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Published in the May 1997 issue of the Commodore MaiLink.

Speeding up GEOS

It's 1997 and you're using a 15 year old computer. Not only that but you're using an extremely disk-intensive Operating System. Quick, what is the least expensive method to speed up your work in GEOS?

Wow!! That takes some effort doesn't it? A few years ago most people would have quickly responded with 'Get a RAM Expander' or 'Buy a Mouse'. It's funny but after starting to use GEOS in the Spring of 1988 those two peripherals were my first hardware add-ons and I do enGEOy them still.

For starters, a RAM disk operates at electronic speed with no moving mechanical parts. An impressive display of the speed of a RAM disk is to load a picture into geoPaint and scroll around the page. Working in a RAM disk this process is very smooth while a disk loads the image piece by piece and, even with the GEOS disk turbo, it takes its' time doing it.

As for a mouse, the ease with which you can move about the Desktop, or any application for that matter, just screams at you 'THROW AWAY YOUR JOYSTICKS!!'. Never mind the convenience of having two buttons for starting geoWizard.

As C= REU's got scarce Berkeley Softworks came out with GeoRAM. This 512K Expander doesn't have Direct Memory Access like the C= Expanders so it is supposedly a little slower. It is, however, still quicker than a physical drive. One other potential drawback was that it supposedly ONLY worked with GEOS.

Next up in the RAM Expansion sweepstakes was RamDrive, RamLink, BBGRam and BBURam. These units all had their benefits but the biggest was a power supply. The ability of the RAM to retain its' contents while the computer was off proved to be a huge time saver for those people who owned these units. The other big plus was size - anywhere from 512K up to 16 MB of RAM.

CMD Hard Drives are also very fast, so I understand, and they arrived and provided further speed improvements. One of these benefits was the fact that you could load a lot of software into the Hard Drive and not have to go digging through a pile of disks looking for a program - just change partitions. If you have a RAMLink along with your Hard Drive you could connect the Hard Drive through a parallel port on the RAMLink and get even better speed from it.

Of course, the most obvious speed improvement for a 1 MHz computer is an accelerator. Over the years a number of these have been produced by different manufacturers with varying degrees of success. I have a 4 MHz Schnedler Systems TurboMaster cartridge along with a Master Adapter connector so I can use my REU with the TurboMaster in GEOS. While a number of people complain that these units aren't totally reliable I am thoroughly pleased with mine (maybe the custom JiffyDOS ROM is the reason). A 400% increase in speed is a big improvement and in some instances (choosing font sizes or patterns in the GeoPublish attributes box) it is almost too fast!

There has also been the Flash 8 Accelerator from Germany which boosts the 64 to double what my TurboMaster does. I have only read of these units and they would seem to have a speed advantage but are at a convenience disadvantage. These units had to be 'tuned' for each 64 individually so were not a simple plug and play item. Other accelerators included the Turbo 64 from SwissComp ( a 4 MHz unit) plus a famous vaporware one for the 128.

This brings us to the present. Who hasn't heard of the CMD 20 MHz SuperCPU Accelerator? I don't see any hands in the air. I can only imagine what a dramatic effect this unit will have on GEOS (I am holding out to get a 128 model). From all accounts of people with the 64 version it works very well and is extremely simple to install (plug it in and turn on your Super Charged 64). With the name CMD on it you have to know it will be a very sound unit and live up to all of their promises.

OK, we have looked at all kinds of 'toys' you can get to improve the performance of GEOS. Lets go back to the original question. Quick, what is the least expensive method to speed up your work in GEOS?

The least expensive speed improvement has to be the one with the lowest cost. Now, this may hardly seem fair as I didn't quote any prices and it is even harder if you shop around in the used market. That, however, is the catch. All of these items have prices attached to them. The cheapest speed improvement for GEOS costs absolutely nothing!

That's right. You can improve your speed while using GEOS with the tools that come with the basic GEOS system. Keyboard Shortcuts abound in GEOS. Some of you are saying that they take the point and click out of GEOS and you're right. That is not the point here though. If you want a speed improvement it is much quicker to press two keys (say C= and F to format a disk) than to move across the screen and press a button on a menu and wait for it to unfold and then move down to the item you want and press another button and wait for the menu to fold up and the Dialog Box to pop up.

One of the things that made me really appreciate the benefits of all of the GEOS shortcuts was when I added a 128-D to my office. The joystick port has a pin broken off and so my mouse won't work in it. I set this system up with two joysticks and let the kids use it for games. My 64 has the TurboMaster and a mouse so it is my main GEOS system. When I use GEOS128 though I am stuck with a joystick for input (I don't want to risk possibly damaging the other port by unplugging the joystick and plugging a mouse in as the setup on the desk is not conducive to this kind of activity).

It is here that I appreciate having learned all of those shortcuts over the years (and you can learn them too just by using them regularly). GEOS 128 goes even further than GEOS 64 by providing extra shortcuts on the Desktop (check your GEOS 128 manual - pg 53 in mine) for everything from menu selection to copying files between drives. Most all applications (even third party ones) allow the use of keyboard shortcuts and you would be wise to learn them. As far as system uniformity goes most programmers have stuck with standard shortcuts for common tasks. If you don't want to try to memorize these commands then you should make a chart (in geoPaint of course) listing them for each program (even including screen shots of the actual menus for a nice touch).

There you have it. The least expensive method to speed up GEOS is one you already own. It will just take a small time investment to learn them all. Even once I do get my 128 SuperCPU and replace the joystick port on my 128D I will continue to use the shortcuts as they are part of the system and a convenient way to accomplish a lot of tasks.

Thanks for reading. I hope you all get a little something out of this and if you have any questions at all dealing with GEOS please don't be afraid to ask. Send them in c/o the Mailink or contact me on-line at: rbthomas@edmc.net. For any on-line questions I will use them in future articles for Mailink but don't let that stop you - everyone will get the benefit of your question.