like the VersaBraille or Cranmer--see Sections 11 and 12 for information on how you transfer braille text to the Apple. You can also input grade 2 braille using BEX's braille keyboard mode in the Editor--details in Section 5, Part 7.
Whether you translate inkprint to grade 2 braille chapters, or whether you create braille chapters yourself, you must configure a braille device before you can emboss them. See Learner Level Section 8 for details.
In Section 7 of the Learner Level, we described how to
use option G - Grade 2 translator. You supply BEX with the names of source
chapters. BEX creates correctly translated braille target
chapters. We stressed the importance of consistently naming braille and
print chapters so you can tell them apart. We suggested that you name your
braille chapters by adding the digit 2 to the end of the
print chapter name. In Section 4 of the User Level, we explain selective
drive scanning. You can enter You must configure your braille embosser
appropriately or you won't get correct format. Suppose you have a Cranmer
Brailler in slot 2, but you configured it as a class G - Generic inkprint
printer, with carriage width 40 and form length 25. Print a correctly
translated grade 2 chapter to the Cranmer, and things look all wrong.
Because BEX thinks it's formatting text for a
printer, BEX executes the underlining commands $$ub and $$h. For any
underlined word, you see character, dots 4-5-6, character, dots 4-5-6,
character, etc. BEX executes the $$np number pages format command by
centering the word Page followed by Nemeth digits on line 25.
There would be a blank line between paragraphs. Only when you accurately
reconfigure the Cranmer as a class B - Braille embosser, brailler code 3,
can you get the correct format.
And as mentioned in Section 6, when you define a New
printer without reconfiguring, BEX always uses inkprint defaults. So if
you attempted to send text to a brailler by answering N at the Some basic hints for braille format are supplied in
the Learner Level, Section 9. BEX's format commands are designed to make
the transition easy. The page numbering command $$np and paragraph
( $p ) indicator are executed appropriately for print and
braille format, depending on how the printer is defined in your
configuration. When you send chapters to a device configured as a
brailler, then BEX suppresses the execution of the $$ub and $$h
underlining commands. The relative format commands l $$tinin or $$ting;
automatically adjust for the differences in word length between print and
braille.
One aspect of BEX's $$ commands can prove confusing to
You can do a variety of braille formats using BEX's $$
commands. However, some braille formats require extensive, involved
strings of $$ commands. RDC has developed an add-on module for BEX named
TranscriBEX. TranscriBEX fully supports the exacting braille
translation and page formats mandated by English Braille--American
Edition, the Code of Braille Textbook Formats and
Techniques, and the Code for Computer Braille
Notation. But you don't have to enter complex strings of $$
commands to create these complex page formats--TranscriBEX does it for
you. When you are doing a lot of braille transcribing, TranscriBEX is the
right tool for the job. TranscriBEX formats include general text, textbook
format, line-numbered poetry and plays, and more. TranscriBEX also
includes special symbols that let you switch between grade 1 and grade 2
translation in the middle of a word; control placement of braille boldface
indicators and the braille letter sign; and a host of other subtle
translation issues--contact us for further details.
BEX's Grade 2 translator is quite accurate. You can
improve the accuracy through some manual intervention based on an
understanding of how it works. When you find that the translator makes a
systematic error, you can create a transformation chapter to fix it.
Section 8 discusses transformation chapters in detail. RDC always
appreciates written comments about how we can improve the accuracy of the
translator.
Braille italics are shown with the italics sign, dots
4-6 or the period in screen braille. The Grade 2 translator uses the
presence of the format commands $$ub and $$uf to place the italics sign as
appropriate. When three or less words are underlined, a single italics
sign is placed before each word. When more than three words are
underlined, a double italics sign (two dots 4-6, two periods in screen
braille) is placed before the first underlined word and a single italics
sign is placed before the last underlined word. For more details on the
braille italics, see Learner Level Section 9.
In Master Level Section 5, we explain the
discretionary linebreak. When BEX's formatter encounters the <ASCII
30> control character it's treated as an acceptable place to break
the line, just like a <space>. As the Grade 2 translator translates
inkprint, it places <ASCII 30> after a hyphen and both before and
after two hyphens (a braille dash). The discretionary line break means
more characters can fit on a line, especially useful with the relatively
narrow 41-cell carriage width of most braillers. Please note that the
Grade 2 translator cannot place discretionary hyphens, only discretionary
linebreaks.
The braille accent sign is dot four, the at-sign in
screen braille. When you want to show an accented letter in grade 2,
precede that letter with at-sign These two symbols are used in various contexts. They
can be symbols of enclosure, a function they serve in this manual. For
example, the single linefeed control character is shown as
<control-J>. In that context, The Grade 2 translator places a dot 4, or at-sign in
screen braille, before a backslash. This distinguishes between a backslash
in print and the ou sign.
The translator violates the rules for literary braille
when translating the equals sign. The rules require the insertion of the
word equals. Instead, the translator changes the inkprint
In inkprint, the percent sign On most typewriter keyboards, and in the ASCII Code,
opening single quote, closing single quote and apostrophe are the same
symbol. However, in grade 2 braille, the opening quote, the closing single
quote, and the apostrophe are three different symbols. The opening single
quote is dot 6, dots 2-3-6 or Sometimes the rules for grade 2 braille require that
you braille a word in more than one way, depending on the word's
context or pronunciation. BEX's Grade 2 translator always chooses the more
common usage. For example, the word do can be a verb of
action, or it can be the first note of the musical scale. The translator
assumes do is a verb; it becomes the single letter
do. When you talk about the first note of the musical scale,
however, the rules say spell it out in full, but the translator still
contracts.
Foreign words, names, and made-up words are not always
reliably translated. When you have questions about how a word translates,
use option H - Heading test to get instant answers. When you have a lot of
questions, enter the words in a separate BEX chapter. Translate that
chapter and examine the results. Then write a transformation chapter to
fix the errors with option R - Replace characters--details in Section 8.
For example, suppose you're writing a story about a
law firm named Hallshurst and Granthorn. Those names are pronounced
halls hurst and grant horn, so they should use
neither the sh nor the th contractions. But the
translator doesn't know any better, so it uses these contractions. You can
create a transformation chapter like this, where the terminator is
vertical bar:
We know there will always be some idiosyncrasies in
the translators. We are grateful for the written reports from users which
have enabled us to continually upgrade the translators' performance.
Option B - Back translate from grade 2 on the Main
Menu is the opposite of option G - Grade 2 translator. Your source
chapters are grade 2 braille, your target chapters are inkprint. Braille
chapters can be typed in through the braille keyboard or imported from a
remote braille device. As far as specifying chapters, both braille
translation options are the same. However, the action of the
back-translator is not a mirror image of the "forward" translator. While
the Grade 2 translator can also create grade 1 braille, the Back from
Grade 2 translator cannot back-translate grade 1 to inkprint. Part 3
explains how you can turn off back-translation within a chapter.
Grade 2 braille is a highly context-dependent code.
The same character can have different meanings depending on where it
appears in a word. When you carefully follow the rules for grade 2
braille, you get more accurate results with the Back from Grade 2
translator.
Back translate from grade 2 allows you to prepare
material entirely in braille. When you enter BEX's format commands, use
the ed sign (dots 1-2-4-6) for the dollar sign, and Nemeth
numbers (dropped a through just) for any
numbers. Parts of this manual were written in grade 2 braille on the
VersaBraille, and then back translated to be merged with the rest of the
text.
There is a crucial space consideration when
back-translating. Grade 2 braille uses many one and two cell contractions
to represent long inkprint words. An extreme example is this silly
The rule of thumb is, expect a 22 per cent increase.
For grade 2 chapters that you intend to back-translate, keep your pages
under 3200 characters. You can use option A - Adjust pages on the Second
menu to create chapters that back-translate successfully.
If you did not follow this rule, you would get a
spirited audio reminder. If there's too much text and BEX gets an
overflow error, you hear the overflow shriek, which sounds like a
spaceship taking off. Press <ESC> to cancel back-translation. In the
unfortunate situation where you are using the same name for source and
target chapters, and you have an overflow error after the
first page is saved, you have data salad. You won't be able to recover the
information in the original first page.
In addition to entering grade 2 through BEX's braille
keyboard mode, there are two other ways to create grade 2 braille
chapters. Braille text can be transferred from the tape-based VersaBraille
with option F - From VersaBraille, or it can be imported from any serial
braille device by option I - Input through slot. (Section 11 discusses
Input through slot and the disk-based VersaBraille II.) Recognizing the
need to prevent overflow, BEX tries to limit page size to under 3200
characters in these situations.
As mentioned above, careful data entry on your part
results in more accurate back-translation. The following suggestions are a
general guide. Whenever your grade 2 text contains possibly ambiguous
abbreviations or technical material with many symbols, it's a good
idea to back-translate a sample and check it out in the Editor.
Back-translation can create some pretty hilarious errors, which make
perfect sense to braille readers but are quite opaque to those who only
read print.
The back-translator simply cannot cope with grade 2
slang. For example, many experienced braille users write the word
income as in sign, com sign,
every, or The letter sign (dots 5-6) distinguishes between an
isolated letter and a grade 2 whole-word contraction. When you want an
isolated letter in your inkprint, you must alert the back
translator with the letter sign. This prevents back translating an
isolated b into o but, an isolated
c into o can, and so forth.
The Back from Grade 2 translator requires the letter
sign in some contexts where good grade 2 does not. For example, in good
grade 2 you do not use a letter sign before the E in E.
Washington Avenue. But, you must use the letter sign for correct
back-translation, or you get: E. Washington Avenue.
Similarly, when you letter each element in an outline, you must precede
the letter with the letter sign--even when you place punctuation after the
letter. There's one exception: when you The back translator just can't understand contextual
clues as well as the human braille reader. When your text includes many
isolated letters, write a test grade 2 chapter and back-translate it.
Examine the inkprint results, and discover where you need to use the
letter sign.
The B - Back from Grade 2 translator does not exactly
reverse the G - Grade 2 translator. The inkprint slash character is
unchanged when translated to grade 2. The abbreviation I/O
becomes Most braille embossers respond the same way to
uppercase and lowercase letters. Send either an a or an
A and you get dot 1. Some braille input devices allow you to
choose between lowercase and uppercase data entry. (BEX's braille keyboard
mode limits you to lowercase data entry.) As it processes grade 2 text,
the Back from Grade 2 translator changes any uppercase letters to
lowercase letters.
When you want uppercase letters in your inkprint
chapter, use the caps sign in your grade 2 chapters. (Part 3 explains how
you can use the no-translation translator control to exempt
some text from back-translation.) The back-translator recognizes a
mid-word change in capitalization signalled by the termination sign, dot
6, dot 3 or This second half of the 20th century seems to have
brought with it an uncontrollable urge to coin new words, making the
For example, dot 6, dots 1-3-5-6 generally stands for
the suffix ation. Yet those two cells also appear in the word
VersaNews. As a mark of respect to that fine publication,
when the back-translator encounters However, there are some patterns of punctuation that
the translator can't cope with. When a grade 2 word ends with
dots 3-4-6, or Section 8 discusses Replace characters in detail.
Replace characters is the perfect companion to the back-translator. Create
a grade 2 chapter containing all your ambiguous text, back-translate it,
then edit it. You will quickly see where the back-translator has
difficulty. It's usually easiest to fix problems after they have
occurred, in the inkprint target chapters. Words like
in-every or I/O in an inkprint chapter are
unambiguously wrong. Part 3 discusses turning off the back-translator
entirely within a document. When you know the back-translator would mangle
some text, use this feature to ensure that your inkprint contains what you
want.
You can enter special symbols in your text that
control how it's translated. Not surprisingly, these symbols are
called translator controls, or TC'S for
short. When using option G - Grade 2 translator, you can switch between
four translation modes: grade 2, grade 1, grade 2 with "British style"
capitalization, and no translation. When using option B - Back translate
from grade 2 you can switch between two translation modes: grade 2 or no
translation.
All TC'S are four keystrokes long; the first and
fourth character are always spaces. Just like BEX's paragraph
( $p ) indicator, the leading and trailing spaces must be
present for the TC to work; we enclose the full TC in parentheses to
emphasize the leading and trailing space.
The third character in the TC stands for the
translation mode you're choosing. Grade 2 is shown with the lowercase
letter l The second character in the TC determines whether the
TC appears in your target chapter. A switch in translation is usually
obvious to the reader; you don't need an explicit symbol to alert the
reader to a change in modes. In some rare instances, however, you
do want an explicit symbol. For these two situations, BEX
provides two types of TC'S: the disappearing TC uses the
underbar as the second character; the residual TC uses the
at-sign as the second character.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, you use the
disappearing TC: the four characters change the translation mode and then
become one space in the target chapter. For those rare occasions when you
want evidence of a change in translation, use the residual TC'S. The
residual TC can be useful as on or off strings
in Contextual Replace, discussed in Master Level Section 6. Each constant
TC changes the translation mode and remains in the target chapter.
The Grade 1 translator is built in to the Grade 2
translator. Grade 1 braille requires much more space than grade 2 braille,
because grade 1 does not use any contractions. But grade 1 braille is not
the same thing as untranslated braille: inkprint and grade 1 use different
symbols for numbers and punctuation. Grade 1 uses the same composition
signs as grade 2 to show capitalization and italics. Grade 1 is
appropriate when you need to have a letter-for-letter representation of
inkprint material. Grade 1 braille may be preferred for adults just
learning braille, and is used to represent foreign languages.
In most situations, you use the disappearing
TC'S. When a word is intentionally misspelled, you should transcribe
it in grade 1 instead of grade 2. Here's how you would place grade 1
and grade 2 TC'S in a hypothetical child's letter to Santa Claus:
When using either Grade 2 translator or Back translate
from grade 2, you may wish to take control of translation yourself. You
accomplish this with the no-translation translator control. The residual
(-) TC still appears in your text once it's translated; the
disappearing (-) TC becomes a single space in the translated text.
Once the translator encounters (-) or (-), it stops
translating or back-translating until you explicitly return to grade 2
translation with the Grade 2 translator control.
When you are doing inkprint data entry, it's
easiest to use the full Apple keyboard. When you want to include
occasional Nemeth or other braille codes in your text, you can switch off
translation and enter the braille directly. Once you do, you probably want
to use BEX's braille keyboard mode. (This feature is not available on the
Apple IIgs keyboard.) In the Editor, depress the Caps Lock key, and enter
control-S K B. Now you can use the S-D-F J-K-L keys and the spacebar for
braille data entry.
When you return to regular inkprint data entry, type
the grade 2 TC, and then enter control-S control-K control-N to return to
normal keyboard mode. Finally, release your Caps Lock key.
Turning off the back-translator can be a handy way to
enter tricky letter and number combinations. For example, you're writing
some advertising copy for a new diet soda called Cherry77.
Back-translation of You cannot enter uppercase letters with BEX's braille
keyboard mode; the braille keyboard always creates lowercase
letters. When you are doing braille data entry in BEX, you must switch to
full Apple keyboard to type Most other braille devices allow you to distinguish
between upper- and lowercase inkprint letters as you enter them. On the
disk-based VersaBraille II, for example, you type an uppercase
C by brailling chord-K dots 1-4.
BEX stores information as chapters, a
collection of binary files on disk. Many other programs store information
as textfiles. In Section 12 of the Learner Level, we demonstrated option R
- Read textfiles to BEX chapters on the Second Menu. Read textfile lets
you import data from other Apple programs, both DOS 3.3 and
ProDOS. At the User Level, there are three options on the Second Menu
concerned with textfiles: option R - Read textfiles to chapters; option W
- Write chapters into a textfile, and option T - Textfile kill.
Option W - Write chapters into a textfile is the
opposite of option R - Read textfiles to chapters. Write chapters into a
textfile lets you export BEX data to other DOS 3.3 Apple
programs. RDC distributes a ProDOS utility called BEX operates in the computer environment called
Apple DOS 3.3. DOS 3.3 controls how information moves between
the computer and the user, in particular, how characters are read from and
written to disk. Within DOS 3.3, there are four ways of saving information
on disk--four file types. Each type of file has its uses, and
is identifiable by the letter in the second column of a DOS disk catalog.
The letter A identifies Applesoft BASIC
programs. You can LOAD, RUN, SAVE, and LIST type A files. While you can
include text in a BASIC program, it's not very efficient. On the Main
side of BEX, an Applesoft program named Binary files store information for use by application
programs: type B files can contain either programs or data,
and your BEX disk contains samples of both. On the Boot side, for example,
there's a type B file named FID, the File Developer
utility. You Also on the Boot side are these files:
The third file type is T for textfiles,
and that's what we concentrate on in this Section. The fourth file
type is I for Integer BASIC, a slightly
different dialect from Applesoft BASIC. BEX doesn't use it, so we'll leave
it at that.
You don't need a word processing program to use
textfiles. In fact, all you need is Apple's DOS 3.3 or ProDOS.
Commands to create, read and modify textfiles are built in to these
operating systems. This has two consequences: almost any Apple program can
handle textfiles, and, if a program is lacking this facility, a fairly
inexperienced programmer can incorporate textfile-handling into the
program.
But there are some disadvantages to storing data in
textfiles with DOS 3.3, and that's why BEX stores data in binary
files. One big minus is speed. Most textfile-related DOS 3.3 commands are
very slow. BEX's Read textfile option is very fast, but only because it
totally bypasses DOS 3.3. The other minus relates to a textfile's
structure: it's basically one long string of characters. Imagine a
textfile containing 8000 characters. If you decide to delete 200
characters somewhere in the middle, then you have to rewrite all of the
characters after the deleted ones--and this process is doubly slow.
On the other hand, as you create BEX chapters, each
BEX page is stored as one binary file. BEX adds extensions to your
All the chapter selection and naming features we've
described in Section 4 also apply to selecting and naming textfiles. For
example, when BEX presents the There's one difference between target naming
methods for chapters and textfiles. Never use the same name
for a textfile and a BEX chapter, even when the two files are on different
disks. This means you can't use the S naming method. Follow the same rules
for textfile names as for BEX chapters: the first character must be a
letter; never use a period, comma, semicolon, or colon; and limit your
textfile names to 25 characters. When your disks get cluttered with
textfiles, use option T - Textfile kill to delete them.
Textfiles do not appear in the list of chapters
supplied by option D - Disk catalog. In a DOS catalog, you identify
textfiles by the letter T in the second column. The quickest
way to locate textfiles on a disk is to scan the disk drive with either
option R - Read textfiles to chapters or option T - Textfile kill.
Option R - Read textfiles to chapters can copy ProDOS
textfiles to DOS 3.3 BEX chapters. However, BEX can neither catalog nor
delete a file from a ProDOS disk. The only way to see a ProDOS textfile on
disk is to scan the ProDOS disk with option R - Read textfiles.
After you press W at the Second Menu, you supply BEX
with a list of one or more chapters to print to disk. When you finish the
list of source chapters, BEX gives you the BEX's formatter controls what characters appear in
your textfile. Every time you press W at the Second Menu, the default
format is $$f0 $$w0 by $$l0 $$s2 $$i5. These values are different from the
defaults for printing to the screen, a printer, or a brailler; let's
see what each means in detail:
At any point in your chapters, you can enter the
reset to default format command $$d. This reestablishes these
defaults: $$l0 $$s; $$i5. When you have established new values for
carriage width or form length with $$w# or $$f#, the new values continue;
$$d does not change them.
Here at RDC, we have experience transferring files
between BEX and a few, but by no means all, other programs. The details of
file transfer are the kind of topic covered in the RDC Newsletter. What
follows is a spotty summary of a rich and complex field. When the target
software has a feature like BEX's Replace characters, you can basically
use any format you want. Some programs are less flexible, so you want to
create just the right format with BEX.
Most word processors use <CR> to mark the end of
a paragraph. The default value $$l" for linespacing suppresses soft
<CR>s at the end of each line. The only <CR>s in the target
textfile are created by ( $p ) or hard <CR>s you have
typed in your source chapter.
Some word processors have filtering
features that, though not quite as sophisticated as Replace characters,
can automatically get rid of <CR>s at the end of each line.
AppleWorks does this automatically. In the Macintosh environment,
MacWrite, Microsoft Word, and JustText ask you a question like Do
you want every <CR> interpreted as a new paragraph? or
Does your source textfile use <CR>s to mark the end of every
line? When you use the default $$l" value for line spacing, you
would answer Y to the first question and N to the second.
Most ProDOS programs can't directly read DOS 3.3
textfiles. Programs like AppleWorks and ProWORDS can read
ProDOS textfiles. RDC'S QTC utility can copy either a BEX chapter or
a DOS 3.3 textfile to a ProDOS textfile. AppleWorks won't know what to do
with BEX's $$ format commands. You can globally delete them from your BEX
chapter, then use QTC to copy the chapter to a textfile. Or you can use
Write chapters to textfile to print the data to disk, then use QTC to copy
the formatted DOS 3.3 textfile to a ProDOS textfile.
You can use textfiles to proofread exactly how your
output appears. This can be particularly handy when you're creating forms
and other line-oriented material. At the start of your chapter, establish
the form length, carriage width, etc. as it should appear in the final
output. It's important to establish the form length first, and then
the carriage width. If you want to see any page-oriented commands, your
form length must be 4 or greater. Write your chapters to a textfile, then
Read the textfile back to a chapter. Review this chapter to see exactly
where all the <CR>s and spaces appear in your final output. A new
page is shown by the <control-L> character in your text.
When you send plain text over the phone with a
terminal program, you do want a <CR> every 70 to 80 characters. You
can create this format when writing chapters to textfile by inserting $$l,
(lowercase l, digit one) at the start of your chapter.
When writing Applesoft BASIC programs you definitely
don't want BEX to automatically generate <CR>s every 80 characters,
since the <CR> signals the end of a BASIC statement. Enter $$w240
$$l1 $$s1 $$i0 at the start of your chapter. The formatter then executes
( $p ) indicators just like <CR>s. You also may wish to
use $$su to create all uppercase output.
Sometimes you don't want any format commands executed
in your textfile. A good example is when you're using a DOS 3.3
spell-checker program. (When you want to use a ProDOS spell-checker, then
it's quicker to use QTC.) You write a textfile and then let the
spell-checker make changes in that. Then you read the improved textfile
back to a BEX chapter. Insert $$z at the start of your chapter. The $$z
command turns off the formatter entirely, so the textfile contains exactly
the same characters as those in your BEX page. All BEX's format commands
become lifeless dollar signs, letters and numbers in Because textfiles store information in a fairly
standard pattern, you can use textfiles as a trade language for moving
data between programs. We've tried to make BEX write very correct
textfiles, but sometimes another application program may rebel at reading
them. Often, this rebellion is traceable to weaknesses in the other
software's read textfile features. In particular, some programs need
textfiles with frequent <CR>s--at least one <CR> every 250
characters. BEX's default values for writing textfiles only place
<CR>s at paragraph ( $p ) indicators, but it's easy
to change that default by using the $$l, command. Some terminal programs
won't let you transmit many control characters, so control characters that
are really there in the textfile BEX wrote seem to disappear.
This option copies the information in both DOS 3.3 and
ProDOS textfiles into a BEX chapter. You can use this option to Read more
than one textfile to the same number of BEX chapters. To name the BEX
chapters you create, you can use all of BEX's target chapter naming
methods except S.
Other programs use a unique format to save
data--AppleWorks is the prime example. AppleWorks and other software like
this creates textfiles by printing to disk. (In the next Part, we show you
exactly how to do this.) In this situation, when you edit the new
chapters, they contain no BEX format commands. There's just plain
text, <CR>s, and spaces. As we demonstrated at the Learner Level,
use option R - Replace characters with the BEXtras disk transformation
chapter When a textfile contains underlining, it can be messy.
When underlining the word dog, many word processors
(including BEX), create:
After the transformation, there is only one space at
the end of each sentence in the target chapters. When you want two spaces
at the end of sentences, use Replace characters with the At the User Level, you are limited to 5.25-inch disk
drives. This means you can only read DOS 3.3 and ProDOS textfiles on
5.25-inch floppy disks. At the Master Level, you can read textfiles from
3.5-inch disks (both DOS 3.3 and ProDOS), as well as DOS 3.3 textfiles on
the Sider hard disk and on RAM drives. Also at the Master Level, we
explain how FIX TEXT and SP2 work.
The ED-IT software is a line-oriented braille word
processor. It saves data as all uppercase DOS 3.3 textfiles. When you do
data entry in ED-IT, all your formatting is manual; you press <CR>
at the end of each line. You can copy this information to a BEX chapter
with option R - Read textfile.
However, don't use FIX TEXT to reformat
data from ED-IT; FIX TEXT assumes that paragraphs are marked by a blank
line. In braille, a standard paragraph is shown with one <CR> and
two spaces. So you can replace
The following information focuses on AppleWorks'
Word Processor. The June 1986 RDC Newsletter details exporting textfiles
from AppleWorks' Database. Back issues are available--contact RDC for
details.
AppleWorks, like BEX, saves information in a unique
binary file format. BEX cannot read AppleWorks files directly. The general
procedure for exporting information from AppleWorks to BEX requires four
steps.
When you do data entry with AppleWorks 2.0, you must
take special care. While regular print output contains between 70 and 80
characters per line, braille is usually limited to 41 cells. When you
bring rigidly line-oriented data from a print to a braille environment,
the resulting braille is not properly formatted.
It's crucial to differentiate between a new
paragraph, a meaningful new line (like a new poetic line in
verse), and a new line that's only pertinent in the print copy.
Because AppleWorks 2.0 places a <CR> at the end of every line, the
AppleWorks data entry must clearly distinguish between <CR>s that
matter and those that don't.
After you Read the ProDOS textfile to a BEX chapter,
Replace characters must be able to find patterns of <CR>s from the
AppleWorks file and change these to the appropriate ( $p ) and
( $l ) indicators.
First, we discuss two strategies for distinctive data
entry. At the end, we summarize the step by step procedure.
When you open a new Word Processor document, it has
preset tab stops every five characters. The first strategy for distinctive
data entry builds on a habit that's well-developed in most typists;
this works best for straight textual material. At the start of each
paragraph, you type two <CR>s and then press the Tab key. By adding
a blank line before each paragraph and indenting five spaces at its start,
you create the kind of distinctive pattern that Replace characters can
easily find.
For a meaningful new line, enter two <CR>s but
don't press Tab; the line begins at the margin. Once you make
a ProDOS textfile and Read this to a BEX chapter, you want to use Replace
characters. Here's what the dialogue looks like the first time you do
this.
In this sample, the target chapter naming method is S,
which means that the transformed chapters overwrite the source chapters.
You only have to go through this dialogue once, because you save the
AWTRANS transformation chapter on The other strategy for distinctive data entry is a
universal solution for BEX data entry in any "foreign" word
processor--AppleWorks, PC Write, WordPerfect, or what have you. An
essential quality of BEX is that every format indicator can be entered
with plain printing characters; BEX's formatter does not require you to
use any control characters at all. Instead of using patterns of
<CR>s and tabs, enter <space>, dollar sign, lowercase
people, <space> to mark the beginning of every
paragraph. To unambiguously define the start of a meaningful new line,
enter <space>, dollar sign, lowercase like,
<space>. The BEX ( $p ) and ( $l ) format
indicators are treated just like text in a foreign word processor.
This method, although it requires a little more
training for the person doing data entry, is guaranteed to work. As long
as they faithfully enter paragraph and new-line indicators where
appropriate, they can place <CR>s wherever they feel like it. Once
you bring this data into BEX, the Replace characters task is very simple:
Replace every <CR> with one space.
Whether you use <CR> plus space patterns or
enter unambiguous indicators, the export procedure is basically the same.
The only difference lies in which transformation chapter you use as the
last step. Here's what you do.
Telesensory Systems Inc. has marketed two very
different devices. The first device was the tape-based
VersaBraille. TSI now refers to this machine as the
classic VersaBraille. Beginning in 1986, TSI started selling
the disk-based VersaBraille II, and in 1987, the disk-based
VersaBraille II Plus. From here on in, we use a shorthand:
VB for the tape-based VersaBraille, and VB II
for the disk-based VersaBraille II and II Plus. Before you attempt to use
either VB with BEX, please read the appropriate section in the BEX
Interface Guide: Section 8 for the classic VB, and Section 9 for the
disk-based VB II.
This Section assumes that you understand the
differences between the two machines and know which one you have. Having
read the Interface Guide, you know how to interface your machine to the
Apple. For the tape-based VB, you have set up the appropriate overlay
chapters. For either VB, you have connected and tested communication
between the Apple and the VB or VB II.
Additionally, you must supply appropriate answers in
your configuration. For the tape-based VB, you must supply your model
letter and slot number when asked. For the disk-based VB II, you must
answer Y to Back in 1981, the first device supported by
BRAILLE-EDIT (the precursor of BEX) was the classic VersaBraille. Thanks
to this heritage, many BEX features facilitate transferring information
between the Apple and the VB or VB II. BEX and the VB'S use the same
symbol to mark a paragraph: ed sign, people.
Dots 1-2-4-6, dots 1-2-3-4 is dollar sign p in computer
braille--the same as BEX's paragraph ( $p ) indicator.
When you transfer information from the VB to the
Apple, you use option F - From VB. When you move information in the
opposite direction, you use option T - To VB. Option A - Auto print from
VB combines three Main Menu options. It transfers text from the VB to the
Apple, then back-translates it, then prints the resulting inkprint chapter
to the printer you've defined as number 1 in your configuration.
Cable the VB to the Apple. Turn on the Apple, then
turn on the VB. On the VB, load the When you are transferring a grade 2 chapter, press
<CR> to accept the N default. Part 3 discusses when you would answer
Y. After you answer the first question, BEX continues:
Now pay attention to the VB. After you load the FROM
VB overlay, eject it and load the tape containing the chapter you want to
send to the Apple. Find the chapter title in the table of contents, and
stay there--do not press the advance bar to enter the chapter. Press
chord-X H on the VB and the rest is automatic. You hear the VB tape moving
the moment you press the H. When the transfer is finished, the BEX
chapters are on disk with the same names as the VB chapters.
Cable the VB to the Apple. Turn on the power for both
devices. On the VB, load the On BEX's Main Menu, press T. Specify a list of
chapters to transfer (details on BEX chapter selection appear in Section
4). Once the list is complete, BEX asks two questions and supplies
defaults.
Auto print from VB combines three Main Menu options:
From VB, Back translate from Grade 2, and Print chapters. This one option
transfers your grade 2 chapter from the VB to the Apple, runs the Back
from Grade 2 translator, and prints the translated text to printer number
1.
Before you use this option, you must specify your
inkprint printer as printer 1 in your configuration; set top of form and
make sure it's on-line. Set up the VB as described above for option F
- From VB. Make sure you have enough room on the data disk in drive 2. On
the Apple, press A at the Main Menu. BEX uses the N defaults for control
characters and page breaks; the only prompt you get is Enter the chord-X H command on the VB, and the rest is
automatic. Isn't technology fun? The Auto print option creates a BEX
chapter named XXX containing the back-translated text.
In Part 2, we recommended you use the default values
for the questions BEX asks for option T - To VB and option F - From VB.
Here we explore the cases when you may wish to use different values.
When a VB chapter is transferred to the Apple, BEX
tries to use the same chapter name as the VB'S chapter name. When the
VB chapter is named For option F - From VB, BEX asks you When transferring to the VB, BEX asks In most situations, let the computer keep track of VB
page breaks. During option T - To VB, BEX asks
For option F - From VB, BEX asks When using option T - To VB, BEX strips out four
control characters that could appear in your text: <control-S>,
<control-T>, <ASCII 30>, and <ASCII 31>. The Grade 2
translator places <ASCII 30>, the discretionary linebreak, as it
translates. The other control characters would be there because you typed
them in.
Please be aware that the tape-based, classic VB and
the disk-based VB II are very different machines. You can't
use the three options described in Part 2 to move text between the Apple
and the disk-based VB II. However, two options make transferring data
between them quite straightforward. Section 9 in the BEX Interface Guide
describes getting the two machines communicating.
On the Second Menu, option I - Input through slot
allows you to import data from another computer cabled to the Apple.
Complete instructions on Input through slot appear in Section 12. To use
Input through slot, you must provide BEX with the slot number of the
interface card in your configuration. Check Once you're ready, press I at the Second Menu. BEX
requests a target chapter name. After you supply it, BEX tells you to
start sending text from your remote device.
Now pay attention to the VB II. To send text to the
Apple, enter F for files, P for print, and S for serial. You're asked if
you want to format text. Answer Y when you want the VersaBraille to format
text. Answer N when you want BEX to format text.
Next, answer the VersaBraille questions about the
device (internal, drive 1 or drive 2), and the file name appropriately.
Finally, you're asked if you want to pause; answer N. The file is now
moving to the Apple; you hear a steady series of clicks. When the
transmission is over, press Q on the Apple keyboard; your chapter is saved
to disk.
When the VersaBraille is formatting text, you can
reduce blank lines and spaces by entering the appropriate format commands
in your VB II file. The commands To send a file to the VB II, you must define one of
the four printers in your configuration as a class P - Paperless
brailler. This turns off BEX's formatter, so that your entire text
is transferred as is, format commands intact. The class P - Paperless
brailler also strips out four control characters that could appear in your
text: <control-S>, <control-T>, <ASCII 30>, and
<ASCII 31>. The Grade 2 translator places <ASCII 30>, the
discretionary linebreak, as it translates. The other control characters
would be there because you typed them in.
Before you can specify a list of chapters to print,
you must tell the VB II to expect some text. When the VB II is receiving
text, you can set VersaBraille emulation either on or off. We
recommend turning VersaBraille emulation off.
When the file is less than 10,000 characters and you
want to examine the text as it's being absorbed, you can turn
VersaBraille emulation on, by using the communications
submenu of the parameters menu. When VersaBraille emulation is on, the
procedure is slightly different. Once you specify F, P, and I, commence
printing with BEX. Once BEX is back at the Main Menu prompt, press chord-R
on the VB II keyboard. Once it arrives in the VB II, the file
There are several ways to get text into BEX. The most
common way is to enter text in the Editor, either in print or in braille.
A second way is to copy the information from a DOS 3.3 or ProDOS textfile
into a BEX chapter. Option R - Read textfiles to chapters is on the Second
Menu; it's explained in detail in Section 10.
Section 11 discusses transferring files between the
tape-based VersaBraille and BEX. Section 11 also discusses the disk-based
VersaBraille: you use option I - Input through slot to send text from the
VersaBraille II to the Apple.
Option I - Input through slot on the Second Menu
allows you to import information from a remote serial computer device. You
establish communication between the remote device and the Apple, and then
provide BEX with a new chapter name. From this point on, BEX accepts the
information through the interface card in a slot instead of through the
Apple keyboard.
BEX pages are limited to 4096 characters, so BEX must
be able to send a message to the remote device to pause occasionally.
While the device pauses, BEX writes the current page to disk and opens a
new page. Finally, BEX must be able to tell the remote device to start
sending again. This kind of dialogue between computers is called
handshaking in the interfacing subculture.
To capture the data, BEX uses option I - Input through
slot. How the remote computer sends the data can vary from
device to device. We have successfully interfaced a wide variety of
devices, including the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the IBM-PC, the
Macintosh, and the Keynote and SmallTalk notebook computers.
There are two basic requirements for the remote
device: It must support handshaking and it must be controllable
externally. Input through slot supports two handshaking methods or
protocols: software handshaking and hardware handshaking.
Software handshaking is known by several
other names: Xon/Xoff, control-S control-Q, and
flow control are all terms you may encounter. Software
handshaking is universally provided by a terminal or
communications program. This means that one way to send text
to the Apple is to run a terminal program on the remote device. Software
handshaking is also one way a computer can communicate with a serial
printer. You may be able to define the Apple using BEX as a
printer. Then you can use a word processing program on the
remote device to send the data to BEX.
Hardware handshaking is sometimes called Data
Terminal Ready or simply DTR handshaking. Hardware
handshaking is the most common way that a computer communicates with a
serial printer. Chances are very good that you can tell your remote device
to print and capture the data with BEX using Input through slot. Sometimes
this requires a word processing program. No other software is required for
the MS-DOS and PC-DOS operating systems, as printing is built in to the
DOS.
During Input through slot, BEX is concentrating on
ingesting information, so you can't use the Apple keyboard to tell your
remote device anything. This means that you must be able to control the
device externally through its keyboard or other buttons.
If you cannot push buttons on the remote device to
specify which file to send and when to start sending it, then Input
through slot won't work. (That's one of the things you
can do with a true terminal program. Terminal software lets
you run Input through slot is very picky. You can only
establish communications with three interfaces: an Apple Super Serial
Card, an Apple IIc port, or the modem port on a SlotBuster II. You
can't use an Apple IIgs port for Input through slot.
When you get two computers to talk to each other
successfully, you've interfaced them. Establishing a serial
interface requires some patience and experimentation. Once you have
interfaced two devices, however, actually sending data is a snap.
The first issue is getting the correct cable. RDC
sells a wide variety of cables that work with different interfaces; see
Section 14 in the Interface Guide for details.
Once you have the correct cable, you must match the
values for four parameters on the sending device and the Apple. RDC'S
standard parameters for the Super Serial Card, IIc ports, and
SlotBuster modem port are:
The simplest interface is when you can set these
same parameters on your remote device. If you insist on using other
parameters, Section 6 of the Interface Guide tells you how to change these
values for the Super Serial Card and IIc.
When you establish a configuration at the User Level,
BEX asks On the Second Menu, press I and BEX asks for a target
chapter name. Once you provide this, BEX tells you to start sending data.
You then move to your remote device and type the commands or push the
buttons that initiate sending text.
BEX clicks once for every character as it enters the
BEX page. When the remote device sends characters in a steady stream, you
hear a steady tone. When the remote device thinks it's printing, then
you hear bursts of clicks for each line. Your baud rate determines the
pitch: 2400 baud is a low moan; 19,200 baud is a high shriek.
A BEX page can contain from zero to 4096 characters.
When you are back-translating grade 2 text, it's important to limit
your pages to around 3200 characters. You can fill your pages more when
you're not translating the data. Knowing this, BEX uses two different
limits when creating pages during Input through slot.
When the first sector of data is all lowercase or all
uppercase, BEX limits the pages to about 3072 characters. BEX assumes this
data is braille text, and the 3072 limit minimizes overflow errors when
back-translating. When the first sector of data is a mixture of upper- and
lowercase, then BEX uses a higher limit for pages; BEX moves to a new page
at about 3840 characters. If neither limit suits your preferences, you can
modify the chapter when the session's over. Once the target chapter
is saved to disk, you can use option A - Adjust pages on the Second Menu
to establish page boundaries you prefer.
When the first BEX page is full, BEX tells the remote
device to pause. The program tries software handshakes first. If the
remote device doesn't respond, then BEX sends a hardware handshake signal.
During the Input through slot process, you can press
three letters on the Apple keyboard:
When you first work out the interface between two
devices, allow yourself enough time. A successful serial interface
requires matching a number of parameters on both sending and receiving
devices. It's easy to become flustered; when you do, it's
unlikely you'll get all the parameters to match.
When you start changing the serial parameters,
it's crucial that you keep track of what you're doing. Never change
more than one parameter at a time, or you won't know what the correct
combination is.
Step-by-step interfacing instructions for Input
through slot are frequently published in the RDC Newsletter. Call us to
see if you can purchase a back issue that has the details on a specific
interface. In addition, keep Section 6 of the Interface Guide close at
hand, as it lists the command sequences for the Super Serial Card and IIc
ports.
When you're experimenting with different interface
parameters, you don't want to turn off your Apple just to change switch
settings on the Super Serial Card. As an alternative to flipping switches,
you can write a BEX chapter containing the command sequences to change any
parameter. Suppose your Input through slot Super Serial Card is in slot 2.
You want to lower the baud rate from the "standard" 9600 to 4800. Edit a
new BEX chapter and press control-C I then type Chances are that you have not configured any of your
printers in slot 2. But you can still print the chapter, by defining it as
a N printer:
Before you start interfacing the two devices, create
some test data on both devices, if you can. The data should follow a
recognizable pattern so that you instantly know when characters are
missing. The data should include long and short words and long and short
lines. Your test data must be large enough to assess whether handshaking
is working correctly.
12,000 characters is a good number; BEX must handshake
with the remote device for three BEX pages. An ideal test file would be
the numbers from 0 to 9 repeated again and again, with different clusters
of digits simulating the distribution of letters in words and sentences.
Symptoms of inadequate handshaking usually pop up at
BEX page breaks. When the last character of one BEX page and the first
character of the next are not sequential in the source data, then you know
that BEX is not able to tell the remote device to pause. Some characters
are being lost as BEX saves the current page and opens a new page. As
mentioned earlier, BEX tries software handshaking first, and then uses
hardware handshaking. If your remote device is unusually sluggish to
acknowledge software handshaking, BEX may use hardware handshaking
instead. The result is no handshaking. RDC may be able to offer advice on
how to cope--call the Technical Hotline for assistance.
When the data you receive is totally gar4, then the
first suspect is baud rate. Check to see that both devices are set at the
same rate. The next suspect is stop bits: you get garbage characters when
the remote device is set for one stop bit while the BEX standard parameter
is two stop bits. If you can't change the remote device to two stop bits,
then use command sequences to change the Apple interface card.
A rarer cause for totally gar4 data is the number of
data bits. Plain text only uses seven data bits; the eighth data bit is
used When you know that the baud rate and stop bits match
yet your data is totally gar4, try changing the remote device to seven
data bits while keeping the Apple at eight data bits. While this advice
baldly contradicts our earlier statements about matching parameters, it
has worked in a number of situations--the VersaBraille II and the
Macintosh in particular. Call it voodoo interfacing!
When you examine the BEX chapter, you may encounter
occasional garbage control characters, as well as random
punctuation or unexpected capital letters. These characters are the BEX
result of special characters like accented letters and copyright or
registered trademark symbols. In the Apple II environment, there are 128
possible characters (96 printable ones plus 32 control characters). In
many other computers, there are 256 possible characters. These extra 128
characters are known as high bit set characters. Input
through slot strips off the high bit, so the characters seem like random
garbage. When your source file contains a lot of accented letters, you
should globally change them before you send the file to the Apple.
Use a 9F cable to connect an IBM serial port to an
Apple Super Serial Card. The male end of the cable connects to the Super
Serial Card. The female end of the cable plugs into the IBM serial port.
For an Apple IIc, use a 106 cable. When you configure, supply the slot
number for the Super Serial Card or IIc port.
Get BEX up and running on the Apple, and get DOS up
and running on the IBM-PC. Connect the two devices. Move to BEX's Second
Menu and press I, then provide a target chapter name.
The You can establish a list of files to print, or
print queue, using this formula:
Once the queue is defined, you're ready to print. The
first time you print on the IBM, you must change the printing device to
COM1. DOS tells you:
In Learner Level Section 13, we discussed how to cope
when things went wrong. This Section provides you with three tools to help
you cope with most of the problems you could encounter using BEX. One
important tool is an understanding of the DOS commands that BEX itself
issues. Next, we provide the full details of how option F - Fix chapters
works, and present several hints for coping with problem chapters.
Finally, we demonstrate the Most of the time BEX handles routine housekeeping
tasks, like making sure a chapter's directory file accurately
describes its page files, perfectly well. However, there are times when
BEX becomes befuddled. Fortunately, your human problem-solving skills are
a thousand times superior to any computer, so with the right tools, you
can almost always put things right.
Every menu has option Q - Quit. When you press Q, the
Apple responds with the BASIC prompt, the single
A complete discussion of Apple DOS 3.3 commands is
outside the scope of this manual. Older editions of the Apple IIe
Owner's Guide contain an in-depth discussion of these
commands. However, starting in 1987, all references to DOS 3.3 have been
expunged from Apple's Owner's Guides. Fortunately, many
excellent books about Apple DOS 3.3 and BASIC programming have been
written by third parties. See Appendix 5 for publishers of accessible
manuals.
Here are some fundamental facts: Always depress the
Caps Lock key when you type DOS commands. DOS commands
always end with <CR>. In a DOS filename, every
character, When you have more than one disk drive, you must tell
DOS which drive you want to operate on. When you press Control-Reset or
Quit from any BEX Menu, DOS'S default drive is the BEX program drive,
usually slot 6, drive 1. To direct DOS'S attention to a different
drive, you add the slot and drive number to the end of any DOS command.
The syntax for this is typing Quitting allows you to use Apple DOS 3.3 while
maintaining BEX's control of input and output--speech and large print
display. When you press Control-Reset, you temporarily lose BEX's input
and output control. To restore large print display, type When you are at the BASIC prompt, you return to BEX by
typing
When you press Control-Reset or Quit, you can move
directly to a different menu from the one you left by typing cher/
The BEX Menu programs issue a number of DOS commands
as they copy, merge, delete, rearrange chapters and pages within chapters.
When you understand the commands that BEX uses, you are better able to
issue these commands yourself when BEX is befuddled.
Shows the contents of a DOS 3.3 disk. BEX issues this
command when you press <space> after the list of chapters with a BEX
D - Disk catalog. When you are having problems with a chapter, it's a
good idea to perform a DOS catalog. It shows you every file on the disk.
When you Quit BEX and type The catalog information is shown in four columns. The
first column is one character wide: when a file is locked, position 1
contains an asterisk. The second column is also one character wide: it
contains a single letter that corresponds to the type of file. For binary
files, the letter is But, for Applesoft BASIC files the
letter is A, for textfiles the letter is That,
and for Integer BASIC files the letter is I. The third column
occupies positions four through six; it always contains a three-digit
number. This number is the sector count for the file. From position eight
on to the end of the line is the fourth column; it contains the filename.
Initializes a disk, preparing it to save files. This
sequence of two commands does the same thing as option I -
Initialize disks on the Starting Menu. Be cautious when using this
command: any information on the disk is wiped out when it's
initialized. While Initialize disks on the Starting Menu prevents you from
initializing your BEX program disk by mistake, no such protection exists
when you type Permanently erases a file from the disk. When you kill
a chapter, BEX issues one more Changes a file's name on disk. Second Menu option
N - Name change for chapters uses the Binary files, (identified by the letter
B in the second column of a DOS catalog), use a variation on
the LOAD and SAVE commands. Perhaps all this talk about DOS commands has piqued
your curiosity, and you want to know more. There's an interesting
Apple feature that lets you watch a program as it's running. One way
to understand DOS housekeeping is to look over BEX's shoulder. At the
BASIC prompt, type:
To stop eavesdropping on BEX, type:
When BEX gets overwhelmed, it usually crashes with an
error message. These error messages can help you diagnose the problem and
point the way to a solution.
As we said in Learner Level 13, you may encounter the
Whenever BEX presents a list of chapters, it's
doing a lot of analytical work behind the scenes. So when you press D for
a BEX catalog, or enter a drive number to scan the disk, BEX uses blocks
of the Apple's memory to build up the chapter list for your perusal.
When you ask BEX to create chapter lists several times in a row, BEX can
run out of room in the Apple's memory. The result is that you crash
with an When BEX crashes with this error message, it's a
symptom of major disorganization in the Apple's memory. The actual
number can vary; it's always five digits long and begins with
65. There's a chance that you can recover, so type
The Monitor is a unique feature deep
inside the Apple. It allows programmers to directly examine the contents
of the Apple's memory. When BEX encounters problems, it usually
crashes to the right-bracket BASIC prompt. When BEX gets
really confused, you could crash directly into the Monitor.
The Monitor's prompt is an asterisk (the Echo calls this character
star). When you crash into the Monitor, you get a star and then at least
one line of what looks like totally incomprehensible garbage. (It's
actually useful information about the contents of the Apple's memory,
expressed as base 16 numbers.)
To leave the Monitor and get back to the BASIC prompt,
press control-C <CR>. Try this twice; if this doesn't give you the
right-bracket prompt, it's time to reboot.
In Learner Level Section 13, we gave an example of
using option F - Fix chapter directory on the Second Menu. You use Fix
chapters when one or more pages of data seem to have disappeared from a
BEX chapter, and you know you haven't killed those page files. A thorough
understanding of how Fix chapters works can help you cope when Fix
chapters doesn't solve the problem.
BEX adds a two-character extension to the chapter name
to make a unique identifier for each page file. The first character of
this extension is always period, the second character is usually a letter.
(More details in Learner Level Section 12, part 3.) There are only 26
letters in the alphabet, and a BEX chapter can contain up to 30 pages. For
the last four page file extensions, BEX uses the left bracket, the
backslash, the right bracket, and the caret, in that order.
Suppose you've created a chapter named First, BEX tries to Normally, the directory file for a chapter keeps track
of which file on disk corresponds with which BEX page number. When you cut
pages in the Editor, or change the order of pages with the Page Menu,
it's quite possible that page 5 corresponds to After you use Fix chapters, you may have to rearrange
the pages with the Page Menu or the Clipboard. If you Zip to the
Fix chapters moves through the alphabet as it tries to
When you ask Fix chapters to recover the The directory file is always the last
file of a chapter written to disk. When some event interrupts the saving
of a BEX chapter to disk, then it's likely that the disk contains
some of the page files, but no directory file. This can easily happen when
the disk you copy to is close to full. Before you create a target chapter
by translating, replacing, copying, adjusting, or whatever, you should
check that there's enough room on the target disk. You can obtain a
free sector count by pressing # at any menu prompt.
When a disk fills up before the directory file is
created, Fix chapters alone won't help you. BEX can find all the page
files without problem, but there won't be room to write the new directory
file to disk. Before you can use Fix chapters, you must make room for the
directory file.
First, Copy any other chapters from the
problem disk to another disk. Then use Kill chapters on the problem disk
to delete the chapters you just copied. Now there's enough room for
Fix chapters to write a new directory file.
If you already have copies of every chapter on the
disk except the problem chapter, you can use a shortcut. Quit BEX,
As mentioned in Part 1, DOS 3.3 does not prevent you
from renaming one file to a name that's already taken. We're not
talking here about overwriting an old chapter with a new
chapter. When your target disk already contains a chapter named
You only encounter the duplicate filename problem when
you are renaming chapters, or when you try to create a BEX
chapter with the same name as a textfile (or vice versa). Suppose your
target disk contains two chapters: a two-page chapter named
BEX uses the RENAME command to change BILLS.A to
INVOICES.A, BILLSDDB to INVOICES.B, and BILLSDDC to INVOICES.C. While it
isn't evident in this sample, Name change for chapters reletters the page
files so they are in alphabetical order. BEX's final step in Name change
is saving the new directory file. In this case, the new INVOICES
overwrites the old INVOICES. When you ask to print INVOICES, you get the
contents of the chapter that used to be named BILL.
Textfiles are type T files and BEX
chapters are type B binary files. There are some DOS commands
that only work for textfiles, and some others that only apply to binary
files. If you try to do a binary file operation on a textfile, or vice
versa, DOS 3.3 reports a When a disk contains a BEX chapter named
You would encounter the same error message if a
textfile named APPENDIX existed on disk and you tried to copy a chapter to
the name APPENDIX. BEX asks DOS to FID stands for File Developer. The FID
utility program helps you manage DOS 3.3 files. FID lets you copy, delete,
lock, and unlock files, as well as cataloging disks. Some FID functions
can also be done manually, but FID lets you act upon many files at once.
FID is a binary file on BEX's Boot side. When you
press F at the Starting Menu, BEX BRUN'S the FID program. (You don't
need We've modified the original FID to make it a little
easier to use with speech. As with BEX, FID lists its numbered options
when you press <CR> at its FID allows you to search for files on a disk without
knowing their names. When FID prompts For example, suppose you want to copy some of your
configurations on to another disk. The four character suffix
You can use the wildcard for all FID'S options.
Since deleting a file by mistake can be tragic, it's a good idea to
take advantage of the prompting feature illustrated above when deleting
files. For less destructive operations like LOCK and UNLOCK, you can
answer 1/2 <CR>
or 2/2
<CR>
at the Drive or chapter:
prompt and get a
list of all chapters that end with the digit 2. In this Part
we detail how the translator handles some tricky translating situations.
Part 3 discusses the translator controls that Embossing Braille Chapters
Which
printer:
prompt, you would get the same incorrect format.
A plug for TranscriBEX
Notes on Translation
Hyphens and dashes
Accent sign
@
in your inkprint chapter.
For example, enter clich@e
in inkprint when referring to a
stale expression. The translator creates cli*@e
in the grade
2 target chapter, where the asterisk stands for the two letters
ch.
Less-than and greater-than symbols
<
and
>
are sometimes called left and right
angle brackets. At other times, these symbols are used
mathematically to compare two values. BEX's Grade 2 <
is translated to dot 4, dots 1-2-6 or
@<
in screen braille. >
is translated to
dot 4, dots 3-4-5, or @>
in screen braille.
Backslash
Equals sign
=
equals sign into the braille Nemeth Code equals sign: dots
4-6, dots 1-3, or .k
in screen braille.
Percent
%
follows a
number: 80%
for example. The grade 2 braille rules require
that the percent sign (dots 2-5, dots 1-2-3-4) immediately precede the
number: 3p#hj
is how 80 per cent should be
translated. The translator has two ways of coping. When you place the
percent sign before the digits in your inkprint, the grade 2
result follows the rules. Inkprint %80
becomes
3p#hj
in grade 2. When the percent sign follows
the digits in inkprint, then the grade 2 version use the properly
contracted words per cent with a space before and after.
Inkprint 80%
becomes #hj p] c5t
in grade 2.
Single quote marks and apostrophe
,8
in screen braille; the
closing single quote is dots 3-5-6, dot 3, or 0'
in screen
braille; and the apostrophe is dot 3, or '
(apostrophe) in
screen braille. The Grade 2 translator guesses which symbol to use
depending on context, and it does a pretty good job. One situation
requires manual intervention: when an
>'twas the night >'fore Christmas
The translator then creates
'twas ! ni<t '=e ,*ri/mas
instead of creating
,8twas ! ni<t ,8=e ,*ri/mas
Limitations of the Grade 2 Translator
and then use this transformation chapter on the
final grade 2 braille chapters.
Part 2: Braille to Print with the Back
Translator
Prevent overflow
() VersaBraille: Take advantage of option A -
Autoprint from VersaBraille on the Main Menu. This one option transfers a
grade 2 file from the tape-based VersaBraille to the Apple, performs a
back translation, and sends the result to an inkprint printer. See Section
11 for details. Raised Dot Computing also distributes a program called
NUMBERS
which back translates both literary braille and
Nemeth mathematics braille.
Avoid grade 2 slang
9-e
in screen braille. The rules state
that dots 3-6 only stands for com when it appears at the
beginning of word. When dots 3-6 appears in the middle of a word, the back
translator considers this a hyphen. When you enter 9-e
it
becomes in-every
in inkprint, because the back-translator is
faithfully following the grade 2 rules. Similarly, the back translator
won't translate an en-sign directly before punctuation as the word
enough. Experienced braille users often forget the grade 2
rule that forbids any dropped-letter word contraction before punctuation.
Use the letter sign
7c7
back-translates to (c)
and 7,e7
back-translates
to (E)
as they should.
The slash character
,i/,o
when translated. However, the Back from Grade 2
translator always interprets the slash character (dots 3-4) as an st-sign.
When you want to have a slash in inkprint, precede the slash with the
letter sign, dots 5-6 or ;
in screen braille. Enter
,i/,o
in braille and you get IstO
in inkprint;
enter ,i;/,o
in braille and you get I/O
in
inkprint.
Capitalization
,'
in screen braille.
,v]sa,news
it creates the
right result. In fact, the back translator assumes that any double dot 6
in the middle of a word is signalling a change in capitalization. So when
you braille 9,,l>ge & ,transcri,,bex
in your chapter,
the back translator creates inLARGE and TranscriBEX
using the
double dot 6 to create uppercase letters.
+
in screen braille, the translator creates
ing. You must make a conscious effort to get a word that ends
with the plus sign in inkprint: you can either turn the translator off or
use Replace characters.
Develop transformation chapters to help you
Disappearing translator controls
Residual translator controls
Using Grade 1 TC with the Grade 2 Translator
() Caution! Option B - Back translate from grade 2
cannot back-translate grade 1 to inkprint.
Sample: Grade 1 and grade 2 TC'S
Dear Santa: $p I am _o riting_lyou because my mother
told me I _o shud. _l I have been a good girl this year and Mommy says you
will bring me a _o Kemistry _l Set. I would love it! $p Regards, your
friend Francie
When this chapter is processed through the Grade 2
translator, the result is:
,de> ,santa3 $p ,i am riting y 2c my "m told me ,i
shud4 ,i h be5 a gd girl ? ye> & ,mommy says y w br+ me a ,kemistry
,set4 ,i wd love x6 $p ,reg>ds1 yr fr ,francie
Every four character disappearing TC has become one
space. While in grade 1 translation mode, the translator still places
italics signs when it encounters $$ub and $$uf.
Using no translation
No translation with option B - Back translate
from grade 2
,*]ry#gg
results in
Cherryblegg
which does not sound very appetizing. When you
enter _-Cherry77_l
in your grade 2 text, you turn off
back-translation, so you get Cherry77 in your inkprint.
_-Cherry77_l
and then switch back
to braille keyboard. (Alternatively, you can enter
_-cherry77_l
on the braille keyboard, then use Replace
characters to change the initial c from lowercase to
uppercase.
QTC
that
copies BEX chapter directly to ProDOS textfiles. When you want to export
BEX data to ProDOS programs, use QTC.
Part 1: Background on Textfiles
SECOND
contains the
Second Menu. It includes text like There are # chapters on this
disk.
B017MESSAGES.A
B015MESSAGES.B
B013MESSAGES.C
B003MESSAGES
which together make up the BEX chapter named
MESSAGES. The MESSAGES chapter contains most of BEX's
prompts, and at the Master Level, you learn how to modify it. More details
about BEX chapter structure appear in Section 13 at both Learner and User
Levels.
Textfiles vs. Binary files
Part 2: Working with Textfiles
Textfile:
prompt, you can type
1/Q <CR>
to scan drive 1 for all the textfile names
ending in the letter Q.
Target textfile:
prompt. All your source chapters are combined and written to one DOS 3.3
textfile. You can specify source chapters from both drive 1 and 2, but you
must make sure there's enough room on the disk for your target
textfile. A textfile uses slightly fewer sectors than its BEX chapter
counterpart.
Format Defaults for Write chapters into a
textfile
Transfer to other word processors
Textfiles for telecommunications
Textfiles for programming
Textfiles with NO format
Things That Can Go Wrong
Part 5: Option R - Read Textfiles to Chapters
() Caution! ProDOS allows you to establish
subdirectories on any storage medium. Generally you use this
feature to organize the large amount of storage on a hard disk. However,
you can create a subdirectory on a ProDOS floppy disk. When
you write a ProDOS textfile in a subdirectory, BEX can't find it. BEX can
only read ProDOS textfiles at the root level directory. For
example,
/LETTERS
is the ProDOS volume name. When you create
a /LETTERS/SANDY
textfile, BEX can find it and copy it. But
if you create a /LETTERS/APRIL/
subdirectory, and write the
SANDY
textfile there, BEX won't be able to find it.
FIX TEXT
to change the spaces and <CR>s to BEX
format commands.
d<control-H>_ o<control-H>_
g<control-H>_
FIX TEXT'S transformation rules change this
tangle of <control-H> and underbars to BEX'sAND
underlining commands.
SP2
transformation chapter, also on your BEXtras disk.
<CR><space><space>
with ( $p ).
But, there's an additional complication. Transcribers doing ED-IT
data entry probably create other paragraph formats, for example an
outdented list with indent to cell 1, runover to cell 3. In this case, you
must reformat information manually.
Part 6: Creating ProDOS Textfiles in AppleWorks
A text (ASCII) file on
disk
This creates a ProDOS textfile.
Tailoring AppleWorks Data Entry for BEX
Tabs and blank lines
Replace characters
Drive or chapter: 2 <CR>
There are 3 chapters:
1QUIZ
2TAKEHOME
3FINAL
Use entire list? Y <CR>
Target chapter naming method: S <CR>
Use transformation chapter: <CR>
Enter terminator: |
Find:
<CR><CR><space><space><space><space>&l
t;space>|
Change to: <space>$p<space>|
Find: <CR><CR>|
Change to: <space>$l<space>|
Find: <CR>|
Change to: <space>|
Find: <space><space>|
Change to: <space>|
Find: |
Continue? Y <CR>
Starting to replace ...
Replaced (big number) times
Save transformation chapter: 1AWTRANS <CR>
1AWTRANS <CR>
at the
Transformation chapter name:
prompt. BEX reads the
transformation rules into memory, then prompts, Continue? Y
Press <CR>, then sit back and listen to a symphony of clicks.
Use unambiguous indicators
Step-by-step Summary: Exporting ProDOS Textfiles
from AppleWorks
Transfer
in this sample. Press space when
ready, then listen to the gronking sound. When the noise is finished,
remove the newly-formatted disk from the drive and label it with its
name!
3.Week.Quiz
for this sample.
---------Double
Space
characters. Repeat this Find-then-Delete routine until you've
searched the entire document. Then, go through the same procedure to check
for any occurrences of Triple Spacing. Finally, press open-Apple-1 again
to get to the top of the file. Press open-Apple-O followed by SS
<CR> to place the ---------Single Space
printer option
at the start.
Print from? Beginning
accept this default by pressing
<CR>. You're presented with the list of printers you have defined.
The last choice is A text (ASCII) file on disk.
Arrow down to
this choice and press <CR>.
Pathname?
in the lower left-hand corner. You must supply the
complete pathname as follows: slash, name of the disk, slash,
name of the file, <CR>. In this case, type: /transfer/quiz3
<CR>
Unable to begin writing this file
or
Unable to continue writing this file
don't try again.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, this error message means you have
mistyped the disk's name. Press <ESC> and AppleWorks reprompts
Pathname?
Make sure you're following the /DiskNamestFileName
pattern.
Textfile:
remove the BEX program disk,
insert a DOS 3.3 data disk, and type 2 <CR>
You get a
numbered list of ProDOS textfiles. Use the standard BEX chapter selection
methods to choose which files to work with. Use 11-P for target chapter
naming method, which writes the chapters on drive 1, adding the two
characters hyphen, P to make the chapter names.
Part 1: Are You Ready?
Do you have a remote serial device to input text through
slot?
and define one of your printers as a class P - Paperless
brailler.
Part 2: Three BEX Options for the Tape-Based VB
Using Option F - From VB
FROM VB
overlay, and
press chord-R R to put the VB in remote. Make sure you have enough room on
the data disk in drive 2. To start the transfer, press F at the Main Menu.
BEX asks you two questions with supplied defaults.
Main Menu: F
From VB
Do you want control characters? N
Do you want VB page indicators? N
Most of the time, you want to press <CR> to
accept the N default. Once you answer these questions, BEX prompts:
enter chord X H at VB chapter name
and then BEX
Using Option T - To VB
TO VB
overlay. When it is
loaded, press chord-R R to put the VB in remote. Eject the tape, and load
a tape with enough room to contain the text you're sending.
Main Menu: T
To VB
Drive or chapter: 2 <CR>
There are 3 chapters
1SAMPLE1
2SAMPLE2
3SAMPLE3
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Have you defined all VB page breaks? N
Unless you are positive no VB page would
end up with more than 1000 characters, press <CR> to accept this
default. BEX continues:
Maximum VB page size is: 950
Enter new page size:
Use this default value for material you'll be
reading; simply press <CR>. When you intend to do extensive editing,
supply a lower number in the range of 500 to 700.
Using Option A - Auto print from VB
() Caution! You must have at least two disk drives
to use option A - Auto print from VB.
Enter chord-X
H to send chapters
Part 3: Finer Control of VB Transfers
VB and BEX chapter naming
DIARY
then the BEX chapter is also named
DIARY. However, it's possible for a VB chapter to begin with a
]
right bracket at the beginning of the BEX chapter name.
This becomes part of the name, which you must type when specifying BEX
chapters individually. When the VB chapter is named -PUT]
then BEX names it ]-PUT]
once it arrives in the Apple. When
this chapter is transferred back to the VB, the ]
is stripped
off.
VB page breaks
Do you want
VB page indicators?
and supplies a N default. When you answer Y,
then <control-P> appears in your BEX chapter wherever there's a
new VB page. When transferring back to the VB, a <control-P> within
your text forces a new VB page. You can enter <control-P> characters
in BEX text that you create for the VB to make better VB format. When you
need to reserve ten blank VB pages in a row, just type ten
<control-P> characters in your BEX page.
Have you
defined all VB page breaks?
with a N default. When you are
positive that your BEX text contains 1000 or less character
between each <control-P> character, then you can answer Y. This way,
you can transfer the same text back to the VB with the same page
boundaries.
() Warning! Only answer Y if you have been very
careful about your <control-P> characters. A VB page cannot contain
more than 1000 characters. If there are more than 1000 characters between
<control-P>s, then some text is overwritten in the VB.
Maximum VB page size is: 950
Enter new page size:
When you enter a lower value, BEX creates VB pages
within the limits you provide, making a smaller page when a new paragraph
starts within 100 characters of the page size. BEX tries to divide at the
end of a line or a word. If there is a very Control characters
Do you want
control characters?
and supplies a N default. Depending on your VB
model, some common grade 2 contractions are identical to ASCII control
characters. When you choose to answer Y, you do want control characters,
make sure that your text does not contain ambiguities. For example, dots
4-5-6, dots 1-3-4 could mean either many or <CR> on a
model B VB. For a model C, dot 4, dots 1-5 could mean an accented letter
or <control-E>.
Part 4: Two BEX Options for the Disk-based
VersaBraille II
Input through slot: from the VB II to the Apple
.pk
to pack text and
.op
to omit page numbers, as well as the commands that zero
the margins, should prove useful.
Printing: from the Apple to the VB II
Send commands?
Answer N by
pressing any key except execute. Now specify a list of chapters to print,
and direct it to the printer number you defined as a class P printer. When
the transmission is over, press chord-Z on the VB II keyboard.
VERSABRL.SAV
contains the text from the Apple. You should
immediately rename the file, or it would get clobbered the next time you
transfer a file.
Part 1: How Input through Slot Works
() Hint! The KRM Interface is tricky. Please check
out Section 10 in the Interface Guide.
Handshaking issues
Controlling communications on remote device
Apple interface cards
Getting the Right Connections
Part 3: Using Input through slot
Do you have a remote serial device to input text through
slot?
When you answer Y, you specify the interface card and an
optional set-up sequence. Before you can use Input through slot, you must
establish a configuration where you answer Y to this question. Next, you
must test the BEX page size
Part 4: Tips and Techniques
12 B
<CR>
and control-Q to quit. This chapter contains
<control-I> 12 B <CR>
which sets the SSC to 4800
baud. When you print this chapter to the SSC, then you change its
parameters.
Main Menu: P
Print
Drive or chapter: BAUD <CR>
Drive or chapter: <CR>
Which printer: N <CR>
Old carriage width: 80
New width: <CR>
Old form length 23
New form length: <CR>
Printer slot is 0
Enter new slot: 2 <CR>
No pause on form feed
Change it? N <CR>
The important question is the slot number; respond
with the interface card for Input through slot. Your answers for the
carriage width, form length, and pause on form feed questions don't
matter.
Missing characters
Garbage characters
Rare and random garbage characters
IBM-PC Example
A>
prompt appears on the IBM. Type
the following:
A> MODE COM1:96,N,8,2,P <CR>
If you're using COM1 for a voice device, you can
substitute COM2 in place of COM1. When you are using more than one serial
interface on the IBM, you may have to modify the DOS commands slightly.
See the DOS manual for details.
print <space> /p <space> [disk
drive]:[filenames] <CR>
To print one file named REPORT.TXT
on
drive B, you enter:
A> print p/b:report.txt <CR>
To print this file plus a MEMO.FMT
file
on drive A, enter:
A> print p/b:report.txt memo.fmt <CR>
To print every file on drive B, enter:
A> print p/b:*.* <CR>
NAME OF LIST DEVICE PRN=:
If you pressed <CR> here, PRN would become the
printing device. But you want to print out the serial port, so you type:
com1 <CR>
and the IBM tells you which files are printed as it
sends them. As the IBM begins to transmit, you should hear the Apple
squeal. Once the chapter is captured to disk, you can use the FIX
TEXT
transformation chapter on your BEXtras disk to strip out the
<CR><linefeed> at the end of each line and place paragraph
( $p ) indicators.
FID
utility on the Starting Menu.
Part 1: Introduction to Apple DOS Commands
]
right bracket character. The Echo pronounces this as
"Ready." You also get the BASIC prompt when you press Control-Reset to
stop a BEX option in progress. In the following samples, we show the BASIC
prompt where it will appear. Don't type the right bracket itself, just the
commands after it.
SYNTAX ERROR
and a high beep. If
you mistype a filename, DOS responds with FILE NOT FOUND
and
a high beep. In the following samples, we enclosed the word
filename in brackets to show where you type the filename of
your choosing.
S6,D1
for slot 6, drive
1 or S6,D2
for slot 6, drive 2. Once you
supply a slot and drive, DOS assumes all subsequent commands are directed
to that drive until you give a new instruction. (At the Master Level, you
learn about RAM drives, portions of the Apple's memory that you can
configure to hold the BEX program and data.)
$$vl: Speech and large print at the BASIC prompt
RUN
<CR>
and then Quit again. To relink speech at this point, you
can type either ] PR#0 <CR>
to restore speech with
40-column screen or ] PR#3 <CR>
to restore speech with
80-column screen. When BEX is sending output to the Echo or SlotBuster, it
sets the combination of speech and screen output itself. When you type
PR#0
or PR#3
at the BASIC prompt, you reset the
speech software to "speech only" mode. If you want output to the
synthesizer plus the screen, issue the appropriate command.
] PR#5 <CR>
When a serial device is
in a different slot, change the digit 5 to that slot number.
The Most Important DOS Command: RUN
] RUN <CR>
It's possible to Quit BEX, type NEW
and then create your own Applesoft BASIC program. When you do this, you
erase the BEX Menu program from the Apple's memory. To return to a
BEX Menu, you need to type RUN
followed by the filename of
the BASIC Menu program, followed by the slot and drive numbers for the BEX
program disk. For the Starting Menu, you type: cher/ RUN START,S6,D1
<CR>
. For the Main Menu, you type: cher/ RUN MAIN,S6,D1
<CR>
. For the Second Menu, you type: cher/ RUN
SECOND,S6,D1 <CR>
. For the Page Menu, you type: cher/
RUN PAGEMENU,S6,D1 <CR>
RUN [menuname],S6,D1 <CR>
Six More DOS Commands
CATALOG
you see every file on the
disk in BEX drive 1, usually slot 6, drive 1. To see the files on the disk
in drive 2, type:
] CATALOG,S6,D2 <CR>
INIT HELLO and CLOSE
INIT HELLO
at the BASIC prompt. Assuming the
disk to initialize is in drive 2, this is the safest way to proceed.
] CATALOG,S6,D2 <CR>
DOS gives you a listing of all files on the disk,
allowing you to be sure you don't need them.
] INIT HELLO <CR> I/O ERROR
then you should throw the disk straight in
the trash. Finally, type
] CLOSE <CR>
to prepare the Apple's memory to run another
program.
DELETE [filename]#[Xstyle=Heading level 4]#
DELETE
command than the number
of pages in the chapter. One DELETE command is required for each page
file, and then one more for the chapter directory file. BEX uses DELETE
whenever you Kill chapters, textfiles, configuration files, or pages. In
Part 3, we demonstrate when you might wish to DELETE files instead of
letting BEX do it for you.
RENAME [old filename] [new filename]#[Xstyle=Heading level 4]#
RENAME
command to
change the names of the page and directory files. As it renames the page
files, it reletters them to follow their numerical order. This requires a
fresh directory file, which BEX saves on top of the old one. A situation
where you'd use RENAME is described in Part 3.
() Caution! DOS 3.3 unfortunately has a bug
regarding file names: This operating system allows you to have more
than one file with the same name on a given disk. This is why you
should never copy a chapter to the same disk with the same name, or rename
a chapter to a name that already is on a disk. We discuss ways of coping
with this problem in Part 3.
LOAD SAVE BLOAD and BSAVE
() Warning! The following information is here to
whet your curiosity. When you use these commands, it's quite possible
that you could damage some of the programs on your BEX disk. It's
also possible that you can learn a lot about Applesoft BASIC, by exploring
the Apple's power in great detail. Only you can guarantee the safety
of your BEX disk by always using a back-up copy.
LOAD
command copies
information from disk into the Apple's memory. The SAVE
command is its opposite; it copies information from the Apple's
memory to a file on disk. You can only LOAD and SAVE Applesoft programs, a
type of file identified by the letter A in the second column
of a DOS catalog. All of BEX's menu programs are Applesoft BASIC. Once
it's loaded into memory, you can look at an Applesoft program by
typing LIST
at the BASIC prompt.
BLOAD
copies information from
disk into the Apple's memory, and BSAVE
copies from
memory to disk. Many of BEX's smaller programs are binary files, and all
BEX chapters are composed of binary files. Whenever BEX is reading and
writing chapters between memory and disk, it's issuing BLOAD and
BSAVE commands. BLOAD and BSAVE commands are frequently accompanied by a
specific address in memory. For example, when BEX copies a
2795-character page into the page buffer, BEX asks DOS to BLOAD beginning
at the address A$9500
a file of length L$2795
Eavesdropping on BEX with MON C
] MON C <CR>
and all the DOS commands that BEX issues become
visible to you. For example, when you Quit from the Second Menu, type
MON C
and then RUN
you eavesdrop on BEX telling
DOS to CLOSE
any open textfile, then allocate a lot of memory
for the program with MAXFILES 2
] NOMON C <CR>
Using MON C doesn't fix anything by itself; it just
lets you see how BEX works when things are going smoothly. Before using
MON C
make sure that you've made lasting copies of
anything you want to keep.
() Warning! Monitoring the computer while it's
running BEX can easily overwhelm the Apple, resulting in a "deep" crash.
In a "deep" crash, the DOS in the Apple's memory is incorrect, and
even simple DOS commands like
CATALOG
yield ?SYNTAX
ERROR
In particular, using MON C in the Editor or during Fix
chapters is guaranteed to create havoc. You probably will have to turn off
the Apple and reboot. But a "deep" crash doesn't really harm
anything. As long as all essential data is saved to disk, sit back and
enjoy the show!
DOS Error Messages
BREAK IN LINE four digit number
BREAK IN LINE
followed by a four-digit number error message.
From that discussion, you know that when BEX says BREAK
your
BEX disk is not broken. Rather, it means that the BASIC program crashed at
a particular line number. When BEX crashes at line 7410, it means
there's some problem writing to disk. Perhaps you specified an
illegal chapter name? Maybe the disk drive door is open? When BEX crashes
at line 7105, then there's a problem reading from disk. You want to
remove and insert the disk a few times to make sure it's seated
correctly in the drive.
OUT OF MEMORY error
OUT OF MEMORY
error message. Typing RUN
<CR>
solves this problem.
RUN MAIN,S6,D1 <CR>
at the BASIC prompt. When you try
this two times in a row and just get the same SYNTAX ERROR IN
65239
message, you must reboot.
The Asterisk Prompt: Crashing into the Monitor
Part 2: Advanced Techniques for Recovering
Chapters and Pages
TERM
PAPER
that's 20 pages long. When you print it, some of the
data is missing, yet you know you did not kill any pages. Time to try Fix
chapters. After you press F at the Second Menu, you must type in the exact
name of the chapter you want to fix. BEX then attempts to find any page
file that could exist for a chapter with that name.
BLOAD
a file named
TERM PAPER.A
into the page buffer. When TERM
PAPER.A
exists on disk, then this load is successful, and BEX
counts the characters in the page buffer and creates an entry in the new
directory file for that page. When a file named TERM PAPER.A
does not exist, then BEX tries again with the next possible page
extension. When TERM PAPER.B
exists, then BEX creates an
entry in the new directory file. BEX repeats this process for every
possible page.
TERM
PAPER.A
and TERM PAPER.G
corresponds to page 1.
Because Fix chapters searches for page files in alphabetical order, the
directory file it creates always makes TERM PAPER.A
page 1,
TERM PAPER.B
page 2, and so forth.
TERM PAPER
chapter contained zero
characters in page 1, for example, it means that BEX couldn't locate
TERM PAPER.A
When Fix chapters can't find the page files
BLOAD
page files. Fix chapters gives up if it tries and fails
20 times in a row. Suppose your TERM PAPER
chapter started
out at 25 BEX pages. You deleted the first sixteen pages. Then you copied
this chapter to a too-full disk, and BEX crashed before it created the
directory file. Next time, press # to check the free sector count!
TERM
PAPER
chapter, it tells you that no page files could be located.
Fix chapters has tried to BLOAD the page files named TERM
PAPER.A
through TERM PAPER.P
and those files don't
exist. Since Fix chapters has failed 20 times in a row, it has given up.
The solution is to change the page file names manually to earlier letters
in the alphabet. Quit BEX and catalog the full disk with the problem TERM
PAPER chapter. Just to make typing easier, the following sample uses the
shorter name TP
Here's what you type:
] RENAME TERM PAPER.V,TP.A <CR>
] RENAME TERM PAPER.W,TP.B <CR>
] RENAME TERM PAPER.X,TP.C <CR>
] RENAME TERM PAPER.Y,TP.D <CR>
Now you can go through the process outlined above to
make room for the directory file then use Fix chapters with target chapter
TP.
CATALOG
the disk, and then erase just one page file from the
target disk by typing DELETE [filename] <CR>
at the
BASIC prompt. This makes enough room to save a directory file, so you can
use Fix chapters. After Fix chapters is successful, you copy the
just-fixed chapter to another data disk, and initialize the problem disk.
When a Disk Contains More than One File with the
Same Name
INVOICES
and you copy a chapter to the name INVOICES on this
disk, the new INVOICES information INVOICES
and a BILLS
chapter containing three
pages. A DOS catalog of this disk shows:
B 010 INVOICES.A
B 015 INVOICES.B
B 003 INVOICES
B 016 BILLS.A
B 008 BILLS.B
B 008 BILLS.C
B 003 BILLS
Further suppose you move to the Second Menu and use
option N - Name change for chapters. You specify BILLS as your source
chapter and INVOICES as your target chapter. After BEX has renamed the
chapter, a DOS catalog of this disk reveals:
B 010 INVOICES.A
B 015 INVOICES.B
B 003 INVOICES
B 016 INVOICES.A
B 008 INVOICES.B
B 008 INVOICES.C
FILE TYPE MISMATCH error
FILE TYPE MISMATCH
error.
APPENDIX
one binary file named APPENDIX is its directory
file. If you told BEX to Write a textfile named APPENDIX on that same
disk, DOS 3.3 would complain with the FILE TYPE MISMATCH
error. That's because BEX has asked DOS to OPEN
a type T
file named APPENDIX, but DOS has found a type B file named APPENDIX that
can't be OPENed.
BSAVE
the directory file
named APPENDIX, and DOS is upset because you can't BSAVE a textfile. If
you tried to edit a new chapter named APPENDIX, you would get a Disk
read error
message from BEX.
Part 3: FID
BRUN FID
at the BASIC
prompt.) The FID software is incompatible with BEX large print. In fact,
once FID is loaded, many of BEX's software pointers are erased.
That's why you must reboot BEX after using FID.
FILE DEVELOPER ENTER OPTION
prompt. You must depress the Caps Lock key for FID to correctly interpret
your responses. To make a choice, you type a number followed by
<CR>. The options are: Since FID'S output is all uppercase, the
remaining samples are transcribed in reverse capitalization mode
1 - copy files
2 - catalog
3 - space on disk
4 - unlock files
5 - lock files
6 - delete files
7 - reset slot & drive
8 - verify files
9 - quit
filename
you can
specify the exact file, or you can use =
(equals sign) for
any portion of a filename you don't know or want to specify. The equals
sign functions as a wildcard. When you type m=d
FID finds any
file that begins with M and ends with Do, no
matter how many characters come between these two letters. Whenever you
use the wildcard, FID asks you if you want prompting. When
you answer no, then FID performs the requested action without further
intervention. When you answer yes, FID presents each filename that matches
the wildcard, and waits for your Y or N decision.
.con
identifies BEX configuration files.
Here's how that dialogue goes:
enter option 1 <CR>
copy files
source slot? 6 <CR>
drive? 1 <CR>
destination slot? 6 <CR>
drive? 2 <CR>
filename =.con <CR>
do you want prompting? y <CR>
insert disks. press <ESC> to return to main menu
or any other key to begin
filename: =.con
filename default.con y <CR>
done
filename dm.con n <CR>
cancelled
filename nj.con y <CR>
done
filename thiel.con n <CR>
cancelled
filename teach.con y <CR>
done
n <CR>
to the do you want
prompting?
question. At the Master Level, we recommend that you
lock all the files on the BEX Main side before you load the software on to
a RAM drive. You can use the equals sign wildcard with FID'S option
5.