I seem to have a problem with the 1993 Subscribers PowerDisk (1.0). When trying to run the 95BUDDY .EXE (ON DISK ICON) program file I get "write error" messages with several programs. For example "95BUDDY.FAQ write error".
Have I done something wrong or is it in the disk?
R. E. Parrott Vancouver, B.C. Canada
[You don't have enough space on the disk drive to extract all the files form 95BUDDY. EXE.
Each of the .EXE files on the distribution disk is a self-extracting file, into which all of the files for a particular program have been compressed. The uncompressed files that are created by running the self extracting file may take up to 3 to 4 times the disk space as the original file.
If you copy the .EXE file as is to your C: drive and run it, you will often run out of room. For instance, the 95BUDDY .EXE file is 96K, but requires 347K to self extract (96K for 95BUDDY.EXE and 248K for the 14 files that are extracted from it). On pages 16-27 of the 1993 Subscriber PowerDisk manual is a description of each file and the amount of disk space required to self-extract the files. If there isn't enough room it will extract as many files as possible and when there is no more disk space to write to will give you a "write error".
There are two solutions for this particular program, 95BUDDY.EXE, is to:
1. Make sure you have at least 347,000 bytes free space on your Palmtop's disk drive. It can be extracted on either the C: or A: drives provided there is enough space.
2. Run the self-extracting file 95BUDDY.EXE on a desktop PC and then transfer only the necessary files to the 95LX. For instance to run 95BUDDY you do not need any of the .TXT, .FAQ or .DOC files. These documentation files take up almost 200K. They can be read or printed out from a desktop PC. They are required reading for using 95BUDDY but they are not necessary to run the program.
Robert Roney.]