Italian Dictionary Problems Solved

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

XyWrite Italian Speller and Memory Settings:


Dear Adriano:

Here's a guide to success with the Italian Microlytics dictionary. The
principle issue is memory.

XyWrite doesn't need any DPMI and XMS memory (set them to zero, unless you
think you will call applications that will require DPMI or XMS _from
within_ XyWrite).

EMS is what you do need. Although not a lot! 500Kb is sufficient to run
the Italian Microlytics dictionary, and possibly less than that (I didn't
test extensively). But you MUST give MORE MEMORY (about 230Kb more) to the
session (in OS Properties for this application) than you demand when you
launch EDITOR.EXE. For example (these are OS/2 minimums):

If you demand  set EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT to
------      ---
/e500      736
/e1000      1232
/e2000      2224
/e4000      4224

You can set EMS_HIGH_OS_MAP_REGION and EMS_LOW_OS_MAP_REGION both to 0 (or
at least I can, without any conflicts).

Under Win95, on the Memory tab of the Properties folder, set DPMI to AUTO,
turn off XMS (set to NONE, and also uncheck "Use HMA"), and set EMS
manually to 1230 (that isn't an offered option, but you can just type the
value in). Then, on the Program tab, set:

G:\XY4\EDITOR.EXE /e1000

Works like a charm. ZX=0 is critical! At this point, I see no real reason
to give the full amount (4Mb) of EMS that XyWrite can use. But I haven't
played with it enough. If anyone can persuade that more memory yields a
better result, by all means -- give it. But otherwise...

Non-Italians can write a tiny testfile to determine whether the Italian
dictionary is active or not. It can consist of just a couple of words,
such as:

 amigo dunce

Amigo should offer amico, dunce offers duce.

Under OS/2 (I haven't tried this with Win95 -- but why not?) you can toggle
back and forth between the US and Italian dictionaries, if you follow
rule #4 mentioned under "help usuk" in XYWWWEB.U2. Probably
you can swap among all the Microlytics dictionaries, so long as you follow
the rules. Lemme try the British dictionary... yeah, that works also.
_All_ Microlytics dictionaries can be actively swapped, in one session, if
you follow the rules...

Try these steps, Adriano! Let me know if you get Italian Microlytics
working... I think we already determined that it works under XyWin, didn't
we?

Best regards,


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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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