Hi Phil, Richard and Craig.
Glad that you are enjoying the thread - nearly time to move onto the next chapter and a chapter, for which you had to ask yourself before buying, 'would purple suit my kitchen?'.
Hi Chris in Germany
thanks for reading the thread. The 'load' switch was basically a full load/half load switch and controlled the water level in the machine.
The 'powder' switch was set one way or the other, depending on the type of powder you used. At the time that these machines were being introduced, biological washing powders for automatics were being introduced. If you bought one of these, then the switch would be set to 'bio', resulting in the machine giving a longer soak time in the cycle, allowing the enzymes to do their business.
Set the switch to 'others' and this would be cut short, should you be a user of non-biological powders.
Cheers
Paul