The Welcome utilities
The CHARACTERS program allows you to re-define the characters the
computer displays on the screen to produce effects similar to the TEXT
program mentioned above.
ENVELOPE is a program which demonstrates the versatility of the sound
generating circuitry. You can use the keyboard like a piano keyboard by
referring to the diagram below.
PATTERN EDITOR allows you to design your own fill patterns for use with the
PLOT commands discussed with BASIC later in this guide.
DISC UTILS leads to a menu of four disc utilities which are only of real
relevance to advanced users.
Your Master computer contains some memory known as Electrically Erasable
Programmable Read-Only Memory (or EEPROM for short) which retains its
contents even after the mains power is turned off. The EEPROM is used to
store information on your preferred configuration of various options relevant to
the computer's operation. NOTE that the EEPROM has a limited life of about
10,000 programming operations. The chip can, however, be replaced when
necessary.
The PANEL utility is a program which pictorially shows the current settings of
these configuration options and allows you to change them. The effects that the
Panel program produces are exactly equivalent to those of the MOS command
*CONFIGURE, and advanced users may wish to refer to the MOS Commands
appendix for more information. You may find that some of the information that
follows assumes an understanding of features of the computer which have not
yet been discussed; you should not be unduly concerned by this, as all should
become clear as you read through this guide.
When you select 'Control Panel' from the Utilities menu you will see the
program build up a series of illustrations on the screen and fill in various pieces
of information in appropriate places. Once this has taken place you may move
the pointer around the screen and change the configuration options by
selecting within the ruled boxes. Notice however that these changes will not
actually come into effect until they have been stored explicitly; this process is
detailed below.
B 10