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....................................................... / : \ : STARTUP.PRG : Batch Startup Program Version 1.5 : : : by Murray Levine : : : CIS # 74435,1015 : : : GENIE ID - MURRAY : \................:....................................../ STARTUP.PRG is a Batch Startup program that executes commands from the file startup.inf upon booting your ST. STARTUP.PRG must be placed in the \AUTO\ folder the on boot drive (usually A). STARTUP.PRG now loads and runs STARTUP.TOS in order keep the memory less fragmented when loading memory-resident programs like hard drive drivers and ram disks. You'll notice about a 15K difference if using the FREERAM accessory. It is also possible to run just the STARTUP.TOS program by changing it's name to STARTUP.PRG and renaming the original STARTUP.PRG program. STARTUP first looks for the file STARTUP.INF in the same directory and if it can't find it, it tries to locate it in the main directory (ex. A:STARTUP.INF). From now on, these three files can be the only files you need in the AUTO directory because all other files to be executed can be located in their original drive and folder and can even have parameters past to them. You no longer have to make sure of the order that you copied your files to the AUTO directory because STARTUP executes programs as they are listed in STARTUP.INF. The format for programs to be executes is to list the complete program name followed by any parameters to be passed. any command or program name can be followed by a comment. Any text on a line that follows a ';' will be treated as a comment. For example, a:\supboot.prg ; Supra Hard Drive driver program c:\bin\touch.prg a:startup.inf ; Update time stamp for info file would first load the hard drive driver program supboot,prg from drive A: and then update the time stamp for the file a:startup.inf. There are a few unix-like commands that are used in the STARTUP.INF file as well as some other special commands. All commands must be in lower case, however, the file names may be in lower or upper case. The allowable commands are as follows: Copy Files: cp file1 file2 - copy file1 to file2 cp file1 ... dir - copy file1 and other files to the directory dir The cp command is useful for copying files to a ram disk. Wildcards are also accepted. cp b:\src\*.c c:\ ; Copy source files to ram disk c: Renaming files: mv oldfile newfile The mv command renames the file oldfile to the name newfile. Remove files: rm file ... The rm command removes the listed files. As with cp, wild cards are also accepted. Be careful, though, about doing an rm *.* so you don't wipe out a disk by accident. Create directory mkdir dir ... The mkdir command creates the subdirectory dir. Remove directories rmdir dir ... The rmdir command removes the specifies subdirectories. An error will occur if the specified subdirectory is not empty or does not exist. Display files: cat file ... The cat command displays the listed files on the console. Useful for displaying any title screen information. Once again, wild cards are accepted. Pressing ctrl-C during the display of a file aborts displaying that file and goes on to the next file if there is one. Change directory: cd dir The cd command changes the default directory to either a disk drive or a subdirectory. cd b: ; changes default drive to b: cd b:\auto ; change to drive b:, subdirectory auto The cd command is useful if when running programs you don't want to list the complete file name (drive and directory) and if the program being executed expects to find certain files (data files) in the default directory. Display text: echo [-in] [-x xpos] [-y ypos] string The echo command displays the following string (list of words) on the screen followed by a carriage return. If the -n option is used, the carriage return is not printed. If the -i option is used, the string is printed in inverse video. The -x option will position the cursor at column xpos and the -y option will position the cursor at line ypos. The echo command is useful for displaying what is happening at different points of the boot process. As an example, I use the following: echo -n The time is c:\bin\date.prg ; display the current time This will display: The time is Sat Jan 24 1987 12:24pm Setting variables set var = string - set variable var to string set var = $< - set variable var to a string entered from keyboard set var = $<< - set variable var to one character from keyboard set - display all variables The set command allows the user to set up to 20 variables whose variable names can be up to 8 characters in length. If string is to be more than than one word then it should be in quotes, e.g. "This is a string". If the string is $<, then the variable waits for a string to be entered from the keyboard. If the string is $<<, then the variable waits for a single key to be hit on the keyboard. This string can then be tested later using the if command. Using set without any arguments will display all of the variables and the string values associated with them. Accessing variables To get the value of a string, a $ is placed in front of the name, for example: set test = "This is a test" echo $test This will display the value of variable test. Variables representing file names can also have suffixes. The suffixes supported by STARTUP are: :h - head - returns path name of file :t - tail - returns file name without path name :r - root - returns file name without extension :e - extension - returns file name extension For example: set file=c:\startup\startup.prg echo $file:h => c:\startup echo $file:t => startup.prg echo $file:r => c:\startup\startup echo $file:e => prg Conditional statements if (expression) then commands endif if (expression) then commands else commands endif The if command is used to test the validity of the specified expression. If the expression is true, the commands following the then statement will be executed. An optional else statement can be used if the expression is false. The if command must end with the endif statement. There can be as many as 9 nested if statements, however be sure that there are enough endif statements to match them. The expression has two forms. They are: (string1 condition string2) (option file name) In the first form, string1 and string2 can be either strings or variables. The possible conditions are as follows: == is equal to != is not equal to < is less than > is greater than <= is less than or equal to >= is greater than or equal to An example of this form of the if command would be: echo -n Enter your name set name = $< if ($name == Murray) then echo Sysop Murray is on-line endif In the second form of the expression, option has the following values: -e - existence - does the file exist? -d - directory - is the file a subdirectory? -f - normal - is the file not a directory? -w - writeable - is the file writeable (not write protected)? -z - zerosize - is the file size zero bytes (empty file)? An example of this form of expression is the following: if (-e startup.inf) then echo startup data file exists endif Exiting the command file exit The exit command breaks out of the command file (startup.inf) and the Startup program itself. This command is most likely used in an if statement. Labels and branching goto label The goto command branches control to the defined label. A label is represented by the first word and only word on a line and the last character must be a colon (:). A maximum of 10 labels can be defined. Here's an example: echo Let's jump to a label goto label1 echo This line should never get executed label1: echo control continues with this statement I/O redirection I/O can be redirected to or from any file or to the RS232 port or printer port. By placing a > at the end of the command line followed by a file name, output will be redirected to that file name erasing that file if it previously existed. By placing a >> at the end of the command line followed by a file name, output will be appended to that file name if the file exists or a new file will be created if it does not exist. Input can also be redirected by placing a < at the end of the command line followed by the name of the file to be used for input. This can be useful if you have Michtron't MDISK ram disk and want to set up a specific size ram disk automatically without user interaction. Just create a two line file with the ram disk size on the first line and an empty line for the second line. Both input and output redirection can be used on the same line, for example: a:\mdisk.tos < mdisk.inp > mdiskout This will create a ram disk with the size specified in the file mdisk.inp and send all output to the file mdisk.out so you don't have to see everything that is happening. Output can also be redirected to the RS232 port by using aux: as the output file name or use prt: to redirect output to the printer port. For example: echo ATL1 > aux: This will send the ATL! to a Hayse modem, for example, to initially set the volume to low. The special commands used by Startup are as follows: Use medium or low resolution: res medium res low The res command will set a color system to medium resolution or low resolution during the boot process. On monochrome systems this command has no effect. Turn the cursor on or off: cursor on cursor off The cursor command turns the cursor on or off again. Since during the boot process TOS doesn't turn on the cursor, you can now see where the cursor is for entering text. You can even turn it back off again after running a certain program if you wish. Turn the keyclick on or off: keyclick on keyclick off The keyclick command turns off the keyclick if you get annoyed by it while entering input and let's you turn it back on if you want after running a certain program. Turn disk write verify on or off verify on verify off The verify command turns on or off the disk write verify switch. When the switch is on, a verify the data being written to disk will be verified to determine if it is valid. When the verify switch is off, the data being written to disk is not verified and speeds up disk write time. Clear the screen: clear [-a] The clear command clears the screen and places the cursor in the upper left hand corner. If graphics are on the screen, the screen is cleared starting at the first text line and the cursor is also placed at the the first text line. This can be followed by the cat command to display a title page. If the -a option is used, all of the screen is cleared including the graphics. Display of each line display on display off The display command turns on or of the display flag. When the display is on, the each line will be displayed in full including comments until the display is turned off. The default is display off. Ask if program should be run ask file name [arg ...] The ask command asks the user if he wishes to run the program denoted by file name. The output is as follows: Execute autotime.prg (Y/N)? Typing a Y will execute the program, any other key will skip the execution of the program. This can be useful for example if a user does not wish to load GDOS when he boots up, but wishes to load GDOS the next time he boots the system. Ask which desk accessories should be loaded accask The accask command will go through all of the desk accessory programs in the default directory and ask if each should be loaded. For example: Load accessory FREERAM (Y/N)? You are prompted for a single-key response being either Y or N. If you press Y, then the accessory will be loaded when the desktop is run. If you press N or any other key, the accessory will not be loaded. Remember that GEM has a maximum number of accessories that can be loaded so it will only load as many as it can even if you specify to load more. Case sensitivity upper varname - force variable varname to upper case lower varname - force variable varname to lower case The upper and lower commands force the value of variable varname to upper or lower case. Varname must be an existing variable and must not be preceded by a $ since we just want the name of the variable. Display graphics title screen graphics lines file The graphics command will load an uncompressed Degas picture (file) on the screen up to text line lines. Lines represents the first line on the screen to be used as text (0 - 23). All text will scroll below the picture so it will not be disturbed. You won't be able to display a full-screen picture because we have to have room for some text on the screen (at least 2 lines). Setting the time and date date time The date and time commands are used to set the system time. the date command will display "Enter current date 00/00/00" with the cursor positioned on the first 0. The date is to be entered in mm/dd/yy format and as soon as the last digit of the year has been entered, the date is automatically set (no RETURN key is needed) so be sure your date is in this exact format. Teh time command will be the same except that you enter the time in hh:mm format where the hours are in 24-hour format. The seconds will be set 00. Changing colors color n value The color command allows you to change the colors in the color registers where n is the color to change (0-15) and value represents a 3-digit value with each digit ranging from 0 to 7 representing in order the amount of red, green, and blue to be used. For example: color 1 007 - sets color register 1 to all blue color 0 777 - sets color register 0 to white color 2 000 - sets color register 2 to black Selecting foreground and background color for text foreground color background color The foreground command sets the foreground color for all text to be color register n while the background command sets the background color for all text to be color register n. Do not set both the foreground and background colors to the same color or you will not be able to see any text. Resetting colors resetcolors The resetcolors command resets all the colors to their original values and also resets the foreground and background colors. SET Desktop File (new) setdesktop The setdesktop command will allow multiple desktop files to be used instead of the standard DESKTOP.INF file based on the screen resolution at the time of exiting from startup. If the computer is booted on a monochrome system, the file DESKTOP.HI will be loaded instead of DESKTOP.INF. If booted in medium res, the file DESKTOP.MED is used, and if booted in low res, DESKTOP.LOW will be used. This command will only work if the loader program (STARTUP.PRG) is used to load STARTUP.TOS. If this command is not present, then the regular DESKTOP.INF file will be used. System variables $res - contains the screen resolution ("low","medium","high") $desktop - contains the screen resolution in the desktop.inf file ("low","medium","high"). If the desktop.inf file does not exist, the variable is set to "none". $cwd - current working directory or path name $date - displays system date in format 01/01/87 $date1 - displays system date in format 01-Jan-87 $date2 - displays system date in format Jan 01 1987 $time - displays system date in format 12:00:00 $time1 - displays system date in format 12:00 pm $alt - if the alternate key is pressed, the variable is set (new) to "on", otherwise it is set to "off" $shift - if the shift key is pressed, the variable is set (new) to "on", otherwise it is set to "off" $control - if the control key is pressed, the variable is set (new) to "on", otherwise it is set to "off" The following sample startup.inf file is the one I currently use during my boot process. res medium ; Use medium res when booting in color if ($res == high) then graphics 12 c:\auto\title.pi3 ; Display the Opening Screen else ; if color screen, set up colors color 1 007 ; set background to blue foreground 0 ; use white characters background 1 ; on a blue background endif cursor on display on d:\rtx\rtxboot.prg ; Micro RTX kernal d:\utility\hdaccel.prg ; Hard Disk Accellorator d:\utility\autotime.prg ; Logikhron Clock Card time retriever display off if ($alt == "off") then ; if alt key pressed, don't load laser driver c:\laser\diab630.prg endif if ($res != $desktop) then echo copying desktop.inf for $res resolution if ($res == high) then cp c:\desktop.hi c:\desktop.inf else cp c:\desktop.med c:\desktop.inf endif endif echo The date is $date and the time is $time cat c:\lastdate ; show last time on system echo Last time on was $date2 at $time1 > c:\lastdate ; update last time on system ask e:\degelite\auto\gdos.prg ; GDOS 1.1 for Degas Elite c:\mdisk.tos < mdisk.inp > mdisk.out ; set up predetermined size ram disk ; and don't let me see it echo ATL1 > aux: ; send initialize string to modem for volume accask ; which accessories to load? Any comments or suggestions for a future version are welcome. Murray Levine CIS # 74435,1015