Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr33/wilalm59.zip/ALMANAC.DOC

Text File | 1993-05-22 | 17KB | 356 lines

                    THE  WILSTAR ALMANAC ver. 5.9
                         Copyright <c> 1992
                           by Jerry Wilson






SHAREWARE
        This program is distributed as Sharware.  If you use it for more
than 15 days, you must register it with the author.  To register Wilstar
Almanac, print out the form, REGISTER.TXT, and fill it out.  Enclose the
required fee ($11.50, including P&H), and send it to the address at the
end of this documentation (or on the registration form).
        Registered users will receive a disk containing the latest release
of the Almanac, plus other Wilstar Software programs.

INTRODUCTION

        The WILSTAR ALMANAC is designed to be an on screen display of
calendar, lunar, and personal information.  It is screen-friendly because
the display changes colors every minute.  I have left the display on the
screen for many hours at a time without any ill effects.  However, NO
explicit or implicit warranties are given with regards to this program's
effects on your monitor.
        The WILSTAR ALMANAC has the following features:

        -Continuous Display of time and date.
        -Almanac box includes information on:
                The day of week
                The day of year
                Days remaining in year
                Phase of moon
                Size of lunar disk
                Age of moon
                Place of moon in the zodiac
                Position of moon relative to equator
        -Notepad for displaying reminders and notes for today.
        -Full notepad file maintenance
        -Monthly Calendar
        -Familiar quotations updated each hour in the message box.
        -Capability to leave screen messages.
        -Alarm clock.
        -DOS Shell.
        -Time/Date change feature.
        -Quarter-hour chimes with hourly toll. (Can be silenced.)
        -Configurable so that your own city shows in Almanac Box.
        -Can display birthdays, holidays, etc from user-modified data file.
        -Screen friendly.  Screen changes colors each minute to prevent
                burn in.
        -Today's events in history.
        -Countdown timer
        -Four-Function Calculator
        -Telephone Dialer

Here is a list of the files included with this archive and their function:

        WILALM.EXE      The executable program
        ALMANAC.DAT     The data file of dates.
        NOTEPAD.DAT     The data file containing today's notepad info.
        ALRM.DAT        Data file containing the alarm clock set time
                        and alarm message. (Created by program)
        ALMANAC.DOC     This text file.
        <month>.DAT     Data files for each month with historical events

        (All data files [.DAT] are ASCII text files.)


DISPLAY SCREEN

        After an initial title screen displays for about 5 seconds, the
display changes to the main data screen.  This screen has several boxes
of information.  The top box includes the title of the program.  It is
surrounded on the left and right with small boxes showing the time
(left) in 12-hour format, and the date (right).
        The middle of the screen contains two larger boxes.   The large
box on the right is the Almanac Box.  It contains information on the day
of the week, the day of the year, and the moon data.  The Almanac title
at the top of this box can be altered by the user from data contained in
the ALMANAC.DAT file (explained below).  To the left of this Almanac
box is either a monthly calendar of the current month, or the notepad
box containing your notes for today.  Since you have no notes in the
NOTEPAD.DAT file when the program is first run, the monthly calendar
will be displayed.  When there are notes corresponding to today's date
in the NOTEPAD.DAT data file, the notepad will automatically be displayed.
        The long box on the bottom of the screen is the message box.  It
contains a quotation.  Each hour, after the Westminster chimes, the
quotation is changed.  The program contains more than 150 quotations which
are selected at random.  The message box will display a screen message
in place of the quotation if you select the message option from the
menu (as explained below).
        The background area just below the two middle boxes and above
the message box will display information on holidays and (if you modify
the ALMANAC.DAT file), personal user information such as birthdays,
anniversaries, or special occasions.  Certain astronomical information,
such as meteor showers, the start of seasons, etc., will also be shown
in this area.


THE MAIN MENU

        Pressing any key (except Esc) will cause the data display to
change to the main menu. Pressing Esc causes the program to terminate.
        You may select any one of 9 options from the
menu box.  To select an option, simply press the number in front of the
option, without pressing ENTER.  Alternately, you can use the up or down
cursor keys to move the little arrow in front of the option you desire
and then press ENTER.

OPTION 1        Return to the Clock Display

        This option will cause the Alamanc display to resume without having
to select any of the other options.


OPTION 2        DOS Shell

        Choose option 2 if you want to visit DOS without leaving
the Almanac.

OPTION 3        Change Time/Date

        This option allows you to enter a new time and date.  The time
entered MUST be in the 24-hour format and must be as follows:

        HH:MM:SS

        The date must be in this format:

        MM-DD-YYYY

        Changing the date will NOT alter the DOS date that's in the
computer memory.  You can change the date in order to view any notepad
information for a date other than today.  If you type "today" in instead
of a date, the almanac will return to today's date.
        Changing the time WILL ALTER the DOS time in your computer's
CMOS or RAM.

OPTION 4        Setting the Alarm Clock

        Select option 4 to set the alarm clock.   The display will show
the current alarm settings.  If the alarm is not set, the alarm time will
display "none".   If you wish to set the alarm to a new time and date, press
a Y.  It will first ask for the time.  Type in only the hour and minute
separated with a colon (:).  You will then be asked for the date you wish
the alarm to sound when the alarm time is reached.  Type in the date using
the MM-DD-YYYY format.  The display will change to the message box.  Type in
the message you wish to appear at the selected alarm time.
        If you exit the Almanac program, the alarm information is stored
in a data file, ALRM.DAT.  When you restart the program, if the alarm
time has not passed, the alarm will sound at the appropriate time.
        You can disable the alarm clock by typing a 'D' at the time prompt
after choosing the Alarm option from the menu.
        When the alarm is enabled (set), there will be an "alpha" sign
(Greek a), after the "Set Alarm" menu item.  If the alarm is disabled, there
will be no symbol.

OPTION 5        The Notepad

        This option leads you to a sub menu for the Notepad.  There
are 3 options on this sub menu.  To add a new notepad message for
any date, select option 1.
        You can type up to a 7-line message, each line with up to 31
characters for display in the Notepad box.  First, enter the date you
wish the information to be displayed (or press ENTER for today's date).
The notepad text and date entered is kept in a file, NOTEPAD.DAT.
        When entering text, you MUST press ENTER before you reach the
edge of the notepad box.  If you fail to do this, the cursor will go back
to the beginning of the current line and you must type it over.  You
can type up to 7 lines.  If you get finished before you have typed 7
lines, enter a * on a blank line.
        The Notepad can display ONLY 7 lines of text.  Therefore, if
the total number of note lines in all notes for today's date exceed 7,
only the first 7 will be displayed. If there is already a note for today
and you enter a new one with menu option 5, the new note will display
after the current note on the Notepad display until 7 lines of text
are displayed.
        To delete the notepad message for the current date, select option
2 from the Notepad submenu.  The message will not be displayed, but will
be retained in the text file itself.  The date will be preceded by the
word "deleted" if you were to print out the NOTEPAD.DAT file.
        If you wish to delete the entire file from the disk so that you
can free up disk space by starting a new data file, select option 3
from the Notepad submenu.  The program will ask you if you are sure.  If
you are sure you want to delete the file, type a Y.  This option erases
the data file from the disk.


OPTION 6        Leaving a Screen Message

        Choose this option to leave a message for display in the long
message box.  When you select option one, the screen changes to a box
in which you may type a one-line message.  When you press ENTER, the
data display resumes and the message you typed will be displayed in the
long box.


OPTION 7        Today's Events in History

        This option allows you to see today's events in history.  A screen
will appear with the year and an event or a person's name if it is their
birthday.

OPTION 8        Toggle Notepad/Calendar

        Select this option if the main display screen is showing a monthly
calendar and you want to see the notepad.  Any notes for today will then be
displayed.  Conversely, if you are in the notepad display mode, pressing
this option on the main menu will return you to the calendar display.

OPTION 9        Utilities

        Entering this selection will take you to a sub-menu containing a
selection of three convenient utilities: a countdown timer, a calculator,
and a telephone dialer.  Press 1 for the countdown timer, 2 for
the calculator, or 3 for the phone dialer, followed by ENTER.

        COUNTDOWN TIMER

        You may select any number of minutes to count down, from 1 to
120.  The box display then shows the number of hours, minutes, and seconds
remaining until an alarm sounds.  The Almanac then returns to normal display.
To stop the countdown sooner, just press any key.

        CALCULATOR

        This works like an ordinary 4-function calculator.  Just press the
first number and press ENTER.  Press the function key (*,+,-, or /) without
pressing ENTER afterward.  Then press the second number the operation is to
be performed upon and press ENTER.  The numbers and function will show on one
line, followed by the answer.  The result of any calculation becomes the first
number of the next calculation, so you only need to enter the function key
again for a chain calculation.


        PHONE DIALER

        This feature allows you to enter a phone number in the display box
to be dialed by the computer.  In order to use this feature, your computer
MUST be connected to a modem in COM1: or COM2: serial port.
        You should add this line:

PORT=<COMPORT>

        to your ALMANAC.DAT data file.  You can add it at the beginning of
the file with a text editor.  the PORT must be in all caps.  <COMPORT> must
be COM1: or COM2: (including the colon).  An easier way to add this line
would be to just select the dialer from the menu.  If the PORT= line is not
present in the ALMANAC.DAT file, you will be prompted to type a 1 or a 2 to
indicate which serial port your modem is using.  The ALMANAC.DAT file will
then be updated to include this information.  However, if you should ever
change the location of the modem, you must edit this line in the data file
with a text editor.
        After you enter the phone number you should here dialing sounds.  At
this point, you should lift the receiver and press ENTER to return to the
Almanac.


PERSONALIZING THE ALMANAC

        You can have the name of your city (or any other short
title), appear in place of the word "Almanac" in the almanac box.  To
do this, edit the ALMANAC.DAT file, included, with any ASCII text editor.
Place as the FIRST line of the file a capital letter "L" immediately
followed by the name of you city (or any other word).  Like this:

        LIndianapolis, IN

This must be the first line of the data file.
        If you wish to add birthdays, anniversaries, etc. to the data
file, you may use your text editor to add lines as follows:

        MM-DD(Birthday or other event)

You can use the entries of holidays already included in the ALMANAC.DAT
file as examples.
        NOTE:  Versions 4.1 and later allow you to add personalization
data to the ALMANAC.DAT file without the use of a text editor!  Just
use the command line:

        wilalm add

        This causes the program to prompt you for the date and the event
you wish to record in the data file.  The data still must be in the
MM-DD(Event) format as described above.
        IMPORTANT:  Once the program reads any line in the ALMANAC.DAT
file that starts with the current date,  it ceases reading the remainder
of the file.  Therefore, if two or more personal events take place on the
same date, you should put both events on the same data line.  The maximum
number of characters is 80.  Also, if any holiday or astronomical event
is listed in the data file that occurs on the same date as a personal
event added with the "add" command line argument, the personal event will
not be displayed.  In order to display your personal event on this date
you must use a text editor to remove the prior line in the file with the
same date.


SILENCING THE CHIMES AND THE TICKING

        The clock ticks each time it checks the system clock, about once
every second.  It also chimes on the quarter hour, with
hourly tolls.  However, it you do not wish the sounds produced, you
may start Wilstar Almanac with the following command lines:

        wilalm nt       <--- silences ticking
        wilalm nc       <--- silences chimes
        wilalm nc nt    <--- silences all sound

        It makes no difference which order the nt and nc are in.


A WORD ABOUT MOON PHASES

        The age of the moon should be accurate to + or - 1 day.  Full
phase is actually reached when the moon is 14.7 days old.  New moon
occurs when the moon is 0 (29.5) days old.  The visible lunar disk size, as
measured in percentages, is another way of expressing phase.  When the
moon is full, the disk has 100% illumination; when new, the illumination is
close to 0%.  At first quarter and last quarter, the moon appears to be
50% illuminated.  A waxing moon is one that appears to be growing in
size as pertains to the amount of disk illumination.  A waning moon is
growing smaller.  A crescent moon varies in size from a narrow sliver to
almost half illuminated.  A gibbous moon is one in which more than half
the disk appears illuminated, but not completely so.
        About once every 14 days, the moon crosses the equator.  On these
days, the Almanac box will Display a "Moon on Equator" message.  When
the moon is at its maximum displacement north of the equator, a "Moon
Rides High" message will appear.  When the moon is at its southernmost
position, a "Moon Runs Low" message appears.
        I believe the lunar calculations in WILSTAR ALMANAC are as accurate
as many other lunar programs I have found in the shareware libraries.
However, since I'm no mathematician, the algorithms used to calculate lunar
phases and positions are based on simple arithmetic and algebra.  They also
assume a circular, rather than the true elliptical orbit.  I do not
claim a degree of accuracy that one would expect by using higer-level
mathematical algorithms in which the elliptical nature of orbits,
precession, and other factors could be included.



SUPPORT

        Registered users will receive free support if you run into
difficulty with any aspect of this program.  However, all users are
invited to send comments and suggestions.  If you wish to contact me,
you can send mail to this address or leave Email on the GEnie network.  My
GEnie mail address is J.WILSON120.

        Wilstar Software
        Jerry Wilson
        P.O. Box 73
        Edinburgh, IN  46124