ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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Text File | 1991-09-08 | 13.6 KB | 365 lines

Billboard, version 1.10 September 8, 1991 Introduction Billboard is a program that puts the user's message up 'in lights' on the IBM-PC's (or compatible's) screen, much as the board at Times Square or a stadium would present a message in large letters that many can read at a distance. The letters move from the right side of the screen to the left, and the message repeats over again until the user presses a key to end the program. The actual contents of the message can be entered when the program is started, or can be obtained from a previously prepared file. Other options include variation of the speed that the letters cross the screen, changing the 'lights' that make up the sign, the colors of the screen, sign and letters. The date and time can also be given as part of the message. The files that make up this release are: BILBOARD.EXE BILBOARD.DOC SAMPLE.RUN I. Entering a Message At the DOS prompt, type BILBOARD to run the program. In this case you have not specified an input file, so Billboard assumes that you want to enter all new text to be displayed. i. Editing Use any of the alphanumeric keys for your text with the exception of the following five characters: ~`|{ and }. Use the Back Space key to delete any mistakes. The arrow, Home or End keys will move the cursor about in the message. Editing is done in 'insert' mode, so that any characters added to your message will insert themselves before the character at the cursor. When you have finished entering a message, press the Enter key. A) Initialization Options The program will prompt you for any initialization options that you may want. These options will stay in force as long as no overriding 'on the fly' options are given in the actual text [see (D) below]. Note: Whenever a question has '[N]' (for No) or '[Y] (for Yes) at the end, an Enter key pressed at that point will default to a No or Yes, respectively, to the question. i. Speed For now, press a 'y' or 'Y' to the question. Another prompt will ask if you want to vary the speed of the sign. Type 'y' and then select either Slow, Fast, Medium or Variable. If 'V' were chosen, the higher the number the SLOWER the letters cross the screen. - 1 - Billboard, version 1.10 ii. Initial Sign Character If you want to change the character that makes up the 'off' lamps of the sign, enter then new one here or just press Enter. The default is a dark smiling face. iii. Initial Letter Character If you want to change the character that makes up the 'on' lamps of the sign, enter the new one here or just press Enter. The default is a light smiling face. Note that to bring up extended IBM characters for ii and iii above you must hold the Alt key while entering the three digit code for that character. Alternately, some characters can be entered by using the Ctrl key (like Ctrl C for the heart character used in SAMPLE.RUN). The chart of possible characters and their codes are in IBM manuals or related literature. If you have a monochrome adaptor, the color choices of the next few options are, of course, limited. Up to 16 colors are available, though, for CGA, EGA and VGA. iv. Initial Background color A choice of eight colors are given for the screen background around the sign. Move arrow keys to make the desired color blink, then press Enter for the final choice. v. Initial Sign color A choice of sixteen colors are given for the sign's color (OFF lamps). The arrow keys will make the desired color blink, then pressing Enter will select the final choice. vi. Initial Letter color A choice of sixteen colors are given for the Letters' color (ON lamps). Again, the arrow keys in confunction with the Enter key will be used for the selection. At this point the sign will display your message with the options that you selected. B) Saving the Message Pressing any key will stop the sign's movement. At this point, you will be asked if you want to save the message in a file for later display by Billboard. If you type anything except 'N' or 'n' then you will be prompted for a file name. Type a valid DOS filename (make sure it is not same name as an existing file you may want to keep!) The message, including the initialization options, will be saved. C) Using an Old Message i. Invoke Billboard with this syntax: BILBOARD <message filename>. If it is a valid filename, then up to the first 500 characters of the file will come up on the editing screen of Billboard. You can now modify the message with the editing keys, or just hit Enter to change options or just run your message on the sign. - 2 - Billboard, version 1.10 ii. Invoke Billboard with this syntax: BILBOARD <message filename> -r and if a valid filename has been entered, the '-r' switch (for RUN) will bring up the sign with the message, bypassing the editing and options screen. In this way, a message need not be viewed before running, or the message can be invoked, for example, from the autoexec.bat file without having to manually enter Billboard and go through the editing screen. A sample text file, called SAMPLE.RUN is provided. As a demonstration, use that file as your message text and watch it run or edit it. You will notice the control sequences that are present in the text, which are used for the changes in color that can be placed in the message as an option. These will be explained later. For now, run the program and see how the message is displayed. Note: Any file edited using Billboard or even any normal ASCII text file (up to the maximum number of characters) can be brought up for display by Billboard in either of the two ways discussed above. D) Special ("On the Fly") Options You can embed control sequences into the body of the text that will change colors of the background, sign and letters, and insert a pause in scrolling while the sign is running! If a red sign letter were chosen, for example, then the letters will turn to that color when the message comes to that sequence until another change sequence for the letters is encountered (which may or may not have also been placed into the text). In the actual edited text, the sequences will appear as a lowercase letter and one (or two) hexadecimal digits. These are easily distinguished from the text, which is always capitalized. The control sequences themselves do not appear in Billboard's output. The way that the sequences are entered into your message is similar to the initialization options that were explained above: i. Background color While entering your text, you can press the Ctrl key and simultaneously press the 'B' key. A choice of eight colors are given for the new screen background around the sign. Move arrow keys to make the desired color blink, then press Enter for the final choice. Note: Usually the message scrolling across the screen is 'smooth'. However, due to the time-consuming extra screen writes necessary for this command, there is a slight delay in scrolling each time this command is encountered in the moving text. The control sequence for this appears in the text as 'b' with a hex- adecimal (0-9, A-F) number trailing it. a) Background color (flashing) To help with the smooth scroll of the characters across the screen, four video 'pages' are used in color mode. So, when the normal background color is chosen, all four pages are changed to the same - 3 - Billboard, version 1.10 background color. However, any of the four pages, as an additional option, can have a color different than the other three, giving a flashing effect. (Not recommended for those who cannot tolerate a "strobe" effect). To cause this flashing enter Ctrl with 'O' then choose the desired color. Upon pressing Enter, you are asked which page to have this color apply. Press a number from 0 thru 3. Note that a non-flashing background color command will nullify this effect since it will overwrite all pages with a specified color. The control sequence appears in the text as 'o' followed by two hexadecimal digits. ii. Sign color While entering your text, you can press the Ctrl key and simultaneously press the 'S' key. A choice of sixteen colors are given for the sign's new color (OFF lamps). The arrow keys will make the desired color blink, then pressing Enter will select the final choice. The control sequence appears in the text as 's' with a single-digit hexadecimal number after it. iii. Letter color While entering your text, you can press the Ctrl key and simultaneously press the 'L' key. A choice of sixteen colors are given for the Letters' new color (ON lamps). Again, the arrow keys in conjunction with the Enter key will be used for the selection. The control sequence appears in the text as 'l' followed by a single- digit hexadecimal number. iv. Pause function While entering your text, you can press the Ctrl key and simultaneously press the 'P' key. You will be asked about the duration of the pause that you want, from 1 to 9 seconds. This is a handy effect for temporarily stopping the scrolling on the screen so that a particular word can be seen longer than others, for example. If you do not press a number, then a pause of 0 is assumed and will have no effect on the scrolling. The control sequence appears in the text as 'p' trailed by a single- digit number. v. Dynamic time/date insertion A new feature in version 1.10 involves the display of the current time and/or day and/or date, which can be part of the message. Every minute, if necessary, the message will be updated. To invoke the menu for this, hold down the Ctrl key while pressing the 'D' key. The examples of the current formats that can be presented are as follows: 5:23 PM 17:23 SATURDAY SAT JUN 29, 1991 JUNE 29, 1991 6/29/91 29/6/91 6-29-91 29-6-91 29-JUN-91 91-06-29 Several of these can be combined for your message, such as "SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1991 AT 5:23 PM". Please note that - 4 - Billboard, version 1.10 each string does not have leading or trailing spaces; this gives you the option of adding the comma after "SATURDAY". Also remember that your computer must, of course, have the DOS time or DOS date set for this feature to have any meaning. The control sequence for this feature appears in the text as 'd' followed by a single hexadecimal number. Enhancements for version 1.10: Time, day or date may be placed into message, and updated automatically. Detailed above. Several options now appear as pop-up menus. Bug fixes: In ver 1.00, the screen color was not properly initialized if user entered from "Initialization options?" screen or if read from a file for initial screen color. Could cause unwanted blinking screen effect. Fixed for 1.01. In ver 1.01, if the user wished to save a new file under a new name, the old file was reduced to zero bytes. Fixed in 1.10. In ver 1.01, selecting initilization of purple for sign caused blanking of screen instead of running message. Fixed for 1.10. Wish list for future releases: It would be nice to have a standard default scroll speed, independent of the speed of the machine. Would like to incorporate into the editor a small viewing subscreen. It could show what the running screen would look like just at the point where the cursor now lies. This would be useful so that a file does not have to be "tweeked" or re-edited a few times to get the effects just right. More effects. Such as flashing letters, words scrolling vertically up or down, individual letter colors, exploding letters. Who knows? Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Ray Frigon for his suggestions regarding the Pause feature. Also gratitude to Steve Hegyi for his ideas regarding the time/date message updates. We sincerely hope that this program has been of some use or entertainment for you. We ask that you pass this program on to your friends if you like it. Please do not alter any of the provided files, and keep the three files that make up this release intact. If you find any problems or wish to offer any suggestions, please send a card to the address below. If you feel Billboard is worthy of a contribution (to finance my programming habit) please send $5 (US) to: Frank Giarratana 16 E. Pembroke Rd Danbury, CT 06811 USA Thank you. - 5 - Billboard, version 1.10 Notes: Billboard copyright (c) 1991 by Frank J. Giarratana IBM-PC, DOS, CGA, VGA, and EGA are trademarks of International Business Machines Inc. and Microsoft Inc. - 6 -