!pr0
!lm12
!rm75
Faster Booting for ScreenWriter II...................Bob Leedom
                                             Glenwood, Maryland

I have found a solution to ScreenWriter II's long boot-up time (which is one of my few complaints with the product).  Would you believe a reduction from 46 seconds to just under 14 seconds?

The solution was given in a patch to DOS 3.3 given by Paul Schlyter and Bob Sander-Cederlof in the April 1983 issue of AAL.  Since ScreenWriter's DOS is nearly identical to 3.3, I was inspired to try the patch (on ONE of my two copy-protected original disks) -- and it worked!

I installed the patch between lines 50 and 60 of APP2 (ScreenWriter's customizeable startup program).  The POKEs will only be performed at startup -- if you look closely at APP2, you'll see that the POKEing lines will be skipped when the program is used to switch between Editor and Runoff in the non-RAMcard version.

To install the patch, do the following:

!lm+5
1.  From BASIC, LOAD APP2
2.  Type in Lines 51 - 59, carefully!
3.  SAVE APP2
4.  RUN CUSTOMIZEA
!lm-5

That's it!  You will now have a fast-booting ScreenWriter.  You may also want to do this to some of your normal DOS 3.3 disks -- the patch is in an unused area of DOS, and seems to coexist happily with everything else I tried (like PLE and GPLE for instance).  Exception: in the //e version of DOS 3.3, the patch screws up the infamous APPEND command -- no great loss, in my opinion.

!lm+4
!pp-4
51 READ N: IF N=0 THEN 59:REM Make this "THEN 60" (60 is the next ScreenWriter II line) when line 59 is DELETEd
52 READ A: SUM = SUM + A + N
53 FOR I = 1 TO N: READ P: POKE A,P: A=A+1: SUM=SUM+P: NEXT
54 GOTO 51
55 DATA 44, 47721, 173, 230, 181, 208, 36, 173, 194, 181, 240, 31, 173, 203, 181, 72, 173, 204, 181, 72, 173, 195, 181, 141, 203, 181, 173, 196, 181, 141, 204, 181, 32, 182, 176, 176, 3, 76, 223, 188, 76, 111, 179, 76, 150, 172
56 DATA 33, 48351, 238, 228, 181, 208, 3, 238, 229, 181, 238, 196, 181, 238, 204, 181, 206, 194, 181, 208, 11, 104, 141, 204, 181, 104, 141, 203, 181, 76, 150, 172, 76, 135, 186
57 DATA 2, 44198, 105, 186
58 DATA 0
59 IF SUM <> 153114 THEN PRINT "OOPS! DATA IS OFF BY "153114-SUM: STOP: REM (Delete this line when you are SURE it works!)








