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The Great American Ansi Machine Version 1.2 - Now with Slide Show Program! - - Program Documemtation - (C) Copyright 1992 Rand Nowell ────────────────────────────── RaLin Enterprises "Putting Bits Together" (tm) Released July 1992 Manual Index System Requirements.........................1 Introduction................................1 Where to Put Program Files..................1 Command Line Use............................2 Running GAM.................................2 Main Menu...................................2 Bottom Line Help............................3 Menu Choices: Files Pick List............................3 Dos Shell............................3 Pick List Commands: F1...................................3 F2...................................4 F3...................................4 F4...................................4 F5...................................4 F6...................................4 Draw: Ansi...................................4 Fonts..................................4 Slide Show...........................4,5 Help,Info,Quit..............................5 Comments....................................5 Shareware...................................5 License.....................................5 Crippling...................................5 Incentives..................................6 Registration Notes..........................6 Author Contact............................6,7 Support.....................................7 Acknowledgements............................7 Copyright: The Great American Ansi Machine, the program and documentation, are not a Public Domain or Free program. It is the Copyrighted (C)1992 work of Rand Nowell dba Ralin Enterprises. All rights are reserved. Copying, duplicating, selling or otherwise distributing this product except as noted in the Distribution Policy below is a violation of Federal Copyright Law. You are authorized to evaluate the program for a period of two weeks. If after two weeks you wish to continue using the program, registration is in order. Please see REGISTER.DOC Distribution: 1. Feel free to distribute the Shareware version of this program as often as you like to any interested parties. Distribution to Electronic Bullentin Boards is encouraged. 2. Please do not distribute this program without all the original related files such as documentation, readme files, registration forms etc. 3. Please distribute ONLY the original authenticated ZIP format file. 4. Please obtain our written permission before including the program with any "bundled" software packages. 5. Please do not accept payment for the program; a copying fee of $5.00 per diskette may be charged by a non-profit user-group. 6. Please do not alter the program or documentation in any way. 7. Individuals, groups, vendors or other software distribution companies which market diskettes containg shareware or test-drive evaluation programs, for profit, must obtain written permission from RaLin Enterprises prior to distribution. DISTRIBUTION of the REGISTERED version of this program is in violation of the license agreement and copyright law. ************************* DISCLAIMER ***************************** This program is supplied "as is" without warrenty of any kind. The entire risk of using, and results from the use of, is assumed by you the user. You assume all costs of repair, servicing and corrections stemming from the use of this program. Rand Nowell and/or RaLin Enterprises, or any other associated company of the program author will not be held liable for any damages from the use of this program. No warranties are expressed or implied. ******************************************************************** To the original licensee of the REGISTERD version of The Program RaLin Enterprises DOES warrant that the program disk(s) on which the program is recorded, be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal use and service for a period of (90) ninety days from date of delivery as evidenced by your receipt. Our entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be replacement of the deffective disk not meeting the standards of this limited warranty. And in no case shall exceed the cost of reimbursment of monies paid for program registration. GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Dos Ver: Dos 3.x and above. Should work with DR Dos and 4Dos, but not tested. Memory: Requires 300K available memory if you intend to run external programs. This is a comfortable margin, you can get by with a little less. GAM itself will run in as little as 100K. It uses aprox. 60K for its own use, so 100K would be pretty slim! Video: Requires a Color Monitor, CGA,EGA,VGA Drivers: Requires that Ansi.Sys or a similar video driver be loaded on memory, to enable Ansi displays. Hard Drive: Recommended, but GAM will run from a 360K floppy. Other: None, except the urge to have fun with Ansi's. INTRODUCTION: GAM.EXE is The Great American Ansi Machine. Now just what is a Ansi Machine? Well, this one is a Menu Driven Shell type program. Once you start GAM you can create ANSI files, create Asci/Ansi letter files and view your creations, or those of others....All From One Program! GAM will take some of the work out of your viewing time, and insert a little more pleasure. Not only does GAM present you with a Shell for your Ansi creation and viewing, it works as a command line viewer too. Now, you're probably saying "Why should I use GAM? I can just use the DOS Type command!" Well thats true. But there are benefits to using GAM, even without the Menu Driven Interface! And that will be explained further, a little ways down the document. The Great American Ansi Machine was created to simplify the command typing thats involved in loading the drawing program, and viewing the files. A couple of keypresses and you can change directories, select a file and Viola! there it is...displaying on your screen. OK...Now lets get down to business! WHERE TO PUT FILES: The files GAM.EXE, TDRAW.BAT and LETTERS.BAT should be placed in a directory that is included in the PATH statement, which should be a part of your AUTOEXEC.BAT startup file. This will allow them to be called from anywhere in the system. Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !! GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 2 COMMAND LINE USE: GAM can be used from the command prompt, without going through the Menu interface. For a brief Help Screen you can type GAM ?, this presents a simple listing of command line use. To view an Ansi file you type GAM <filename> where filename is the name of the Ansi File "without the extension", most people use the default file extension of .ANS for Ansi files, if your files conform to this standard then the extension is not needed. GAM will append the extension to the filename. Thus, if you wanted to view the file MYHOUSE.ANS you would simply type GAM MYHOUSE and press <Enter>. Now and then you, or others, will have a reason to save the Ansi file with a different extension, if this is the case then you need to include it in the filename, so to display an Ansi file named MYHOUSE.MSG you would type GAM MYHOUSE.MSG. GAM will then display the Ansi to the screen. Once the Ansi has been typed, after a 2-3 second pause, a message bar will display across the bottom of the screen. Then message bar contains the name of the file you are viewing and tells you to press the Space Bar to exit. Doing so will clear the screen and return you to the prompt. Most times, this message will not interfere with the picture, but occasionally you will have a screen that uses all 25 lines. This is why there is a pause before the bar displays, so you can see the whole picture. RUNNING THE PROGRAM: Type GAM with no parameters at the Dos prompt. This will load the Menu Driven Interface. You will be presented a colorful main screen containing a horizontal Menu Bar across the top. THE MAIN MENU: ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Files Draw Help Info Quit ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── These menu choices will be covered one by one in the following text. Each one will be fully explained, covering all actions that are available from each, in detail. The Menu highlite bar may be moved from choice to choice by pressing the left and right arrow keys. Pressing the spacebar will also move the selector one choice to the right with each press. When the selector reaches the far left or right choice it will wrap to the other end of the Menu Bar. When the choice you want is highlighted you can activate it by press Enter, or either the Up or Down arrow key. You may also choose and Activate a menu choice by pressing the Highlighted Character of an item. The "Files" and "Draw" choice each present another menu, where your selections can be made by selecting and pressing Enter, or pressing the highlighted character. To ABORT a Sub-Menu just press Esc. This will out the Sub-Menu away and return to the Main Menu. Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !! GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 3 BOTTOM LINE HELP: You will notice while moving the selector bar across the Menu Bar choices, a brief description of that choices actions is displayed at the bottom of the screen. THE MENU CHOICES: FILES: Choosing Files will present a Sub-Menu where you may choose Pick List or Dos Shell. >> Dos Shell: Selecting this will take you to the Dos Command Prompt, where you may execute any Dos command, or run another program. Typing EXIT will return you to The Machine. GAM uses about 60K of memory, so you get whats left. Please remember........... 1. DO NOT LOAD TSR PROGRAMS WHILE IN THE DOS SHELL 2. DO NOT RELOAD GAM...YOU WILL GET THOROUGHLY CONFUSED. >> Pick List: The screen will clear and you will see a File Display window, and to the left a menu of Command Function Keys. The files that come up in the window are those in the directory where you first start GAM. At the top of the list will be displayed the current directory. At the bottom of the list will be displayed MORE if there are more files to view, and NO MORE FILES if there are not. (Makes sense....) Now, in order to conserve somewhat on memory usage and manipulation, GAM uses a direct read and write to display the files. So you cannot just move a cursor bar up and down and scroll the display. Actually I belive this way is somewhat faster when you have to search through a large number of files. Here are the Function Keys and what they do. Some Alternate keys are provided also. They show next to the Function Key command. They ARE NOT visable in the program. F1: Menu Bar (Alternate: Alt-M) When the file you want to view is displayed in the window, press F1 to activate the selector bar. Place the bar on a filename and press Enter. If the name selected is a file, it will be displayed on the screen. If the name is a directory then GAM will change to that directory and display those files. NOTE: Currently GAM does not check for a valid file format. So it is possible to select and display any file....BAT, .TXT and even COM and EXE files. If you display a COM or EXE file, or any file that is not of a text file nature, you will just see garbage and hear a lot of beeps. What a mess! Valid file checking is slated for a future release, in the meantime, be sure of your selection. And if you DO try to display an invalid file, pressing one of the arrow keys will return you to the Pick List. Once a file has been selected to view, GAM will display the file to your screen. Once the file has been drawn, there will be about a 2-3 second pause, then a message bar will display on the last line, showing the file name, number of lines of ansi code in the file, and to the far right there Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !! GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 4 are some commands you may use. Redraw: Will prompt for a draw speed, you may slow down the drawing this way. Pressing Enter defaults to Full Speed! Exit: Will return you to the Pick List. ABORTING THE PICKLIST: NOTE: ONCE THE MENU BAR HAS BEEN ACTIVATED, THE FUNCTION KEYS WILL NO LONGER WORK. TO ABORT THE PICK LIST PRESS ESC. ALSO SEE F6 BELOW. F2: Show More (Alternate: Down-Arrow) This key will display the next 19 files to be found in the current directory. You can use this to browse through all files in the directory. If you happen to pass up the file you want, or just want to view those already passed, just press..... F3: Re-Display (Alternate: Up-Arrow) This will re-display files from the beginning. F4: Change Drive (Alternate: Alt-D) This key will allow you to log onto another drive. This can be another fixed disk or a floppy. A window will pop up asking what drive...press the letter of the drive you wish to change to. ACCESSING FLOPPY FILES: Should you log onto a floppy drive without a disk inserted, or the door open, GAM will attempt to log for several seconds. You have this time to correct the problem by closing the door, or inserting the disk. If you do not do this soon enough, you will hear a beep and a message will show stating NO FLOPPY, you will then be returned to the Main Menu. F5: CD.. (Alternate: Alt-C) This key will immediately log the parent directory of the one you are currently in. This is usefull for backing up through directories. F6: Quit List (Alternate: Esc) This will exit the Pick List and return you to the Main Menu. REMEMBER: These function keys are NOT available once the Menu Bar has been activated, you will have to press Esc to abort. DRAW: This presents two Menu choices, (Ansi) and (Fonts). They have been provided as a means to call your favorite drawing programs from within GAM. Two batch files are required. To call your drawing program edit the supplied file TDRAW.BAT and insert the proper commands. To call your letter/font generating program edit the LETTERS.BAT file and insert the proper commands. NOTE: THESE BATCH FILES SHOULD BE PLACED IN A DIRECTORY THAT IS IN YOUR PATH STATEMENT. Also Available is 'Slides', this will run the companion program The Ansi Animation Slide Show. Please refer to the AASS.DOC file for further info. Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !! GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 5 NOTE!! There is NO BATCH FILE for this program, it is called directly. Therefore it is critical that this program be placed in a PATH directory, and that it NOT be renamed. Keep it as AASS.EXE! HELP: This will present two Help screens with some command basics and helpful information. INFO: Displays a screen showing the Current Time and Date, and some program information. QUIT: Exits the Great American Ansi Machine. When GAM starts up, it saves a record of which directory it was called from. Upon Exit it will take you back to that directory. This is protection for exiting while still logged onto a floppy, and perhaps the disk has been removed. Were that to happen you would receive the "Drive Not Ready" Dos message. So no matter where you go in GAM, you will end up where you started. AUTHOR COMMENTS: It is hoped that you find The Machine a useful and enjoyable tool, and thats just what it is... A Tool. (But a fun one!) This program is being distributed under the Shareware Concept, an explanation follows. WHAT IS SHAREWARE?: A Shareware Program is one that the Author distributes out into Public Access, so that you may try it out for evaluation. This gives you the opportunity to check it out and see if it fits your needs without putting out your hard earned cash up front. If you find the program useful, it is expected that you will pay the Registration fee requested. If you find the program not what you need...delete it from your disk. Its only the right thing to do! We authors spend countless hours developing useful programs that you may purchase at a very reasonable price. And we depend on your honesty to register if you intend to continue the programs use. PROGRAM LICENSE: You are authorized to use this program free of charge for a period of two weeks. If after that period, you continue its use, a registration is in order. If you do not intend to register the program, please delete it from your drive. HONESTY PAYS! NO CRIPPLING: This program is not crippled in any way. It is a fully functional copy, and differs from the Registered version only in that some reminders, if included here, will not be shown in the Registered version. Also, if a newer version has been hatched at the time of your Registration, you will receive that newer version. REGISTRATION INCENTIVES: Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !! GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 6 Upon receiving a registration form and the registration fee, you will receive: 1. A copy of the program, without reminder(s). 2. Several Utility packages developed by the Author including but not limited to, several handy Screen Savers, some Print and View utilities. 3. Registered copy of the Slide Show Program - UNLIMITED file display! 4. A listing of some of our other programs available, and where to get them. 5. Notification of new releases. 6. Complete support for the product, mail,phone or Elec.Mail. REGISTRATION: 1. $15.00 (One time registration) all the above, plus you are registered for all future releases. (YES there will be more.) 2. $10.00 (One time Registration) you receive support as above, with extra utilities. You DO NOT receive the Registered copy of the Slide Show Program. 3. You may also register only the Slide Show Program. See the file AASS.DOC 4. $.? Money tight? Yep, I know the feeling! If you enjoy the program but cannot afford to register right now, please send what you can, as a gift in exchange for the copy you have. YOUR COMMENTS: User comments, good or bad are always welcome! If you have an idea or a request for enhancement of the program. Let me know! I most always implement GOOD suggestions into my programs. The EXTRA good ideas get rewarded too! Comments and suggestions can be sent in on the Comments Form, attached to the Registration Form. AUTHOR CONTACT: I can be reached by several means. Phone: (510) 651-0253 Ask for Rand If you get my wife, or the answering machine, please leave your name, number, and a brief description of the problem, and I will get back to you ASAP! (See SUPPORT below) Net Mail: 1:215/777 or 1:161/42 Rand Nowell Compuserve ID: 76124,761 (Checked 1-2 times a month) FIDO Net: Shareware Conference Rand Nowell Mail: Rand Nowell Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !! GAM.DOC The Great American Ansi Machine 1.2 Page 7 RaLin Enterprises 49728 Sundale Dr. Fremont, Ca. 94538 SUPPORT: Registered users receive full unlimited support, if I have to call you back, it will be on my dime! Unregistered users will receive help, but if I have to call, expect a collect one. See the REGISTER.DOC file for our Registration plans. If you have any comments (good or bad) or suggestions, please use the Comments/Suggestions form attached to the Registration. Thank You! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The Great American Ansi Machine was written with Turbo Pascal version 6.0, a product of Borland International. A GREAT programming language! Thanks Borland, for a job well done. All screens in The Machine were created with the Saywhat! screen generator, a product of Software Science. Saywhat is hands down the best utility to create and manipulate screens from within MANY programming languages. My appreciation to Software Science. To those of you who Register, Thanks for helping support the SHAREWARE CONCEPT! Registering this and other products, give the authors incentive to continue enhancements and to develop new products for your use. <eof> GAM.DOC........ Now Includes an External Slide Show Program !!