Starting with release 3.0, all DOS based systems (i.e. DSI-780, DSI-32,
Intel 80286) include direct support for a graphic tablet attached to the PC.
At the moment, two families of tablets are supported: SUMMAGRAPHIC BIT
PAD TWO and SUMMASKETCH MM-SERIES. Note that many graphic tablets from
other manufacturers are also compatible with one of these two
protocols. Since the hardware specific part of the driver is
implemented as an independent TSR-type program, drivers for other
tablet protocols may be installed once they become available without
having to install a new EMME/2 software release. The EMME/2 tablet
interface allows the user to dynamically redefine the active area on
the tablet (i.e. the portion of the tablet surface that is mapped to
the actual plot area of the screen). A test and diagnostic program
testtabl.exe is supplied as well. It facilitates the installation. See
the installation notes provided with release 3.0 for more detailed
information on the use of graphic tablets. The direct tablet interface
works with all PC screens supported by PLOTDEV, as well as with Visual
550, Visual 630 and Pericom mono-graphic terminals.
If you are using your disk at near capacity, it might be
a good idea to defragment it from time to time. You can do this by
erasing completely the contents of your disk (after you've made a backup,
of course!) and then restore everything - or by using a special defragmentation
utility, such as SD (The Norton Utilities / Advanced Edition).
Since the EMME/2 is doing almost all disk I/O to and from the data base
file emme2ban, defragmentation can make a big difference. E.g., on the
select link assignment discussed on page 15 of this issue I was able to save
more then 40% on assignment time, just by defragmenting my disk between
two otherwise identical runs. Note that once an emme2ban file has been
defragmented it will stay so until it's removed, since EMME/2 never
changes the disk block allocation of this file.