VirtualRPC-SA User Guide

The Main Window


As we have seen VirtualRPC-SA can start up in a window, or in full screen mode. If you are starting in full screen mode then your PC will simply appear to turn into an Acorn computer. However if you are starting in a Window then VirtualRPC-SA will be running RISC OS inside this window. It is worth covering the operation of the main window at this point.


The VirtualRPC-SA window

As you can see the VirtualRPC-SA window consists of a number of parts. Firstly in the centre of the window you can see RISC OS running. At the bottom of the window is a status bar. At the top of the window is a set of menu options, and below that a toolbar.

The status bar

This is located at the bottom of the VirtualRPC-SA window. And contains some useful information.

Normally you won't need to worry about the contents of the status bar, however if you do need to ring us for technical support we may well need to ask you about the contents of the status bar.

The toolbar

VirtualRPC-SA has a small toolbar along the top of the window. Each of the toolbars buttons performs a different action when clicked on.


 

Insert floppy image
VirtualRPC-SA can read floppy disc image files generated by the freeware ArcImg DOS utility, or the ArcDisc Windows program. Floppy disc image files are exact copies of floppy discs but stored as a file on the computers hard disc. These files are often referred to as ADF (Acorn Disc Format) files. For more information on making and using floppy disc image files please see Appendix 2.

Close Windows pointer
Clicking this button makes the Windows pointer vanish, just leaving the RISC OS pointer. You can restore the Windows pointer by pressing ALT and ENTER on the keyboard.

Go to "Full Screen" mode
Clicking on this button will make VirtualRPC-SA take over the entire screen, and your PC will look just like an Acorn computer. You can return to running VirtualRPC-SA in a window by pressing ALT and ENTER on the keyboard.

Restore window to actual size
It is possible to resize the VirtualRPC-SA window by dragging on its bottom right corner. Having done this it can be very difficult to get the window back to the correct size. Clicking on this button will restore the VirtualRPC-SA window to the same size as the RISC OS desktop.

Sound enable/disable
This button will toggle the VirtualRPC-SA sound on or off.

The Menu Options

Along the top of the VirtualRPC-SA window are the menu entries.


The VirtualRPC-SA menus

The File menu
This normally just contains one option, Quit. This will close VirtualRPC-SA, you should save any work you are doing before closing VirtualRPC-SA.

The Action Menu
This has three options. Power Cycle will correctly reset VirtualRPC-SA as though it had been quit and restarted and is the recommended way of resetting VirtualRPC-SA. Hard Reset will reset VirtualRPC-SA as though the reset key had been pressed on a real RPC. Control Break will restart VirtualRPC-SA as though the keys Control and Break had been pressed on the keyboard of a real RPC.

The View Menu
The Toolbars option allows you to turn off the VirtualRPC-SA toolbar. The Status Bar option allows you turn off the status bar at the bottom of the VirtualRPC-SA window. The third option Console brings up the VirtualRPC-SA internal control console. The information this provides may be useful to us if you have a technical support query. In normal use you can ignore it.

The Window Menu
This menu duplicates two of the buttons on the toolbar. Full Screen Mode will switch to full screen mode. Capture Mouse will turn off the Windows mouse pointer.

Tools
This only contains one menu entry, Options this is covered in the next section of this manual under Configuration.

Help
This contains two options. About VRPC will show you the copyright message and version number of your version of VirtualRPC-SA. The Manual option provides a link to this HTML manual.

VRPC manual - draft number 150.001 10th May 2006