Microwriter New Users Guide
Contents
1. gt eo Oo Y for Why WHATS Cl NEXT E Right Bracket Pound Sign Asterisk A for Asterisk Quotation Marks S TRR i N Notes Quotes i I Exclamation Same as L BE Plus Sign Same as T X Multiplication X same as X Oblique Looks like Would you like to be on T V 2l HOW TO USE THE T V SCREEN HUH U5 7 ers The Microwriter TV Interface the front of which looks like this UHF TV MONITOR DATA IN o o0o0 00000000 oooo000000 Use this socket for Use this socket for The connecting The Microwriter Domestic Tele professional or lead for this fits charger is plugged visions The other industrial monitors intothefrontofthe into this to provide end of the lead fits The other end of Microwriter power to make it into the aerial the lead fits into work socket of the TV the aerial socket of the monitor 22 continued Guide and go straight to page 25 unless you want to know about all the goodies you re missing Then buy one from your local GE pe Microwriting Centre or skip this bit of the If youve got one read on Once youre connected up and switched on Microwniter and T V select a free channel on the T V and tune it till you find the best spot for the Microwntter display Don t worry if the first display you get looks like rubbish that ll all sort itself2. The two sides of the W V wh Downstroke of the V All Xcept your indeX O Zig Zag between the keys Here s some punctuation as well Full stop Comma Hyphen Apostrophe O Q G 6 OO C O i Ol XN No Points to a Looks like a point comma Now have a go at writing and correcting your mistakes using K this THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG and this THE ZEAL OF THE ARCHITECT WAS BEING EXCERCISED CONTINUALLY IN CONJUNCTION WITH A KEEN QUANTITY SURVEYOR IN THE DESIGN OF QUAINT BUT PRETTY MAISONETTES Both these sentences have all the letters of the alphabet in them For more practice just write whatever you like Use the Alphabet Reminder Card as a convenient way of jogging your memory if you ve forgotten a letter but always first spend a second or two trying to remember how the SHAPE ofthe letter relates to the keyboard You can practice even without a Microwriter just tap your fingers on your knee See how long it takes you to do all the alphabet from memory AND NOW SOME MORE COMMANDS CAPITAL LETTERS Sometimes called Upper Case To write just one capital letter FIRST press the COMMAND KEY ON ITS OWN 0 ONCE ONLY u will appear on the right to indicate that the next letter you write will be in upper case Then write the letter After that the u disappears and everything your write will automatically be in small letters
3. play back or output socket on the recorder Turn the volume control on the recorder to its optimal level For most micro cassette recorders recommended this level is usually close to maximum volume though as noted previously some experimentation might be necessary first time around You must have clear memory to write into otherwise it won t work and will read out TAPE ERROR when you try to read If at the beginning of the memory MAKE SURE you step past the by keying F Key _ Rjon the Microwriter so it is ready to Read and THEN switch the recorder to play being careful not to switch it to record by mistake Rito Read from tape The Micrownter will now read the information from the tape During the process the display will show a plus sign on the left and right of the display and read FROM TAPE in the centre This may take a few seconds to appear The indicates the optimum volume level of the Cassette Recorder If it shows as a minus sign this means the volume is too low Turn it up until the is becoming defined Then halt the process and try re reading Equally if it shows a vertical dash the volume has been set too high Similarly should the memory be filled up because there was insufficient memory space to accept all the text from tape the process will stop as if it was the end of transmission 49 continued 8 Once the process is complete the Microwriter di
4. and J I yO i amp opposite O 0 O the downstroke of the ms LEJ J L MO opposites O O as ge Cee 2 O O JN Have you noticed yet that its NOT when you first press the keys down that the letter is written it s when you RELEASE the keys This means you needn t try to get them all down at exactly the same moment as long as they all go down Here s a useful pair to remember as a pair theyre used together so often T H 5 em ili pq O H O om The Top of the T Horizontal for H and these are written using only ONE key E Easiest finger for ys ii in the middle looks like a target U Signet ring finger Little finger for very U opposites line to R K Remember K carefully wO it ll be le O Od Na very useful soon amp a 3 Shape of smallR ae Upstroke of the K Made any mistakes yet a RESU i a I Don t worry correcting is easy but first you must learn about COMMANDS A COMMAND is anything you do on your Microwriter other than merely write a letter of the alphabet number punctuation mark etc It is instead an INSTRUCTION to the Microwriter to DO something Remember the TWO thumb keys Here s how CU space key___ Ead oe COMMAND key ___ a To give acommand just use the COMMAND key with your thumb INSTEAD OF the normal thumb key or IN ADDITION to the key press for the letter when
5. is to key I immediately prior to keying R as above and then again when the read is complete IMPORTANT FOR CASSETTE USERS The quality of cassette recorders and tapes varies considerably though it has improved considerably in the last few years We therefore recommend the use of a newer recorder wherever possible Whilst Micrownter s hardware and software has been designed to give users reasonable reliability the Microwriter cannot remove all sources of error and users will achieve better results if the following safeguards are observed Ensure tape is in good condition Correct tape for recorder should be selected i e FEO2 CRO Ifspeed on recorder is variable the same tape speed should be selected for reading and writing Donot overwnite tape too often After long periods of use the tape heads in cassette recorders tend to get magnetised Occasional de magnetising is recommended Equally cleaning tape heads every so often is recommended Normally tone control will have little effect on playback although maximum treble response is normally preferred On playback ensure optimum volume is set Ensure no large items of electrical equipment are switched on and off in the vicinity Users who require higher levels of accuracy should use digital cassettes with RS232C input output or a suitable micro computer with discs Whether using cassettes or other media for storage of texts a
6. Cassette Recorders the MAINS CHARGER SOCKET for feeding your Microwriter with electricity the AUXILLIARY SOCKET This is for Microwriter s use so ignore it for the moment continued _ THERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FIRST Firstly things like these o U 5 FIN AP When you do start you ll see signs like these pop up from time to time in different places on the display sometimes they shift about sometimes they stay put AT THIS STAGE IGNORE THEM Ci _S nuu Vee I You don t need to know about them yet unless you get stuck If so look it up on page 42 to see what s happened and what to do YOU NEED TO KNOW A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE MICROWRITER KEYBOARD Its not like a conventional keyboard a SLEIN There are only 5 keys on the MAIN KEYBOARD y 3 it plus the COMMAND key which we needn t ar worry about yet try to ignore it Here s a picture of it showing where each finger on your right hand is supposed to go MIDDLE finger here this one s for RING finger key your INDEX Eed T T a LITTLE finger on this one THUMB usually here Sone pcos COMMAND key i pained pretend it s not there for now continued 5 lc HOW TO WRITE THE ALPHABET RTANT RULE ay It s all based on this chart DON T wave your fingers about on the keys or use them on any Learning key other than the one they re supposed to use
7. ING accessed using H as usual once and twice off as suitable though only when the relevant menu setting permits Keying H or H H shows a or A for ASCII in the setting window SHIFT INVERSION For use in code numbers etc i e post codes EC4Y 2ZX When locked into any setting lower case upper case numerics 3rd or 4th setting you can lock directly into any other setting WITHOUT going back into lower case alphabet by using double commands as per normal Equally a cnce off command will also work e g will give one upper case alphabet while locked into numerics and will then revert to numerics automatically A once off shot into lower case alphabet will not register it will always unlock permanently into lower case alphabet CASSETTE STORAGE Introduction This system provides a facility for storing part or all of the text on the Micrownter memory for use at a later date The quality of cassette recorders varies and it is important to observe our housekeeping rules on page 51 Several mini cassette recorders do not have an output socket and cannot therefore be used When using a recorder for the first time it may be necessary to experiment with the volume level when going through the read from tape routine see point 4 page 49 Note Thoughout these notes WRITE means the Microwriter writing ON TO the tape and READ means the Microwriter reading the information
8. O LEARN THE OOD Can you remember how long it took you to learn to write Weeks Probably months Maybe a year or more that s not unusual Have you ever tried learning to type proper touch typing that is using more than one or two fingers Then you know how long it takes people to get as fast on a typewriter as they can handwrite Months of slog usually The Microwriter is refreshingly different You ll find that you have learned to touch write on the Microwriter in only a short time Learning to do EVERYTHING the Microwriter can do which is a very great deal more than you may ever actually need then takes only a little more time Then all you need to do is practice your new skill until it becomes something as automatic to you as handwriting and as fast Concentrated use over several days should see you well on the way to this stage quite possibly well beyond it Your progress as you practice WON T be a nice steady progression people just don t learn that way You ll have good days and bad days everyone does DON T get downhearted when your fingers decide to behave as nimbly as an elephant s feet they ll get over it After this second period you ll continue to get faster on your Microwriter for several weeks until you finally find that without thinking about it at all you can use it about one and a half times as fast as your handwriting maybe faster after a few months l continued Yo
9. OUn microvriieri Your local Microwriting Centre E MICROWRITER HEAD OFFICE 31 Southampton Row London WC1B 5H Telephone 01 831 6801 2 3 THE NEW USER S GUIDE TO THE OU eer IN THI IDE Where General introduction LLL Explanation ofthe Microwriter o 8 T row tO Wire tn ALPHABET CC M How to give COMMANDS ooo ee and how to CORRECT MISTAKES __ er 13 More alphabet eee et More commands CAPITAL LETTERS _ _ oo READING FORWARDS amp BACKWARDS 16 Second SETTING hae 18 NUMBERS a a 19 PUNCTUATION _ ee ey ee 20 T V DISPLAY SYSTEM a GARMAGERETURNS s as s as TM DOGUMENTSEPARATORS te TEXT ACCESS Zip Jump Hop etc EE EE UO ee Ue Insert ee ee Deletion and wiping i i f 31 FORMATTING _ a The Pre Set Format System 33 Tabulation ees jena 34 Margin Commands _ Sn EE y Position Heading D ne CHARGING THE BATTERIES and switching ON g ON and OFF ua DISPLAY SYMBOLS and what iy mean __ _______ LETTER MARKER oe EEDE 45 EXTRA SETTINGS and shift inversion a CASSETE STORNE o o o oo oo NE EE In line with its copyright not to be policy of continual reproduced without the ee consent of Microwriter Ltd icrowriter Lt reserves the right to mayen alter specifications without notice _ _ a a microni NOW YOU RE GOING T
10. again If you want to write lots of capitals BLOCK CAPITALS LIKE THIS then press the command key TWICE O0 to lock into upper case Whenever locked into this mode you ll see U in the window where u was which indicates Upper case lock Remember that whenever you want to go back to small letters just press the two thumb keys together WARDS AND BACKWARDS K goes back one letter as you already know F goes FORWARD one letter If nothing happens see the note below marked F for Forward Remember though F is NOT the same as a space When you turn on your machine read forwards with F and DO NOT hit the space key this will only overwrite your text If you want to read through lots of writing in the memory you d get fed up having to use F or K for every single letter Instead you can use the CONTINUOUS read out 16 continued To command a CONTINUOUS read out just hit the command key once D before using F or K The result is a continous automatic read out word by word forwards or backwards through the text in the memory p Mes BUT BEFORE YOU TRY IT amp Cra as ri REASON eels ABLE 2 Oh you d better know how to stop it once it s going haa To STOP any continuous process on the Microwriter such as a continuous read out just hit the COMMAND KEY and release it You can also SPEED UP the speed of the read out at any time by h
11. also uses the pre set tab slots held in the Microwntter s program If no use of is made each time a carriage return is made either an automatic one or as a result of C the printer will automatically start printing the next line from tab slot 0 When Jis keyed it has the affect of instructing the printer to return to tab slot l at the next AND ALL SUBSEQUENT carriage returns i e the subsequent text printed is indented by 5 character positions If Jis keyed the new margin is now at tab slot 2 i e 10 characters from the usual margin 3 s puts the margin to slot 3 15 positions from the left and so on Each jused also has the affect of reducing the maximum number of characters to be printed on each line by 5 The next paragraph is an example of the use of before a C It is important to remember that Jonly takes affect AT THE NEXT CARRIAGE RETURN To indent this paragraph therefore the was keyed BEFORE the which produced the clear line separating the paragraphs 37 continued To cancel single or multiple margin indentations M is used to reset the margin to tab slot 0 no matter how many s had been used up to that point This will show 3 on the display M Margin Re set To step back one slot at atime is used Each _ steps back one slot and shows a sign on the display BE VERY CAREFUL not to use moredecrements Crp than th
12. ance the printer to now advance it to slot 7 a slot BEYOND the text which had just been printed on the line IF T IS NOT used enough to advance the printer to a clear slot it does not overprint the next batch of text on the previous batch instead it merely prints it continuously on from the previous batch but the neat format is still lost It is therefore important to ensure that T is used sufficiently to Like an example allow for the amount of information to be printed in each column 34 continued 35 continued Example In the previous example the item column is 10 positions wide since T T was used to advance the printer to the code column If one of the item names was LONGER than 10 characters then that line would be out of format Item Code Quantity plug b2 socket d8 edge connectorxl4 switch r47 In this case the code column should have been positioned 15 positions from the margin to allow for edge connector 1 e TITIT should have been used socket d8 edge connector x14 switch rI The easiest way to ensure that your columns are wide enough for the information to be printed in them is to build up the format on a TV screen The result is then instantly visible 36 Margin Indent Commands WHATS THar The command is It s Command Apostrophe Each time you use it it shows a gt sign on the display The margin control command
13. as shown in the Chart chart on the left Microwriting is using one OR MORE keys together at the same time to produce each one letter number punctuation mark etc The important thing to remember at this stage is that using the wrong finger on the wrong key will slow down your learning and lead to lots of mistakes Finger Pinger r Thumb Also once you start you ll notice that the keys are very touch ee E Finger sensitive much lighter than on a typewriter for instance This helps you s to get very fast but does mean that you ll make mistakes to begin with Actual a Just ignore them We ll come on to corrections later Keyboard m CALY GW D AEL hte tea command key ah a _ and the SHAPES of the letters Example SI fun mr This is how you Ay il handwrite the ae letter I yes q Here s What To Do Pick up your Microwriter but don t switch it on just yet You MICROWRITE the letter I like this creating the Spend a few minutes getting used to the finger positions Get into the shapes with your finger tips habit straight away of each finger on its own key and your thumb Memorise how its SHAPE normally on the UPPER of the 2 thumb keys the one we call the space relates to the keys key because used on its own it writes a space 6 Practice doing the I on the keyboard a few times but still don t switch on just yet Now Handwrit
14. back FROM the tape Writing merely copies the Microwriter memory and doesn t erase it To WRITE On To Cassette l Decide which document or sequence of documents you want to record on to cassette Place TWO CONSECUTIVE document separators at the end of the last document to be recorded 2 Locate the FIRST document to be recorded in the same way as for printing transmitting 3 Load a cassette in the recorder and wind forward or backward to the part of the tape on which you want to record the information preferably a blank section 4 Dictate a title on to the tape so you can easily identify the information later This is not essential but is strongly recommended Plug the cassette connection lead into the cassette socket on the front of the Microwntter and into the microphone or input socket on the recorder 47 continued 6 Switch the recorder to RECORD and THEN command the Microwriter to write on to cassette by keying _ w The information will now be written on to tape The Microwriter shows ON TO TAPE on the display and a slow pulsing line as transmission occurs How long it takes to write all the information depends on its length A full memory takes just under three minutes to be written on to tape 7 When the process has been completed the Microwntter display reverts to text to show the last 14 characters of the information recorded 8 Should you wish to halt the wri
15. cate the setting and only disappears when you unlock back to lower case alphabet Remember that to go back to lower case alphabet use f HOW TO WRITE NUMBERS First lock into second setting If you ve already forgotten how just look at the last page And try and remember it this time ea HAVE a E Got an N on the right of the display Good practice doing the numbers like this me QO 4 oe a i 0 wit Q 2 iva 19 It is HOW TO PUNCTUATE Because they re so useful the first three are EXACTLY THE SAME in both settings Comma S QA and here s the rest You ll notice some helpful verbal memory aids and in each case a little Full Stop Se eile Points to a point Space ome O picture of what the punctuation mark looks like on the Microwriter display This is because it doesn t always look the same on the display as it will when printed out Try to get to know the punctuation marks you think you ll use most Colon Semi Colon O looks like A little les two colons than a colon Equals amp Ampersand OO of Only straight line on ampersand 20 percentage o S Looks like Z va At continued Left Bracket Looks like C B Dollar Sign Same as S Minus Hyphen oo O O Horizontal of H Question Mark
16. d easy text access FOR gt WHAT a All will be revealed on 26 the next page TEXT ACCESS f TETO WH ICH4 cas MEANS a convenient way of referring to all the different commands that allow you to send the display and cursor on T V backwards and forwards through the stuff you ve already written in the memory 3 True they give you a READ OUT so you can see the words as you go through the memory TRANDIK ANDC JIPIAND L K THAT S WHAT THEY ALL DO There is another set of commands that allow you to move from one position in the memory to another almost INSTANTLY There are two main groups ZIP means Zip AHEAD in the memory UMP means Jump BACKWARDS in the memory and here s how they work WARNING If you are not connected to the T V but are in the T V mode See page 23 the Microwriter will be confused and will execute the following commands VERY SLOWLY If this happens hit _ P as explained on page 23 a series of numbers will be displayed hit By Line v4 zips forward to the next line end toa OC ora_ J jumps back to the previous line end toa O ora_s By Paragraph P Z _ zips ahead to the next paragraph gap PEI PJ jumps back to the Jipii paragraph gap W BET Paragraph Gap is sany sequence of two or a more C s such as you would use to separate your paragraphs FARAGRAPH pee enn wt GAP P __ for Paragrap
17. e L Then Microwrite L y we V O O Q C CAN I SWITCH ON NOW EA YES When you switch on the display will show MW 4 10 this code may vary Hit any key and you ll see a sign appear on the right of the display You don t need to know about 1 signs yet so ignore it Try the I and L for real a few times Try the space as well just the thumb key It is important to put in the occasional space here and there in between practicing all the letters of the alphabet otherwise the Microwriter doesn t like it See how each thing you wnite including mistakes appears in turn close to the right of the display and then moves across to the left as you write more WHY DOES THERE SEEM TO BE TWO lt f Gp SPACES FIXED ON THE RIGHT P OF THE DISPLAY That space is reserved for all sorts of signal letters they shouldn t have appeared there yet Like this Sem me pPrPaaATILrFrwaoM If you have got one of these in that space you ll get funny things you don t know about on the display when you try to write ae E To get rid of most signs on the right you don t want PRESS THE TWO THUMB KEYS TOGETHER otherwise refer to page 42 You ll find that a lot of the letters form natural pairs of opposites based on the SHAPES which can be thought of as mirror images Try to remember the letters as these pairs it s easier For instance the opposites of the two youve done so far are G
18. e number of you previously used as this can cause quite a few formatting problems PPED PARA Sometimes you might want successive paragraphs to step in from the left and then by stages step out to the right again This is typical ofa lot of business reports l Inorder to describe easily the process of successively indenting paragraphs and then stepping back out again each paragraph is numbered This paragraph is printed from the normal left margin i e tab slot 0 2 One has now been keyed to bring paragraph 2 in by 5 character positions Paragraph 3 shows how a heading for an indented paragraph can easily be written 3 This is paragraph 3 All that is necessary is to remember to key the required number of s BEFORE each paragraph gap C C is keyed Once this has been done subsequent carriage returns automatically go to the indented margin 4 To bring this paragraph back again by only 5 positions _ was keyed ONCE ONLY before C C If a retum to the main normal margin at tab slot 0 was required would have been keyed twice Paragraph 5 will be repositioned at slot 0 5 Here s where we started from The keyed before writing this aragraph effectively cancelled the indentation achieved by using before writing paragraph 2 38 continued orl Offset Side Numbers Another frequent requirement is to print paragraph numbers to the left of a sequenc
19. e of indented paragraphs The example below is also the explanation of how this is easily done l Having made the paragraph gap by keying C Cl the paragraph number is written 2 In order that the text ON THE SAME LINE i e the first line of the paragraph is intended the tab command T is used 3 In order to ensure that ALL SUBSEQUENT text in the same aragraph is also indented is keyed IMMEDIATELY AFTER the has been keyed 4 After each indented paragraph has been written is used to reset the margin 5 The process is repeated Here s a Summary ij page Ea ra and shows on the display Mi and shows J on the display or lt 39 Two other types of Formatting commands are MARGIN INVERT POSITION HEADING Margin Invert command is M I Jand shows on the display If this command is used before a short piece of text typically a date AND FOLLOWED BY A C then that piece of text will be shifted to line up from the RIGHT HAND margin instead of the left Thus it has inverted the margin BUT only for that line Example M I lJanuary C will print against the Right Hand margin like this January Note Since the T V enables you to actually see the layout of your text this command is not usually used inthe T V mode As a result it does not show up onthe T V screen if used However it will cause the piece of text to which it applies to print against an inverted
20. get back to lower case alphabet at any time by keying _ Single Shot Lo ck Upper Case Alphabet Indicator u For capital letters See page 16 2nd Setting Indicator n N For numbers and punctuation See page 18 3rd Setting Indicator p P For other printable characters See Book II 4th Setting Indicator a A For ASCII Control Characters These get used once you re playing about with various computers etc but normally you needn t worry about them They re dealt with in The Microwriter User s Handbook BookII When the extreme right position of the display is blank you re in normal lower case alphabet 42 Symbols On The Right Slot No 1 M Menu engaged means you have locked into the Menu PEA At this stage you need not worry about this See Book II f Full Memory Waming means you ve nearly filled the memory and only have enough room for another 256 characters a shortish paragraph F Full Memory Indicator means you ve filled up the memory and will have to wipe something off to make space to carry on I Insert Indicator tells you you re in Insert Look it up on page 30 if you don t already know about it This is a high priority indicator and will overwrite any of the above alternative indicators Symbols That Move About These ones behave on the display just as if they re an ordinary letter number punctuation mark etc But they re not They don t result ina printed character I
21. h access a ee S ME s continued 27 ByDocument Z zips ahead to the next separator at the end of 3 Plug the printer s connection lead into the output socket in front of the current document the Microwriter It ll only go in one way so you can t get it wrong J J jumps back to the last separator at the 4 Switch on tha Microwniter beginning of the current document 5 Find the document you want to print This simply means making sure that the beginning of the relevant document appears in the right hand position of the display TheBigHop Hj Z zips forward to the very last bit you ve got written in the memory so only blank memory follows Can be stopped with _ see note below 6 Command the Microwriter to print with X H J jumps all the way back to the beginning of the gt memory to MW 4 10 ii X for Xecute a H forth the bic big ebigHop Your Microwriter talks or interfaces with a large number of different Note HZ and H can both be stopped by _ printers word processors etc with a number of different settings If This is useful when linked to the TV system to stop ata you cannot immediately print successfully with your Microwriter either specific place or when not linked to the TV and you ask for advice at your local Microwriting Centre or if you are brave and find the Microwriter is Hopping too slowly technically minded look up what to do in Bo
22. ine endings and paragraph gaps which may be present beforehand If there is no marker on memory after the point at which Y Z was keyed it will act as Z and zip directly to the end of the document Y J works jumping back in precisely the same way searching for the nearest preceding letter marker When preparing standard text which will be used more than once with variable text being entered each time e g quotation letters contracts etc a marker can be entered at each successive point in the text at which variable text will be inserted As each issue of the standard text is prepared it is then necessary only to use Y Z or Y J lto shift directly from one variable item to the next The marker itself does not rint so it is not necesSary to delete it from the text prior to printing owever be careful not to overwrite it as you may need it next time around EXTRA SETTINGS In addition to the main two settings described so far there are two additional settings which are dealt with in full detail in Book II This gives the remainder of the normally TIN printable ASCII characters The command to switch to 3rd setting is P P Switches to 3rd setting for the next character only and shows p on the display P P Locks into the 3rd setting and shows P on the display The characters are dealt with in Book II THE FOURTH This gives the ASCII Control Characters and are SETT
23. it all so far right here we go continued Tabulation O K Example Write this Tabulation simply means the printing of information in the form ofa j table or schedule e g statements of account catalogue lists etc Item T T Code T T Quantity T T Price T T Total C C In practice the tab system is also a convenient way of achieving a pubs TTE TTE one off indentation to the right The tab command is T which shows aT sign on the display each time socket T Ts mm mmuni itis used On the T V screen the use of T is visible in that the cursor is switch TTr4 mmm TmTE4TTE24 re positioned appropriately T Tabulation fuse TTT TomTo TTS and then print it out It should look like this Each time T is keyed it has the effect of advancing the printer to the next slot to the right before the next batch of text is printed If it is keyed twice in sequence it will advance by 2 slots T T T will advance by 3 slots and so on It is important to understand where the printer starts from when the T is keyed ifitis the first time T has been used in the line the printer will advance to slot 1 before printing ifitis not the first T in the line T will cause the printer to advance to the next slot to the right of the one to which it was sent by the previous T Thus if the printer has just printed text at slot 6 T will In the example each use of was sufficient to adv
24. itting any key on the MAIN keyboard To SLOW DOWN again just hit any key on the MAIN keyboard again Have fun practise reading backwards and forwards fast and slow stopping and starting when you want ME I VE GOT A PROBLEM a i lt __NOTHING HAPPENS WHEA I USE F That s because F and _ F will only read ahead as far as there is text in the memory they won t take you into blank memory If the display does not move when you use either of these commands it means youre already at the end of the text in memory Likewise K and _ K can only take you back as far as the beginning of the memory Both continuous read outs will stop automatically when they ve gone as far as they can SO CAN DO THE LETTERS o ANDABITOF gt s PUNCTUATION ang You need to change SETTING The Microwriter keyboard writes all characters you find ona conventional keyboard and more besides mainly out of the main two different SETTINGS al gt Alphabet Second Aa Setting Setting or Numerics all the letters numbers some all punctuation punctuation To CHANGE over to second setting use IN ONCE ONLY if you want only the next character to be a number or punctuation mark or TWICE IN N if you want to lock into second setting When you do IN for one numeric character n will appear on the right and when you lock into numerics N N y will appear to indi
25. ke or you can use the Microwriter whilst it s on charge if you want to You might notice that the adaptor and the botton comer of the Microwriter warm up a bit whilst all this is going on DON T PANIC This is quite normal neither of them will melt burn or explode etc There are three ways of switching your Microwriter on and off 1 The most obvious is with the ON OFF switch This will always return you to the start of the memory 4 Ifyou leave your Microwriter on and unused for 8 minutes it will switch itself off to preserve the power To switch on use the ON a switch and the Microwriter will return to where you left off in the text 3 Ifyou deliberately want to switch off so that you can return to the place you left off use the commands H P to Halt Power It will switch off and when you switch on with the ON OFF switch will return to where you left off H P Halt Power 4 DISPLAY SYMBOLS And What They Mean All sorts of different symbols appear from time to time on the display They can appear either fixed on the extreme right of the display or ree can move backwards and forwards along with the text as you read through These are WARNINGS and INDICATORS Whenever you see one you don t recognise look it up in this section to find out what your Microwriter is saying to you Symbols Fixed On The Right Slot No 2 ny t These are the Setting indicators Remember you can always
26. margin IO Marginiavert Position Heading is another comr and which is useful in the portable mode The command is P H and shows x onthe display This command can ONLY function when used immediately after a Carriage Return and also followed by another Carriage Return When used before a short piece of text typically a short heading the effect is to automatically centre the heading when printing Example C P H Main Title C will print like this Main Title Note This command will also not show up onthe T V but will position the heading centrally when you come to print P H Position Heading CHARGING THE BATTERIES When fully charged your Microwriter should give you 30 hours of continuous use enough usually for one week of normal use Your Microwriter will let you know when it s getting hungry E by showing you an underline mark on the LEFT of the display when it s beginning to run down This indicates that one hour of charge remains and you ought to start using it off the mains until you can give it a good charge To charge it up again use only the mains adaptor supplied with your Microwntter Stick the big end into a convenient set of 3 holes ina nearby wall that look like this and the little end into the little round hole at the back of the Microwriter the only one it ll fit Charging up from completely flat takes 24 hours You can leave it charging overnight if you li
27. nd data it is important to keep a printed copy of any texts so that in the event of failures texts can be reconstituted SO NOW YOU KNOW IT ALL LEST gt on TERA a except you don t It s true that if you ve learned all the basic stuff in this Guide then you ve learned enough to be able to use your Microwriter for a very wide range of writing editing formatting and printing uses However CO iy HOWEVER o S however your Microwriter is a very powerful and versatile little device Don t be deceived by its size it s really a little computer in its own right and there s lots more that can be done than we ve covered in this Guide For instance there s a thing called a program menu that allows you to change lots of the ways in which the Microwriter behaves whicl this Guide treats as unchangeable such as standard line length page length line spacing etc You can also do a whole load of technical things through the keyboard to enable your Microwriter to link into a tremendous range of other devices All this is covered in Microwriter General Systems Manual Book II So if you want or need to then that s your next step If you don t then just carry on as now Enjoy it 6 Koy Bye
28. nd of a line e g as in the address of a letter In this case you have to tell it to do a carriage return The command is C for Carriage return Each C you use winds the paper up by one line so use to leave one clear line between paragraphs Or use lots of C s to make a bigger gap in the text as for the signature on a letter You ll notice that each C you use shows a I sign on the display to show you where you ve put it On the T V screen the cursor goes to the next line 25 DOCUMENT SEPARATORS Right The memory in your Microwntter can hold up to 5 typical pages of typescript or more Which is a lot So much in fact that it would often be too much to deal with usefully at one go when you get around to plugging into your printer You ll often prefer to chop up the memory into nice digestible chunks or pages of text which you can call DOCUMENTS with a sort of sign post to separate them which is what the DOCUMENT SEPARATOR is To enter the DOCUMENT SEPARATOR KEY L This will show a v onthe display which doesa t print out and on the T V clears the screen ready for the new document imagine your documents are letters E to to separate yo your Letters These separators are VERY IMPORTANT when you are printing out your text if you forget to put them in the places you want them you ll get the wrong bits printing out They re also VERY USEFUL for quick an
29. ng appear on the display and T V It s only if you NEXT key the D that the document is wiped off the memory Now you can just write your extra text in the usual way If you key anything else the will be ignored and then close up the gap by hitting I lagain The I goes away and the rest of the text re appears on the T V Job done Text Text Text e w D Caution Ifyou switch off your Microwriter whilst in insert you ll be leaving the hole in the memory where it was and won t be able to read or zip past it next time Y switch on If you ve I done this remember to cancel with I 30 3 continued D is even more drastic it wipes off the document you re in when you do it like Wi D does and EVERY DOCUMENT ON THE MEMORY AFTER IT You ll get the warning MULTIPLE WIPE when you ve keyed the and the wipe will only happen if you then key the D anything else will cause the to be ignored Multiple Wipe Rz amp Sb K is TOTALLY LETHAL It will wipe absolutely everything relentlessly Hence the obscure code This also shows Multiple Wipe after It will show MEMORY CLEARED afterwards Hit to get back to writing on the Microwriter FORMATTING Formatting means the various com iands that affect WHERE on the page the printer will put the text If no format command is used the result is a solid chunk of text running down the page The format commands let you break the te
30. nstead they mean something L Document Separator See page 26 3 Letter Marker See page 45 Carriage Return Often called a hard carriage return See page 25 O tomatic Carriage Return Sometimes called a soft carriage return See page 25 i matic Carriage Returm Suppression Delete or overwnite if you get it by accident If you want to know more though see Book II continued 43 tabulation see page 34 Tab Adjustment Delete or overwrite if you get it by accident If you want to know all about it look in Book II Margin Indent See page 37 Margi See page 38 Margin Reset See page 38 Book II See page 40 Margin Invert See page 40 Form Feed to Next Page Book II Exception See BooklII Exception II See BookII Low Charge Indicator Always occurs on the left of the display See page 41 ontrol racter Indicator Always happens before a letter when locked in ASCII setting Refer to Book II THE LETTER MARKER This is a neat way of getting instantly to exactly the right spot in the memory As you prepare a document you can enter at any point a marker to which you can later zip the display and cursor on T V precisely and easily by using a special command The marker is entered by keying _ L which showsa on the display IL Letter Marker The special access command is Y Z Keying this zips the display cursor straight to the next marker ignoring all l
31. ok II Once set as long as you don t change printer nothing need be done again The printer wili now print the document It ll stop itself when it reaches the end of the document OR when it s printed out the maximum number aay 7X AND NOW I D LIKE TO SEE of lines it s set for per page usually 60 though this can be varied Bit J SOME RESUS too advanced for you at this stage though You can also stop the printing yourself by using __ How long it takes the printer to stop varies according to what sort of printer it is If you do so O K lets do some Printing you can re start printing from where it stopped by hitting again OR ANY COMMAND If you hit any keys other than _ it will disengage the sit i Microwriter from the printer and allow you to go back into the text but Note If instead of plugging your Microwriter into an independent this means that if you wish to print again it will start from the last printer you re going to connect to some kind of computer or document separator and not where you left off word processor then assume that the word printer in this section refers to these f Here s what to do 1 Write something to print making sure you put a document separator between each document 2 Put paper in the printer and make it ready to receive text 28 continued 29 EDITING purely and simply means changing things you ve already written Deletion There are only 3
32. out once you get started WARNING As the TV Interface shares the same socket as the printer you ll learn about this soon the Microwniter needs to know which one it is talking to To select one or the other the following sequence is needed _ P it will then show a series of numbers Ignore these just hit to carry on writing If you cannot immediately write to the TV use this select code at this stage we won t go too deeply into this as it is dealt with later Got a display on the screen La HAVE See the cursor 23 continued THE CURSOR The cursor is this thing ae If its on its own it ll keep blinking at you If it s in the same place asa letter it ll flash alternately with the letter This is so you can always easily spot where it is The cursor is a sort of marker showing you where the next thing you write will go It relates to the words in the Microwriter memory and to the position of the display like this Microwriter letters which show on display words in memory cursor position So if you read forwards or backwards the cursor will shift about accordingly on the T V screen It will also obey all the text access commands that you don t know about yet So if you want to make a correction to anything you ve written all you need to do is to send the cursor to the right place using F K For ej eS __ K and make your change You ll see the result instantly on the sc
33. possible changes you can make quick brown fox fox V jumps simple CORRECTIONS by overwriting There s 5 ways of chopping bits you don t want out of the memory D deletes one character only each time it s used It s the 7 C WHICH CAN DO ALREADY character furthest on the nght of the display or if connected 3 _ Which you can do already bl the one immediately ON THE LEFT of the cursor INSERTING extra bits D forDelete DELETING bits you don t want UD starts continuous deletion word by word which can be stopped at any time by keying AND RELEASING This process works from RIGHT to LEFT so start at the END ofthe text you want to get rid of You will find it all happens rather fast at first so be careful Insertion quickbrown jumps over W D wipesEVERYTHING between two document fox separators The beginning of the relevant text should appear in the right hand position of the display for Wipe To insert an extra letter or word or more use m but I torimsert _ BE VERY CAREFUL HP RAG This makes a sort of hole in the memory at the place the display and cursor on T V is positioned so you can put in the new bits You ll see an ST I on the right of the display where you re in insert and on the T V the This one is instant death to a document AND CANNOT rest of the text disappears BE STOPPED That s why when you key W you ll see a SINGLE WIPE warni
34. reen The screen can show you up to 16 lines of your writing at a time At the same time it ll show you what your text would look like if you printed it out straight away unless although unlikely at this stage you write more than 64 characters on one line in which case the screen will flash the last two of the 64 and put the rest on the next line down Note Moving forward over a document separator see page 26 has the effect of cleaning the screen 24 If you haven t got a T V Interface and have skipped the last couple of pages ene a welcome back Carriage Returns BACKLUARPS Dieu orbo No As you write your words into the memory the Microwriter works out automatically how much will fit on each line of the page on which it will eventually be printed by looking for a suitable space When actually doing the printing the Microwntter tells the printer when to go down to the next line on the page This is called a CARRIAGE RETURN You can see where each one will happen as you write since a O sign appears on the display where the Carriage return would happen On the T V screen you see the lines of text building up automatically as you write Notice that the Microwriter doesn t split up words it always makes the Carriage return at a space between words SMART r Umacuine gt Yes but it s not telepathic It doesn t know when you would want it to do a carriage return BEFORE the normal e
35. splay shows TAPE ERROR 000 This shows how many errors have occurred in the transmission and of course ideally the readout should be 000 If it shows a figure it does not mean that 007 for example equals 7 errors The readout is based on a complicated formula relating to the number of corrected errors The maximum number of uncorrected errors that can occur is one error After this it will show POOR TAPE If POOR TAPE shows on the display you will need to re read it Once the transfer has happened successfully the recorder can be switched off and the information now in the Microwriter memory handled in the usual way The tape is NOT erased during the read process and may be re used as many times as needed It is wise however to store tapes away from sources of dust heat or magnetic fields e g NOT on top of a television set Note In electronic terms the read process is very sensitive to interference and it may be necessary to attempt to read a tape more than once to achieve an accurate transfer to memory If the information shows a high degree of error once in memory or partially or totally fails to be read the volume level should be checked If difficulty persists fresh batteries should be used in the recorder Low charge in the Microwriter may also interfere with the process Inserting Text from Cassette Text on tape can be read into memory with the Microwniter switched to Insert Mode All that is necessary
36. te process prior to the end of transmission hit It will have a delayed reaction to this E ion tt Having completed the process of writing on to tape the cassette now contains the following sequence of information l Your dictated title if you recorded one 2 A clear high pitched tone lasting about 2 seconds which is automatically recorded to denote the start of the text 3 The text itself which makes a buzzing noise Note A Depending on the length of tape cassette you use it is possible to record the equivalent of many full memories on one tape Some microcassettes for instance can store up to about 100 A4 pages of text We do not recommend cramming in too many pages B If recording high volumes of information on tape your dictated titles become very important in subsequently locating a particular item C It is also wise to make a list of the titles If your recorder has a counter then the reading at the start of each recording should be noted 48 continued To READ Back Into Microwriter Memory f 2 g o D Load the appropriate cassette into the recorder Find the clear tone at the START of the particular information you want to read back into your Microwriter and stop the recorder at this position and NOT before or beyond the tone Plug the cassette connection lead into the cassette socket on the front of the Microwntter and into the earphone
37. u can see the stages you ll go through on this chart a few a few days a few weeks final level hours of skill fast irregular steady improvement early progress with learning practice What you ll need Before you start make sure you ve got available Don t worry about the last two items just yet you won t need them at first a Microwriter a Microwriter battery charger mains lead this Guide a set of reminder cards a T V Interface and T V set or monitor if you re going to use the T V Display system a printer or whatever else you intend to plug your Microwriter into WHAT S A MICROWRITER It Looks Like This Display lt _____ Memory internal TOP VIEW Main Keyboard Command Key On Off Switch ooa f Output Socket Cassette Lead Socket S Q P Mains Charger Socket s F Auxilliary Socket 3 continued And The Different Bits are the DISPLAY shows you what you have written the MEMORY holds everything well up to 8 000 characters worth about 5 pages you write and keeps it stored even when you switch the Microwriter off the MAIN KEYBOARD is what you write with the COMMAND KEY is very important but don t worry about it yet the ON OFF SWITCH is what you turn your Microwriter on and off with the OUTPUT SOCKET to connect the Microwriter to all sorts of other gadgets T V s printers etc the CASSETTE LEAD SOCKET for connecting to
38. xt up up down and across the page in the order you want i UKE C DOES B pbs Yes that s a format command There are two other types TABULATIONS MARGIN INDENTATION continued The Pre Set Format System The Microwriter has in its mind its program the built in set of instructions which control the way it works a standard picture of a printed page divided up into columns Each of these columns is usually the width of 5 printed characters 5 character positions but this can be varied though not until you re more expert than you are at this stage Across each line of print therefore there is a sequence of pre set positions at the start of each column These are called TAB SLOTS Each slot has a number and its position on the page is measured as its distance from the normal left margin by the number of character positions The Microwriter s standard picture then looks like this normal left margin top of page v edge of paper tab slot position Position 0 is thus the normal position of the left margin and each successive slot across the page marks the various fixed positions available for use with both the tabulation and the margin indent commands Note This Guide assumes that your Microwniter is set to behave according to the pre set system If in practice you find things are not happening as described look up Tab Adjustments in Book II Understand
39. you write a letter of the alphabet What you write this way is now NOT in fact a letter its a COMMAND BUT we still refer to the letter it would have been as a convenient way of referring to each key combination appropriate for each command Like an example THAT an WOULD HELP _ R EXAMPLE Normal Letter K Command K O ox O O In this Guide and in all other printed material about the Microwriter like the reminder cards each command is written like this As it Would Be Spoken In Writing command K K command N IN command F command key on its own E both thumb keys together Each different command tells the Microwriter to do something different IMPORTANT EXAMPLE K tells it to backspace by one position SO you can overwrite a letter to make a CORRECTION See Try using K a few times Try writing this from memory correcting your mistakes as you make them SHE SELLS SEASHELLS ON THE SEA SHORE and this THE TALL GIRL JUST LOST HER LOOSE TOOTH IN THE HOUSE 12 So far you ve covered over half the alphabet Here s the rest opposites Most Fingers Make M B opposites st Dome of D a Back of B s ae ae i g on a opposites wa A O N d O Ses O g Curl round for C Make tail from the central O ee Fo y lt a complete Press for P 13 opposites The upstroke of the K Looks like a Y Ww m Ow
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