Starting the Order program

Users unfamiliar with the Psion Series 3 may find it helpful to read Psion's User Guide Chapter 1 Getting Started and to refer to its index for information on some of the terms used below.

With the Series 3 turned ON, press (firmly) the leftmost button, labeled System, in the row of eight between screen and keyboard. A row of icons (symbols similar to those on the buttons) appears on the screen: use the arrow keys to move the highlight onto a word under the icon symbolising an order form:

Now press the Enter key to start the program. You should see a screen like this:

The status window on the right contains the Order icon (symbolising the program currently on-screen). The word Order between icon and clock is the name of the file holding this particular order. As explained elsewhere, if you wish you can have several separate order files; on this occasion Order was selected because its name was highlighted when starting the program.

The main window on the left is a representation of an order form, which may be thought of as split into two panes by the lower horizontal line: the upper editing pane (empty in the figure) is used for editing and for viewing up to six lines whilst the lower loading pane is used to add new lines. The flashing blob in the loading pane under Item Code is called the cursor.

Your tool kit

The presence of the cursor indicates that the program is waiting for you to enter something at the keyboard; its position attempts to suggest what this might be as it shows where valid input will be placed on the screen. However, wherever possible the program will also respond to the keys listed below. Please note that in order to obtain a key action inscribed on the Series 3 in yellow you must press that key whilst holding down the PSION key (the key in the bottom left hand corner with the yellow bar above it).

To pick a tool, move the highlight to it using the four keys marked with arrows and then press Enter. Three dots after the tool name indicate that a dialog box will pop-up before the tool is run, allowing you to specify precisely how the tool is to be used on this occasion. The letter alongside the PSION symbol in the right hand column of each menu card gives the tool's hotkey: once you are familiar with the hotkey you may by-pass the menu by pressing the hotkey letter whilst holding down the PSION key.

Within a dialog box, Esc cancels the entire box not just the current field and Enter completes the entire box.

Your memory resource

Your Series 3's Random Access Memory (RAM) supplies the System Memory needed by the operating system to support active tasks and the memory needed by the Internal Disk Drive to keep your files. RAM can run out if too many Series 3 features are active at the same time, especially with the 128K RAM model (a minor irritation when set against the advantages of multi-tasking). The Free space tool under the File menu will tell you how many bytes are available on the disk holding the current order file. In practice, provided this disk is the Internal Disk, it is actually indicating the available RAM.

If you are inconvenienced by shortage of available RAM, you must release some:

The Psion Archive