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COMPUTER BITS BYhttp://www.pcug.org.au/~gcohen GEOFF COHEN Electronic organisers & your PC Like many other computer people, I have an electronic organiser (a Sharp ZQ-5200) which I use constantly. As well as storing phone numbers and memos, I also use it to store details of the work I do for clients. A major reason I like organisers is that, being inherently lazy, I hated having to manually write stuff down three times – once in a pocket diary I carried around, then into a desk diary, and then by typing it out in a word processing program, to final­ly get it into the PC. As soon as I found out about organisers, I rushed out and got one. I then spent the next week learning how to actually use it. Anyhow, enough of the history lesson. Suffice it to say that if you write lots of text when you are away from the home/office, and don’t want to lug something around that won’t fit in your pocket, an organiser is the way to go. I am about to upgrade mine to a 74  Silicon Chip Fig.1: Text Exported Directly From The Organiser 19951215,”21:30",”hh:mm”,”21:30",”ARRIVE AT CARAVAN.”,”N” 19951226,”hh:mm”,”hh:mm”,”hh:mm”,”TODAY SMOKE DETS POLAROID CLIPON, “N” 19951226,”18:30",”hh:mm”,”18:30",”YES MINISTER”,”N” 19960102,”hh:mm”,”hh:mm”,”hh:mm”,”MAKE ERROR RECOVERY MENU OP­TION.”,”N” 19960103,”13:00",”16:35",”hh:mm”,”SILICON CHIP:START ARTICLE ON ORGANISERS”,”N” 19960104,”10:00",”12:20",”hh:mm”,”SILICON CHIP:LAST PART OF ARTICLE.”,”N” 19960108,”hh:mm”,”hh:mm”,”hh:mm”,”TAX DUE”,”N” 19960108,”20:00",”hh:mm”,”20:00",”FRONTLINE”,”Y” newer model with 256Kb of RAM and a much bigger screen (40 characters/ line instead of 16). Alas, I have not been organised enough to get one yet. Transferring data to a PC An essential extra for my organiser is its PC Link cable/adaptor, which allows data to be transferred to the PC (or vice versa). You can also export data from the organiser’s PC software to other programs, although this is not very elegant without extra software. With that proviso, I like the Sharp software – it is simple to install and use. For anyone who is considering the purchase of an organiser, and intends using it for “serious stuff”, I recommend the PC Link as an essential item. I have had two organisers. The first stopped working when it got dropped in the drink – fishing and organising don’t go together too well. If I hadn’t backed up the data before I went fishing, I would have been forced to spend hours retyping 60K of text, all retrieved from my own (fallible) memory. With the backup copy on my PC and the Link cable, it took only a few domain, so feel free to give it to anyone who wants a copy. I hope you find this combination of organiser and utility program as useful as I have. If any Clipper programmers want a copy of the source code, this is available from me either by email (no charge) or from my snail mail address ($10) at the end of the column. More on ZIP drives The Missing Link V.2 is a Windows-based organiser-to-PC linking program. minutes to restore the data to the new organiser. Data modes There are two modes of transferring data from the organiser to your PC: (1) the BACKUP menu option which does a complete backup to a named file (I use this option once a month); and (2) the GET applications menu option (I use this one daily). The latter copies the data to an emulator program on your PC and allows you to both view and, by using the advanced menu option, export this data to other programs. Unfortunately, the standard output format is not really suited to a word processing program, as you can see from the sample “comma delimited “ text shown Fig.1. What we really want to do is to extract the SILICON CHIP text, strip out the unwanted stuff, and convert it to The DOS version of ZIP works well. It only takes around 26Kb of RAM for its device driver and is compatible enough that Norton Disk Doctor (Version 8) runs quite happily on the ZIP drive, although it is a little slower than on a “real” hard disc. The more I use mine, the more uses I think of for it. I have tried it on DOS, Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 and apart from some glitches caused by not plugging in the connectors properly, I haven’t found any problems so far. On the basis of my own experience, it’s a good word pro­cessing compatible text. For those of you who don’t want to write a “C” or “BASIC” program, I have a little Clipper database pro­gram (ZQ.exe) to extract any desired text, for a specified date range. As you can see from the Fig.2: Output From ZQ.Exe resultant output (Fig.2), the Conversion Program program has extracted the de03/01/96 13:00 - 16:35 - Time 03:35 (Hrs:Min) sired text for the dates wanted SILICON CHIP: START ARTICLE ON ORGANISERS and has added the times up as well (I did say I was lazy). 04/01/96 10:00 - 12:20 - Time 02:20 (Hrs:Min) This program will be availSILICON CHIP: LAST PART OF ARTICLE. able either from me via email (no charge) or snail mail ($10 Total Time = 05:55 (includes disc) and is public Above and left: information transfer is a 2-way street. Data can be extracted from the pocket organiser for use in PC programs, or PC data can be sent to the organiser. This eliminates timeconsuming re-keying of information and avoids possible errors. March 1996  75 JAG 1Gb DRIVE Average seek time: 12ms Sustained transfer rate: 6.73Mb/s maximum; 5.51Mb/s avereage; 3.53Mb/s minimim Burst transfer rate: 10Mb/s Buffer size: 256Kb read/write Capacity: 1070Mb and 540Mb (PC formatted capacity) MTBF: 250,000 hours Service life: 5 years Disc drop height: 3ft Disc estimated shelf life in case: 10 years Operating system compatibility: DOS, Windows, Mac OS, OS/2 and Windows ‘95 Interface: fast SCSI-II idea to use the connector’s attach­ment screws rather than just relying on push-fitting the connectors. Currently, I have the ZIP drive connected to an old Windows 3.1 system, and it is available as a network drive from my main Windows 95 system. Jaz 1Gb removable drive This new drive from Iomega is similar in principle to the ZIP drive. But instead of a measly 100Mb(!), it is a full 1Gb removable hard disc and is said to be as fast as a “real” hard disc. I understand that it is due to be released in early 1996 and should cost around $800, with each 1Gb removable disc costing around $150. For the more technically minded, the specifications I down­loaded from their Internet site are shown in the panel at left. I can’t wait to get one to play with. If they work as well as the Zip drive, they should sell like hot cakes. Windows 95 The Windows 95 32-bit protected mode drivers are now avail­ able. I downloaded mine from the Iomega web site at www.iomega.com. In November 1995, the file was called Win95.exe (76Kb) and the full address was: www.iomega.com/users/filearea/ win95.exe. This file is a self extracting Zip file, so put it in a temporary directory and run it, then follow the installation instructions in the file WIN95INS.RTF. The version I was using had an error in the documentation for the parallel port installa­ tion procedure. When selecting the appropriate hardware from the control panel, select “other devices” and then “have disk”; not “SCSI” and then “have disk”, as the documentation instructs. The installation and operation NEXT MONTH In next month's column, I intend giving details on making your own home page on the Internet, with a primer on HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). If you want a sneak preview, have a look at my new home page at: http://www. pcug.org.au/~gcohen I will also include all software from my SILICON CHIP columns at this address.You can currently obtain the Diskinfo software from it, as well as the Organiser-related files from this issue. worked fine, apart from this minor glitch, and the Win 95 plug and play loads the ZIP driver only if it is connected, without any nasty error messages if it isn’t. If you have any trouble getting the Windows 95 driver file (I have noticed the web site gets a tad busy at times), email me and I will send you a copy. Alternatively, I can send you a copy via snail mail for the normal $10 (includes disk, postage & han­dling). For snail mail copies of the software mentioned in this article, send $10 (cheque or money order) to Geoff Cohen, PO Box 136, Kippax, ACT SC 2615. POSTSCRIPT: AT LAST I'M ORGANISED! I finally managed to (dare I say it!) get organised enough to buy my new organiser, a Sharp 6600. With 256k of RAM and a 40 character screen instead of 16 characters, this is a big improvement over the old 5200. The only problem I had was converting the data from the 5200 to the 6600. The main catch was that the PC Link program uses the older term for the "memo" function, calling it "note". They could also do a little work on the on-line help files to make them easier for a novice user. After all, when you become experienced with the software you don't need the help files! (I always try out my software on a complete beginner. It's really amazing that something which is completely obvious to me means absolutely nothing to someone who hasn't been eating and sleeping the software for the last few weeks/months). The new 6600 organiser needs different link soft76  Silicon Chip ware, although the same cable can be used. I am using the Australian organiser link package "Missing Link", version 2, and have found it a good program. As it is Windows-based it is much better than the old Organiser Link II software which I was forced to use with the 5200. One nice feature of the new package is its script files, which allow me to completely automate routine functions, such as backing up and exporting files to other programs. With the aid of a conversion routine and some help from Gary at Creative Binary Engineering's organiser technical support program, I even managed to convert my old 5200 data to the new 6600 format. Gary emailed me a copy of their template files, which make conversion quite easy. I have included these on my Internet home page and, of course, they are also available from Gary at Creative Binary Engineering (03 9523 8057).