Get ready to plug in to the best features of BEX! Master Level BEX is only available when your Apple has at least 128K memory. All Apple IIc's and IIgs's qualify; no Apple II Plus can. If you have an Apple IIe without an extended 80 column card, you will have to install an extended 80 column card to make use of the Master Level. Appendix 4 discusses sneaky ways to take advantage of some Master Level features when your Apple has only 64K memory.
To use the Master Level, we assume that you have read, understood, and practiced the material in the User Level. We expect that you are familiar with chapter selection, editing, printing, and Replace characters. The User Level summarized much of the material that you learned at the Learner Level. But at the Master Level, we focus solely on the new features. A summary of all the features available at the Master Level is in the booklet we call the Thick Reference Card.
BEX's prompts are much shorter at the Master Level.
Instead of prompting Main Menu:
BEX prompts
Main:
Whenever BEX wants a chapter name or drive number, the
prompt is simply Chapter:
If that's not brief enough for
you, read Section 9 to learn how to change BEX's prompts yourself. And if
you're feeling truly adventurous, Section 9 also explains how to change
the braille translation tables.
Section 2 introduces the Ready chapter. Up to now, the chapters you have worked have always been stored on disk. The Ready chapter is stored in the Apple's memory. You can copy its contents to disk when you want to. For the Apple IIe and IIc, the Ready chapter can be six BEX pages; for the Apple IIgs, the Ready chapter is 20 BEX pages. Because moving between pages in the Ready chapter happens totally in memory, it's a lot faster.
At the Master Level, you can turn any of BEX's four
output channels off and on when you wish. You can also change screen size
at the Menus as well as in the Editor. You can have a braille or print
device capture a small part of the computer dialogue for future reference.
You can set up automatic procedure
chapters that record your keystrokes as you use BEX. At a later
point you can replay these auto chapters, similar to running a player
piano.
As you configured at the Learner and User Level, you
probably wondered what a class S - Specific printer was. Well, Master
Level Section 5 tells all. There's a new group of format commands
that send escape codes to a specific printer. Section 5 also explains how
to embed format commands within words; how to insert discretionary hyphens
in your text, and even how to write about BEX format commands.
The largest Section in the whole of BEX is Master
Level Section 6. That's because it provides the ins and outs of
Contextual Replace. You can turn replacing on and off within a chapter.
You can specify whole classes of characters in one stroke. You can ask for
much more restrictive conditions than are possible with regular Replace
characters. Without a doubt, Contextual Replace is the most intricate and
powerful part of BEX. Contexual Replace made it possible for us to produce
this manual in both large print and braille from one set of data.
The way to tell BEX to unlock all these new features
is by creating a Master Level configuration. To set up a Master Level
configuration, answer the Enjoy!
The Ready chapter is a special chapter
which you can create and use only at the Master Level. We call it the
Ready chapter because it is always ready to use, and because
you specify it using the right bracket, which the Echo speaks as "ready."
The Ready chapter does not exist on any disk drive; instead, it exists in
the auxiliary memory created by your extended 80-column card. The size of
the Ready chapter depends on your Apple model. BEX keeps up to six Ready
chapter BEX pages in the auxiliary memory with Apple IIc and the Apple
IIe; with the Apple IIgs, the Ready chapter is 20 pages long.
You create and manipulate the Ready chapter much as
you would any other BEX chapter. Because manipulations on the Ready
chapter do not involve floppy disk access, they happen in a flash. Moving
from one Ready chapter page to another, for example, is just about
instantaneous. Using the Ready chapter minimizes disk swapping when you
have a one-drive system.
The Ready chapter also disappears in a flash when you
turn off computer power. However, it remains intact when you do a
warm boot; that is, when you reboot without interrupting
power. You can do a warm boot by depressing control and open-Apple, then
pressing the Reset key; or by entering The chapter name for the Ready chapter is just one
keystroke: There are as many uses for the Ready chapter as there
are for any BEX chapter. When you are doing a lot of work on one chapter,
it is very efficient to copy it into the Ready chapter and proceed to edit
and operate on the Ready chapter. The Master Level requires the additional
64K memory from an extended 80-column card, so in addition to the Ready
chapter, the routines for printing, the Editor and Replace characters are
always loaded in RAM. These operations and some others, like Copy
chapters, do not require disk access. When you use the Ready chapter, BEX
glides along with barely a disk access.
The main hurdle in using the Ready chapter is
remembering that it is there. Now that you are at the Master Level, you
are encouraged to change your habits and use the Ready chapter.
Whenever BEX prompts for Suppose you want to produce a letter in both print and
braille. You write it in print form in the Ready chapter. You then copy it
to a chapter called The Ready chapter is perfect for temporary
information. For Editing with the Ready chapter is a treat. Moving
between pages, and in and out of the Editor do not entail disk access
time.
When you enter When you edit in the Ready chapter, you still have a
regular-size clipboard of up to 4096 characters. As in any other chapter,
the editing work on your current page is only in the page buffer until you
save the page in memory. The current page is saved in memory when you
change pages, enter control-P 0, or press control-Q.
When you leave the Editor with control-Q, your current
Ready page is saved, but not on disk. When you want to save it to disk,
use Copy chapters with You may have more pages in your Ready chapter than
your computer's Ready chapter page limit. BEX automatically saves
extra pages to disk. We discuss this further in Part 2: Ready Chapter File
Structure below. Of course, you are making most efficient use of the Ready
chapter when you keep to the page number limit, which is 20 for the Apple
IIgs, and six for the Apple IIc or IIe.
When you want to clear the Ready chapter, so that it
contains no text, you can use Kill chapters on the Second Menu. Kill
chapters deletes any pages in the Ready chapter which happen to be saved
on disk.
There is, however, one operation which does
not work with the Ready chapter. This is option N - Name
change for chapters on the Second Menu. You can't specify The file structure for the Ready chapter resembles the
ordinary chapter file structure. Its page files are lettered
sequentially: As with ordinary BEX chapters, the correspondence
between page numbers and the one-letter file extensions can vary. When
cutting pages and Page Menu manipulations are not part of a chapter's
history, the page file extensions for pages 1, 2, and so on are in
alphabetical order. As you may recall, page manipulations change the
correspondence between the page number and its letter extension. When you
kill pages or move them in the Edito, the new pages keep their old
extensions. When you cut a page or use Grab pages, each newly created page
file takes the next available extension for that chapter. When you copy a
chapter, the copy uses the same extensions as the original.
These considerations are equally true for ordinary BEX
chapters and for the Ready chapter. They are just more crucial for the
Ready chapter, since you want to use extensions Suppose you have a seven page chapter called
Next, you copy chapter MANIFESTO to the Ready chapter.
Page 5, with its G letter extension, is written to disk, even
though you are not over the page limit. When you Copy chapters, the letter
extensions remain the same. Any page with extension Three options on the Second and Page Menus solve this
problem. Options M - Merge chapters and A - Adjust page sizes on the
Second Menu, and option G - Grab pages from another chapter on the Page
Menu create new chapter directories. These options use alphabetical order
for extensions as they create new page files.
For example, suppose you copy the chapter MANIFESTO
using Page manipulations on the Ready chapter itself, as
well as some Editor commands such as control-C control-P to cut pages,
also take its page extensions out of alphabetical order. When you have
unnecessary disk files, you may wish to straighten the page files. For
example, you can use Merge chapters with chapter When you use Fix chapters on the Ready chapter, the
result is different from Fix chapter with a disk chapter. Because there is
no disk file for the file extensions A through
Go, or A through T on the Apple
IIgs, BEX can't know how many characters are in each page. Therefore,
every Ready chapter page in memory is restored to 4095 characters. It is
as if you did One of our staff was editing a six page Ready chapter
without a disk in her default drive. When she cut a page, she created a
seventh disk page, which needed to be written to disk. Since there was no
disk in the drive, BEX could not save the page. She got the message
The moral of the tale is always have a disk in your
default data drive when you work with the Ready chapter!
In this Section you learn how to use more than two
5.25-inch floppy disk drives with BEX. Part 1 provides the conceptual
framework, explaining the virtual drive number system BEX
uses to keep track of disk drives. Part 2 explains how you answer the
configuration questions concerning extended disk drive systems. In Part 3
you learn the ins and outs of RAM drives, which can dramatically speed up
your BEX use. Part 4 deals with 3.5-inch disks, sometimes called
microfloppies, which are easy to slip in your pocket and can
hold almost 800K of data. Part 5 deals with the Sider, the only hard disk
system that BEX supports. Finally, Part 6 provides four sample
combinations of extended disk systems.
At the Learner and User Levels of BEX, your disk drive
options were simple: one or two. Either way, they had to be 5.25-inch
floppy disk drives, connected to a single disk controller card. Now at the
Master Level, you have many more options: You can have more than two
5.25-inch disk drives; you can have one or two 3.5-inch disks drives; you
can set aside portions of memory to be used as RAM drives;
and you can use a Sider hard disk drive. We use the term extended
disk systems to include all these options.
When DOS 3.3, the Apple operating system, addresses a
disk drive, it uses the combination of the slot where the
disk controller card is plugged in and the number of the
drive on that card. For the vast majority of Apple IIe systems, the first
drive is slot 6, drive 1; the second drive is slot 6, drive 2. Even though
the Apple IIc doesn't have slots, the same addresses are used: the
internal disk drive is slot 6, drive 1; the external disk drive is slot 6,
drive 2. Things are a little more complicated on the Apple IIgs because it
often comes with 3.5-inch disk drives instead of or in addition to
5.25-inch disk drives--more on this in Part 4.
When you configure an extended disk system, BEX asks
you to assign a slot and drive number to each virtual drive number. From
then on, you access the disk in a particular slot and drive by the single
virtual drive number you have assigned to that address.
Finally, before you configure an extended disk system,
you need to know which drive the Apple boots from. Unless you have
recently rearranged your disk drives or added new equipment, your Apple
generally boots from the disk drive in slot 6, drive 1, which we refer to
as the booting drive. You know this empirically, as you've
been booting BEX successfully up to now.
For those with disk controllers in other slots,
here's the nitty-gritty. The Apple IIe and IIc always attempt to boot
from the first drive connected to the disk controller card in the highest
numbered slot. When your disk drive controller is in slot 6, and slot 7
does not contain a disk controller card, the Apple boots from
slot 6, drive 1. When you add another disk controller card with two drives
in slot 5, the Apple still boots from slot 6, drive 1, because
6 is higher than 5. In short, the Apple IIe and
IIc boot from the highest drive number.
On the Apple IIgs, booting is determined by one
Control Panel setting. When the Control Panel Startup Disk
function is set to Scan, then the IIgs searches for a bootable disk in any
slot. You can also specify any numbered slot or a RAM or ROM drive for
We'll demonstrate the general procedure with a
straightforward example. Other configuration dialogues are shown in later
Parts; Part 6 provides four sample combinations of various devices. Assume
you have two 5.25-inch disk controller cards, one in slot 6 and one in
slot 5. Each card has two disk drives plugged into it, for a total of four
drives. After you have answered all the printer questions in a
configuration, here's how the rest of the dialogue goes:
You may notice that this dialogue is similar to
configuring printers. You assign a virtual drive number to the combination
of slot and drive number. From then on, the virtual drive number is how
you reference that disk drive. You end the naming process by entering zero
for the slot number. BEX prompts you with the next virtual drive number in
sequence until you supply eight addresses or enter zero.
A RAM drive is a portion of the Apple's memory
that acts like a floppy disk. RAM is an acronym for Random
Access Memory. You can read and write information between a RAM drive and
a floppy disk. A RAM drive is very similar in function to BEX's Ready
chapter. All "disk" access happens in a flash, because you don't have to
wait for the mechanical head on the disk drive to move around over a
physical disk.
At the Master Level, you can configure RAM drives to
hold data, and you can also configure one RAM drive to hold the programs
on BEX's Main side. Things speed up dramatically when BEX runs from a RAM
drive--moving to the Page Menu, for example, takes just as long as loading
the Editor or Print options.
In order to configure a RAM drive, your Apple must
contain more than 128K of memory. You get this extra memory by plugging a
memory card into your Apple IIe or IIgs. Although the Apple
IIc does not have slots, it's possible for a computer dealer to
install extra memory in a IIc, as well.
There are two distinct types of memory cards: the
auxiliary slot cards and the regular slot
cards. The difference between them is where you plug them in and
how they are partitioned. BEX works with both kinds of memory cards.
The auxiliary slot cards are plugged in
to the auxiliary slot of the Apple IIe. They provide 80-column capability
as well as extra memory. As with any 80-column card, the Apple addresses
an auxiliary slot card as if it were in slot 3, even though it's not
The Apple IIgs does not have an auxiliary slot;
instead, it has a memory expansion slot. As far as BEX is
concerned, a memory card plugged into the Apple IIgs's memory
expansion slot is treated as if it were an auxiliary slot card in an Apple
IIe. Apple IIgs users should follow the instructions for auxiliary slot
cards.
The regular slot cards can be installed
in slot 1 through slot 7 in the Apple IIe or IIgs. Examples of regular
slot cards are the Apple Memory Card made by Apple, and the RamFactor card
made by Applied Engineering. You can't use a regular slot card for DOS 3.3
RAM drives in a system that also contains a Sider hard disk.
Plain old DOS 3.3 does not have the capacity to create
and work with RAM drives. However, it's possible to make minor disk
operating system modifications, commonly called patches, that
enable DOS 3.3 to work with RAM drives. BEX takes advantage of three
different RAM drive patches. For auxiliary slot cards in the Apple IIe and
Apple IIc, BEX uses RAMDRIVE, a program written and distributed by Applied
Engineering. For expansion slot memory in the Apple IIgs, BEX uses RAM
3.3, a special patch written by David Holladay. For the Apple Memory Card
in the Apple IIe or Apple IIgs, BEX uses patches located in the
card's firmware. At the end of this Part, we discuss some of the
idiosyncrasies you can encounter when working with regular slot memory
cards.
For instructions on installing RAM cards, check
Section 5, The Cookbook, in the Interface Guide. Turn off the power to
your Once the card is installed, use option W - What is in
this computer at the Starting Menu. When BEX says When you install a regular slot card, What is in this
computer should list it as an Apple Memory Card in its
appropriate slot. When you install a regular slot card in slot 5, yet BEX
says it's an "unknown card," do not worry. Option R - Recognition of
cards on the Starting Menu lets you teach BEX about cards it does not
recognize. You use Recognition of cards to tell BEX that the "unknown
card" in slot 5 is actually a "Regular Slot Memory Card." More details in
Interface Guide Section 15.
The memory on a regular slot card is treated as a
single, large RAM drive. When you have a one megabyte Apple Memory Card in
slot 5, its address for configuring purposes is slot 5, drive 1. Once
configured, this RAM drive has a lot of room. You get
Both Apple Engineering's RAMDRIVE software and
RDC'S RAM 3.3 program divide the memory into 192K RAM drives, holding
more than 700 sectors. How many RAM drives you get depends on how much
memory is in the card. To find out exactly how many sectors are in each of
your RAM drives, press # at any BEX menu. The maximum amount of memory
that RAMDRIVE or RAM 3.3 can manage is one megabyte--five full RAM drives.
Any additional memory above one megabyte is ignored.
As you can see, most RAM drives hold significantly
more data than a 5.25-inch floppy disk, which starts out with 140K or 528
As with any extended disk system, you must establish a
BEX configuration that references the RAM drives. In the following sample,
all the RAM drives on an auxiliary slot card are used as
data drives.
In this configuration, the booting drive and the
program drive are both in slot 6, drive 1. The default data drive is drive
number 5. Unless all the chapters you create are completely disposable, it
is absolutely crucial that you copy your chapters from a RAM data drive to
a floppy disk before you turn off the power!
Also shown in this example are two of the error
messages BEX provides when you enter nonsensical values. Remember, you can
press <CR> for a summary of RAM drives available when BEX prompts
for the slot number.
You can establish a configuration where the Main side
of BEX is loaded to a RAM drive. If you have enough memory, you can have
RAM data drives as well. When BEX is loaded on a RAM drive, moving between
menus takes less than one second. Since you already have a floppy disk
copy of your BEX program, loading the BEX Main side to a RAM drive
requires less concentration on your part. It's like using an extra
backup of your BEX disk. If lightning strikes and your Apple's power
is affected, you won't be losing crucial data.
As we said in Part 2, BEX always looks for the program
disk in virtual drive 1. When you load the Main side of BEX on the RAM
drive, virtual drive 1 is not the booting drive. You can still boot BEX,
because the Apple takes care of booting. Once BEX is booted and you enter
the name of the configuration, BEX knows to look in virtual drive 1 for
the Main side of BEX. Here's one possible arrangement for a 512K
auxiliary slot card:
In this particular configuration, the default
data drive is one of the two larger RAM drives. Notice that the virtual
drive numbers do not have to follow the order of the full addresses of the
disk drives. The program drive is always virtual drive 1, in this case,
slot 3, drive 1. The booting drive is virtual drive 2, which is physically
slot 6, drive 1. You could rearrange the virtual drives to suit your
tastes; but to load BEX onto the RAM drive, you must assign virtual drive
1 to a RAM drive.
Once you set up a configuration with virtual drive 1
as a RAM drive, you're ready to go. With the Boot side still in the
disk drive, press <space>. BEX checks to see if the Main side
software is loaded on virtual drive 1. When it is loaded, you quickly move
to the Main Menu. But when it's not loaded, BEX automatically uses
FID to load the Main side software onto the RAM disk. At the appropriate
time, BEX prompts you to insert the Main BEX disk and to press any key.
When you need to access the Starting Menu, first go to the Main Menu and
insert the Boot side of BEX into the booting disk drive, then press
<space>. To get back to the Main Menu, press <space> at the
Starting Menu. You can't load the Starting Menu on a RAM drive; you must
access the Starting Menu from disk.
Once you have loaded BEX onto the RAM drive, virtual
drive 1 contains all the BEX program chapters as well as any
data chapters you put there. When you have a regular slot memory card,
which is treated as one vast RAM drive, then you definitely will be
writing data chapters on your program drive. If you told BEX to perform an
operation on all the chapters in virtual drive 1, you would
change the BEX chapters To prevent BEX from messing with any chapters on your
Main side, lock their directory files before you install them
on your RAM drive. You can use FID'S option 5 - Lock Files to lock
every file on your Main side.
BEX treats a RAM drive like any other data drive. When
virtual drive 3 is a RAM drive, then editing chapter You can add an audible indicator as well. When you
boot BEX, hold down the open-Apple key until you hear a sound. For an
Apple IIe, it's a clicking sound; for the Apple IIgs it's a low
moan. When you do this, you add an audible indicator for RAM
The crucial thing to remember is you lose your data if
you lose power. You must copy your chapters to disk before turning
off your computer. In fact, we recommend that you routinely copy
your chapters to disk at least every half-hour. In Section 4, Part 3, we
explain how you can catalog more than one disk drive at the Page Menu.
When you configure your RAM drives all in a row, use this feature to check
to make sure you've saved all your RAM drive data.
You can use almost every BEX option with a RAM drive,
with three exceptions:
There's one additional complication when you run
the Main side from a RAM drive. As we've stressed, virtual drive 1 is
always the program drive. On the Main side, the programs BEX needs are on
the RAM drive you've configured as virtual drive 1. But when you switch to
the Starting Menu, the programs BEX needs are on the floppy disk in the
booting drive. When you use the Starting Menu, virtual drive 1 is
temporarily redirected to the booting drive. When you <space> back
to the Main Menu, virtual drive 1 becomes the Main RAM drive again. As
mentioned in Part 2, there's an on-line reminder of which virtual
drive number references which physical disk drive. Press D at any BEX
menu; when BEX responds Two factors limit how much data can fit on a DOS 3.3
disk of any sort: the free sector count, and the number of filenames.
Clearly, the free sector count is not a problem here; a regular slot
memory card gives you lots or room. However, plain DOS 3.3
can only manage 105 filenames per "disk." Because the auxiliary and memory
expansion card RAM drives are subdivided into drives, you usually don't
bump into this 105 filename barrier. But on a one megabyte regular slot
card, you're bound to encounter it sooner or later.
When you attempt to save the 106th file, DOS reports
the And this is where you can get into trouble. Suppose
you have five 20-page BEX chapters. They are stored as 105 files on disk.
Even if each of the pages of these five BEX chapters contained only one
character, you would get a The limit of 105 filenames is particularly problematic
when you have a regular slot memory card, and you load BEX's Main side
onto a RAM drive. The BEX Main programs are at least 35 files; this leaves
just 70 possible filename slots for your BEX chapters.
Way back in Learner Level 5, we described how BEX
attempts to salvage the page buffer when something goes wrong when you
quit or move between pages. BEX uses the The designers of DOS 3.3 never anticipated a device
like the 3.5 inch disk drive. This is a pity, because these little disks
are delightful: they are compact, sturdy, and they can hold almost 800K of
data. But DOS 3.3 can never cope with more than 400K on one disk.
Fortunately, Gary Little wrote a modified disk operating system named
AmDOS, which allow access to 3.5 inch disks. Even more fortunately, Mr.
Little licensed us to include AmDOS on the BEX disk. The AmDOS on the BEX
disk has been slightly modified to work smoothly within BEX.
Refer to the Interface Guide, Section 1 on the Apple
IIgs for information on connecting 3.5 inch drives to your system. If you
are going to do a lot of work with 3.5 inch disks, you may want to
purchase a full featured version of AmDOS at $20 US--check Appendix 5 for
the address.
AmDOS gets around the 400K limitation in DOS 3.3 by
dividing each 800K disk drive into two 400K disks. (It's yet another
virtual drive scheme!) Even though the two 400K disks are physically on
the same magnetic medium, they are treated as if they were two totally
separate disks. The tricky part is how these 400K disks are addressed:
both drive numbers on the first disk drive are always odd, and on the
second disk drive they're always even.
Suppose your 3.5 inch disk controller card is plugged
into slot 5. AmDOS treats the first 3.5 inch disk drive as if it were two
distinct 400K drives: one in slot Let's say you have two disk drives in your
system: one 5.25 inch floppy drive in slot 6, drive 1, and one 3.5 inch
drive in slot 5, drive 1. You could configure this way:
Virtual drive 1: slot 6, drive 1
Virtual drive 2: slot 5, drive 1
Virtual drive 3: slot 5, drive 3
In this sample, your default data drive is virtual
drive 3, one half of the disk in the 3.5 inch disk drive. And that
information is always going to be on that half of the 3.5
inch disk. Suppose you established a different configuration that reversed
the virtual drive numbers for the 3.5 inch disk, like this:
Virtual drive 1: slot 6, drive 1
Virtual drive 2: slot 5, drive 3
Virtual drive 3: slot 5, drive 1
You write a chapter on drive 3 in the first system. To
print that same chapter with the second system, you look on drive 2.
Once the AmDOS software is loaded into the
Apple's memory, you can no longer initialize 5.25 inch floppy disks.
So, it's important to understand when BEX loads the
AmDOS software. There are two Starting Menu actions that make BEX load the
You initialize a 3.5 inch disk using option I -
Initialize disks. When you supply a virtual drive number corresponding to
the 3.5 inch controller card, BEX realizes that you need AmDOS, and loads
it. With the sample configuration above, after you start initializing,
entering 2 or 3 at the Once you have initialized a 3.5 inch disk, you can no
longer initialize 5.25 inch disks until you reboot. You can't copy 5.25
inch disks either, because the first step in BEX's Copy disks is to
initialize the target disk.
The other action that loads AmDOS is when you move
from the Starting to the Main Menu. When you have done either of these
actions, you simply can't initialize 5.25 inch disks. Therefore, before
you begin using a configuration that includes 3.5 inch disks, sit down and
initialize a stack of floppy disks! If you must initialize a floppy disk
after AmDOS is loaded, then save your data and reboot BEX.
Besides the initializing disks issue, there's
just one limitation on BEX use with 3.5 inch drives. You can not use
option C - Copy disks to make copies of 3.5 inch AmDOS disks. (You can
only use Copy disks for 5.25 inch floppies before you load AmDOS.) To get
material on or off a 3.5 inch disk you must use the normal machinery of
BEX (copy chapters, translation, replacing, etc.) or use FID. To use FID,
AmDOS must be already loaded. All you need to do is move to the Main Menu
and then move back to the Starting Menu and press F.
Option R - Read textfiles to chapters on BEX's Second
Menu can read ProDOS textfiles stored on ProDOS 3.5 inch disks. With our
sample, you would insert the ProDOS disk in the 3.5 inch drive, then enter
either virtual drive number 2 or 3 when BEX prompts for the textfile to
read. You can Read the textfile to a RAM drive, to the Ready chapter, or
to a DOS 3.3 floppy disk. As mentioned in User Level 10, however, BEX can
only read ProDOS textfiles that are stored at the root level
of a ProDOS volume. If the 3.5 inch ProDOS disk was named
The Sider hard disk, manufactured by First Class
Peripherals, is the only hard disk system supported by BEX. You can only
configure a single Sider with BEX; BEX won't be able to work with
additional Siders daisy chained on to the first Sider. You
can configure an extended disk system that includes both auxiliary card
RAM drives and the Sider. However, you can not load the Main side of BEX
onto the RAM drive when your configuration includes the Sider.
With DOS 3.3, you cannot install a regular slot memory
card and a Sider in the same system. The Sider disk controller card
contains special patching software to work well with DOS 3.3. The regular
slot memory card also patches DOS 3.3. Unfortunately, the DOS 3.3 patches
are different, yet they occur at the same point in DOS.
Section 13 of the Interface Guide is devoted to extensive installation
instructions for the Sider, including tips on partitioning the Sider into
different operating systems.
The DOS 3.3 partition of the Sider is further
subdivided into numbered volumes. When you set up the Sider,
you establish some number of small volumes containing
approximately 140K However, when you configure the Sider, you do not
establish a distinct virtual drive number for each Sider volume. Instead,
you enter one virtual drive number for the slot and drive of the
Sider's disk controller card, and then provide the total number of
DOS 3.3 volumes. You also provide the volume numbers for the Boot and Main
sides of BEX.
Once BEX has the Sider volume numbers, it
automatically generates a list that pairs a virtual drive number with the
Sider's volume number. Since the BEX Main program is contained on the
Sider, you must make the Sider virtual drive 1. Since the Sider is usually
installed in slot 7, virtual drive 1 is slot 7, drive 1. Here's the
end of a sample configuration dialogue, after you've answered all the
printer questions:
For the question about how many volumes, use the
number from the Sider initialization (the sum of the small and large DOS
3.3 volumes). For the questions about the boot side volume and the main
side volume, give the volume numbers where you copied the program disks.
From that point on, you answer the virtual drive number questions as
always.
Whenever you boot from the Sider, you are presented
with the Sider's Master Menu, which has seven choices. The default
choice is number 3, Boot from DOS partition. Press <CR>, and you run
the DOS 3.3 Moving between the Main and Starting Menus is the same
as always: press <space>.
BEX treats each volume in the Sider as a separate disk
drive. In the sample configuration, the default data drive is a floppy
drive, virtual number 50. Virtual drives 2 through 48 are all Sider
volumes, virtual drive 49 is also a floppy disk drive. As always, virtual
drive 1 is the program disk. When you're at the Main, Second, or Page
Menus, virtual drive 1 is redirected to the Sider volume containing the
Main programs. When you're at the Starting Menu, virtual drive 1 is
redirected to the Sider volume contains the Boot programs. See Part 3 of
this Section, Redirecting Virtual Drive 1 at the Starting
Menu for an explanation of what's going on.
Of course, it may take some time to get used to having
many megabytes of storage on a hard disk at your disposal. Automatic
procedure chapters, discussed in Section 8, are particularly handy tools
when combined with the Sider. Section 4, Working with Chapters, discusses
some Master Level features that help you keep track of all those Sider
volumes.
BEX uses a patched DOS 3.3 that speeds up disk access.
The Sider uses a more conventional version of DOS 3.3. You will notice
that some accesses to floppy disks are slower on the Sider. On the Sider,
you do not get the free sector count at the top of a catalog. But you can
enter number sign at any BEX menu to obtain the free sector count on any
of your virtual drives.
The following four samples are based on Apple systems
we use here at Raised Dot Computing. You will notice that, where possible,
we load the Main side software on a RAM drive. This maneuver so speeds up
the system that it's irresistible.
Combining a regular slot memory card with two floppy
disks, this set-up is excellent for massive data manipulation with
Contextual Replace. With a one megabyte card, you can copy BEX to the RAM
drive and have plenty of room left for your data.
Virtual Drive 1: slot 5, drive 1 (Apple Memory Card)
Virtual Drive 2: slot 6, drive 1 (floppy drive 1 and
booting drive)
Virtual Drive 3: slot 6, drive 2 (floppy drive 2)
The one megabyte of memory in the IIgs' memory
expansion slot is divided into five RAM drives, attached to slot 3. A
single 3.5 inch disk drive becomes two virtual drives; the 5.25 inch drive
is basically only used to boot the system. In this configuration, the
booting drive and the default data drive are the same.
521K Apple IIe with hard disk
In this configuration the Sider comes first, then the
RAM drives, and then the floppy drives. You cannot load the Main side
software onto a RAM drive when you boot from a Sider.
Virtual Drive 1: slot 7, drive 1 (Sider Hard Disk,
booting and program drive)
Number of volumes: 43
Boot side volume: 2
Main side volume: 3
Virtual Drive 44: slot 3, drive 1 (RAM drive 1)
Virtual Drive 45: slot 3, drive 2 (RAM drive 2)
Virtual Drive 46: slot 3, drive 3 (RAM drive 3)
Virtual Drive 47: slot 6, drive 1 (floppy drive 1)
Virtual Drive 48: slot 6, drive 2 (floppy drive 2)
512K Apple IIc with four virtual drives
The Z-RAM from Applied Engineering acts just like an
auxiliary slot memory card. With the Main side loaded in RAM, you only
need to use the internal disk drive. This makes the Apple IIc reasonably
portable.
Virtual Drive 1: slot 3, drive 1 (RAM drive 1)
Virtual Drive 2: slot 3, drive 2 (RAM drive 2)
Virtual Drive 3: slot 3, drive 3 (RAM drive 3)
Virtual Drive 4: slot 6, drive 1 (internal floppy
drive and booting drive)
With the many drives that are available at the Master
Level, knowledge of how to specify chapters and alter chapter names
becomes all the more important. In this Section we discuss the many ways
of specifying chapters. In Part 1 we review methods of chapter selection
introduced in User Level Section 4, Part 1. In Part 2 we introduce two new
target chapter naming methods. In Part 3 we discuss two methods of
managing your data.
Like most prompts at the Master Level, the prompts for
chapters are quite short. BEX simply asks for Whenever you type a chapter name or naming method, BEX
assumes you're writing and reading on the default data
drive. When you are using an extended disk system, the disk drive
numbers you use at chapter prompts are the virtual drive numbers you
established in your configuration. The highest virtual drive number is
always your default data drive number. When you have configured with four
drives, your default data drive number is 4.
You can indicate When you enter This chart summarizes the chapter selection features
available at the Master Level:
All the target chapter naming methods described in the
User Level are available at the Master Level. In addition, you can always
use the Ready chapter as a target chapter (except at option N - Name
change for chapters). In fact, you can specify the Ready chapter when you
use I to individually name the target chapters. At the Master Level, there
are two additional naming method options: drive number 0 and the period
prefix.
Using drive number 0 in a target chapter naming method
directs each target chapter to its home drive, the same drive
as the source chapter generating it. For example, suppose you specify
source chapters on both drive 2 and drive 3 and use naming method 0S. Each
source chapter generates a target chapter by the same name on the same
drive and thus overwrites itself. Drive number 0 is always available when
you are naming one or more target chapters. However, it is most useful
when you have specified source chapters from more than one drive.
The period prefix enables you to use a target chapter
naming method even if you have given only one source chapter. When you
have more than one source chapter, the period has no effect, and BEX
operates as if you had specified a naming method without the period. The
period character goes after the drive number, if present, and before the
letter that specifies the naming method. It tells BEX, "This is a naming
method, not a chapter name." For example:
The result is a chapter named MASTERPIECE on drive 6.
This means that you have to type a chapter's name
only once in its life: when you create it. After that you can
always specify it by number, and modify its name using a target chapter
naming method.
You cannot use the period prefix to name
a target chapter in a list of individually named target chapters. When you
use target code I, you must type each target name. For example, suppose
you are copying chapters from drive 3, a RAM drive, to drive 8, on disk.
You have a list of three chapters, and use the I naming Section 7 discusses using the period prefix in
automatic procedure chapters. The period prefix enables the same procedure
to work with a list containing one chapter or with a list containing many.
This chart summarizes the possibilities:
Here's an example to show what you can do when
you combine scanning methods and target codes: Suppose you have chapters
on three separate drives, all of which you need to use Replace characters
on, and you want to keep them on the same drives. Ordinarily, you would
use Replace characters three separate times, once for each drive. But by
using a combination of the plus sign when scanning for chapters, and drive
number 0 when specifying the target chapter naming methods, you can do it
in one step.
For this example, we use three drives: drives 1 and 2
are RAM drives, and drive 3 is a 5.25 inch disk drive. There are two
chapters on each drive.
First, you scan each of the three drives for the
chapters that need replacing, by using the plus sign before the drive
number to tell BEX to select more chapters. You choose the chapters from
the numbered list, then move onto the next drive, until you have specified
all the chapters. Next, BEX asks for a target chapter naming method. You
could use any naming method, but you use the S naming method, to make
things simple.
Here's how the dialogue looks:
Since you can have many disk drives at the Master
Level, you need more tools to help you manage data. Two features help you
with option W - Whole disk catalog on the Page Menu.
When you press W for the Whole Disk Catalog on the
Page Menu, you can obtain a catalog of a range of disk drives. This
feature makes it easier to keep track of the many volumes in a Sider hard
disk, or of chapters in RAM drives. This feature is available at all
Levels, but is most useful when you have more than two disk drives.
As when you're specifying chapters on more than one
drive, you use the plus sign You must enter the drive numbers in ascending order;
if you entered Using ampersand Chapter CAT now contains all the characters that
appeared on the screen between entering Master Level printing features focus on some of the
finer distinctions in your output. In this Section, we describe embedding
$$ commands in words, controlling how lines break, and touch on embedding
printer control codes in your chapter.
BEX's formatter divides your text into output lines.
Before this, the lines always broke at the <space> or <CR>
that defines a BEX word. <Control-S>, the sticky space token, lets
you define a space that is not a word boundary. <Control-T>, the
touching token, can replace the initial and final space in BEX $$ format
commands.
Some printers use <control-S> and
<control-T> as control codes; you must tell BEX when to pay
attention to these two characters in your text. To have BEX recognize
them, you must first activate the commands with a special format command:
$$ss activates the sticky space token and the touching token (see below)
for the rest of the print stream. To disable special spacing, use $$d or
reload the print program. If you have entered the sticky space token and
the touching token into your text but you did not enter $$ss also, no
space appears between the characters surrounding the tokens.
You may want to use <control-S> or
<control-T> as printer control codes in your chapter. When you do,
place the $$ss after where the codes are entered in your text. Before the
$$ss, the formatter sends the <control-S> and <control-T>
codes through to your printer.
The <control-T> touching token
allows you to omit the space before a $$ command, and still have that
command executed. When enabled by $$ss, a <control-T> in your text
allows you For example, to underline War and Peace
inside of parentheses, type:
Recall from User Level Section 7, Part 8, that
suppressing underlining before a final period, comma, semicolon, or colon
happens automatically when enabled by $$sp, and does not require any
fussing with <control-T>.
The Grade 2 translator treats any control character as
a space. This is important to keep in mind when you are embedding BEX $$
commands within words and intend to translate this text. Suppose you want
to emphasize the third syllable in the word computerized:
Since the <control-T> takes the place of the
spaces required before and after any $$ command, this word prints with the
third syllable in boldface. When you translate this word, the final
<control-T> separates the syllable er from the format
command $$eb. This separation turns the translator back on, so the
translated result is
The normal use of the <control-S> sticky
space token is as a nonbreaking space. Enabled by
$$ss, a <control-S> in your chapter is printed as a space in your
output. However, the <control-S> is not treated as a word delimiter
for printing. Text connected by sticky spaces is treated as one BEX word
and is all printed on the same line. In other words, a <control-S>
creates a space in your output that is not a space in your text.
For example, suppose a character in the story you're
writing has three middle initials. It would be confusing if his name was
broken between lines. when you type
Using a program to write about itself is always a
little tricky. When we write about BEX format commands, we use the sticky
space token. A <control-S> sticky space before the dollar sign in a
format command is not a real space. So the format command or
indicator is not executed; it is appropriately spaced as an individual
word in the text.
For example, when we wrote about the underline command
in User Level, Section 7, we printed the command by typing:
<control-S>
The sticky space token also makes it possible for us
to write about the paragraph token with its parentheses: ( $p )
is typed in the text as eight keystrokes: ( <control-B> S $ p
<control-B> S )
Remember that each <control-S> takes two
keystrokes: control-C then S.
These control characters provide the formatter with
ways to break a line in the middle of a word.
Use the discretionary hyphen to tell the formatter
where to place a hyphen if it breaks that word between lines. If BEX
doesn't break the word between lines, it won't print the hyphen.
To enter a discretionary hyphen in your text, hold
down the control key and press the hyphen. In a HI-RES screen mode, a
discretionary hyphen is represented in the Editor by a small, uppercase
S with a vertical line down the right side and a horizontal
line underneath: much like the <ESC> character in your text. When
you arrow over a discretionary hyphen, the Echo says "ASCII 31," which
sounds like "As-key three one."
You can enter a discretionary hyphen manually in
extra-long words in the Editor, or you can write a transformation chapter
to insert a discretionary hyphen at suitable syllable boundaries. If you
write a transformation chapter, be cautious. If you asked to insert
<ASCII 31> before ation for example, you'd get
discretionary hyphens in n-ation and st-ation,
as well as longer words. Also, this works best for print chapters.
You can created an auto chapter that replaces
<ASCII 31> with nothing and then runs the translator. See Section 7
for instructions about creating Auto chapters.
The discretionary line break tells the printer that
it's okay to break a line at that particular spot. For print output,
this is a Hold down the control key and press the number
You only have to do this in chapters for print output.
BEX's Grade 2 translator automatically places discretionary line breaks
after hyphens and before and after dashes when it translates.
For either of these control characters to work, you
have to activate them at the beginning of your chapter with a $$sd
command. This is just like using $$ss to activate sticky spaces. However,
you may want to use <ASCII 30> or <ASCII 31> as printer
control codes in your chapter. When you do, place the $$sd after where the
codes are entered in your text. Before the $$sd, the formatter sends the
<ASCII 30> and <ASCII 31> codes through unmodified.
In braille chapters, you do not need to enter $$sd.
All output devices configured as braillers automatically
include $$sd when printing.
The format command $$vrX repeats the character
X to the end of the current line (as defined by whatever
margins are in effect). X may be an underline, dash, the
space character, or any other printable character. Only one $$vrX command
works For example, a form requires the word
City at the left margin, the word State
two-thirds of the way across the line, and the word ZIP
almost at the right margin. Wherever words don't appear, you want
underlines. With a carriage width of 65, these commands would do the
trick:
Kram one BEX word on the right margin:
$$vk is used in combination with $$vrX in tables of contets or menus. For
example:
You can use the sticky space token if you want more
than one word at the end of the line. For example:
The sticky space makes the three words into one BEX
word. They appear as three separate words in the printed
text. There is a limit, however. The word you have crammed to the right
margin with $$vk cannot be more than 32 characters
Many printers allow you to print fun things like
boldface fonts, superscripts, subscripts and foreign language letters; you
can change line spacing, use fancy vertical tabs, and turn on headline
mode. Diligent study of your printer manual will yield what characters you
need to enter to print these wonders. Since you can type any ASCII
character in a chapter, it's easy to embed the commands into your
text: you just type them in like regular BEX words. BEX doesn't recognize
them as commands, and sends them through to your printer. Once the printer
gets them it starts doing the fancy stuff.
Another drawback is that some printers default to
normal print after every <CR>, which is usually at the end of every
line. Every time characters printed with the control command are broken
between lines, the characters on the second line revert back to normal.
Also in this case BEX cannot help you.
When your printer control commands include characters
such as <ASCII 30>, <ASCII 31>, <control-S> or
<control-T>, your printer will not receive them if $$ss or $$sd is
active. When you need to deactivate the commands in order to send a
control command to your printer, you must reset the formatter to default
with $$d.
When you define a printer in your configuration, you
have seven printer classes to choose from. When you declare your printer
as a specific printer, you can make use of 11 more format
commands. These format commands control boldface, superscripts,
subscripts, and other tasks. The essential difference In all, there are five possible tasks. The various
tasks are listed below. Your printer may not support all five, so you
still have to refer to your printer manual. For example, the original
Apple ImageWriter does not support subscripts and superscripts. BEX
ignores any request for subscripts or superscripts sent to an original
ImageWriter.
How does BEX know what codes to send? When you define
a printer as specific in your configuration, BEX reads the
control code information for your specific printer from the
You enter $$eX format commands in your text; BEX
transforms into the appropriate printer control codes. The commands
control the following features:
Not every printer has the ability to execute
every one of these features. When the printer is not capable of executing
a format command, then BEX doesn't send out any codes to the printer.
Also, any $$eX command in your text gets appropriate
handling no matter what kind of printing device you are using. They do nit
affect printing to the screen, voice and video review mode, etc. The same
$$eX command has the appropriate result with whichever specific printer
you use (as long as the particular task works on that specific printer).
So you get the advantages of exotic printer codes without having to change
your text for different printing devices. What's more you do not even
have to know the printer's escape codes, except for deciding how to
declare your printer in your configuration.
The $$eX commands do not work in running
headers or footers. When you need bold type in a running header or footer,
you have to include the appropriate escape sequence in your text, and not
a $$eX command.
For a list of printers supported by BEX, see Section 4
of the Interface Guide. Part 6 tells how to add a new printer to the list
of specific printers by modifying the PRINTERS chapter.
There is room in a configuration for only one list of
escape codes. This means that you cannot configure one printer to be an
Apple ImageWriter and another printer to be a Diablo 630. You can set up
two different configurations, one for the ImageWriter and a second
configuration for the Diablo.
However, you can configure two different
printers in one configuration when one of the printers is configured as a
generic printer. For example, configuring a Diablo as a specific
When you want to configure a specific printer, answer
S when BEX prompts for a printer class. You are then asked There are hundreds of printers on the market.
Obviously, this list only covers a small number of printers. If your
printer is not on this list, it is probably compatible with one of the
listed printers. Check your printer manual. You may find an explicit
statement of compatibility or printer emulation. When the manual says a
printer emulates an FX-80, for example, then configure it as an FX-80.
When your printer manual is lacking any statement of
compatibility, it still may be compatible. You will have to do some
research in your printer manual. First, look up the control codes for
underlining and bold face printing in your printer manual. Next, boot up
BEX and use option P - Printer control code display. Choose the type of
printer, dot matrix or letter quality. As BEX lists each printer and its
control codes, compare the codes to those of your own printer. When you
find one that has codes that match perfectly with those of your printer,
make note of that printer. Configure your printer as a class S - Specific
printer, using that name. Everything should work well. When no listed
printer is completely compatible, see Part 6: Adding your Printer to the
List.
Eleven BEX $$ commands begin with $$e. These commands
signal BEX to send out the printer control codes from the PRINTERS table.
The letter e is a mnemonic for the fact that Only the following three values for the number of
characters per inch (cpi) are supported:
These commands behave very differently from the
conventionaland commands. The Grade 2 translator cannot use
their appearance to place italics signs, and they are not affected by the
$$sp special punctuation mode mentioned previously. In general,
useand where ever possible.
However, two situations call for using the escape code
underlining: when your printer does not interpret control-H to mean "back
up one character" (some dot-matrix printers fall in Many applications of subscript and superscript will
require using the touching token. Here's an example using subscripts:
Option P - Printer control code display on the
Starting Menu prints the contents of the PRINTERS chapter to the HI-RES
screen. For clearer voice output BEX spells each entry, using the arrowing
vocabulary. BEX prints the table entries in order. Press <space> for
the next printer; press <ESC> to return to the Starting Menu. When
your printer does not match any of these combinations, do not panic. You
can add to the table in BEX that contains the specific printer control
codes.
The chapter called PRINTERS on the Boot side of your
BEX disk contains the escape codes for the specific printers. You can
inspect and add to these lists. To get a list of the escape commands for
supported printers, use option P - Printer control code display on the
Starting Menu. This prints the contents of chapter PRINTERS:
To add your printer to the PRINTERS chapter, first
make a backup copy of PRINTERS. Treat chapter PRINTERS like any other BEX
chapter. Use the Editor to change the PRINTERS chapter. Page one is for
letter quality printers, page two is for dot matrix printers. Page three
is for the Apple LaserWriter Postscript Driver. If you're interested in
how this works, write us for details.
Each item in the table is separated by a delete
character. The end of the table is indicated by two backslashes. Each
printer name starts with a backslash. To add a new printer to the list,
delete the last backslash, then type in the printer codes. Type the codes
in the order listed below. After each item, enter <DEL>. When the
printer does not support a feature, enter <DEL> alone for that item.
To make it easier, make a block copy of one
printer's list as an outline for your own, and clipboard it onto the
end of the list. When you do this, make sure you have altered each entry.
End the page with <DEL> for the last entry, then two backslashes to
signal the end of the list: Here are the fourteen items required for each printer:
There are 14 delete characters in each
printer's entry. Don't forget to finish the page with <DEL> and
double backslash. Once you are sure you have the right codes in the table
formatted properly, set up a new configuration referencing your specific
printer.
You have two tests to see if you've entered the codes
correctly: The first is to see if option P - Printer control code display
on the Starting Menu lists your printer. This means BEX can use the table,
because you've entered the correct number of <DEL>s and backslashes.
The second test is in using your printer. Only by using your printer will
you know for sure that you have entered the right codes.
As we mentioned at the start, BEX uses the entries
from this table when it executes all $$eX commands. For example, the third
entry, 10 characters per inch, defines what BEX sends to your printer as
it executes the $$e0 command. If you want to, you can enter the escape
codes that start double wide printing in place of the codes for ten
characters per inch. When you do, $$e0 turns on double wide printing for
that printer.
Greater Input/Output Control
Contextual Replace
Enter configuration:
prompt with
the &
ampersand character. The configuration questions at
the Master Level are identical to the User Level questions with one
exception: the final question is Do you have an extended disk
system?
You definitely want to answer Y when you have 3.5-inch
drives or an extra memory card in your Apple. See Section 3 for the
details.
Gone in a Flash
PR#6
at the BASIC
prompt. Because a warm boot does not change the Ready chapter, you can
reboot with a different configuration or establish a new configuration
without erasing the Ready chapter. However, we recommend you save the
Ready chapter to disk, if possible, before doing a warm boot, in case of
loss.
]
known as the right bracket. To use the Ready
chapter with any BEX function, enter its single right bracket name at any
Chapter:
prompt. The crucial difference between the Ready
chapter and a chapter on disk is permanence. When you want a lasting
version of the information in the Ready chapter, you must copy it to a
disk chapter with a different name.
Part 1: Uses for the Ready Chapter
Chapter:
you can
use the Ready chapter: in Print chapters or Multi-function print, as the
source or target for braille translation or Replace, in Input through
slot, or even as a transformation chapter or automatic procedure chapter.
If you have a one-drive system, you can use it as the target chapter when
reading a ProDOS textfile into BEX.
ULTIMATUM
on disk. Then you use the Ready
chapter as both source and target chapter for grade 2 translation and
replacing with a transformation chapter. You copy the Ready chapter, now
containing your final braille, to the ULTIMATUM2
chapter.
Editing the Ready Chapter
]
at the Editor
Chapter:
prompt, you create a fresh Ready chapter if it is
not already occupied. To use the Ready chapter for editing something
already on disk, copy the disk chapter to the Ready chapter.
]
as the source chapter.
]
as either the source or target chapter. The Ready chapter must be called
]
and only the Ready chapter can. Therefore, you can't
specify ]
as either source or target for option N - Name
change for chapters on the Second Menu.
Part 2: Ready Chapter File Structure
].A
then ].B
and so on. The
files ].A
through ].F
(or
].A
through ].T
on the Apple IIgs) are stored in
auxiliary memory instead of on disk. Each of these files is actually a
pocket of auxiliary memory which can hold up to 4096 characters. The
directory for the Ready chapter is also kept in memory. Files
].G
(or ].U
on the Apple IIgs) and beyond, are
disk files saved on your default data drive.
.A
through
.F
or .A
through .T
wherever possible.
MANIFESTO
whose page file extensions are all in alphabetical
order. You see its pages listed as MANIFESTO.A
through
MANIFESTO.G
when you do a disk catalog. You then kill pages 3
and 4. When you do a file list, here is what you get:
MANIFESTO.A
MANIFESTO.B
MANIFESTO.E
MANIFESTO.F
MANIFESTO.G
MANIFESTO
.G
is
always written to disk, no matter what page number it is in
your chapter. If for some reason the first page of your Ready chapter has
extension Go, that page is written on disk, and requires disk
access whenever you move onto it.
]
as your target chapter. When you do a file list of
]
on the Page Menu, you see that page 1 has the letter
extension Go, and is written to disk. Next, you use Merge
chapters, specifying just MANIFESTO for the source chapter, and the Ready
chapter for the target chapter. When you do a file list of the Ready
chapter this time, you see that the page letter extensions are in
alphabetical order. When you use Merge chapters instead of Copy chapters
to move the chapter MANIFESTO into the Ready chapter, you solve your disk
access problem. No pages ]
together
with no chapter, or Grab pages from chapter ]
into a disk
chapter, and then copy that disk chapter back into the Ready chapter. In
the process, you reletter your pages alphabetically, and you also back up
the Ready chapter on disk.
Fix Chapters and the Ready Chapter
RUN 999
to all the pages in memory. When you
need to use Fix chapters on the Ready chapter, you must delete excess
material in the first six pages on the IIc or IIe, or the first 20 pages
on the IIgs. However, Fix chapters works normally with any Ready chapter
page written to disk.
Keep a Disk in the Default Data Drive
Cannot write to disk. Insert a data disk in drive 1 and press any
key.
This created a one page chapter called SAVE
on
drive 1. Instead of saving the page as a part of her Ready chapter, it was
saved into a separate chapter.
]
and SAVE, with SALVATION
as the target
chapter. Now she had the seventh page along with the rest of the text from
her Ready chapter. With that done, she deleted the SAVE chapter. As her
last step, she copied the text in SALVATION back into her Ready chapter,
only this time she had a disk in her data drive.
Part 1: Assigning Virtual Drive Numbers
Part 2: Configuring an Extended Disk System
Do you have a extended disk system? Y <CR>
Virtual drive 1 is the Main program disk
For virtual drive 1
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 2
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 3
Enter slot: 5 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 4
Enter slot: 5 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 5
Enter slot: 0 <CR>
Enter a name for this configuration: FOURDISK
() Caution! The most important thing to remember
about RAM drives is this: Any information on a RAM drive disappears when
you turn off the power! When you want to keep a lasting version of
your work, you must conscientiously copy chapters from the RAM drive to a
physical disk drive.
Two Kinds Of Memory Cards
Installing and Checking Out Your Card
# RAM drives
available through slot 3
then BEX has recognized an auxiliary slot
card. If BEX does not display this message, then it has not recognized
your memory card. Check to make sure the card is properly installed.
Dividing the Memory Into RAM Disks
1480 sectors free
when you press the number sign at any menu.
Configuring RAM Drives for Data
Do you have a extended disk system? Y <CR>
Virtual drive 1 is for the program disk.
For virtual drive 1
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 2
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 3
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 4
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
<beep> Error! Illegal duplication with virtual
drive
For virtual drive 4
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 5
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 8 <CR>
<beep> Error! Enter a number between 1 and 5; or
zero to cancel
For virtual drive 5
Enter drive: 3 <CR>
For virtual drive 6
Enter slot: 0 <CR>
Enter a name for this configuration: RAM <CR>
Configuring a RAM drive as the Program Drive
Preventing havoc when RAM drives share programs
and data
ZQFOR
and ZQREV
which
contain the translator tables. BEX () Caution! Make sure to unlock any chapter from the
Main side before editing: Quit BEX and type
UNLOCK FILENAME,S#,D#
<CR>
using the appropriate slot and drive numbers. Then type
RUN <CR>
and edit your chapter successfully. When you
edit a chapter and make any changes at all, BEX must change the
information in its directory file. When you quit or move between pages,
and the directory file is locked, BEX prompts: Cannot write to disk,
insert data disk in program drive and press any key
and saves the
current page buffer in the SAVE
chapter.
Using RAM Drives
3LETTER
creates a chapter named LETTER
on drive 3. One big difference
is that RAM drive access is totally silent. This can be a little
disconcerting. When you have an auxiliary slot or memory expansion card,
there is a visual indicator of disk drive access. You only
see this when you use a non-HI-RES screen; in the lower right-hand corner,
an inverse W shows writing and an inverse R
shows reading.
INIT HELLO
at the BASIC prompt, you would "crash" the RAM
drive, and you would have to reboot BEX. When you have an auxiliary slot
card or memory expansion slot card, you can erase all the contents of all
RAM drives. As BEX boots, it loads the RAMDRIVE or RAM 3.3 software. When
you depress the solid-Apple (or Option) key as BEX boots, the contents of
all RAM drives are wiped clean.
Redirecting virtual drive 1 at the Starting Menu
Which drive? #
enter question mark
followed by <CR>. When you do this at the Starting Menu, you may
press M to catalog the Main side RAM drive.
The 105 filenames barrier and regular slot cards
DISK FULL
error message, even if you have loads of
sectors free. Each BEX chapter is composed of several files: one binary
file DISK FULL
error message if you
tried to save another BEX chapter to this disk. You must delete some files
from the RAM drive to free up filename slots for a new chapter.
Can't write to disk errors in the Editor and RAM
drives
RUN 999
technique to
save the page buffer in a one-page BEX chapter named SAVE on your
program drive. Suppose you were editing one of the five 20-page
chapters mentioned above. You enter control-C control-P to cut pages. You
have just asked BEX to create another page file, but DOS 3.3 refuses to
accept this 106th filename. Because BEX has received a DOS error, it
swings into action, attempting to create a SAVE chapter--but DOS 3.3
refuses again. In this situation, BEX tells you Insert data disk in
program drive and press any key
endlessly. But you
can't insert a different data disk, because it's a RAM drive.
Here's how you recover:
PR#0
<CR>
CATALOG <CR>
DELETE
command. As a last resort, you can kill
off the translator chapters, ZQFOR and ZQREV, and then RUN 999 <CR>
and
BEX can create the SAVE chapter.
Part 4: 3.5 Inch Disk Drives
() Caution! The BEX program disk cannot be loaded
onto a 3.5 inch disk. This means your Apple system must have at least one
5.25 inch disk drive in order for you to use BEX.
() Apple IIgs: When you have two 3.5 inch disk
drives, you must modify a Control Panel setting to access the second disk
drive. The bottom item on the Control Panel is RAM Drives: set both the
minimum and maximum size to zero. You must turn off the power for this
change to take effect. If you don't do this, then the IIgs will hide the
second 3.5 inch disk drive.
Configuring BEX with 3.5 Inch Disk Drives
Initializing and Using 3.5 Inch Disks
Which drive?
prompt loads AmDOS.
() Caution! AmDOS initializes both 400K drives at
the same time. In our example here, initializing either drive 2 or drive 3
results in initializing both of them.
Can't copy entire disks
/LETTERS
BEX can read the textfile named
/LETTERS/SANDY
on that disk. But BEX cannot read the textfile
named /LETTERS/JUNE/SANDY
because the file SANDY
is stored in the subdirectory named /LETTERS/JUNE/
Part 5: Sider Hard Disk
Configuring the Sider
Do you have an extended disk system? Y <CR>
Virtual drive 1 is for the Main disk program disk.
For virtual drive 1
Enter slot: 7 <CR>
Sider Hard Disk
How many volumes: 48 <CR>
Boot side volume: 2 <CR>
Main side volume: 3 <CR>
For virtual drive 49
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 50
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 51
Enter slot: 0 <CR>
Using the Sider
HELLO
program. Following the instructions from
the Interface Guide, you have modified this HELLO program to run BEX. So
after you press <CR> at the Sider's Master Menu, the next thing
you hear is your old friend BEX saying Enter configuration:
Part 6: Four Sample Configurations
MB Apple IIe with four virtual drives
MB Apple IIgs with eight virtual drives
Part 1: The Chapter Prompt
Chapter:
or
Target chapter:
or Naming method:
For selecting
chapters, all the User Level possibilities are available, with several
features unique to the Master Level. We have already discussed how you can
answer the chapter prompt with the right bracket to indicate that you are
using the Ready chapter. You can have more than two disk drives at the
Master Level. This means that you can answer the chapter prompt with
7CHAPTER
or 8CHAPTER
assuming that you have that
many drives.
The Ready Chapter
]
for the Ready chapter
at all but one chapter prompt: option N - Name change for chapters on the
Second Menu. When you specify the Ready chapter with Fix chapter
]
at many
Chapter:
prompts, BEX recognizes the Ready chapter. But BEX
does not recognize ]
as a chapter name after it has given a
numbered list for a particular drive. When you're choosing numbers from a
list, then ]
at the Chapter:
prompt is just like
pressing <CR> alone.
Summary of Chapter Selection
NAME
- chapter NAME on default data drive
(when you have an eight drive system, this is drive 8)
5NAME
- chapter NAME on drive 5
2
- scan drive 2 and present numbered list of
chapters
/
- scan highest (default) data drive; when 8
is your highest numbered drive, then BEX scans drive 8
5/Q
- scan drive 5 for chapters ending in
Q and present a numbered list
+3
- scan drive 3, present numbered list, then
reprompt for more chapters
+7/2
- scan drive 7 for chapters ending in
2 and reprompt for another chapter selection
]
- The Ready chapter
Part 2: Target Chapter Naming Methods
The Period Prefix
Chapter: MASTERPIECE
Chapter: <CR>
Target chapter: 6.S
Limitations of the period prefix
Main: C
Copy chapters
Chapter: 3 <CR>
There are 3 chapters:
1 BIOPAPER
2 ESSAY2
3 CHEM NOTES
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Naming method: I <CR>
For chapter BIOPAPER
Target chapter: 8.S <CR>
For chapter ESSAY2
Target chapter: 8.A-2 <CR>
For chapter CHEM NOTES
Target chapter: 8LAB NOTES <CR>
BEX begins to copy the chapters, then crashes with a
SYNTAX ERROR
message. BEX tried to name the BIOPAPER chapter
.S
and DOS 3.3 won't let a filename start with a period. At
this point you type RUN <CR>
and copy the chapters
again, typing out the names.
Target Codes
3AXYZ
- add characters XYZ,
write chapters on drive 3
LXYZ
- remove the last character, then add the
characters XYZ, write on default data drive
7.S
- same name, write on drive 7
0D
- delete last character, write target
chapters on "home" drives
.I
- individually name target chapters (and
specify drive numbers, if desired)
Main: R
Replace
Chapter: +1 <CR>
There are 2 chapters:
1 PURPLE
2 RED
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Select more chapters
Chapter: +2 <CR>
There are 3 chapters:
1 GREEN
2 BLUE
3 BROWN
Use entire list? N <CR>
Select chapters by number
GREEN
Chapter: 2 <CR>
BLUE
Chapter: <CR>
Select more chapters
Chapter: 3 <CR>
There are 2 chapters:
1 YELLOW
2 BLACK
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Naming method: 0S <CR>
Use transformation chapter: 1REPLACE <CR>
Continue? Y <CR>
Chapter PURPLE done
Chapter RED done
Chapter GREEN done
Chapter BLUE done
Chapter YELLOW done
Chapter BLACK done
Replaced 50 times
Part 3: Two Features With Whole Disk Catalog
Catalog More Than One Drive
+
to catalog more than one
drive. When Which drive?
followed by your default data drive number.
Answer with a plus sign followed by a drive number followed by <CR>:
Page Menu: W
Whole disk catalog
Which drive? 8 +6 <CR>
through:
At this prompt, you enter the number of the highest
drive you wish to catalog:
through: 8 <CR>
Disk drive 6
501 free sectors
There are 2 chapters on this disk:
CHECKS 1 pages 322 size
ADDRESS 1 pages 86 size
Grand total 408 characters
Disk drive 7
398 free sectors
There are 2 chapters on this disk:
DIARY 2 pages 8122 size
PAPER 2 pages 4586 size
Grand total 12708 characters
Disk drive 8
456 free sectors
There are 1 chapters on this disk:
DATA 4 pages 11529 size
Grand total 11529 characters
+3 <CR>
through 1
<CR>
you would receive a Bad range
error
message.
&
before the drive
number when specifying drives with option W - Whole disk catalog on the
Page Menu allows you to save the screen output of the Whole disk catalogs
in a BEX chapter. When you are prompted Which drive?
enter an
ampersand &
followed by a drive number, then press
<CR>. The ampersand, like the plus sign, allows you to scan multiple
drives. It invokes the through:
prompt and you enter the
drive number of the highest drive you wish cataloged. When the catalogs
are complete, you are prompted for a chapter name. Here is an example:
Page Menu: W
Whole disk catalog
Which drive? &2 <CR>
through: 3 <CR>
Disk drive 2
87 free sectors
There are 3 chapters on this disk:
Q-SAVE 4 pages 7566 size
WW 2 pages 4956 size
LETTER 6 pages10745 size
Disk drive 3
502 free sectors
There are 1 chapters on this disk:
REPLACE 1 pages 54 size
Grand total 26227 characters
Save list as
Chapter: CAT <CR>
2 <CR>
and the
Chapter:
prompt. This chapter cannot contain more than 2048
characters.
Part 1: The Special Spacing Commands
Activating the Special Spacing Commands
The Touching Token: <Control-T>
(<control-T>War and
Peace<control-T>)
comput<control-T>$$eb<control-T>er<control-T>$$ec<con
trol-T>ized
-put]iz$
But if you don't end the $$eb with <control-T>
the translator is off for all the characters after the $$ until the next
space. When your print is:
comput<control-T>$$eber<control-T>$$ecized
then the translator creates:
-mputerized
General<space>Montgomery<control-S>
T.<control-S>M.<control-S>J.<control-S>
Hambone
then his full name is never broken between lines.
Writing about BEX $$ Commands Using
<Control-S>
The Discretionary Hyphen: <ASCII 31>
() Caution! We don't recommend translating chapters
containing this control character, as the translator treats <ASCII
31> as a space. If you typed
know<ASCII 31>ledge
then you get "k<ASCII 31>l$ge
instead of k
as you should get. Take out the discretionary hyphens before translating.
The Discretionary Linebreak: <ASCII 30>
6
to enter a discretionary line break in your text. In the
Editor, a discretionary linebreak is represented by a small uppercase
R with a vertical line down the right side, and a horizontal
line underneath: like the discretionary hyphen and the <ESC>
character. The Echo speaks a discretionary linebreak as "ASCII 30", which
sounds like "as-key three zero."
Activating Discretionary Hyphens and Linebreaks
Part 3: Repeat a Character
City $$vr_ $$p40 State $$p53 ZIP <CR>
Kram a Word
Ham and Eggs: $$vr. $$vk $1.00 <CR>
Ham and Eggs: $$vr. $$vk
$1.00<control-S>(Fridays<control-S>Only)<CR>
Part 4: Embedding Printer Control Commands in
Your Text
() Caution! Printer control commands are treated
like spaces in the Grade 2 translator. Remove them from your text before
you translate. If you don't remove them from your text, they may cause
translation errors.
Part 5: Using a Specific Printer
PRINTERS
chapter on the Boot side into your configuration
chapter. This information is read into your computer's memory when
you boot BEX. Then, when the formatter encounters any of the 11 $$eX
commands in your text, it reads the specific control code from memory, and
executes it. It is possible to alter the PRINTERS chapter to suit your
taste. For example, while BEX defines $$e0 as 10 pitch for any specific
printer, you could modify the table to make $$e0 mean headline mode.
Altering the PRINTERS chapter is discussed in Part 6.
Printer Features Supported
Configuring a Specific Printer
Is this a
dot matrix printer?
Answer N for a daisy wheel printer. When BEX
prompts Enter printer code:
press <CR> for your
choices. In Part 6 we explain how you can add a specific printer in the
PRINTERS chapter. When you do, its number is automatically added to the
list of specific printer codes.
When Your Printer is not Listed
Specific Printer Commands
Changing characters per inch
Printer commands and the touching token
H<control-T> $$el 2<control-T>
$$em<control-T>O
(in words, that's uppercase Have,
subscript, the digit 2, stop subscript, uppercase O;
otherwise known as the formula for water).
Part 6: Adding Your Printer to the List
Starting: P
This option displays the control
sequences for different brand name
printers.
Display codes for Dot Matrix?
Answer Y to this prompt only when you have a dot
matrix printer. When you have a daisy wheel printer, answer N to this
prompt. For example, answer Y when you have an ImageWriter; you answer N
when you have a Diablo 630. Consult your printer manual if you are unsure
about your type of printer.
<DEL>\\