Re: xywrite and perhaps keyboard problem

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "M Gauthier LeBien"  on Wed, 27
Oct 2004 17:27:36 -0500

Hmmm. What happens if you disconnect the external keyboard, and use the
built-in laptop keyboard, or whatever you used to use?

If that's not the problem, then try this:

REName STARTUP.INT to something else, e.g. at DOS prompt, command:
 REN STARTUP.INT STARTUP.HLD
Then command:
 EDITOR.EXE
Xy will come up "raw", no configuration (and hard to use... but you can type).
Hit F5 to go to command line. Type something. Flickering? Responsive?
(Don't forget to REName back again,
 REN STARTUP.HLD STARTUP.INT
.) That at least will diagnostically tell you whether the problem is in your
user-configuration (sounds like it), or in the hardware or something about the
way DOS launches, e.g. something in AUTOEXEC.NT -- or even possibly a corrupted
copy of EDITOR.EXE, although I haven't seen that specific problem for a very
long time. You say that, at the DOS prompt, behavior is normal? This is Win2K?

It sounds to me like a command in STARTUP.INT is hanging the machine -- i.e.
being issued over and over, because the command is failing, but "failure" of
this type was never anticipated by, and therefore handled gracefully by, the
command (whatever it is). You can figure out what that command is
specifically, by this procedure:

If Editor loads OK when STARTUP.INT is not loaded (i.e. when it is still
renamed STARTUP.HLD), then hit F5, CALL STARTUP.HLD, locate cursor right after
the first command issued by STARTUP, e.g. at beginning of line 2, type "EX 1"
(with the space) on the CMline, hit Enter, F5, SAVE, Enter, F5, QUIT, Enter.
Now REName STARTUP.HLD back as STARTUP.INT at DOS prompt. Launch EDITOR again.
If it loads successfully, sans flicker and remains responsive, then the
*concept* is, to keep moving that  command down, one line at a time,
through the program (STARTUP.INT is an XPL program, and  is a command to
unequivocally stop running that program -- so EX1 forces it to quit before you
reach the bad command). You have to repeatedly launc Editor from DOS, CALL
STARTUP.INT, move that EX1 command down a line or two, SAVE, QUIT, and relaunch
Editor again. Regrettably, unlike any other program, you can't just run
STARTUP.INT repeatedly in the same XyWrite session -- you gotta quit and
relaunch Editor to see what the effect is of changes you make to STARTUP. It's
laborious, but it works. Eventually your EX1 will rest *beneath* the command
that jams, and Editor WILL jam up, but thereby you'll identify which command is
causing the problem.

You can take some fatigue-flavored shortcuts, i.e. drop down four or five lines
at a time -- but the problem with that is, if Editor starts jamming, you won't
know specifically which of the 4 or 5 preceding commands was the problem, and
you can't launch Editor to fix STARTUP.INT because Editor is now jamming!
Catch-22. So you gotta REName STARTUP again to STARTUP.HLD, and then Editor
will load and you can move the EX1 *up* a bit, Quit, REName back to INT,
relaunch -- whew. However, for openers it might make some sense to put the EX1
in the middle of INT, and thereby identify which 50% of the file contains the
problem -- is it above, or below, the EX1?

Make sense? I have to do this occasionally. It's an unqualified PITA, but
there's no other way.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------