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Got a problem with your Amiga? Write to me, Wally Dug, in confidence and I will help you out |
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| Welcome once again to another of my
famous problem pages. This month, I break the mould of the problem page when I help
ordinary people with extraordinary problems - the kind of problem that doesn't appear in
the glossies, usually because very few people really know the answer to the problem -
which I am able to answer no problem at all.
Hard drivingDear Wally, I bought my hard drive from you about two years ago and, quite frankly, it is as brilliant as you said it would be. My drive is a single partitioned 80Mb drive formatted using the old file system. I believe that I can change this to the new filing system to give me space and speed savings. If this is true, how do I do it? Yours, Densoid of Denside Dear Densoid, That is perfectly true - the fast file system (FFS) will give you both area and access advantages over the old file system (OFS) that you currently use and, if you follow the following, is easy to achieve:
Your hard drive will now support the fast file system and the benefits of capacity and celerity conveniences along with expanse and expedition economies should become apparent immediately. By the way, you did backup your hard drive before formatting it, didn't you?
Oh crumbs!Dear Wally,
Yours, Duncan of Dunk's Green Dear Duncan, Hmm, this is a tricky one. You have bean a silly boy. What it all boils down to is whether it was decaffeinated coffee or not. If it was ordinary coffee then we're off the tea; if it was decaffeinated coffee, there is no use crying over spilt milk. Buy a can of caffeine-free Coke and put the same part of the disk that was in the coffee into the Coke - and for the same amount of time. The caffeine should come off the disk and attach itself to the Coke allowing you to re-use the disk again. One other thing - always make backups of your disks, no matter how important or unimportant the disk contents may seem.
Beginner's woesDear Wally,
Yours, Amateur of Amatnatua Dear Amateur, Have you tried switching on your television or monitor and inserting your Workbench disk into the slot in the side of your computer?
Morning assemblyDear Wally,
Yours, Rondo of Rhondda Dear Rondo, This is quite easy to do. Unfortunately due to lack of space, I am unable to go into any detail here. However, on this month's Cover Disk, you will find that my Assembly Tutorial is geared towards time-specific event trapping using the ClockIt(), CheckIt() and DoIt() routines. By adapting the on-disk source code you should be able to solve your problem (and not before time!).
Hello, hello, helloDear Wally, As head of technology in our local police station, I have been asked to put together a computer system that will help to reduce crime. What do you suggest? Yours, Constable Burton of Constable
Burton Dear Constable Burton, This is an absolute doddle. Instead of spending lots and lots of money sending criminals to prison, you should give each convicted criminal an Amiga 1200 and a copy each of Deluxe Paint 4 AGA and Zool 1200. The criminals will be far too busy playing with their new computers to commit any crimes.
DOS-aster?Dear Wally,
Yours, Enhanced of Enchmarsh Dear Enhanced, Yes and no. Workbench 4.0 is the next major upgrade by Commodore to AmigaDOS (and I must say, it is very good). Unfortunately, like Workbench 3.0, Workbench 4.0 is a 32-bit AmigaDOS. In other words, you must have at least a Motorola 68020 central processing unit and the AA (or AGA) chip set fitted as standard into your machine. Because you have just upgraded to Workbench 2.1 (which is actually just a cut-down version of Workbench 3.0 without any support for the AA (or AGA) chip set), you will be unable to use the new Workbench 4.0 at all. However, Commodore are talking of releasing a version of this operating system for the "lesser" machines, so watch this space! In the meantime, continue using Workbench 2.1 - it is rather good.
Impulsive fool!Dear Wally,
Yours, Scrooge of Scrooby Dear Scrooge, Do you want the "straight to the point" kind of answer or the "I've got half a column left so I think I'll waffle a bit to pad it out" kind of answer? (Straight to the point, please - Ed.) No.
If you feel all alone in the world, lost in a c: of silicon, please don't despair - your old friend Wally Dug can help you out of the shell and back into the system where you belong. If you do need help, then send me a note of your problem along with a brown bank note to: Wally Dug's Problem Page, Up The Wally Close, Sauchiehall Street, Milngavie, G0 4IT. Remember - A problem shared is a problem you no longer have control over. |
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The other day
I inadvertently put a very important disk (which I didn't have a backup of) into my coffee
thinking that it was my chocolate Hob Nob. Since then, I have not been able to use this
particular disk. Any ideas?
Every time I turn on
my computer, I can't see anything happen although I can hear a clicking sound. Help!
A friend of
mine works in IBM and he managed to get me a second-hand IBM 10M Plus mainframe computer
on the cheap. This is fitted with a 10Mb hard drive and I was wondering if there was any
way that I could use this drive in the Amiga that I own.