THE PDSL SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL CD
**********************************

This disk comes with a front end program called VIEW.EXE that will allow
you to quickly and easily select, unzip and copy programs from the disk.
To run this program just log into the root directory and type GO <return>.
Mostly this view program will do all you need but the following pages give
more information on handling ZIP files and general instructions for installing
and using shareware programs and how to handle problems you may encounter.
This CD should be considered to be a bulk storage medium and is not set
up to run the programs (apart from the front end) from it directly.

GETTING STARTED - PLEASE READ THIS SECTION

Knowing the design philosophy of this CD and how the material is organised
will certainly make it easier for you to use it. Please read the next few
pages. 

BACKGROUND

Currently, and for many years, we have been distributing PD and Shareware
disks in the UK, Europe and other countries. During this time we have collected
many thousands of programs. Each program or collection of programs on a
disk is given a unique volume. If a program has a major update then it will
get a new number. Minor updates, such as "bug fixes" will mostly not be given
unless the number of disks needed to hold it has changed. With both types of
update the changes from the previous version will be shown in italics in the
text.

The design of our cataloguing system is obviously oriented towards disk
distribution. Perhaps BBS sysops may not find this exactly to their liking,
but we believe that it does allow you to quickly find the program you are
looking for and is more friendly for new users. Each disk is stored in
a separate ZIP file to allow related files to be kept together and to allow
more software to be fitted into less disk space.
Each ZIP file will have a name corresponding to our library catalogue number
(apart from Simtel files) EG. H219.ZIP, 1912.ZIP etc.
The book accompanying this CD will tell you the contents of these and
all the other files on this CD ROM.

Many of the programs on this disk are SHAREWARE. This can be considered to 
a sort of "try before you buy system" in which you are
expected to make a payment to the author if you find the program
useful. Please note, that the fact of you having paid for this CD and
accompanying manual in NO WAY lessens your requirement to register
shareware. 

We believe the public domain and Shareware system of software distribution is
one of the best things to happen in personal computing, and something well
worth supporting. We do this by collecting, testing, cataloguing and making
available as much of the huge wealth of PD and Shareware as we can. 
We hope you will think we have done a good job and that you, in turn,
will support the system by registering programs you find useful with
their authors.

ASSOCIATION OF SHAREWARE PROFESSIONALS (ASP)

Some of the programs on this CD are from authors who are ASP members. These
programs are indicated by a star next to the disk volume number.  The ASP is
dedicated to raising levels of quality and service for Shareware programs.
The following is a summary of what you can expect from programs provided by
ASP authors.

Programs will not be crippled; they will be fully functional programs.
However, registration may be encouraged by providing the user with extra
facilities, printed manuals or other bonuses. Programs will have been fully
tested by the author and should not be harmful to other files or hardware if
used properly. The program author will respond to people who send
registration payments, as promised in the programme's documentation.

All ASP members' Shareware products include a minimum of 3 months support
from the date of registration. 

Program documentation will include information on hardware requirements,
about any known incompatibility with other software or hardware, how to
register, what goods and/or services will be received for registering,
registration fees and all the programme's features.

The ASP wants to make sure that the Shareware principle works for you. If you
are unable to resolve a Shareware-related problem with an ASP member by
contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman
can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not
provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP
Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 or send a Compuserve
message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536 

THE FOLLOWING PAGES CONTAIN CERTAIN REFERENCES TO PROGRAMS ON OUR LIBRIS
BRITANNIA DISKS WHICH MAY NOT BE PRESENT ON THIS DISK BUT THE GENERAL
PRINCIPLES REMAIN THE SAME.

HOW THE CD IS ORGANISED

Files are listed with the main category headings in
alphabetical order. Some categories also have subcategories where applicable.

The subdirectories on the CD are organised to correspond with these
categories and subcategories. Because of the limitations of filenames imposed
by DOS, we have had to truncate these to the first eight letters and, in some
cases to remove name conflicts, have had to make minor changes to them.
However, these changes are small enough so that it should be obvious what the
directory contains. 

Some items could fit into more than one category so you might need to use
a bit of lateral thinking to figure out where to look.  Check the Table of
Contents on page 1 for help. To assist in finding particular titles we have
also provided a synopsis of programs in the root directory of the CD. This
file is called INDEX.TXT and contains a list of each file and a single line
description for it. Note, however, that some disks, contain several
separate programs. These won't all show up in the single line description 
so you will have to look at the printed descriptions in the book
to see them all.

Program source disks (those with a numeric file name) are either standard 
360k 5.25" floppies or high density 1.2Mb types these latter are identified
by an "H" prefix to the number. The contents of each disk are stored on the
CD in the form of a ZIP file. (ZIP file compression is a method of 
compressing more data into less disk space, and also serves as a way of 
keeping related files together. Often compression of 60% or more is obtained.)

As mentioned earlier, some disks contain several different programs. Usually
with these disk compilations each separate program will be contained in an
archive within the main disk archive. With these you will have a little more
work to do before you can run the program.

Some authors insist on providing their programs on disks with subdirectories.
For this reason you will find a few volumes with archives containing
directory information. These have to be unzipped so as to retain the
directory structure when the program is unpacked. This is done using the -d
option with PKUNZIP; more on this later.

OTHER ARCHIVE TYPES THAN ZIP

In general, when we add a program to the library, we tend to retain the type
of archiving used by the program author. This means that within the disk
archives (which are all ZIP type), you will sometimes find other archive
types (LZH, ARC, ZOO etc.). You will also run into SELF EXTRACTING archives.
These look like regular executable programs with an EXE file name type, but
when you run them they start unpacking themselves. We have provided a
complete range of unpackers in the UTILITIE directory which should handle any
kind of archive you run into.

CAUTIONS

It takes only a very short time to wipe out hundreds or thousands of hours of
work on your hard disk, even if you are one of those people who seems to lead
a charmed life and nothing bad ever happened to you. While you may be such an
unlikely person, if you in any way rely on a computer, you should have
everything of value backed up. What's more, you should occasionally check
your backups. I recently heard of a major company who had been religiously
backing up their system onto tape after each day's work. One day, the system
went down. Never having had a system failure before, there had never been a
need to restore from a backup and no one had ever checked the tapes. Attempts
to restore from them failed; the tapes were full of garbage due to undetected
errors in the tape system. Incidentally, some so-called backup systems are
useless. They can only restore to the same hard disk from which they were
saved. If your hard disk expires in smoke this is not a lot of help. The test
of a backup system is if you can take a backup disk or tape and restore it to
another system. Also, you want to be able to restore just selected files if
required. If your backup system can't do this, dump it and get one that can
and actually test that it can.

If you are testing unfamiliar software, and particularly if you are not an
expert, then having good backups is vital. Disk sector editors, hard disk
optimisers, hard disk space savers and password protection systems have the
most potential for trouble if misused or if something goes wrong. If you have
spent many hours setting up and optimising your system, to have your work
wiped out by some dumb install program overwriting your CONFIG.SYS,
AUTOEXEC.BAT or WIN.INI files can be highly annoying. It's a good idea to
have backup copies of these files on a floppy so you can do a quick
restoration if things go wrong.

THE PROCEDURE (BEGINNERS)

The VIEW program provided on this CD will do most of the things needed;
allowing you to view, copy and unpack files by just following the prompts.

However if you do wish to do the job manually the following may help:

The simplest way to get programs off the CD is to turn them back
into disk volumes. This way you will end up with disks just like you would
get from your favourite Shareware disk vendor.

Before you can do this you will need to have the program PKUNZIP somewhere
your computer can find it. Lets say your CD is drive D: and your hard disk is
drive C:.  Type:

COPY D:\PKUNZIP.EXE C:\ (enter)

there is another program you will need as well so type:

COPY D:\T.COM C:\ (enter)

The next step is to check your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to make sure it includes 
C:\ in the path definition. If from the DOS prompt you type:

PATH (return)

The computer will respond with a line showing something like:

PATH C:\;C:\DOS;D:\ etc

If C:\ or wherever you put PKUNZIP.EXE and T.COM is not in the line then edit
your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and add it to the end of the PATH line IE. add.

;C:\

Now reboot your computer. From now on, whenever you ask to run PKUNZIP the
computer will know where to look for it.

Now let's try extracting some programs from the CD. As before, we will assume
your CD drive is set up as D:, and that your A: drive is a floppy. If your
drive letters are different, just make the appropriate letter substitutions.

Let's say we want to extract volume 2348 (LANDSCAPE PLANT MANAGER). We are
going to unpack it from the CD and put the unpacked program on a floppy in
drive A: First, put a formatted blank disk in drive A: (It is IMPORTANT that
the blank disk should NOT have a system on it or there may not be enough room
for the programs). Now type:

PKUNZIP -d D:\TEX\H220.ZIP A:\ (return)

NOTE: In the above command line argument, the -d switch tells PKUNZIP to
create any subdirectories it may find in the source archive. Not many volumes
have these, but using this switch each time you unpack a program will ensure
you don't miss unpacking some data if there are subdirectories. Remember that
some programs consist of more than one file. With these you will need to
unpack each part.

HIGH DENSITY VOLUMES

If the program you want to extract has a catalogue number beginning "H", EG.
"H001" this means that it requires a high density disk 1.2mb 5.25" or 1.4mb
3.5" to accommodate it. Again, any blank formatted disks you use should NOT
be DOS system disks as the space used by the system may not leave enough room
for the programs.

INSTALLING PROGRAMS

If all went well, you should now have a disk or disks containing your
selected programs. Unfortunately, there is no standard procedure for
installing programs, and the exact things you have to type in will be
different for each one. The procedure to install any particular program will
be in the author's documentation for that program. Your first step is
therefore to locate and read this.  

Check each disk for document files. Use the DIR command to do this. You will
be looking for files with names like:

README

READ     ME

MANUAL   DOC

INFO     TXT

PDSL     TXT

Usually the files you are looking for will be fairly obvious by their names.
Notice the end part of the file name (the file extension); this is usually
the giveaway. DOC (document) and TXT (text) are the most commonly used for
program documentation.

To view one of these files on the screen type:

VIEW READ.ME

Notice here that with READ.ME we have replaced the space between the two
parts of the file name as shown in the directory listing with a period (full
stop). This is a DOS convention because spaces are not allowed in filenames.
You will now be able to view the file on screen and scroll through it using
your arrow keys. You can also search for text by pressing 'S', pressing "?"
will display a list of available commands. If you get
a message File not found it means that you have made an error typing the file
name, or you are not logged into the disk or directory where the text file
is.

The view program by default looks for the file DIRS.TXT and automatically
gives you a walk through the listings of each directory.
You select the directory or file you want to examine by typing <enter>. If
the file is not a ZIP archive type you can hit 'V' to view the file or
'C' to copy it off to another drive. 
If you select a directory, you will see all the file and directory entries for
that directory.  If you select a file, the view program will ask you in which
directory you want to unzip the files.  View will give you a default which is
the same path as is on the CDROM.  If you don't like that one you can enter
another path.  (View will create directories that don't exist.)  View then
unzips the file you selected and leaves you at the DOS prompt in the
directory with the file you unzipped.

PRINTING DOCUMENTATION

Many people prefer printed documentation and certainly it is a great help,
particularly when learning a complicated program. In general printing a text
file can be done by the command-

COPY FILENAME PRN

This will send FILENAME to the printer. However, a warning here; some authors
are not very good at keeping their documents compact, with lots of white
space, huge margins and pages with just a few lines on them. This is fine for
readability but can produce annoyingly large piles of paper. Check out volume
2855 under PRINTING utilities for ways to reduce this paper pile.

An alternative way to print these files is to load them into your normal word
processor or desktop publishing program and print them as you would your own
work.

MORE ON PKZIP/UNZIP

The full version of these utilities with documentation will be found in
the UTILITIE subdirectory, well worth registering these excellent programs.

ARCHIVES IN ARCHIVES 

As mentioned earlier, some disks contain collections of programs each of
which may be in a separate archive. Also, some authors provide their programs
in two or three separate archives. With these types of disk, when you unpack
the main ZIP file, you end up with a disk full of smaller archives. Basically
the way of handling these is just the same as for single archive files (as
above), but you will have to repeat the procedure for each archive. If you
have two floppy disk drives, you could unpack your secondary archives onto
the second floppy, or if not, you could unpack to a temporary subdirectory on
your hard disk.

OTHER ARCHIVE TYPES

Most of the archive files in the Library are of the ZIP type but there are a
few other types. Like ZIP archives they can be identified by their filename
extension; you will find ARC, LZH, ARJ and a few ZOO archives. Unpackers for
all of these will be found in the UTILITIE directory and their command line
syntax is similar to that for PKUNZIP.

SELF EXTRACTING ARCHIVES

You cannot tell a self-extracting archive from the filename; they have an EXE
extension just like a normal executable program. It is not until you try
running one that you find out, as you will start to get unpacking messages on
the screen. Self-extracting archives can be slightly more awkward because
many of them will not take a drive and path argument to tell them where to
put the extracted files. For example, if our self-extracting archive was
called PROG.EXE and was on drive A: then typing:

A>>PROG C:\TEST

may not, as you might expect, put the extracted files on drive C: in our TEST
subdirectory where we want them. However, if we first log into C:\TEST
directory and then call the archive, the files will go to the correct place.

C:\TEST>> A:PROG (This line will work correctly.) 

INSTALLATION PROGRAMS

Often you will find that installing a program consists of nothing more than
copying the program and its files into a subdirectory, and it is then ready
to run. Some programs come with a special INSTALL program. Often these
install programs are very good and cater for almost any imaginable hardware
configuration and any circumstance the user may run into. However, there are
some which can cause problems. Ones to watch out for: insist that you install
from drive A:; insist on unpacking archives into the same directory and may
run out of disk space if this is a floppy; insist that the disk has a certain
volume label DISK 1, DISK 2 etc; assume that all hard disks are C: ; Insist
on creating a new AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS file so messing up your system
configuration. Most of these are easily handled. The DOS ASSIGN command can
route calls to drive A: to drive B: or wherever, and the volume label can be
changed with the DOS 5 LABEL command or a suitable disk utility. Always keep
backup copies of your AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS Windows INI files and any
other configuration files that may get disturbed when installing new
programs. 

COMMON PROBLEMS

Over the years, we have distributed vast numbers of Shareware and PD disks to
all kinds of users from the super expert to the complete beginner. This has
lead to us getting quite a lot of feedback about problems people have with
programs. Listed here are some of the most common and how to solve them.

KNOWING DOS

Long experience has shown that nearly all problems with library disks are due
to not knowing DOS or not reading the program documentation. If you have
problems with DOS, check out the COMPUTER EDUCATION section where you will
find many excellent programs to help you.

ATTITUDE

We live in an age where we have come to expect instant everything. Marketing
men reinforce this with things like "Do your Accounts in Ten Minutes with
Money Mangler Plus" or "Desktop Publishing in Three Minutes with Grotworks
Publisher". Lacking experience in the subject, the new computer user can get
fooled by all this - into thinking that if they can't get the program working
in 30 seconds there is something wrong with it. Another variation on this is
the person who demands that he be told the Key he has to press. He does not
want to expend any effort or bother to read about or understand anything. He
thinks he is just going to press some magic button and his accounts will be
done. Well, sorry to disabuse you of these ideas, but the fact of the matter
is that you are going to have to do some work - fiddle around a bit, curse a
few times and read a few manuals. Even an experienced user could take days or
even weeks to get vaguely productive with a complicated program.

SCREEN GRAPHICS

This is an area that causes a lot of problems. The main display types are
HERCULES (mono), CGA (low resolution colour), EGA (higher resolution colour),
VGA (high resolution colour) and SVGA (highest resolution colour). Mostly
these are downward compatible, IE.. SVGA will run programs requiring SVGA,
VGA, EGA, CGA or HERC. VGA would run programs requiring VGA, EGA, CGA or
HERC. However, there are exceptions; certain programs, mainly arcade games,
have used programming tricks to obtain better performance on CGA monitors.
These types of program often give an effect like a TV with the horizontal
hold wrongly adjusted when run on EGA or VGA. Some programs requiring CGA or
better will cause a complete system crash or lockup when run on a HERC
system. It is possible to get round some HERC problems by using a CGA
emulator program. You will find a variety of these on disk 0730. The higher
resolutions of SVGA have not been standardised, and you will occasionally
find programs which only support certain SVGA chipsets such as TRIDENT or
TSENG LABS. However, such programs often also have an option to use lower
resolution graphics, and choosing one of these lower resolution options will
probably allow the program to work.

Some programs require use of the ANSI screen driver. For example, NETHACK and
GNU CHESS, if run without it will produce a screen full of brackets and
arrows. ANSI.SYS is a file normally provided with DOS. To install it put a
line in your CONFIG.SYS file which says:

DEVICE=ANSI.SYS

The file ANSI.SYS must be in the root directory of the disk where 
the system boots from.

MICE

Increasingly programs are provided with graphical user interfaces
incorporating mouse control. This occasionally causes problems if your mouse
or its driver software is not Microsoft compatible. Cursors disappearing or
cursor tracks left on the screen may be an indicator or this.  Just because
your mouse works with Windows does not mean it will work with other programs.
Windows has its own built-in mouse driver software.  For non-Windows programs
you will need the driver MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS installed.

DOS VERSIONS

There are not too many problems caused by DOS versions, but the DOS versions
which cause the LEAST problems are MSDOS version 3.3 and 6. Earlier versions
than 3.3 may have problems with recent programs. DOS version 4 was a
disaster, and we have many reports of problems with it. If you are still
using DOS 4 then upgrade as soon as you can. DR DOS 5 also has many reports
of problems but version 6 seems much better.

ERROR MESSAGES

"Bad Command or file name" is the most common one that new users run into.
All this means is that you have typed in something your computer did not
recognise. When you have the DOS prompt (EG. A>) on the screen and type in
something, your computer will first check if it is a built-in command like
DIR or COPY. If not, it will look on the disk for a program of that name and,
failing to find it, will give the error message as above. 

Error messages like: Access denied at line NN, Can't open file, Runtime error
NN etc are most often caused by incorrect program installation. Some programs
have to be installed in a subdirectory with a particular name, or may have to
be set up so they know where their files are supposed to be. Check the
authors documentation. To find out about subdirectories read your DOS manual.
Too many files and similar messages can be caused if you don't have enough
files set. This environment setting is done in your CONFIG.SYS file with the
statement FILES=20. If this statement is missing then add it. If the number
is less than 20 then increase it to at least 20. Note that some programs that
use lots of open files at one time may need settings as high as 50 or 60.

COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS

This term is often used in program documentation but not defined anywhere.
Here's an example of what it means. If we had a file on our disk called
READ.ME and we wanted to view it on the screen with the TYPE command we would
enter:

A:>TYPE READ.ME

The command is TYPE and the argument is READ.ME. Notice the space after the
command, and the . (period) between READ and ME. This is not shown when you
do a DIR of the disk but when using file names in an argument you must always
add one.

PROGRAM CONFLICTS

Having memory resident programs loaded whilst trying to run another program
can often cause problems. The general rule if a program won't run properly is
to remove any memory resident programs and try again.  This includes ANYTHING
that leaves part of itself in memory, including KEYBOARD DRIVERS, MOUSE
DRIVERS, DEVICE DRIVERS, POP-UPS of all kinds and ANY kind of DOS shell or
menu system including WINDOWS. Start with a basic empty system, then you can
add things one at a time until you hit the one causing trouble.

BASIC PROGRAMS

Disks containing BASIC language programs (with a .BAS file extension) will
need BASICA, GWBASIC or equivalent to run them. In general, to run Basic
programs you would type:

A:>GWBASIC PROGRAM NAME

Your Basic interpreter, GWBASIC or whatever it's called, must be in the same
directory as the program. 

TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND REGISTRATION

PDSL cannot provide any technical support for
public domain or Shareware programs.  In general technical support for
programs is provided by program authors after you have paid them the required
registration fee.  The authors' name, address and requested registration fee
will normally be found in one of the document files along with the program.
Incentives for registration vary widely, ranging from nothing but a clear
conscience to printed manuals, new versions and technical support.  Most
authors are helpful and are interested in ideas for improvements for their
programs, but do not expect them to teach you DOS over the phone or provide
you with any support until you register.  If you write and expect a reply
supply a self-addressed stamped envelope or a couple of IRCs (International
Reply Coupons), available from post offices, for foreign authors.

Registering programs can be a particular problem if the author is in a
foreign country. Like anyone else, authors can move, so it may be wise to
contact the author before sending money.  This is especially important if the
program is more than a year or so old. 

HOW TO PAY Probably the best way to pay is by credit card. If you order this
way and have problems, the credit card company may intervene on your behalf,
and some include mail order protection insurance as part of the card service.
Credit card is also the best and cheapest way to pay for foreign
registrations (if the author can handle them).  Beware of authors who do not
offer a voice telephone number; it can be a real pain trying to get technical
support by letter, BBS or Fax. 


FOR SHAREWARE AUTHORS

If you are a Shareware author and would like to get your program onto a
future version of this CD or would like to update a version of your program
already included, send a copy to P.D.S.L. (CD compilations), Winscombe House,
Beacon Rd, Crowborough, Sussex, England, TN6 1UL, Tel +44 892 663298

FOR DISK VENDORS

Licences to use our catalogue material and disk numbering system are
available for a reasonable fee.  We can also supply the disk description
material as text files to use in your own publications.  Contact PDSL as
above.

Copyright (C) PDSL 1993/4