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AUTOSKEM V1.3GR Copyright 1986,1989 David Markovitch ************ RESTRICTED VERSION ************ ( See last page for details ) New Features Mouse support Cursor or mouse selection of files and symbols Two cursor sizes with adjustable movement Grid with adjustable spacing HPGL plotter file support 24 pin printer utility If you like this program send $30 for an unrestricted version with a printed manual to: D.J.M 301 Knutson Dr. Madison, WI. 53704 1 System Requirements IBM PC or compatible, 384K ram, 1 floppy drive, Epson or IBM compatible printer, or HPGL compatible plotter, and one of the following graphics cards; CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules, or PC3270. A Microsoft compatible mouse is optional. There are six files included on the disk: AUTOSKEM.EXE- This is the drawing program which can be run from the DOS prompt by typing AUTOSKEM. The file can be copied and renamed as long as the extension remains '.EXE'. LINECHAR.FON- This is the font data required by AUTOSKEM. It must be copied along with AUTOSKEM but should not be renamed. ELECTRON.SYM- These are the pre-defined symbols that come with the program. This file must also be copied with AUTOSKEM but should not be renamed. SYM.PIC- This is a sample drawing which contains the pre-defined electronic symbols in ELECTRON.SYM. HPGL24.EXE- A 24 pin printer utility. AUTOSKEM.DOC - The documentation file. The files 'LINECHAR.FON' and 'ELECTRON.SYM' must be in the current directory of the default drive when the program is loaded and run. (This can be changed as explained in the configuration section) AUTOSKEM is a general purpose drawing program which has been optimized for schematics. Drawings are constructed from three basic objects: lines, text, and symbols. All lines are straight lines between any two points in the drawing area. Text can be scaled to one of five sizes and placed anywhere in the drawing area. Symbols are any collection of up to 30 lines which can be defined by the user. They can be scaled in size, rotated in 90 degree increments, and placed anywhere in the drawing. The program comes with about 40 pre-defined symbols and a sample drawing which shows them (SYM.PIC). The drawing area is 1000 by 1000 units in size and only partially visible on the screen. The screen size varies from 300 by 192 to 340 by 335 units, depending on the graphics card in use. Screen color can be changed (if a color monitor is used) to one of sixteen colors by hitting the F2 key from the main menu. Objects are located on the drawing by a cross shaped cursor controlled by the keyboard or mouse. The following keys control the cursor when ever it is visible: Arrow keys - Control cursor movement. F3 - Toggles the cursor size between large and small. 2 TAB - Toggles cursor movement between one and a variable number of units. This has the effect of changing cursor speed. 0..9 - Two numbers entered in succession determine the number of units the cursor will move in the variable or high speed mode. For example, entering 07 while the cursor is visible will provide cursor movements of 1 or 7 units at a time. The maximum number allowed is 99 and the default is 10. ENTER - Selects the point under the cursor. SPACE, ESC - Exits the current command. When a mouse is used, the left button is the ENTER key and the right button is the ESC key. Mouse movement emulates operation of the arrow keys. Commands are displayed at the right side of the screen and are selected by the up and down arrow keys and ENTER key. Commands which display a cursor can be exited by hitting the SPACE bar any time the cursor is visible, otherwise the ESC key can be used to exit. The command which is currently executing is dislplayed on the bottom line of the screen along with any prompts. File names required may include a drive letter and path but no extension; Example: B:SYM A:\CAD\SYM (the program creates its own extensions) The following is a description of each command in the order that it appears on the menu: DRLIN - Draws a straight line between any two points in the drawing area. Move arrow keys to starting point and hit ENTER. The end point is selected the same way, except that a new section of the drawing may be displayed through the NEWIN command by hitting <W>. ERLIN - Erases lines in the drawing. Move cursor to a point on or close to the line to be erased and hit ENTER. LISYM - Lists the symbols in the current library in alphabetical order. Trying to move above the first item or below the last item has the same effect as the PgUp and PgDn keys. DRSYM - Draws a symbol with its reference point at the position of the cursor. Type a two letter code for the symbol and hit ENTER or just hit ENTER for a list of symbols from which the desired symbol may be selected by hitting ENTER twice. Symbols may be rotated in 90 degree increments by adding a third letter to their code: <U> for 90 degrees counter-clockwise; <D> for 90 degrees clockwise; <L> for 180 degrees. Example: 'OAL' would produce an op-amp rotated 180 degrees from the orientation in which it was defined. (using the ELECTRON.SYM library) To rotate a symbol which has been obtained from the symbol list, the symbol is selected with the ENTER key followed by an arrow key 3 corresponding to the desired rotation. If no rotation is desired, the ENTER key is hit twice. Using a mouse this means hitting the left button followed by movement in the desired direction, or hitting the left button twice for no rotation. ERSYM - Erases symbols in the drawing. Move cursor to a point on or close to the reference point of the symbol to be erased and hit ENTER. DRTXT - Writes text at the position of the cursor. Type in text one line at a time and hit ENTER. A cursor will appear which will allow the text to be scaled and positioned. The scale of the text can be changed to one of 5 sizes. Move the cursor to the desired symbol location and hit ENTER. This step may be repeated until the text is in its final position, selected by hitting ENTER twice at the same location. Two characters on the keyboard have been re-defined as electronic symbols: <@> is the symbol for ohms and <&> is the symbol for micro. ERTXT - Erases text in the drawing. Move cursor to a point on or close to the lower left hand corner of the text to be erased (the reference point) and hit ENTER. The reference point for text is slightly below the character (at the underline) so the larger characters have more space between the character and the reference point. DROBJ - Draws an object at the position of the cursor. An object can be any drawing or section of a drawing which is used like a symbol. Objects are stored in their own files with an '.OBJ' extension and are refered to by file name. An object is placed by moving the cursor to the desired position, hitting ENTER, and typing the file name or selecting the file from a directory listing. The reference point chosen when the object was defined will appear at the cursor position. ERBOX - Erases the contents of a rectangular area of the drawing. Move the cursor to one corner of the area to be erased and hit ENTER. Move to the opposite corner and hit ENTER. If the second corner is outside of the display area, the display can be changed through the NEWIN command by hitting <W>. COBOX - Copies the contents of a rectangular area of the drawing. Move the cursor to one corner of the area to be copied and hit ENTER. Move to the opposite corner and hit ENTER. If the second corner is outside of the display area, the display can be changed through the NEWIN command by hitting <W>. Move to the upper left corner of the area to be copied to and hit ENTER. MOBOX - Moves the contents of a rectangular area of the drawing. Position the cursor at one corner of the area to be moved and hit ENTER. Move to the opposite corner and hit ENTER. If the second corner is outside of the display area, the display can be changed through the NEWIN command by hitting <W>. Position the cursor at the upper left corner of the area to be moved to and hit ENTER. Symbols and text are included in a rectangular area as long as the area contains their reference points. Lines are included 4 only if both endpoints lie inside the area. CHLBR - Allows the selection of a different symbol library or the creation of a new library. Libraries of up to 100 symbols each can be created for different types of drawings, but a drawing may only contain symbols from a single library. Drawings will only appear correct when the symbol library with which they were created is the currently selected library. The library 'ELECTRON.SYM' is automatically loaded when the program is first started. Libraries are created with an extension of '.SYM' which should not be changed. PLOT - Creates a high resolution printer copy or HPGL plotter file of all or part of the current drawing. The section to be printed is selected by placing a window around it. The orientation may be vertical (the same as the screen), or horizontal (rotated 90 degrees clockwise). Three types of printers or a plotter file may be selected from the printer menu, with a default of an Epson FX printer. The drawing width can be chosen as well as the starting position on the paper. The length will automatically be adjusted so that equal X and Y increments in the drawing will have equal lengths on the paper. This can be changed by entering a desired drawing length. DIR - Displays the file names in the selected directory. Type a drive and path or hit ENTER to select the default. Examples: 'C:\CAD\*.*' will list all the files in the 'CAD' directory of drive C: and 'C:\*.PIC' will list all files in the root directory of drive C: which have an extension of '.PIC'. SAVE - Saves a drawing or object to disk. If the drawing option is selected, the entire drawing is saved with an extension of '.PIC'. Each drawing file takes up a fixed size of about 22K which does not change when the drawing is edited. If the object option is selected, a rectangular area is defined by selecting opposite corners and the contents of the area are saved with an extension of '.OBJ'. The object file size depends on its complexity, but it takes up less space than a drawing file. An object can be loaded into a drawing at any position just like a symbol but can not be scaled or rotated. LOAD - Loads a drawing file into memory after erasing current drawing. The drawing to be loaded must have an extension of '.PIC'. If a drawing is to be loaded on top of the current drawing without first erasing it, then the MERGE command should be used. MERGE - Merges a drawing file on disk with the current drawing in memory. The file to be merged must have an extension of '.PIC'. This command can be used to combine separate layers of a drawing. EDSYM - Allows editing of defined symbols. Enter the two letter code for the symbol to be edited and select the desired option. A symbol may be removed from the current library or have its name or description changed. The 'LINES' option draws the symbol as a series of lines which can be individually erased with the ERLIN command. This is useful for making small changes in a symbol without re-drawing the entire symbol. All changes are made to the current symbol library. 5 DFSYM - Allows new symbols to be created. Symbols are collections of up to 30 line segments created from existing lines and symbols. A set of pre-defined symbols is in the file 'ELECTRON.SYM' which is loaded when the program is run. The symbols are accessed by a two character code which can contain letters or numbers. A maximum of 100 symbols can be stored in a single library. Before a symbol can be defined, it must be drawn with the DRLIN or DRSYM commands. After selecting DFSYM, move the cursor to one corner of the area containing the symbol and hit ENTER, then move to the opposite corner and hit ENTER. Next move the cursor to the desired reference position (the point that will be located at the cursor position when the DRSYM command is used) and hit ENTER. Type a two character code for the new symbol. If the code has already been used, the old symbol will be overwritten and all previous drawings which used that symbol will be affected. The new symbol will be stored in the current library. NEWIN - Changes the currently displayed section of the drawing. This command has two options: First the cursor can be positioned at a point which will become the new center of the screen. When the ENTER key is hit, the screen will be re-drawn with the new center. This can be repeated as many times as necessary until the desired section of the drawing is displayed. The second option, selected by hitting <W>, allows you to view the entire drawing area and to choose the displayed section. This is done by moving the cursor to the desired center of the area to be displayed and hitting the ENTER key. RDRAW - Re-draws the contents of the screen. Used mainly after editing operations which erase parts of lines or text. SPACE - Displays the number of lines, symbols, labels, and characters which are left to use in the current drawing. The drawing limits are: 1000 lines, 500 symbols, and 500 labels (lines of text) or 3000 characters whichever is reached first. ERPIC - Erases the current drawing. DOS - Exits the program permanently if <E> is selected, or temporarily if <S> is chosen (typing 'EXIT' at the DOS prompt will return the program). Any command which tries to increase the size of the drawing beyond its limits will be ignored. CONFIGURATION - The default program configuration may be changed by including five parameters on the command line when the program is started. These parameters in order are: 1. Font path and name (no ext.) Default is 'LINECHAR'. 2. Symbol library path and name (no ext.) Default is 'ELECTRON'. 6 3. Screen color 0 - 15 Default is 15: 0 = black 8 = dark gray 1 = blue 9 = light blue 2 = green 10 = light green 3 = cyan 11 = light cyan 4 = red 12 = light red 5 = magenta 13 = light magenta 6 = brown 14 = yellow 7 = light gray 15 = white 4. Printer number 1 - 4 Default is 1: 1 = Epson 216 FX,RX .. 2 = Epson 144 MX 3 = IBM 4 = HPGL plotter file 5. Graphics driver 0 - 10 Default is 0: 0: Auto-detect 1: CGA 2: MCGA 3: EGA 4: EGA64 5: EGAMONO 7: Hercules 9: VGA 10: PC3270 The program normally detects the graphics card present and uses the proper driver. A non-zero driver number on the command line will force the program to use the specified driver. All parameters on the command line must be present and seperated by spaces; Example: AUTOSKEM LINE A:\SYM\PIPE 2 3 1 Sets the font file to 'LINE.FON' in the current directory of the default drive, the symbol library to 'PIPE.SYM' in the 'SYM' directory on drive A:, the color to green, the printer to IBM, and the graphics driver to CGA. Entering the parameters every time the program is run can be avoided by creating a single line batch file with the program name and parameters. AUTOSKEM will automatically detect and use a mouse if present. If you wish to use a mouse, you must install MOUSE.SYS or run MOUSE.COM before running AUTOSKEM. Using Objects Objects can be used like symbols in that they can be inserted anywhere in a drawing. Their biggest advantage is that they can contain text and symbols as well as lines. One disadvantage is that they can not be scaled or rotated like symbols. Objects are good for anything which is frequently used in a drawing but is too complex to define as a symbol. When working on a drawing in sections, it is a good idea to save each section as an object. This saves disk space and allows the sections to be inserted anywhere in the final drawing. 7 24 Pin Printer Users HPGL24.EXE is a utility program on disk which allows users with 24 pin printers to obtain a higher quality printer output. The program requires a printer which is compatible with the Epson LQ2500 or IBM Proprinter X24. To use the program, first produce an HPGL plotter file as described in the manual and exit AUTOSKEM. At the DOS command line, enter HPGL24 <filename> with no extension or just enter HPGL24 and you will be prompted for the file name. For example, if your plotter file is TESTPLOT.PLT you would enter HPGL24 TESTPLOT at the DOS command line. Drawing Grid A drawing grid has been added to aid in positioning drawing elements. The grid is controlled at the command prompt by the following keys: F4 - toggles grid on and off. F2 - on EGA/VGA systems, this key changes grid color when the grid is on, and changes drawing color when the grid is off. Two number keys entered in succession while the grid is on will change the grid spacing. For example, entering 05 will produce a grid spacing of 5 drawing units. Spacing can range from 01 to 99 units. Restricted Version The restricted version of AUTOSKEM limits drawing size to 100 lines, 50 symbols, and 50 labels or 300 characters of text. These limits are 1/10 the limits of the unrestricted version. If you like this program send $30 for an unrestricted version with a printed manual to: D.J.M 301 Knutson Dr. Madison, WI. 53704 8 @