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- MONO.COM
- Command
-
- Michael J. Mefford
- 1989 No. 6 (Utilities)
-
-
- Purpose: Makes the display of color applications legible on laptop
- computers and other monochrome screens that have limited intensity range
- capabilities by translating the color attributes into black-and-white.
-
- Format: MONO [U]
-
- Remarks: MONO is a memory-resident utility that is normally loaded as
- part of an AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If no other TSR programs are installed after it,
- MONO can be deinstalled by re-entering the command with the U parameter added.
-
- Once installed, MONO automatically converts color attributes into black-
- and-white, updating the screen approximately five times each second. Since a
- typical 80 x 25 display contains 2,000 attribute bytes, some loss in speed must
- be anticipated, though the amount of degradation will vary with the type and
- clock speed of the system microprocessor. For applications that do not require
- MONO, its active state can be toggled off and on by alternately pressing Alt-M,
- the default hotkey.
-
- Instructions for changing the default hotkey and the screen update
- frequency, as well as for reversing the algorothm (should the entire screen
- appear in reverse video after color translation) and eliminating "snow" produced
- by CGA adaptors, are contained in a sidebar to the published article.
-
- Note: MONO is not intended to work with graphics programs.
-
- Available for downloading from PC MagNet (see the MONO by Modem sidebar
- in the article), MONO.COM is already compiled and ready to run. As an
- alternative, MONO.COM can be created from either of two program files that are
- both printed in the article and are available for downloading from PC MagNet.
- MONO.BAS will automatically create MONO.COM when run once in BASIC. To create
- MONO.COM from the MONO.ASM source code requires use of a macro assembler (IBM or
- Microsoft, Version 2 or later) and the following commands:
-
- MASM MONO;
- LINK MONO;
- EXE2BIN MONO MONO.COM;
-