FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 064 (9/07/97)

DISPLAY OF FAITH

Whilst on a visit to the UK, a friend from Indonesia purchased a BT Relate 350 phone with ‘Caller Display’ facility. He took it home to Jakarta, where they also have a caller display system, but he is having difficulty making it work. BT cannot tell me if the Jakarta telephone system is compatible with their equipment. Can you help or advise?

Derek Green, Chingford, London

A

Presumably your friend has asked his local telephone company to enable the service? If so, and the phone functions normally, then there is a compatibility problem, that almost certainly cannot be resolved. There is an international standard for Caller Line Identification systems (known as CCITT Signalling System Number, or C7 to its friends), but the initial and final address message (IFAM) -- similar in principle to the ‘handshake’ tones on a fax machine --  sent by the exchange, to a CLI phone, can vary from country to country. In fact CLI phones from the US will work on some UK cable phone networks, but not the BT network. However,  BT CLI phones bearing the ‘CDS’ (caller display system) logo, will work on both BT and cable phone systems. Nevertheless, the clear message is to only buy and use telephone equipment in the country that it is designed for.

HANDY SCAN

I am a teacher and I have accumulated a number of folders full of hand-written work.  I would like to know if a scanner, with the appropriate software, could transfer the documents on to computer disc?

Emma Rowe, Shepperton, Middlesex

A

Yes and no... A scanner can turn any kind of document into a bitmap image file, for archiving on a PC, and the images can be easily viewed, and catalogued, for reference. If the documents were type-written they could be translated into text files, using optical character recognition (OCR) software. Unfortunately the OCR packages supplied with scanners cannot cope with joined-up handwriting, even if its very neat. There’s a lot of research being carried out in this area, mostly for what’s known as on-line recognition. This includes applications like pen-based computing systems, signature verification and form-filling. It works by analysing the dynamics of an individuals handwriting -- the way in which the pen moves --  rather than recognising words on a page. However, all things are possible and it’s worth keeping up with the latest developments. You can find out more from reports published by research groups on the internet. The OSCAR (Off-line Script and Character Recognition) project based at the University of Essex will give you a good overview and this has links to other related sites. It can be found at: http://vasawww.essex.ac.uk/newoscar/people/html

WIDER WINDOWS

I have a 4Mb RAM, 486/66 Mhz, 160 Mb laptop on which I use Windows 3.1. This specification is not sufficient to run Windows 95 properly. Will I be able to buy a copy of Windows CE to run on this machine so that it will be compatible with my desktop running Windows 95?

Ken Burgess

A

Windows CE (Compact Edition), was designed specifically to run on the new generation of hand-held PCs, that do not use the Intel etc., family of X86/Pentium processors. Whilst from the outside Windows CE and ‘pocket’ versions of applications of Word and Excel look and work like their Windows 95 counterparts, the actual operating system, architecture and software requirements are all quite different. It seems highly unlikely that Microsoft, or anyone else would bother developing a version of an operating system exclusively for old PCs, they’d much rather you brought a new one...    

BAD FORM

I currently use MS Office Professional 97. If I try to print a Word/Excel document which was originally produced using MS Office 95 I find that it is directed to the Form Feed tray of my printer (Hewlett Packard 6P) and no end of persuading will encourage it to use the default (first available tray). I have checked all the connections to my printer uninstalled and reinstalled the printer set-up programs but no joy so far.  Help!

H. Sharma

NET DISABILITIES

In a recent FFF (Connected May 27), you replied to a query about a disabled child using the internet. The charity Chatback exists to help children with difficulties using communications technologies, to help relieve their loneliness, by providing equipment and networking software. Their address is: 115 New Cavendish Street, London WIM 8Js, telephone 0171-323 0017 

A. Wosfold, South Devon.