07/08/94 To !Boot or not !Boot --------------------- You may have noticed that the first time you open a directory which contains a number of applications it can take longer than it does on subsequent occasions. This happens because the Filer has to examine each application in that directory to execute the !Boot file if one is present and load the sprites for the application. The simplest way to reduce this delay is to avoid directories which contain a lot of applications - create new subdirectories and move applications into them. This will also mean that you will have slightly more memory available since every application sprite which has been seen is stored in memory. !Boot files are not essential - the Filer will automatically load the !Sprites file if a !Boot file is not present. However, when a !Boot file is present it should make sure that it loads the sprites - the Filer will not attempt to load the !Sprites when there is a !Boot file. Unless you have a need for a !Boot file in any applications you write (typically setting up an Alias$@RunType system variable so that double-clicking a file causes the application to be loaded) you should not create one. If you have any applications where the sole content of the !Boot file is 'Iconsprites .!Sprites' the !Boot file may safely be deleted. Every unnecessary !Boot file slows up the opening of a directory viewer. Some early virus inoculation programs were offenders in this respect - inoculating an application entailed creating a new !Boot file if one was not present and extending a !Boot file otherwise. Any !Boot files created solely to inoculate an application should be deleted - the inoculation only provides defence against one specific virus, and is useless against the remaining 26 families! However, you should include 'Iconsprites .!Sprites' in a !Run file since it is quite possible that an application is being run by a boot sequence before a directory viewer on the application has been opened. Acorn LISP and RISC OS 3 ------------------------ Some people have found that running Acorn LISP under RISC OS 3 causes the machine to 'freeze'. This can be avoiding by pressing F12 and typing FX 13,11 before running LISP. To do this automatically you should rename the Lisp file in the Library directory to Lisp_MC, and create an Obey file called Lisp which contains: fx 13,11 /%.lisp_MC Adding additional floppy drives ------------------------------- The Acorn application note 'Adding External Floppy Disc Drives to the A5000' has now been extended to cover the complete RISC OS range of machines. It describes how to add a second drive to your machine, extra hardware needed (if necessary), and the disc formats supported by RISC OS 2 and RISC OS 3. NOTE: A3010/A3020/A4000 owners cannot add a second floppy disc drive to their machine. Using Microsoft Windows 3.0 and 3.1 with the PC Emulator -------------------------------------------------------- Windows 3.1 cannot be run under the PC Emulator since it is optimised for an 80286 processor (the PC Emulator is based on the 8088 processor). However Windows 3.0 can be used on PC Emulator version 1.6 and above. The only solution at present is to use a hardware PC card such as the Aleph One 386 or 486 cards.