J.E.Lawrie                                                           HINTS-16.
                                                                         V.4  
Input socket problem.

  Do you get BATT LOW showing when you know that you  have  the  power  coming
  from the P.S.U.?  Loose wire, faulty P.S.U ?   Probably not.

  It  is more likely that you lost the connection in the input socket for just
  a fraction of a second but BATT LOW will not go off until you switch off and
  on  again.  The connection was lost because of a poor connection between the
  plug and the socket.

  Unfortunately, if the connection IS lost for a long period  the  battery  is
  being drained and you don't know until the voltage gets down to 5 volts.

  It  is  possible  to  fit a small LED on the face of the Z88 which will only
  glow when the incoming supply is getting through.   (If  you  want  details,
  please ask ) but prevention is better than indication.

  Occasionally,  probably  not  more frequently than three months, take a very
  fine, square file (preferably one with a tapered end) and rub this over  and
  around  the  pin  and  the  strip  inside  the  socket VERY GENTLY to remove
  oxidation - very simple and most effective.


Disc drive

  There are five of us who now have the XOB disc  drive  unit  operating  with
  their  Z88.   All  except  one have been obtained by me and passed on to the
  others, together with a Basic program for it and details of the modification
  to the connecting cable.

  I  have  offered  these  units to some of you, at no profit to myself I must
  add, but not everyone is interested.  If you are interested then you  should
  try and obtain the "Portable Disc Drive 2" Model No. 26-3814 as supplied for
  the obsolete Tandy computers 100, 102 and 200 -  don't  pay  more  than  £50
  (offer  40!)  and  be  sure it includes the connecting cable!  I can provide
  details of the change to be made to the cable,  and  the  Basic  program  of
  course.

  The  unit  uses  3.5" discs, Double Density - Max of 40 files in each of the
  two banks, with a max. of 200kb. One bonus is that you only need retain  one
  EPROM  when you have the drive and selling off your others could even result
  in a profit!


 Page Length.

  You may, like me, change the page length in the Options from 66 to 60  since
  this  number  of lines suits the sheet size better. However, there are times
  when it would be better to use 66 lines to avoid running on to another sheet
  of  paper.   This  can  be done, in the same page length, by compressing the
  lines just a little. Use the third code, the Ext. sequence for this, putting
  in -
      27,65,11       and       27,65,12      and      No

  At the top, left corner of the first Pipedream page put in the
  highlight code 3  i.e <>PX  - as was done for this page!
                                                                           END

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