APPLEWORKS & MULTIRAM

4.19

If the first disk you load is not the first disk in the sequence, unpredictable results can happen as only the first file contains critical information relating to the segmentation. At best, error messages that make no sense will appear.

At worst, AppleWorks will hang or crash.

Be very careful to always correctly and boldly label the first disk of a segmented file to avoid potentially disastrous results.

Hard Disks

Using a hard disk drive with MultiRam C and AppleWorks can greatly ease your file management efforts. All hard disk drives can easily store a large number of files without any special preparation by you.

An additional advantage of a hard disk is that it takes much less time to store and retrieve AppleWorks files then does a floppy drive. The same 300K file that would take 3 to 4 minutes to load from standard 5 1/4 inch floppy would take from 30 to 60 seconds to load from a hard drive.

If you do use a hard disk, one caution: do not allow the area you have partitioned for your AppleWorks files to become too full. If you run out of room on the hard disk while saving a file, MultiRam modifications that allow large files to span multiple floppy disks will be activated and will instruct you to insert a new “floppy” disk for the next file segment. You cannot do this on a hard drive. Always check the remaining space you have available on your hard drive before saving a file to avoid this potential problem. Refer to the preceding section “File Size Differences” regarding inaccuracies in AppleWorks measurement of hard disk file sizes greater than 255K.

You should seriously consider purchasing a hard disk drive if you intend to regularly use large AppleWorks files. See Chapter 6 for more information.

SMALLER FILES

Undoubtedly, creating truly large word processor, database or spreadsheet files is one of the biggest appeals of installing the MultiRam C. However, even if you never need to make a file larger than 55K, you will realize many benefits from the MultiRam C and AppleWorks combination.

Speed of Execution

Loading the entire AppleWorks program into memory significantly speeds the operation of AppleWorks by eliminating the need for reading in segments that normally stay on the Program disk until needed. Remember that the more memory installed on MultiRam, the better you will be able to use this feature. A 256K MultiRam C will provide sufficient memory for AppleWorks storage, besides nearly doubling the standard 55K Desktop space.