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CERT99.TXT
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2006-10-19
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA
NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 1988
^^^^^^^^^^COMMENTS ON
CERTIFICATE 99
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good
^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group
A review of this software was
promised in the last issue of BB&&P.
Since then, a rather comprehensive
review by Steven D.^Mehr has
appeared in the Dec.^87 issue of
Micropendium. What follows is not a
complete description of Certificate
99, but rather some additional
comments and documentation aids.
I really think Certificate 99
deserves better report card grades
than those assigned by Mr. Mehr. It
is VERY easy to use, and must people
can follow the screen prompts
successfully the very first time
without referring to the
documentation. It produces excellent
certificates and signs. We have all
seen "Print Shop" type signs printed
with a border on a vertically
alligned piece of 8.5 x 11 inch
paper. Certificate 99 will do just
as good a job making such signs, only
the signs are alligned horizontally.
This ability to print quick
professional looking signs is perhaps
the most useful potential for
Certificate 99. This is truely
application software. With it, your
computer and printer can do something
really useful.
I purchased my copy from TexComp.
It came in a very nice transparent
plastic envelope with disk,
documentation, and 6 single sheets of
fancy parchment-like paper. I also
received, outside the envelope 30
fan-fold tractor feed sheets of such
paper. With the tractor feed
perforations this paper would be too
wide to fit into the envelope. I am
not sure, but I suspect that this was
a "free" bonus only from TexComp.
You can get more of this fancy
tractor feed paper from TexComp for
$9.95/250 sheets.
The documentation carries a very
strong copy protection notice. The
name and address of the owner are
said to be encoded on the protected
disk. I know that when this software
was sold at the recent Chicago TI
Faire the authors/vendors (one and
the same) took each disk sold and
appeared to encode something on it
prior to turning it over to the
purchaser. I really doubt, however,
if a mass merchandiser such as
TexComp or Triton would go to this
kind of trouble. They probably just
take the package off the shelf and
put it in the mail. The original
disk is said to be copy protected,
and Great Lakes Software specifically
does NOT offer to sell cheap backup
disks. Since you are supposed to use
both sides of the disk with the write
protect tabs OFF, I felt very
insecure about writing data to my one
and only original disk. I therefore
put write protect tabs over the holes
for both sides of my original flippy
disk and made my legal back up copy
using DM1000's "copy disk" function.
I had no trouble at all backing up my
original this way, and use only my
backup for actual certificate or sign
creation.
All of Mr. Mehr's comments about
test entry are true, but text entry
is really quite easy. You have full
screen editing using FCTN and the
arrow keys. Pressing <ENTER> drops
you down to the left edge of the next
lowest line. This may cause the
cursor to disappear, however, because
in the small sized letter field the
left column is at the very left edge
of the 99/4A's screen display. TVs
and even some monitors don't show
this extreme left column on the
screen. The first time I used
Certificate 99 on a friend's system
(my monitor shows the cursor all the
time) I was very mystified by the
disappearing cursor.
The DOCs state that you can alter
the choice of graphics with most of
the standard "artist" programs. The
two files of graphics are 25 sector
PROGRAM files (CDATA21 and CDATA22),
and each of these files contains 12
graphics on its single screen. If
you use another 25 sector PROGRAM
graphic, be aware that only 1/12 of
the graphic at a time can be used by
CERTIFICATE 99 to ornament a sign or
certificate. The original CDATA21 &
22 files are reproduced here
graphically for reference. In my
opinion such reproductions should
have been included in the DOCs.
An important UNDOCUMENTED feature
is the ability to save files of
defaults for a particular certificate
or sign (font, text, graphic, border,
signature, screen colors) and to load
them onto the disk prior to using
CERTIFICATE 99. The program normally
saves all the data from the last
certificate as the defaults for the
next certificate. These data are
saved as file CDATA00 on side 2 of
the disk. There is also a CDATA00
file on side one, but I don't know
what this file does. You can create
a collection of certificate files by
using a disk manager to lift the side
two CDATA00 files off the system disk
and keep these files on a data disk,
each with a different file name. To
print a particular previously created
certificate use a disk manager to put
the data file back onto side two of
the system disk, rename the file
CDATA00, and then boot the program.
This procedure is, of course,
cumbersome, but at least such a
procedure exists. I don't understand
why this feature isn't mentioned in
the DOCs. It would be much nicer if
you were prompted from within the
program for the file name of a
previously created certificate.
Neither the DOCs, nor the several
reviews I have read specifically
state the default color combinations
or available signatures. These are
listed here in the accompanying
reference sheet. Richard A. Paquette
is listed among the famous people
whose signatures are available. (You
can also choose no signature, or a
blank line for your own signature.)
He is the CERTIFICATE-99 author, in
case you are wondering. Since it is
not possible to cycle through the
various screen color combinations, as
you can with the graphics and
borders, these color combinations
should have been listed in the DOCs.
.PL 1