AW+/SPD Modification Program / utility / commercial










From: Michael Current (aa700@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)

Date: 12/10/91-04:44:30 PM Z









From: aa700@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Current)
Subject: AW+/SPD Modification Program / utility / commercial
Date: Tue Dec 10 16:44:30 1991


Reprinted from Current Notes, Vol. 11, No. 9, November 1991
 
Use Atariwriter Plus with SpartaDOS
-----------------------------------
 
Review by Charles Cole
 
     For users of Atari's Atariwriter-Plus (AW+) wordprocessor and ICD's 
SpartaDOS 3.2D, the Lehigh Valley Atari Users Group (LVAUG) offers a 
bargain that combines the best of two worlds: the most powerful 8-bit 
DOS and Atari's most popular disk-based wordprocessor.  LVAUG club 
member Craig "E.T." Gaumer created a disk of utilities- the AT+/SPD 
Modification Program, better known as the "LVAUG AW+ Patch," that 
modifies AW+ to make it compatible with SpartaDOS.  The software 
modifies the XL/XL version of AW+ to run on either an 800XL or a 130XE, 
or, you can create a disk that has both versions.  This sweet little 
utility is available for the meager sum of $5 from the Lehigh Valley 
Atari Users Group, P.O. Box 796, Whitehall PA 18052-0796.
 
Advantages
     In addition to the usual benefits offered by SpartaDOS 3.2D over 
AtariDOS, the modified program also recognizes eight disk drive 
assignments, D1:-D8:.  Through the use of a SpartaDOS batch file, you 
can configure your hardware to recognize multiple RAMdisk assignments in 
addition to AW+'s normal three banks of 15,872 bytes each.  I use a 
130XE with 320K RAM, so I can set up a 2,042 sector RAMdisk and still 
have the three banks AW+ offers for text storage.  Since I also have 
ICD's Multi I/O Board, that gives me even more RAMdisk space; or I can 
configure the MIO as a 256K printer buffer.
     One big advantage to modifying AW+ to run under SpartaDOS is the 
ability to format your disks in double-sided (DS) double-density (DS) 
format if you own an Atari XF551 disk drive, or single-sided (SS) 
double-density if you have an Atari 1050 drive with the U.S. Doubler 
installed.  With either drive and SpartaDOS, you can store up to four 
times as much data on your disks as with AtariDOS 2.0, not to mention 
your reads and writes will be three times faster if you have UltraSpeed 
capability.  And for those few hardy 8-bit souls who use hard drives 
with SpartaDOS, yes, now you can put AT+ on your hard drive and run it 
from there!
 
Running the Patch
     Making a modified copy of AW+ is relatively straightforward using 
the LVAUG Patch.  Even though AW+ is copy protected, the bad sectors are 
all in the DOS area, not the actual programs.  Batch files provided by 
LVAUG copy the files from the AW+ disk to a Sparta-formatted disk 
automatically, changing their names as required and moving them into a 
subdirectory.  The LVAUG batch file even creates the necessary SpartaDOS 
subdirectory for you.  When the copy is complete, you then run a BASIC 
program on their disk to re-write the AW+ menu screen so it recognizes 
eight disk drives.  That completes the installation; that's all there is 
to it!
     What about you users of SpartaDOS-X?  There are some limits here.  
The Patch is incompatible with versions of SDX below 4.20, which is the 
most recent version.  To use The Patch with SDX 4.20, just do the 
following:
(1) Make a Sparta 3.2 copy of AW+ as instructed.
(2) Plug in your SDX ROMcart and boot up the copy you just made.
(3) At the D1: prompt, type CHDIR AP [RETURN].
(4) Type X APXE [RETURN].
Voila!  You AW+ should now boot under SpartaDOS-X.  So little effort, 
such large rewards!
 
Conclusion
     Are there any disadvantages to running AW+ under SpartaDOS?  None 
that I have found.  AW+ performs just as flawlessly under SpartaDOS as 
from the original Atari disk.  Loading and saving files is faster than 
with AtariDOS, plus you have the convenience of more available disk 
space and the ability to QUIT and RETURN to DOS.  This modification is 
certainly $5 well spent for users of SpartaDOS 3.2D and AtariWriter-
Plus.
-- 
 Michael Current, Cleveland Free-Net 8-bit Atari SIGOp   -->>  go atari8  <<--
   The Cleveland Free-Net Atari SIG is the Central Atari Information Network
      Internet: currentm@carleton.edu / UUCP: ...!umn-cs!ccnfld!currentm
      BITNET: currentm%carleton.edu@interbit / Cleveland Free-Net: aa700









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