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From: userDHAL@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (David Halliwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith
Subject: Re: zenith/wp 5.1 incompatibility
Message-ID: <1989@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA>
Date: 4 Dec 90 22:10:58 GMT
References: <00940A14.1E1B33E0@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU>
Organization: MTS Univ of Alberta
Lines: 40

In article <00940A14.1E1B33E0@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU>, arussell@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU (Anne Russell) writes:
>I have a 286 Z-248, 640 K RAM, 2 MB expanded memory (Intel expansion board),
>80 MB HD (Seagate).  I ran resident PC-Cache, WP Shell.  I had no problems
>at all until I installed WP 5.1 last January.  Since then I I have had
>disastrous corruptions (both documents and directories) and even a crash.
 
[more tales of misery deleted]
 
>Anyone heard about similar problems?  I suppose this is the wrong group,
>but has anyone had experience with Gateway?  The university I work for
>has a contract with Zenith and there are lots of them around.
>
 
.   My first question would be "what version of DOS are you using?"
When I first got WP 5.1, I too had a few glitches and bugs. No disk
trashing (thank God), but WP would freeze up from time to time, and I
I couldn't save files on occassion. I thought it might be bugs in the
first release of WP 5.1, but then I received a later version of WP and still
had the same problems. However, I did ultimately find a solution.
.   I have a Zenith Z-248, and was using Zenith MS-DOS 3.3+. I later
bought a Zenith laptop (Yes, our university also has a contract with
Zenith), which also had MS-DOS 3.3+, but all the files had later dates.
On a whim, I installed this DOS version on the Z-248, and I no longer had
any problems with WP 5.1.
 
.    I also had a problem with video drivers in WP 5.1 on my Z-248. I have
one of the earlier "VGA" cards, which has only the 640x480 - 16 colour
mode; not the 320x200 - 256 colour mode. This video board will NOT run a
lot of VGA software. At one point, I had WP set up to use the VGA text
driver, and when I used "List Files" I was getting all sorts of scrambled
directories. Panic-stricken, I would exit to DOS, only to find that all
was well. I "fixed" this by letting WP autodetect the text driver, and
have had no problems since.
 
.   Try a new version of DOS on your Zenith. My COMMAND.COM is dated Oct.
31, 1988. The problem-ridden version was only a few months earlier. You
may also need to think about BIOS updates. You Zenith "dealer" should be
able to help.
 
Dave Halliwell