Multiple Applications On The Same Terminal; Spectrum24 Terminals; Accessing The Flash Disk - Symbol Series 6800 Product Reference Manual

Chapter 4
Spectrum24 RF Terminal Setup

Spectrum24 Terminals

In Spectrum24 terminals, wireless connectivity is accomplished using standard
communications protocols. Because they are standard, the protocols are generalized and take
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up considerably more space on the terminal's NVM than is required for Spectrum One
terminals. Because there is less space available in NVM for application files, the terminal
operates with an additional megabyte of non-volatile memory or flash disk. This extra
memory is used to reduce not only the boot times but also the time and resources required to
load applications into the terminal. The flash disk also offers the possibility of running
multiple applications from the same terminal (refer to the section Multiple Applications on
the Same Terminal for more information). With version 3.03 or later of the system software
(LWP.HEX), the terminal can also run diagnostic tools.

Accessing the Flash Disk

The flash disk is accessed through a driver, FLASHDSK.SYS, which makes the flash disk
appear to a program as another disk drive (E:). The drive has characteristics of fast reading
but slow writing (e.g., even for the smallest files, the write process takes 3-4 seconds). These
characteristics make it ideal for files that are written once, accessed often, and seldom
updated.
We recommend that you use the flash disk (E:) mainly for application and configuration file
storage. It is important to note that because of the slow writing time (3-4 seconds), writing
files during a power interruption (low battery, dead battery, suspend, power off, or power
failure) could corrupt the disk. Be sure to only write data to the disk with the terminal
connected to external power or with the battery fully charged to avoid problems. To avoid
overwriting the flash disk by mistake, the flash disk is set to read-only mode for normal
operation.
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