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- Documentation for CGASAVE/EGASAVE V2.0 ______________________________________
- Copyright 1989, P. R. Fletcher. All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________________
-
-
- INTRODUCTION ____________
-
- CGASAVE and EGASAVE are fairly small and simple TSR programs, which,
- when loaded, act as "screen savers" for systems with (respectively)
- CGA and EGA (or VGA) monitor adapters. They blank the screen when no
- keyboard activity has taken place for a period of time which can be
- specified when they are loaded and/or subsequently by reinvoking the
- appropriate program from the DOS command line. When the screen has
- been blanked, any keypress (including pressing the <Ctrl>, <Alt>, or
- <Shift> key) causes the display to reappear. Neither program will work
- on a system with a MDA or Hercules adapter.
-
- The programs are Copyright by Peter R. Fletcher, 1989. All rights
- reserved. They were written in assembly language and assembled with
- the Microsoft MASM assembler (V5.1). Microsoft's LINK and EXE2BIN
- programs were used to prepare the executable modules.
-
-
- USING THE PROGRAMS __________________
-
- Copy the appropriate .COM file (CGASAVE.COM for CGA systems,
- EGASAVE.COM for EGA or VGA systems) into a directory that is on your
- PATH, and include the command:
-
- CGASAVE [nn] or EGASAVE [nn]
-
- in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (after the PATH command!). "nn" stands for _____
- the time in minutes that you wish the program to wait after the last
- keypress before blanking the screen. The default value, which is used
- if no wait time is specified, is 30 minutes. If a value greater than
- 30 is specified, the default value is used. If 0 is specified as the
- delay value, the resident code will be loaded, but automatic screen-
- blanking will not occur until a new (finite) delay time is specified.
- You may change the delay "on the fly" by repeating the ?GASAVE command
- with a different delay time. This will not cause a second copy of the ___
- resident portion of the program to be loaded.
-
- The ?GASAVE programs handle the interrupts that they "trap" in a well-
- behaved manner, and will coexist happily with almost all other
- resident and non-resident software and continue to work properly
- within almost all application programs. The only exceptions to this
- rule are programs which, themselves, intercept the keyboard interrupt
- and/or the user timer interrupt in an "ill-behaved" manner (i.e.
- failing to pass interrupts properly on to the "next program in line").
- The best way of dealing with the (most aggravating) problem of the
- screen blanking even when you are using the keyboard within the
- application is to disable the blanking feature (by requesting a zero
- delay) before running the offending program, and then re-enabling it
- afterwards. A few applications may not retain their normal screen
- colors on an EGA display after blanking, although CGA and VGA displays
- are (for different reasons) not usually a problem in this regard.
-
- Comments, suggestions, etc. may be addressed to the author at:
-
- 1515 West Montgomery Avenue
- Rosemont
- PA 19010
- U.S.A.
-
-