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readme.ve
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1995-04-07
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6KB
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122 lines
Hardware/Software Requirements
At a minimum, the program requires:
IBM PC-XT, PC-AT, or clone, with an Intel 8086, 8088, 8086,
286, 386, or 486 processor. A numeric coprocessor is not needed.
640 KB of memory, preferably 1 MB or more.
A Hard Drive and a floppy drive.
MS-DOS, or IBM-DOS, Version 3.3 or later. Actually, it might
run on earlier versions. Its just never been tested.
A hard drive is a must, and the faster the better. A fast
computer won't hurt either. This program will run on a floppy
based system, but the point is to speed up your exam sessions,
not make them take forever. The reason for this is that program
does not keep things in memory. Everything is written to disk,
and everything is read from it. Except for the time between when
you first enter something, and the time you complete whatever
screen you are on, you can't lose information from a power
failure.
Installation
Installation is fairly simple.
1) Insert the installation floppy into your disk drive.
2) Type "A:" or "B:" depending on which floppy drive you use,
followed by a return,
3) Type "VEWDINST <sdrive> <ddrive> <pathname>" followed by a
return, where <sdrive> is the drive letter of the installation
floppy, <ddrive> is the drive letter of the hard disk,
<pathname> is directory on the hard drive where you want the
program to be stored. Include the colons after the two drive
letters.
4) Edit your CONFIG.SYS file and make sure the line "FILES = x",
is at least 40.
VEWD uses many open files, about 32. If you are running VEWD in
a DOS window under Microsoft Windows the value may need to be
even higher.
For example, "VEWDINST A: C: \VEWD" will install into the VEWD
directory on hard drive C from floppy drive A.
To start VEWD, change to the VEWD directory and type VEWD at the
DOS prompt. VEWD supports the command line options:
Option Description
/B=NO Inhibits the beep on errors
/V=n Sets the screen saver to n minutes. Zero disables the option.
/L Disables setting of keyboard locks.
/E Specifies that an enhanced keyboard is being used.
Although VEWD fits entirely in the lower 640 KB of DOS memory, it
is somewhat of a memory hog. If you run with many Terminate and
Stay Resident (TSR) programs, you may find yourself running short
of memory. At bottom right corner of the screen, below the date
and time, is the number of bytes of free memory remaining. If
there is less than 32000 bytes free at the top level menu, you
need to make more room. Each pop-up menu or form causes the
portion of the screen that it covers to be saved for later
restoration. By default this is in the low 640 KB memory. You
can specify five alternate locations by including Virtual Memory
environment variables in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Each variable
is of the form:
SET CLAVMx=path,size[,ram-indicator]
Where,
x is 0 to 4. A value of 0 indicates the first used virtual
memory region, 4 indicates the last used. Once all the storage
is used in the 1st region, the second it used, and so on.
path is the drive and directory of the RAM drive or hard
disk area, or the word MEMORY to indicate conventional (low 640KB)
Size is the number of KB available.
Ram-indicator is M for a RAM Drive, blank otherwise.
For example, the line:
SET CLAVM0=D:\,1024,M
defines the first virtual memory region as the root directory of
a 1 megabyte RAM disk. Another example is the line:
SET CLAVM1=C:\TEMP,768
specifies the second virtual memory region as a 768 KB area in
the TEMP subdirectory of drive C.
If you have the memory, setting up a RAM disk is highly
recommended. The RAM disk should be at least 64 KB in size
(preferably 128 KB). To create a RAM disk you need to include a
line in your CONFIG.SYS file similar to:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 1024 128 /E
This defines a 1024 KB RAM disk using extended memory.
The install process created a complete set of startup database
files. The VECLIST and ELEMSTAT files are pre-initialized with
fixed data and never change. The DEFAULTS file is initialized
with a sample record that should be modified for the particular
VE team(s). The remaining files are empty. The file
EMPTYDB.ZIP is an archive containing these startup files. If it
is ever desired to return to a fresh state, simply extract the
files from this archive.
To prevent the loss of valuable session information, it is
important that you make backup copies of all the data files. The
minimum set of files to backup are those with the DAT and MEM
extensions. VEWD will regenerate the key files at startup if
they do not exist. However, if incorrect key files are used,
the database files may become corrupted beyond recovery.
Therefore you should backup the DAT, MEM and Knn files to insure
a complete database. If you customize or create any printer
control files (.DEV files) you should also make save copies of
those.
A reasonable method of archiving the database files is to
compress them into a single zip file. The archive can be named
in form YYMMDDx. YYMMDD is the reference date of the archive.
This is usually the date of a session. The x is one of the
following:
Letter Description
O Original. This is the archive made at the end of the session.
U Updated. This is the archive made after post processing the session,
making any corrections, adding candidate phone numbers but before
merging the session candidate data into the global database. This
is normally done by the VE preparing the paperwork for the VEC
blank This is the archive made immediately after merging a session into the
global database.