How much memmory is in this machine? Your computer looks like a real
minimum system for bp7.

BTW, I've posted information about this from my own personal experience of running
TP7 on a 286AT/12, which happened to have only 1MB memory.  It offers at least one
real solution to the problem.  (Actually, the described problem seems to happens
on all computers, it's just much more noticeable and annoying on slower computers.)

First use the standard MODE program that comes with DOS to increase the
typematic rate.  This helps a little.

Second, back when I was using TP7 on my 286, I noticed that it had a quirk.
It swaps memory to the hard drive and uses it for scratch work after you've
compiled a program or unit.  If I recall correctly, if you continue editing
the source of the program you just compiled, it doesn't run the drive.  But
if you work on a different source listing, it starts churning away.

There are two ways I can think of to fix this -- one tested, one untested.

First, the tested way -- go into the menu and select File|Dos Shell.  This
will start a DOS session and flush out TP.  Type "exit" to return to the
IDE.  The drive will run a bit more, but after a couple seconds it will
stop lagging.

Second, the untested way.  Create a little do-nothing program, like:

program flush_tp;

begin
end.

Compile it and save it.  Under options, create a tool for it and bind it to
a keypress.  Label the tool something like "Refresh TP".  It's possible that
running an external program may have the same effect.  Oh, and don't forget
that, in order to make a tool permanent, you'll need to save your options.
Otherwise, the tool won't be saved the next time you run TURBO.EXE.

  2) Check your IDE for settings of Window Heap Size, Overlay Size
(Options|Preferences|Startup).

 >
 > We are using TP 7.0 on IBM mod30 286 for grade 10 programming. Some of
 > the students in class have complained that while they are keying in
 > their programs, the editor cannot keep up with their fingers. Every
 > keystroke causes the HD to read or write, slowing down the editing
 > process. Has any had this happen? Can anyone tell me whats going on?
 > Thanks muchly, Tim Schutt

 In> Perhaps you can install a small disk cache (smartdrv,etc.). That
 In> should take care of most of the disk-access. Beware however : if a
 In> program crashes the computer before the disk cache contents is written
 In> to the disk, source code may be lost (try read-only disk caching).

I have a similar problem as the original poster at times, and I find that
simply exiting out of the IDE completely and then reloading it again is
the quickest solution. I run TP on a 286 with 2 megs of RAM, and apart from
the above problem, I seem to have other more frustrating ones when I have
several files loaded at one time and one of those files is fairly large and
needs to be recompiled. I have gotten into the habit of compiling anything
but the smallest files from the command line, otherwise I get not-so-random
characters thrown into the source code ad the compiler locks up completely.
Anyway, I have SMARTDRV.EXE loaded, and never have a problem losing data
after one of these lockups, although I *do* get a lot of lost clusters. I
have a habit of hitting the F2 key very often, which probably has a lot to
do with not losing data.

        -- Kim Forwood --

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