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-
-
- WELCOME TO SCIENCE ADVENTURE!
-
- Thank you for purchasing Science Adventure. We hope to
- send you off on the greatest adventure of all . . .
-
- We would love to hear from you -- if you have any questions,
- suggestions, or ideas, please don't hesitate to call us at
- 800-542-4240 or fax us at 818-542-4205. Our mission is to make
- exciting, breakthrough educational software, and the more
- feedback we get from you, the better we will be able to do that.
- Also, remember to send in your registration card so we will know
- how to contact you to let you know about future updates as well as
- send you an disk containing additional images, text and sounds!
-
- We have designed Science Adventure to be as clear and
- intuitive as possible. We have tested it extensively with
- children and adults so that you probably won't even need to open
- our manual. But we do suggest you take a look at our User's
- Guide for additional ideas on how to make your experience with
- Science Adventure even more rewarding.
-
- This "README" file has some additional information and
- late-breaking news that could not make it into the User's Guide
- as well as some important pieces of technical information that
- bear repeating here (because we know you "techies" never read
- manuals, but you always read the README file!).
-
- FULL SCREEN GLOBE. You can now zoom the globe to a full
- screen, high-resolution view by clicking on the Zoom button right
- below the globe slider. To return to the Science Adventure screen
- click on the Zoom button again, or press Escape.
-
- MEMORY REQUIREMENTS. Science Adventure requires approximately
- 500KB of RAM in order to run. Even when there is adequate total
- RAM to run the program, there may be conflicts with other programs
- occupying memory. If you experience difficulty in running Science
- Adventure under these circumstances, please remove other memory
- resident programs from memory.
-
- Science Adventure will utilize as much memory as you have
- available above 500KB to load additional globe detail, zoomed images,
- and longer sounds. If you free additional memory before beginning
- Science Adventure you will enjoy greater detail and performance.
-
- LAPTOP/NOTEBOOK COMPUTER DISPLAYS. Science Adventure
- requires a VGA monitor to display its high-resolution
- images. It will not work on the internal plasma or LCD monitors
- on laptop PCs. Most laptops, however, have a connector for an
- external monitor, and Science Adventure will work fine with your
- laptop hooked to an external VGA monitor. If you wish to display
- Science Adventure on the internal monitor of your laptop, please
- call us for free disks that contain images especially designed
- for laptop screens.
-
- EGA DISPLAYS. The VGA verison of Science Adventure will
- not run on EGA monitors. An EGA version is available, however;
- please call us and we will send you the appropriate disks.
-
- VIDEO-7 VRAM CARD USERS. If you use Headland Technology's
- Video-7 VRAM card to display VGA graphics and you experience
- horizontal stripes on your monitor while in Science Adventure,
- please move DIP switch number 8 to the position opposite the one
- that it is currently in. This will enable IBM nonstandard video
- modes to diplay correctly without affecting the operation of your
- other software.
-
- MOUSE SUPPORT. Science Adventure takes great advantage of
- your mouse if you have one, but it does not require one. There are
- keyboard equivalents spelled out in the User's Guide that will
- allow you to enjoy Science Adventure without a mouse.
-
- If you do have a Microsoft-compatible mouse, you must run
- a Microsoft-compatible mouse software driver to enable it. Some
- mice are Microsoft-compatible but do not have Microsoft-compatible
- software drivers and will not work with Science Adventure. We have
- provided a Microsoft-compatible mouse driver with the product that
- will work with many mice. If you have a mouse, and it does not work
- from within Science Adventure, then you must run the proper driver
- and should try the driver that we have included. If your mouse DOES
- work within Windows, that still does not guarantee that you have run
- your mouse driver, since Windows uses it own drivers that will not
- work with other programs.
-
- If you find that the cursor in Science Adventure does not
- respond when you move the mouse, go to the SCIENCE subdirectory in
- DOS and type MOUSE and then press the Enter key. If this works,
- you can modify the mouse commands in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS
- to use the mouse driver supplied with Science Adventure instead of
- the one currently being used by your system. If you are a Windows
- user, exit Windows first (using File Exit). This is not always
- necessary, but your chances are better that Science Adventure will
- run flawlessly if you have not loaded the program from within
- Windows. Then start Science Adventure in the normal manner by typing
-
- SCI [Enter]
- at the DOS prompt.
-
-
- MOUSE SYSTEMS. If you have a Mouse Systems mouse or trackball,
- or a Mouse Systems-compatible mouse, you may experience the hand
- pointer jumping to the bottom left corner of the screen. If so,
- you are using a version of the Mouse Systems mouse driver that is
- NOT compatible with the Microsoft mouse standard. Please try the
- mouse driver that we have provided by following the instructions
- in the paragraph above, and the mouse should then work perfectly.
-
- SOUND. Even if you do not have a supplemental sound card or
- other specialized output device for sound, Science Adventure
- will reproduce its sounds through your computer's speaker on all
- but the oldest machines. In general, if you have an IBM AT-class
- (286) machine or its equivalent, you should be able to hear some
- sounds through the PC speaker. These sounds will not be as loud
- or as clear as from an add-on sound device, but in many cases they
- will still be quite acceptable. Sound out of the PC speaker will
- not work on an XT class machine. If you run Science Adventure
- from Windows you won't be able to hear sounds through the PC Speaker.
- Sounds can only be heard if you have a sound card. (See the WINDOWS
- section of this document)
-
- If some sounds do not playback when the sound button
- indicates sound is available, it may be because you do not have
- enough RAM memory for those sounds to load and play. Try unloading
- TSRs or device drivers in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS to free
- sufficient memory to play those sounds.
-
- ADDING A SOUND DEVICE AFTER INITIAL INSTALL. If you purchase
- a new sound device after you've installed Science Adventure, you
- will need to rerun a portion of the Install program in order to
- take advantage of the device's sound capabilities. To accomplish
- this, change directory to the Science Adventure directory by typing:
-
- CD\SCIENCE [Enter]
-
- Then type:
-
- CONFIG [Enter]
-
- This CONFIG.EXE program will ask you which sound device you have.
- Press the number next to its name on the screen. All the necessary
- changes will be made automatically, and you will be able to use
- Science Adventure with your new sound device.
-
- PRINTING & CONFIGURATION. Science Adventure's default printer
- setting is LPT1. If you would like to print through a different
- port, you can change the setting in the KA.CNF file to the
- appropriate port. It is an ASCII file and can be edited using any
- text editor you have at your disposal. Make sure that your printer
- is hooked up and turned on before you start Science Adventure to
- ensure proper initialization of the printer.
-
- There are other settings in the Science Adventure KA.CNF
- configuration file that you may want to modify. These are the default
- settings:
-
- SoundDevice : PCSpeaker
- PlayTune : No
- AutoSound : On
- UseHistory : No
- Printing : Detect
- PrinterPort : LPT1
-
-
- SoundDevice - tells Science Adventure which Sound device you have
- hooked up. Choices (PCSpeaker)
- (SoundBlaster)
- (Disney)
- (ThunderBoard)
- (AdLibGold)
- (Covox)
- (None)
-
- If you have a parallel port sound device like the Disney
- Sound Source or the Covox Speaker System, you can change
- the default port setting of LPT1 by entering the sound port
- after the sound device name. For example to use the
- Disney Sound Source on LPT2, you would enter:
-
- Disney, LPT2
-
-
- PlayTune - tells Science Adventure whether or not to play a start-up
- tune every time you run the program. Choices (YES) or (NO).
-
- AutoSound - tells Science Adventure whether or not to play sounds
- automatically every time you click on a screen that has
- a sound associated with it. Choices (ON) or (OFF).
-
- UseHistory - tells Science Adventure whether or not to start on the
- screen where you left off, last time you were using the
- program. Choices (YES) or (NO).
-
- Printing - tells Science Adventure whether or not to automatically
- detect if your printer is hooked up. Choices (YES) or (NO).
-
- PrinterPort - tells Science Adventure which printer port your printer is
- hooked up to. Choices (LPT1), (LPT2), (LPT3).
-
-
-
- IF YOU DIDN'T COMPLETE INSTALL BECAUSE OF LOW DISK SPACE.
- You have the option of installing a portion of Science
- Adventure when you do not have the full 8 megabytes required on
- your hard disk. (Note: When Science Adventure is finished
- installing, you will see that the files amount to just over eight
- megabytes on your hard disk; the additional space is used during
- Install for temporary files that are later deleted.) If you
- choose to do this, the program will still run. You will notice,
- however, that at times Science Adventure does not appear to
- respond when you click on an icon or one of the other "travel
- button" areas. This happens because the program is looking for a
- particular screen that isn't there. Just click again, or try
- clicking on another area, and the program will respond.
-
- SCIENCE ADVENTURE WITH STACKER(r). If you are using
- Stacker or a similar file-compression program, you may find that
- Science Adventure may indicate low disk space during Install even
- though your PC says that it has far more free space on the hard
- disk than the 8 megabytes that the program will eventually occupy.
- This occurs because the files in Science Adventure are already
- compressed and stay that way on your hard disk; Stacker and other
- programs cannot compress them further.
-
- SCIENCE ADVENTURE WITH WINDOWS(r) OR DESQVIEW(r).
- On most PCs, Science Adventure will run under both Windows
- and DESQview. Because of conflicts with certain aspects of
- those operating environments, however, sound output may be
- limited. In Windows Enhanced Mode and in DESQview, you will
- only get sound output by using a Sound Blaster(r) type card. In
- Windows Enhanced mode, be sure to add the line DMABUFFERSIZE=100
- (or a higher value) in the "386 enhanced" section of the SYSTEM.INI
- file to allow the Sound Blaster to work correctly. In Windows
- Standard mode, all types of sound output will work fine. For
- Windows users, we have also included a SCIENCE.PIF file as well
- as a SCIENCE.ICO file that is optimized for using Science Adventure
- under Windows. To set up Science Adventure to run from your
- Windows 3.0 or 3.1, click on the Program Manager Menu. Choose:
-
- File
- New
- Program Item OK
- Description --> Science Adventure
- Command Line --> C:\SCIENCE\SCI.BAT
- Change Icon
- No Specified Icon OK
- Filename --> C:\SCIENCE\SCIENCE.ICO OK OK OK
-
-
-
- In addition, in order to provide spectacular high-resolution
- 256-color VGA images on the widest number of PCs, we have used a
- special VGA display mode that may be incompatible with some PCs
- running Windows or DESQview. If you encounter this problem, we
- recommend running Science Adventure by itself outside of these
- environments.
-
-
- TROUBLESHOOTING:
-
-
- Problem: How do you print the graphic images?
- Solution: The only way to do this is to use our VGA Screen
- Capture Program (VGACAPT.EXE) supplied with the program.
- First make sure that you have at least 510KB of lower
- RAM memory available. Unload any unnecessary TSR programs.
- To see how much memory is available, type:
-
- CHKDSK [Enter]
-
- Then start Science Adventure by typing:
-
- VGACAPT KAV.EXE [Enter]
-
- You can then capture graphics screens, by pressing Ctl-PrtScr.
- A Bit-Mapped file called SCREEN0.BMP will be created.
- If you press Ctl-PrtScr again, SCREEN1.BMP will be
- created and so on. These Bit-Mapped files can then be
- retrieved by programs such as WINDOWS Paint or
- or PC Paintbrush and then printed from there.
-
-
- Problem: Tried to Install Disk 1 and got General Failure
- reading disk A.
- Solution: Probably have a Low Denstiy Disk drive 360kb and
- the program comes on High Density 1.2Mb disks. So
- we'd be happy to send out 360kb disks (there are 20
- of them) FREE OF CHARGE as long as you send us back
- the disks that you aren't using.
-
- Problem: Purchased program on 5 1/4" disks (or 3 1/2" disks)
- and you need the other size disks.
- Solution: We will send the other size disks you need FREE of charge
- as long as you send us back the disks you aren't using.
-
- Problem: Ran Install and it said cannot run program, not
- enough memory or FATAL ERROR.
- Solution: Unload TSR's, most likely you are still in WINDOWS.
- Get out of WINDOWS using FILE EXIT and retry. Type:
-
- CHKDSK [Enter]
-
- to see how much memory is free.
-
-
-
- Problem: Sound not coming out of SoundBoard.
- Solution: Once in the Science subdirectory, type out the
- contents of the KA.CNF file:
-
- TYPE KA.CNF [Enter]
-
- To change the configuration from one sound
- configuration to another run the CONFIG.EXE
- program. Type:
-
- CONFIG [Enter]
-
- Try first configuring for internal PC Speaker
- first to see if you can get any sounds at all.
- Also run the test program supplied with your
- sound card to make sure it is working. If there
- is a volume control dial, make sure that it is
- turned up. If not working still, may need to
- reconfigure Sound Card jumper board settings to
- another I/O address or IRQ vector.
-
- Problem: When clicking on the Magnifying Glass ICON (ZOOM)
- the picture begins to blow up but in the end
- the full screen picture doesn't appear.
- Solution: Free up some more memory by unloading any TSR
- programs and the ZOOM feature will work.
-
- Problem: Can someone copy the disks from 5 1/4" to 3 1/2"
- to use at home.
- Solution: No, the files are compressed in a unique arrangement.
- Call for free disks.
-
- Problem: Is the program COPYPROTECTED?
- Solution: No, however it may be difficult to copy from one media
- to another, due to compression and disk arrangements.
-
- Problem: Not enough hard disk space.
- Solution: Clear off old programs and get at least 8Mb of hard
- disk space.
-
- Problem: My VIRUSCAN program detects a Virus on your disk.
- Solution Check that disk with Norton Antivirus and that probably
- won't report anything wrong. There are old versions
- of the VIRUSCAN program that can be fooled to think
- there is a virus when there really isn't.
-
-
- Problem: Printer ICON is not lit up and therefore can never print
- anything.
- Solution: Turn computer off, hook up printer, turn printer on, turn
- computer on and try again. If it doesn't work, make sure
- printer is hooked up OK on LPT1 and check this by doing
- a SHIFT-PRINTSCRN from a DOS prompt.
-
- Problem: Seems like there was a data-error reading the floppy
- disks during Install because there is junk on the screen
- and the Install program has stopped.
- Solution: Press [Enter] or the letter R to retry the operation.
-
-
- Problem: For some reason the Install program won't run.
- Solution: On the last disk of your Science Adventure set there
- is a batch files called INSTALL.BAT. This batch file
- is provided for you to use if are having trouble using
- the Install program. First
- make a directory called SCIENCE by typing:
-
- MD \SCIENCE [Enter]
- CD \SCIENCE [Enter]
-
- Then if you are installing from Drive A, copy the
- file IINSTALL.BAT to your hard disk by typing:
-
- COPY A:INSTALL.BAT [Enter]
-
- Then type:
-
- INSTALL A: [Enter]
-
- to start the install batch program loading files
- from Drive A.
-
- If you are installing from Drive B, do the same as
- above except type:
-
- COPY B:INSTALL.BAT [Enter]
- then:
-
- INSTALL B: [Enter]
-
-
-
-
-
-
- SPECIAL THANKS. Special thanks to the families of everyone
- involved in Science Adventure for all of their time, patience,
- understanding and support throughout the many very long days and
- nights of work in the past months. And a special thanks to David
- Gross, 5, for the inspiration for this product, and for letting
- us use his computer for scanning images and testing the product.
-
- Thanks again for your interest in Science Adventure!
-
- -----------
- Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
- DESQview is a registered trademark of Quarterdeck Office Systems.
- Stacker is a registered trademark of Stac Electronics.
- Video-7 is a registered trademark of Headland Technology.
-
-
-
-