Have you noticed that some of your well-used floppies seem to
eat extra disk space? And that even after you trash all files on
the floppy, the disk’s window reports that there is still 10 -120k
in the disk? (Only 1k should be reported as “in disk” for an empty
floppy.) With repeated copying and deleting of files, a floppy’s invisible
‘desktop’ file can balloon in size. To reclaim valuable disk space, you can use the ‘Special’ menu’s Erase Disk option to reformat the floppy. But backing up your floppy to the hard drive and reformatting it can be a time consuming process. A much easier solution is to hold down the ‘command’ and ‘option’ keys as you insert the floppy . The system software will then ask you if you want to rebuild the desktop file of the just-inserted disk. With one simple click, the floppy’s desktop file will be rebuilt and resized, often allowing you to reclaim a good chunk of the lost space. (In some situations, reformatting the disk may provide optimal results.)—Eric J. Mandela
 
 
I’ve noticed that games like Marathon and F/A 18 seem to play much better on my friend’s Power Macintosh 6100/66 than they do on my own 6100/66, even though we’re running virtually identical software and displays of the same resolution. I find that while running in Marathon, for instance, depressing the fire button will stop me dead in my tracks. Could this be because I have an Apple Adjustable Keyboard?
—James Miller
 
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Most Macintosh games use the numeric keypad for directional control, which tends to involve continued depressing of certain keys. With an extended-type keyboard, simultaneously input keystrokes are ‘timeshared’. If you’re holding down the ‘8’ key on the keypad to move forward and you press the ‘option’ key to fire a few times, the extended keyboard will send a signal to the Mac in a pattern which loosely resembles the following: 888888888888option888888888 888option888888888888.
The Apple Adjustable Keyboard , however, is divided into two major components: a ‘standard’ keyboard and a separate numeric keypad. Because they are two distinct units on the Apple Desktop Bus, they do not cooperatively timeshare signals. A depression of the option key (or any other key on the main keyboard, for that matter) will interrupt the continuous ‘8’ signal being sent from the separate keypad. Once the signal has been interrupted, it must be reinitiated (i.e., you must release the 8 key and depress it once more). Hence why you are stopped in your tracks when firing in Marathon.
The only solutions to this problem are to either configure the game for a PowerBook-type keyboard, or to outright buy a new extended keyboard. —CM.
 
  
A little known and time saving feature of System 7.5’s new Note Pad and Scrapbook utilities is the ability to open and view drag-and-dropped files. From within the Finder, you can drag and drop any standard text file (SimpleText, etc.) onto the open Note Pad, and voila! The full text of the file appears within the Note Pad. The Scrapbook offers the same utility for both standard text files AND standard PICT files. Simply drag that Photoshop PICT file onto the open Scrapbook, and you’ve instantly added it to your Scrapbook portfolio. —CM.
 
 
  
After recently rebuilding my Macintosh’s system software from the
ground up, I discovered that my LaserWriter 8.3 desktop-mounted
printer would no longer print in the background. Print jobs sent to
the Desktop Print Monitor would simply disappear. Though turning
off “Background Printing” in the Chooser allowed me to print, it
offered little real comfort. To troubleshoot the problem, I rebooted without loading LaserWriter 8.3’s desktop printing extensions—and was able to print in the back- ground without problem. Yet this still was no solution to my desktop printer dilemma.
The problem seemed particularly bizarre, in light of the fact I had just completed a “clean” reinstall of my system software (including LaserWriter 8.3). Perplexed, I went through a battery of troubleshooting techniques—zapping the PRAM, trashing preferences files, and reinstalling the LaserWriter 8.3 software—all to no avail. Completely exasperated, I even went so far as to build a complete new startup disk on a spare hard drive, to verify the problem wasn’t hardware oriented. The secondary startup disk worked like a charm, LaserWriter 8.3’s Desktop Print Monitor happily printing my documents in the background without incident. What, then, had gone wrong with my clean install? And why, after using tried and true troubleshooting techniques, did the problem persist?
The answer, fittingly, had lay right before my eyes the whole time. The only thing I had not done was to throw the actual desktop-mounted printer in the trash. A seemingly innocent icon, it housed a corrupt resource which prevented it from printing anything. It had remained there throughout my numerous reinstalls, the Chooser simply assuming it was completely functional. After trashing the printer icon and creating a new desktop printer from within the Chooser, I blissfully printed in the background…until I decided desktop printing required too much RAM and I deinstalled it all. —CM.
 
'About this Macintosh…' is MacSense's new regular technical help and hints column. Got a question? Or a suggestion? We'd love to here it. Send your questions and helpful hints to MacSenseED@aol.com.
