Apple // Tips 'N Bits
By Grant Kwai
Copyright (c) 1991 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
This is the first in a series on tips and bits you can do on your Apple //. They have all come from what I have discovered, heard or read from either a book or a file on one of my disks. No doubt there will be some fairly obvious ones here, but hopefully by the end of all this, you would have learnt something of value.
* Control-Closed Apple-Reset on a //e or //gs does a self diagnostic RAM test. On a //c, it gives a ever changing hires picture.
* PR#7 on a //c will boot a disk in disk drive 2. (Disk must be under ProDOS).
* The Open-Apple key is the same as Button #0 on your joystick.
* The Closed-Apple key is the same as the Button #1 on your joystick.
* Underneath the right hand side of the keyboard on the //e is a small switch. What is does is change the hash sign to the pound sign and vice versa.
* To keep disks labels from peeling off your disks, you can make them more long term by heating the adhesive side with a hair dryer for a few seconds then applying the label to disk.
* Under Appleworks, you can return back to the main menu from anywhere by hitting Open-Apple-Q then ESCape key. You could even add this in a macro function.
* You can CATALOG ProDOS disks by filetype (ie BAS, BIN etc). To do so, simply type 'CATALOG,TXXX', where XXX is the file type (eg BAS,TXT etc) or the hexadecimal value.
* On a GS, sometimes older //+,//e,//c programs won't work. If so, try adjusting the speed to normal (using the control panel). If it still doesn't work, try the 40 column mode instead of 80 columns.
* <Control>-G gives a beep. You can insert this in your programs if you want. It even comes up in a LISTing.
* CALL -151 enters you into machine language.
* CALL -800 enters you into Assembler on a //e.
* F666G under Integer basic will get you into the mini assembler.
* The best way to learn about your Apple is to read and to try things out by 'trial and error'. After all, you learn from your mistakes, right?
* Under ProDOS, you can only have up to 51 files in the root directory. Try and save more and you will get a DISK FULL error even though you may still have more room on the disk. Create a sub directory to get around this problem.
* You can use the '?' command instead of typing PRINT when entering BASIC programs.
* 'BYE' from ProDOS basic will exit you to the ProDOS pathname screen.
* On a //GS, when entering data, you often use the numerical keypad. However you had to move back to the main keyboard to enter commas(,). The period key(.) with the shift key gives a comma.
* While in 80 column mode, entering:
10 REM <control>-R <control>-L will clear the screen upon each LIST command.
* Under CP/M, type 'COPY' B:=A:/S' will copy the boot tracks of the CP/M disk in drive A (drive 1) to the disk in drive B (drive 2).
* Instead of typing IF.....GOTO when programming, use ON.....GOTO, You can now add more statements to a line.
eg 10 X=32
20 ON X=100 GOTO 200:ON X=32 GOTO 300 :ON X=45 GOTO 400
.
.
.
300 PRINT"SEE!":END
* You can delete whole slabs of your program by typing DEL X,Y , where X and Y are the beginning and end line numbers. Beats the heck out of typing 10 <return>,20 <return>.......
* SAVE your program before running it. You never know how your Apple is going to react to your programming.
* When you encounter an error in Low-res, hi-res or double hi-res, you can sometimes hear a beep but you can't see the error message. Type TEXT to see what it was.
* There are three types of syntax errors:
***SYNTAX ERROR Integer
?SYNTAX ERROR Applesoft
SYNTAX ERROR DOS and ProDOS
* If you are programming and get stuck on a line/s which always gives you an error but you can't figure out why, leave it for the day and start again the next day. More often than not, you will pick up the mistake straight away. (Atleast I do!)
* Use PRINT SPC(X) (where X is the number of spaces) instead of typing PRINT " ": REM (X spaces). It makes sense doesn't it?!
* Using STOP instead of END will give you the program line it stopped at. This can be helpful when debugging.
* HEXadecimal is a numbering system with a base of 16. The Hex digits are 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-A-B-C-D-E-F.
* When you are in 80 column mode, you will have a solid cursor. Pressing ESC-4 will change to the 40 column screen. Still with the solid cursor, hitting ESC-8 will change back to 80 column mode.
* Holding down <Ctrl>-S in a listing(eg program, catalog etc) will freeze the screen. Hitting any key (preferably not with a hammer) will get the screen scrolling again.
* Sometimes though, your last <Ctrl>-S may accidentally become the first character of the next command line. Since your Apple doesn't like control characters in its commands, it will give you an error. The simplest way to get around this is to just press <return> once after the listing.
* Don't hit <Ctrl>-<reset> when the disk drive is in operation, especially if it is writing something to disk. One day you may find that that program which took you all year to write suddenly doesn't work anymore.
* Have you ever wondered what a disk looks like inside the cover? Why not pull one apart and see for yourself? Make sure that the disk has nothing important on it and don't try to use the disk again.
* ProDOS only allows up to 15 characters for Disk volume, subdirectory and file names. That may be why you sometimes get an error message while trying to save a file.
* When you issue a disk command (eg DELETE, RENAME), and you have two of the same filenames in a catalog, only the first one is affected by the command.
* You can POKE your way into RAM, but you can PEEK your way into both RAM and ROM. That is why you can modify DOS but not Applesoft.
* Extra colons are ignored by Applesoft. eg 10 IF X=3 THEN:::::PRINT "HELLO", is quite legal.
* You can resurrect a RAM disk which has 'crashed' by re-running your ram drive creator program. More often than not, whatever was on the RAM drive will still be there (unless you turn your machine off.)
* Put a radio on either side of your computer monitor. Whatever side gives you the most static is NOT the side to but your disks, and disk drive on.
* On a //GS, you can access the DVORAK keyboard layout by entering the control panel and accessing options. Use the up/down arrows to highlight keyboard, then use he left-right arrow to step through the various foreign languages till you get to DVORAK. Press return to select it.
* Most copy programs can't copy whole disks at a time to an unlike device. (eg 5.25" to 3.5" or /RAM drives) The best way to get around this is to simply copy the files over one by one. This has the advantage of eliminating the possibility of deleting files already on the second drive.
More tips 'n bits next month.......

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