23/02/95
When using word processors with various dot matrix printers printers,
customers often have problems with printing '£' signs. In the large majority
of cases on both 8 bit and 32 bit based systems using the '#' within your
word processor in place of the '£' will make the printer print the '£'
symbol. Some word processors do however automatically convert the '£' symbol
into a '#' before sending it to the printer. Please note that if you are a
user in education, all LEA Advisor contacts have been sent a copy of the
complete package and you can therefore contact them to be supplied with a
copy of the BBC Model B Emulator for your school.

Although the mice supplied with Archimedes and BBC A3000 have proven to be
very reliable it is inevitable that they will eventually begin to wear
out. The mouse is one of the very few mechanical parts of the system and is
extremely heavily used. Acorn Approved Dealers are able to supply various
spares for the mouse such as cables for both Digimouse and the Logitech
mouse, and also spare balls and retaining clips for the Logitech mouse.
Please note that in a lot of cases when people think their mouse has become
faulty it does in fact only need cleaning. Full instructions on cleaning the
mouse ball and the rollers can be found in either the User Guide or Welcome
Guide supplied with the computer.

In both 300 series machine (fitted with an Acorn  backplane), old 440
systems and all 400/1 series machines, the fan has a filter to extract dust
from the air. This filter should really be replaced anually to ensure a
smooth throughput of air. The spare fan filters can be purchased from your
Acorn Approved dealer. Full instructions on replacing the filter can be
found in either the User Guide or Welcome Guide supplied with the computer.

Earlier versions of the PC Emulator ignored the floppy disc drive step rate
values, which are stored in CMOS RAM, and controlled the FDC (Floppy Disc
Controller) directly. On the BBC A3000 and Archimedes 400/1 series machines
this resulted in excessive noise from the floppy disc drive when used with
the PC Emulator.

Version 1.33 of the PC Emulator provides a cure for this by reading the step
rate values stored in the CMOS RAM. This change limits the PC Emulator to a
total of 3 floppy drives, as opposed to the 4 which are supported in
previous versions.

The setting of the step rate for the second drive becomes very important
when using a 5.25" drive with the PC Emulator. You can experiment with the
step rate values as illustrated with the example below.

*Configure Step 12 1

This will set the step rate of the drive to the slowest value possible with
the 1772 disc controller, other possible values are 6, 3, 2.  An explanation
of this command can be found in the User Guide supplied with the machine.