Service manual

Service Capability of Dealers / ASCs
We are compiling a directory of local sites that we can advise customers to contact when they have problems
with their equipment, both in and out of warranty. If you are interested in being included in this directory,
please complete the form at the back of this newsletter, and send it to us at Acorn - the address is printed on
the form. Thank you for your help.
Unofficial variations - warranty void
We are aware of a number of machines that have had modifications performed before the machines were
sold, using non-standard components and rendering the manufacturer's warranty on those parts of the
machines void. In cases such as this, where you are not the original supplier, reference must be made back to
that supplier in order to ascertain how they will handle the warranty. In particular, we are aware of some
Master Compacts that have been sold with two Mitsubishi 3.5 inch drives instead of the single Sony drive
that Acorn installed when the computer was manufactured. In these circumstances, Acorn would not accept
a warranty claim regarding the disc drives, and you should refer the customer back to their original supplier.
View family
Versions of ViewStore and ViewSpell currently in production are ViewStore 1.2 and ViewSpell 1.1. Earlier
versions of ViewSpell and ViewStore have had some problems, that is:
ViewStore 1.0 could cause problems with Auto-update index files.
ViewSpell 1.0 could not maintain a user defined dictionary on Hierarchical filing systems, such as ADFS or
NET.
Users experiencing these problems should be advised to write to the Customer Services Department at
Acorn, Newmarket Road.
Some users have experienced difficulty using the View family with hierarchical filing systems. For example
the CREATE n command in ViewSheet creates a file named V.VSn. This will fail on ADFS or NET, unless a
directory V had previously been created using *CDIR V. This failure can cause confusion to novice users, as
the error message is Not found - it seems strange that the computer is expecting to find something when you
are creating a new file. The error in this case refers to the directory V.
Another possible cause for confusion is with ADFS and ViewStore. In ADFS, files are stored contiguously
on the disc. Unlike DFS, if a file needs to expand beyond the space available to it, ADFS will try to copy the
file to another space on the disc with more space following it. If this cannot be achieved ADFS will report an
error, which can be Disc full or Compaction required. In fact, compaction of disc, which moves all the free
space on the disc to the end of that disc, will not necessarily help in that situation. The best way to avoid
having problems such as this is to ensure that the 'D' file - the main data file on a ViewStore database - is on a
disc on its own. This can simply be done with ViewStore, using the PREFIX command.
Doc. 999,0031 December 1987 -15- Acorn Engineering News