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- Zippy, the Talking Pinhead, version 1.0 by Chuck Shotton. 6-16-88
- =================================================================
- Zippy is a program, similar to the infamous Talking Moose DA. Zippy hangs
- out in the background of your Mac, waiting to enlighten you with his random
- words of wisdom. Zippy is currently in his first incarnation, and any
- suggestions for his enhancement are greatly appreciated. Zippy is free to
- the Mac community, but his program (not his likeness) is Copyright, 1988 by
- Chuck Shotton and BIAP Systems.
-
- Running Zippy
- =============
- Using this program is EXTREMELY simple. Just double-click the file and
- sit back. Zippy is designed to run in the background with Multifinder,
- you MUST be running Multifinder to use Zippy (you can run Zippy without
- Multifinder, but it's pretty boring). In addition, Zippy speaks using the
- Macintalk speech synthesis driver. This file MUST be in your System Folder.
-
- Once he is running, just click the Multifinder icon in the upper right corner
- of the screen, or select another program's window to move him out of the way.
-
- To stop Zippy, make it the active application and then select "Quit" from the
- File menu.
-
- Modifying Zippy
- ===============
- Zippy is designed to be totally user-configurable. If you are creative with
- ResEdit, you can make Zippy look like a moose (or anything else), say whatever
- you want, and wake up whenever you say. There are 3 resource types that can
- be modified to change how Zippy acts. The PICT resources numbered 200-208
- define Zippy's face (you can have fewer or more faces...more later). The STR#
- resources define what Zippy says. And, the INTG resources define several
- integer constants that affect how Zippy operates.
-
- INTG Resources
- ==============
- These resources are hexadecimal representations of 2 byte integers. They define
- constants that change the operation of Zippy as follows:
-
- #128 "Num of PICTs"
- -------------------
- This number represents the number of PICTs used for Zippy's random faces.
- This number must be 1 less than the actual count. So, if you have 10 pictures
- for Zippy's faces, set this INTG resource to 9.
-
- #129 "Num of Strs"
- ------------------
- This INTG resource defines the number of phrases available for Zippy to
- speak. It is the count of individual strings in the STR# 128 resource. If you
- add phrases to the STR# 128 resource, remember to increase this number.
-
- #130 "PICT Height" and #131 "PICT Width"
- ----------------------------------------
- These INTGs define the height and width of Zippy's face pictures in pixels.
-
- #132 "Left Offset" and #133 "Top Offset"
- ----------------------------------------
- These two INTGs define where Zippy will show up on the screen. They define
- the top-left corner of where his face pictures will be drawn.
-
- #134 "Seconds to Delay"
- -----------------------
- This INTG defines how many seconds Zippy will sleep before waking up with a
- new message.
-
- STR# Resources
- ==============
- You can modify what Zippy says by editing the STR# resource #128 ("Phrases").
- Simply click on one of the rows of asterisks ("*******"), select "New" from the
- menu in ResEdit, and enter your new text as plain English. Don't forget to
- modify the INTG resource #129 to reflect the total number of phrases.
-
- PICT Resources
- ==============
- You can change Zippy's appearances completely by altering the PICT resources
- that are displayed for his face. You can have as few or as many faces as you
- want. Create new faces using a tool such as MacPaint (color bitmaps should work
- too), copy them to the Scrapbook, and paste them into Zippy using ResEdit.
- There are a few IMPORTANT things that must be done after the pictures are
- pasted into the PICT resources in Zippy. The resource IDs of the PICTs that
- make up Zippy's faces must be numbered sequentially, starting at 200. So if you
- have 6 pictures, the PICT IDs must be 200-205.
-
- Zippy works best if all of his face pictures are identical in size. It is
- important for performance reasons that INTG resources #130 and #131 be set to
- the exact width and height of the PICTs. If the sizes are off, you may hear
- clicks and pops while Zippy is speaking.
-
- More Info
- =========
- Zippy was written using MPW Pascal, but should port easily to other versions of
- Pascal. Source code is available for $8. Please send any comments or requests
- to:
-
- Chuck Shotton
- c/o BIAP Systems
- P.O. Box 580622
- Houston, TX 77258-0622
-
- GEnie ID : c.shotton12
- BIX ID : cshotton
- CIS : 72460,764
- AppleLink: D1683
-
- -or-
-
- Call BIAP's BBS at:
- (713) 480-7422, FidoNet node 1:106/260
-