Reader Shares Useful Info And (Whoops!) Finds Mistakes I have been a jr. owner (and a subscriber) for 2 years now; my jr. carries a Tecmar Captain (expanded to 640K by PC Enterprises), and prints through a Proprinter. I cant claim to be a total neophyte, but I am still far from expert, as the following questions/comments will show. Like most computer users, my focus is speed and convenience. (1) I would appreciate your comments on the pros and cons of cartridges such as JRSYNCRO, JRVIDEO, KEYBOARD BUFFER, etd., vs. RAM-Resident software such as ZANSI, JRSPOOLER, etc. There is an obvious trade-off of RAM consumption vs. cartidge cost, but I am interested more in learning what differences exist, and in choosing the best combination for me. (Would also appreciate your naming any favorite software and/or cartridges which accelerate boot-up, screen writes, provide print buffer, etc.) (2) Page 8 of the Sept/Oct issue states (in a letter from Craig Tregillus) that ZANSI.SYS is on disk #52; I have #52, but it is not there. How can I get it (together with FASTSCRN & SLOWSCRN)? (3) According to the documentation on both Disk #52 and Disk #40, John Wagers program for patching basic operates from the command "PATCHJR". NOT SO! The command is PATCHBAS. (I hate to confess how long I spun my wheels before tumbling to this one!) (4) "README" on Disk #52 implies that simply running any program which lacks a DOC file should be adequate to understand it. That may be true for more knowledgeable people, but Id appreciate an explanation of the following: -JRDRIVE.COM - which simply answered with "INVALAD PARAMETER" -SILENC.COM - which told me another program was using the system clock -JRCLICK.COM - (which I assume is to turn the keyboard click on/off, but which did exactly nothing) -SCRBJR.COM - which scrubbed things so completely that a cold boot-up was needed. (5) I am just now finding my way around "Mindreader," and am very impressed by some of its features. However, it prints at a pace that is truly glacial, and wont recognize JRSPOOLER; unless I can solve those problems, theres no way Ill adopt it! 6) Per your request for comments on software, I have/use: -DOS 2.1 - patched with your Disk #40 -DOSHELP - which I keep on the DOS disk -DOS 3.2 - used only when one of its special features is needed -Wordstar 3.30 - which is less than perfect only in that moving blocks is harder than it should be, and I havent yet found a good way to change fonts PCWRITE, v. 2.7 - which didnt seem enough better to change versons LOTUS 123 - invaluable, and, if you know your way around it, all but impossible to beat TURBOTAX - great, but lacking some key forms PFS:FILE - far from the best, but adequate for my limited needs PCTOOLS, PKARC, SIDEKICK, and SIDEWAYS - all good utilities which work well on jr. I have about 20 games, mostly from magazines such as Computes PC, which all work, but which are seldom used, so I wont report on them. In closing, I find your newsletter very worthwhile, and hope you keep it going in the same vein. For me, the Q. and A. column has been especially helpful. T. Donald Wood, Brevard, NC EDITORS NOTE: Well try to answer your questions in order: 1. Yes, thats a good idea for an article. Well try to do on e in the next month or so. 2. ZANSI.SYS is on jr. Power Pack Disk #52. We dont know how you could miss it, unless you accidentally erased it. Check again and let us know, well send you a new copy if it isnt there. 3. We apologize for the mistake in the instructions. We wrote an article recently with the correct command and changed it on the disk. We urge any of you who have tried and failed to patch BASIC to try again using the command PATCHBAS. It works fine. 4. You caught another mistake. Those programs were included among the 60 files on DISK #52 in error. They are unnecessary and well delete them. 5. If you are unhappy with Mindreaders printing speed, you might try printing with other software, such as Imageprint (Disk #50), which has several selectable speeds as well as many formatting and print quality levels. 6. Thank you for your feedback on compatible software. We hope other readers will continue to support the PCjr community by sharing their experiences as you have done.