Help!

Tapeless Spreadsheets

If you've been unable to get usable printouts from Tapeless Spreadsheet Printer (August, 1987), it may be that your dot-matrix printer cannot download special character sets.

Tapeless works by downloading a special "sideways" character set into your printer. If you're not sure whether your printer accepts downloaded characters, check your printer manual or phone the manufacture.

The Tapeless article states that the program supports "four major printer families - Epson FX-80, Gemini 10X, Star SG-10 and Okidata 92." Printers such as these have their own RAM for holding installed or downloaded special character sets or fonts. After installation, the printer will use this special character set as long as the power remains on. For a detailed explanation of this process, see Font Maker (Antic, March 1985).

If your printer lets you use download characters, you should refer to your printer manual for the proper loading procedure. next, select the Tapeless loading driver (Listing 6, 7, 8 or 9) which most closely matches the procedure needed for your own printer and make the necessary modifications. Please refer to the Tapeless article and listings for additional help. If you're unfamiliar with downloading characters into your printer, you should also read the Font Maker article mentioned above!

Ghost Writer

The vertical blank routine in Ghost Writer (July, 1987) may turn your screen black and freeze your keyboard when used with some older Atari 400 and 800 computers.

If you have this problem, simply add the line 1570 WAIT=0-and remember to SAVE the revised program before you RUN it.