Common problems you might encounter:

Is it possible to increase the maximum number of trials per epoch? 
Can I get different orientations of gratings?
What about recording reaction time?
Can I do image rotation?

The screen goes blank and the program does not respond

You should be able to get out of trouble by hitting the Esc key or by usingCtrl-Break, or with Ctrl-Alt-Del then shut down LSM. The problem is that the video hardware is incompatible with LSM, either there is no support for VBE BIOS, or you are trying to run the program under an operating system that does not allow direct access to register I/O (such as Windows NT/2000/or higher - see notes about Windows NT/2000+ here). To fix the problem try a machine with Windows 98.

Illegal function call in line 0 of module LSM_GEN at address xxxxx:xxxxx

• You are trying to install the program on a Windows version with an incompatible DOS emulator. Such problems will happen with Windows NT/2000 or higher. You must restart under DOS. Look in your computers help (Start Menu -> Help) to see if you can reboot under DOS. Also see notes about Windows NT/2000+ here. To fix the problem try a machine with Windows 98.

What to do if your video board does not support 24-bit color (8-bit RAMDACs) in 256 color mode:

• Get better video hardware. I recommend Matrox video boards (see above).
• Try Sci Tech's UNIVBE VESA program for DOS. Univbe is available for free downloading. or try this self-extracting file UVESA.EXE, which installs a Terminate and Stay Resident driver for VESA bios calls. The self extracting file includes a readme file

I see strange colors on my screen, like browns, blues and whites:

The program cannot generate 256 grey levels for each red, green and blue component. This is due to the video board still using the old VGA standard of 63 grey levels for each red, green, blue intensity. Go to options Menu and select... Calibration => Custom Calibration ... and load the file "config.63". Try to get a better video board.

What to do if you would like a different stimulus pattern than that generated by LSM:

• Any stimulus screen generated by LSM can be saved to a file in "256 color PCX" format. These files have a maximum of 256 color entries on the screen. That is, each color entry does not have a specific color but can be quickly modified by a look-up table (or commonly called a palette) but you will have from only 256 to choose. The number of color entries of the PCX file saved by LSM is determined by the spatial period that you specify under the configuration options. A color entry #0 always is the background and color entries 1...n(spatial period) is the spatial function.
• -PCX files can be edited by programs such as MATLAB, Paint Shop Pro, Lview Pro , MS photo editor, or similar programs. They must be saved in "256-color" mode. I do not recommend the standard MS Paint program, since this program convert the 256 color image into ".bmp" format. You would have to reconvert the file back to 256-color PCX format.

Shareware programs can be downloaded for free evaluation. If it works, please pay these folks for their software!

What to do if the screen intermittently flashes or misses a frame:

• The program works by updating the look-up table (or palette) during a vertical refresh blanking period. Then the program must calculate the next look-up table before then next vertical blanking period. If the computer is slow, or the frame rate is very fast, and there are lots of programs working in the background (Windows, Networking, etc.) then LSM may lose the opportunity to update the look-up table in time. For example, if the frame rate is 85Hz and the pixel clock is 66 Mhz (in 800x600 mode) you may have only 2 microseconds to update 768 memory locations! Here are several things you can try:
• try running under MS-DOS exclusively, Windows commonly will take too long during a blanking period.
• reduce the spatial period of your stimulus.
• reduce the frame rate (if possible).

When I run under MS-DOS, the program says no Mouse is found:

Included in the files is a shortcut that runs LSM exclusively in MS-DOS and loads SmartDrive and the DOS mouse driver (CTMOUSE.EXE in the LSM folder).

The program menus and/or file selection menu operate very slowly:

Make sure that SmartDrive is loaded in memory. If this does not fix the problems then it might be the windows DOS emulator software (command.com or CMD) with the video hardware. I have noticed this problem running Windows XP. The menus operate in 16 color mode which is accessable under all windows operating systems to date. There is no known fix to this problem. Try a machine with Windows 98.

Is it possible to increase the maximum number of trials per epoch? 

Yes, one solution is to creat a text file that contains a list of numbers (-1 to 1) that describe a long temporal modulation. For instance one epoch may have 20 full cycles of a sine wave. Paste the data into a text file and save it in the waveform folder. You must then know to partial the data into 20 extra segments.

Can I get different orientations of gratings?

I commonly get a messages about possibility of generating stimuli of different orientations. The best way to do this is with an existing PCX file from LSM and rotate it with a graphics program like Abobe Elements. Most graphics programs use antialiasing in the rotation (which they don't tell you). Antialiasing totally destroys the bitmap order needed for LSM. If you use a graphics program, make sure it doesn't use antialiasing in the rotation. You can make several of these files and have LSM flip dynamically through the orientations.

Furthermore, the drift-> drift XY option should also work for moving this grating around (say to plot the receptive field on the screen.

What about recording reaction time?

LSM version 3.0 should record reaction time under "Method of adjustment." The accuracy of the value is to within 18.2 ms, so it is NOT precise as using a high performance millisecond timer. I know of a method to greatly reduce timing accuracy to below 1 ms, but it would cause your computer to lose track of its own internal timer. Although this is not a serious consequence, you would have to reset the clock after running LSM.

Can I do image rotation?

It is possible but only by defining a special bitmap via MATLAB or ?. Basically use the Radial.pcx file and "swirl" it about its center without antialiasing. I have a file at this link:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jokelly/radial2.pcx

save this file in your LSM\Pictures folder
load the Radial.lsm configuration file
set OPTIONS-Spatial-spatial period to 64 pixels
set OPTIONS-Bitmaps - Get PCX file- (pick radial2.pcx)
when you run the demo you will notice the classic spiral but there will be an artifact due to antialiasing by the graphics program (Paint Shop Pro 7). You can minimize it by lowering the contrast.