Installation

Installation of ViewFinder in your Risc PC proceeds as follows.

Your ViewFinder should be inserted into one of the free expansion card slots in your Risc PC. To do this :

1) Switch your Risc PC off.

2) Open up your Risc PC by removing the top cover.

3) Locate a free expansion card slot (see below).

4) If anything 'covers' the slot at the back of the Risc PC, remove it.

5) Insert ViewFinder into the free expansion card slot. Ensure that the card is pushed into the slot connector on the backplane as far as it will go, but do not force it.

6) Screw ViewFinder to the back of the case by using the two screws that were removed along with the original blanking plate that covered the slot.

Choosing an expansion card slot for ViewFinder requires some thought. Not all expansion card slots are equally suitable. As you may know, expansion card slots are numbered. Regardless of whether you are using a backplane with 2, 4, 6 or 8 slots in your Risc PC, the slot that is located closest to the bottom of your Risc PC is always slot number 0, and slot numbers increase from there. For example, the slots on a 4-way backplane are numbered 0, 1, 2 and 3, starting at the bottom and going up.

Only slots 0 and 1 offer DMA (Direct Memory Access) to inserted cards. It is recommended to use ViewFinder in slot 0 or 1, as the availability of DMA can increase ViewFinder's performance (although not by an essential amount). If slot 0 and 1 are unavailable because you already have cards in them, you will either have to move one of these cards to slot 2 or up, or put ViewFinder into slot 2 or up.

Due to a small mechanical design flaw present in the first series of ViewFinder cards, you must NOT use slot 0, so the recommended slot number is 1.

Once the card is installed, do not connect your monitor to ViewFinder yet. Instead, as your supplier will or should have instructed you, power up your machine while holding down the 'V' key on your keyboard. This temporarily disables ViewFinder. Release the 'V' key once you enter the desktop. Then open a Task Window (press CTRL-F12) and enter 'ViewFinderGuide' to read this guide (which you probably are doing now).

You can now finish the installation of your ViewFinder :

1) Select a suitable desktop mode. Go to the appropriate configuration screen by double-clicking on !Boot. Select 'Screen' (or 'Display', then 'Monitor'). Ensure that the 'Colours' field shows any one of '256 colours', '256 greys', '32 thousand' or '16 million'. The selected resolution does not matter.

2) If you have a Kinetic card from Castle Technology in your Risc PC, open a Task Window and execute the command '*Configure ViewFinderDMASpeed 0'.

3) Switch your machine off.

4) Connect your monitor cable to ViewFinder's video connector instead of the regular VGA connector. If you have a monitor with more than one input, it is recommended to connect one of them to ViewFinder's video connector and the other to the regular VGA connector. You can then switch between them (refer to 'Dual input monitors' for more information).

5) Switch your machine on.

When the machine has fully booted, and all is well, you should now see your familiar desktop display.

This concludes the installation of your ViewFinder.