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

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Text File | 1991-08-14 | 15.4 KB | 377 lines

EXPLOSIV.COM - GRAPHICS SCREEN SAVER - VERSION 1.31 Reidar Gresseth and Chris Hook August 1991 AS THIS IS SHAREWARE AND NOT FREEWARE, A PAYMENT OF $15.00 U.S. IS REQUIRED IF YOU USE EXPLOSIV PAST AN INITIAL TRIAL PERIOD (NOT TO EXCEED 30 CALENDAR DAYS). THIS VERSION OF EXPLOSIV IS A TRIAL VERSION. IT WILL ONLY FUNCTION A LIMITED NUMBER OF TIMES BEFORE IT HAS TO BE RELOADED INTO MEMORY. YOU MUST REGISTER TO GET THE UNRESTRICTED VERSION. NOTE: SEE BELOW FOR SITE-LICENSE INFORMATION. Explosiv copyright (c) Reidar Gresseth & Chris Hook 1989, 1990, 1991. This product may be distributed freely to users. It may not be or packaged, either individually, or as part of any other product without the express written consent of the authors. All financial remunerations must be paid to the authors. This product may not be changed or altered and then distributed without the express written consent of the authors. DISCLAIMER: Explosiv is offered on an as-is-basis without any guarantee as to the correct functioning or fitness for specific purpose. The authors believe this program to work as described but the program is used at your own risk. The authors will not be responsible for any hardware or software damage, loss of data, or incidental or consequential damage that may result from its use, whether or not such use is in accordance with the instructions. All payments and/or enquiries regarding this program are to be sent to : Chris Hook & Reidar Gresseth P.O. Box #3013 Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6B 3X5 Explosiv is a screen saving utility which prevents pixel burn-in on your computer video display. Rather than simply turning the screen off while the computer is running, Explosiv displays an always moving fireworks show. As a benefit, you never need wonder as to whether your computer is turned on or off (a typical problem with simple screen blankers), and you may even find the fireworks display to be somewhat enjoyable. AUTOEXEC.BAT installation: - To install explosiv upon booting up the PC, insert a line such as the following line in your autoexec.bat file (this is an example which assumes explosiv is in your DOS executable path.) : explosiv m5 NOTE : Some features included in version 1.31 that were unavailable in version 1.2X are : - explosiv now has mouse support. If you move your mouse (providing you loaded your mouse driver) explosiv turns off. - explosiv now works successfully on PC networks. If problems are encountered, try loading explosiv AFTER the network drivers to avoid possible binding timeout conflicts. - explosiv now supports EGA 43 line mode and VGA 50 line mode. - Attributes and colors are now more faithfully restored. - explosiv now checks to see if its already loaded in memory. If it is, it will not load again. To load more than once, see the section on mutiplex numbers. - Color explosions have now been added for both the CGA and MCGA graphics devices. - The delay factor has now slowed down considerably to accomodate fast 386 and 486 PCs. Also, if no delay factor is given a default will be selected that is based upon the speed of the CPU. - explosiv can now be loaded and controlled in high memory. - Fix for the stopped computer clock problem. - Any key pressed to deactivate explosiv will not be transferred to the underlying program. FILES INCLUDED WITH THIS UTILITY : <file> <bytes> <purpose> EXPLOSIV.COM 16958 the screen saver utility EXPLOSIV.DOC 15807 this document NOTE: This program will not become a memory resident screen saver until the m<n> command line option is invoked. Without this option set, Explosiv will simply be an amusing, but temporary display of fireworks. It is suggested that you try out Explosiv in non-memory resident mode first so that you may see what configuration of Explosiv suits your tastes best (this is accomplished by trying out the other command line options, which are spelled out in detail below). USAGE : To invoke Explosiv, type the following in the DOS command line : To initially run or install Explosiv C > explosiv [<mode>] [c<n>] [d<n>] [f<n>] [e<n>] [m<n>] [p<n>] [novid] To change characteristics of memory resident Explosiv C > explosiv new [c<n>] [d<n>] [e<n>] [f<n>] [m<n>] To turn Explosiv on or off type C > explosiv on|off [f<n>] To get help, type: C > explosiv ? Note: The [f<n>] parameter should generally be ignored unless you are loading multiple versions of explosiv in memory. Explosiv runs on many different video display adapters including MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, MCGA, Hercules graphics card and Hercules graphics plus. Once memory resident, explosiv can be turned on immediately as a screen saver by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Shift. However, this should not be done during input/output operations in order to prevent possible I/O errors (such as during modem operations or when checking disk access time, etc.). When Explosiv is invoked as a screen saver it will halt the currently running program until a key is pressed. If this will be problematic then Explosiv can be deactivated by pressing Ctrl-Alt-E ( E for end ) and activated again by pressing Ctrl-Alt-B ( B for begin ). This feature is perhaps most useful when using Hercules graphics cards as there is no foolproof method of distinguishing graphics mode from text mode. OPTIONS : Explosiv can be used with the following options ( Note : Not all options can be used with all video cards ) d<n> specifies a delay factor. n must be an integer in the range ( 1 - 255 ) where the default is based upon the speed of your CPU. For example, C> explosiv d255 for slowest possible output e<n> specifies number of simultaneous explosions. n must be an integer in the range ( 1 - 15 ) where the default is n = 6. For example, C> explosiv e1 for most possible explosions f<n> specifies the multiplex number that explosiv should use. n must be an integer in the range ( 1 - 15 ) where the default is n = 0. Use this flag to uniquely identify a copy of explosiv in memory ( as two versions of explosiv in memory cannot use the same multiplex value ). For example, C> explosiv new f1 e2 will change the number of explosions displayed by the memory resident explosiv using multiplex number one. m<n> specifies number of minutes of inactivity before Explosiv is invoked. n must be an integer in the range ( 1 - 30 ). If this parameter is not specified Explosiv will not become resident. For example, C> explosiv m1 becomes a 1 minute screen saver c<n> specifies the colour to use for each explosion. n must be an integer in the range ( 1- 15 ) where the default is n = 15. This switch will ONLY work with the 'mono' and 'cga' options. For example, to display red fireworks use C> explosiv mono c4 By default, the cga mode will only display black and white fireworks. This gives a better resolution. If you want color then simply include this option with any value. For example, C> explosiv cga c1 will display color explosions in cga mode. p<n> specifies number of text pages to save in memory. n must be an integer in the range ( 1 - 4 ). Each additional page to be saved adds 4000 bytes to the amount of memory needed to run Explosiv. By default Explosiv saves only one or two pages in memory depending on the monitor type. THESE DEFAULT SETTINGS HAVE BEEN FOUND TO BE SUFFICIENT UNDER ALMOST ALL APPLICATIONS TESTED THUS FAR. This switch only works when used with the m<n> option and does not work with the 'herc' option. For example, C> explosiv cga p4 m1 saves all text pages in memory. For VGA, MCGA and VGA 43 or 50 line modes it is necessary to use at least p = 2 ( which is the default for these monitors ). on Turn the first deactivated Explosiv found in memory on. off Turn the first activated Explosiv found in memory off. new Change any of the following options on Explosiv once it is memory resident. novid This option causes explosiv to ignore other programs writing to the screen. This option can not be changed with the new command. <mode> By default, Explosiv will detect which card is present and will determine which <mode> option to use. Specifying one of the following options forces Explosiv to run in the indicated mode. mda Use 25 by 80 text mode ( assume that the video card has no graphics ability ). cga Use 640 by 200 two color graphics ( video mode 6 ) or 320 by 200 four color graphics ( video mode 4 ) with the c<n> option. herc Use 720 by 348 two color graphics ( Hercules graphics mode ). mono Use 640 by 350 two color graphics ( EGA\VGA's video mode 16 ). This mode will display all explosions in the same colour. vga Use 640 by 350 sixteen colour graphics ( video mode 16 ) regardless of video system present. This mode will display each explosion as a different color ( one of the fifteen colors available to VGA/EGA color systems ). NOTES : - By default the hardware is tested to determine exactly which graphics card is in use. The <mode> switches should be used with care. However, if you are in doubt as to which graphics card are available to you, type C > explosiv ? This will inform you as to what graphics card has been found. If Explosiv cannot correctly determine the video system then you must specify one of <mode> each time you run the program. - CGA simulating utilities for Hercules cards will not affect Explosiv in detecting which graphics card is present, however, Explosiv cannot be invoked for Hercules cards until Video mode 7 is restored. - The CGA/EGA/MCGA/VGA adaptors uses the same memory area to store text and graphics. This is a problem when Explosiv is used as a screen saver where memory usage should be minimized. Explosiv reserves enough memory when it becomes resident to save from 1 to 4 text pages ( 25 by 80 characters ). This adds 4K for each page included. The default is 2 pages for MCGA, VGA and EGA. - Care should be taken when running a graphics program on a Hercules driver as Explosiv has no reliable means of determining what state the Hercules card is in. It is suggested that Explosiv be deactived before starting the graphics program and activated again once the program has completed. This can be done using batch files such as following C > copy con run.bat echo off explosiv off <program> explosiv on ^Z - The mda option blanks the screen without the fireworks display. This is done by saving the screen in its own internal buffer and filling the screen in with spaces. There are two motivations for blanking the screen this way. First is safety, many screen savers directly access the video controller's write-only ports and this could lead to a damaged monitor ( particularly Hercules monitors ). Second, less hardware dependence means that Explosiv can be used on a wide variety of monitors ( MDA, Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, etc. ) Explosiv will not invoke with this option if it finds that the computer is in graphics mode. - Multiple versions of Explosiv can be installed in memory and run by using the multiplex option. To illustrate, to install two versions of the program use: C > explosiv m1 ( install with multiplex = 0 ( default ) ) C > explosiv m1 f1 ( install with multiplex = 1 ) then disable the first copy using C > explosiv off and the second copy using C > explosiv off f1 - If you are using programs such as Microsoft Word (c) or DOSshell (c) where there is a choice of running the program in TEXT or GRAPHICS mode then choose to run these programs in TEXT mode as explosiv will NOT operate under GRAPHICS modes (GRAPHICS mode support is to be included in a future version of explosiv). For Word (c) you must use the "novid" option. - If your computer hangs when explosiv operates in conjunction with a mouse driver, then upon request when registering, we will customize a version that solves this problem. - In any additional problems occur when using explosiv, try loading explosiv as the LAST TSR loaded into memory. Any additional problems may be due to a conflicting choice of multiplex number. Trying an alternate multiplex number may solve the problem. PRICING INFORMATION: The single unit price (i.e., one copy ) of explosiv is $15.00 U.S.. This price includes the fully functional version of explosiv on diskette which we mail to you. Please indicate whether you prefer a 3 1/2" or a 5 1/4" diskette (if not indicated, we will send a 3 1/2" diskette by default). We will send invoices and receipts upon request. SITE LICENSE INFORMATION: For multiple copies of explosiv running at the same site, we have set up a site license schedule which will yield a considerable savings to all interested partys. NOTE: A network (consisting of server(s) and workstation(s)) needs to have each machine - whether they be servers or workstations - licensed for explosiv if they are to use that program. Once again, a site license would be most beneficial for such a situation. DISCOUNT SCHEDULE: The discount schedule for licensing multiple copies of explosiv is based on number of copies licensed and is as follows: QUANTITY ORDERED PRICE PER UNIT ------------------------------------ 1-24 $15.00 U.S. 25-99 $12.50 U.S. 100-299 $10.00 U.S. 300-999 $7.50 U.S. 1000+ $5.00 U.S. For example, a typical site licence would be for 100 copies of explosiv. So you would pay 100*$10.00 (discounted rate) = $1000.00 U.S.