Tech Arsenal 1/Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO/tek-19/gear10.zip/GEAR.HLP

Text File | 1990-12-21 | 12KB | 222 lines

                               Gear
                            Version 1.0
                           Dec. 18, 1990

                  (C) R. Angstadt all rights reserved.

       Custom Bicycle Gear Charts in Text and/or Graphics Mode


       What does Gear do?

       It helps the user to gain an understanding in an interactive
       fashion of the gears ratios on their bicycle.  From the main
       menu pressing the "F3" key will immediately produce a graphic
       plot of some gear ratios.  Pressing "F4" will produce a text
       output of the same gear ratios.  To change the program to
       show your bike's gearing, press "F5" and then type in the
       number of teeth you have on your cogs and press "F3", "F4",
       "P", or "G".  "F8" will give a table of how those ratios
       relate to bike speed and pedaling cadence.  The rest of
       the menu picks are for customizing "Gear" to your particular
       hardware and visual preferences.  The "ESC" key always get
       you back to the main menu.

       What is special about that?

       "Gear" sorts from 1 to 27 ratios so that the shift pattern is
       implied by the text output on "F4".  (From 1 to 3 chain rings
       in the front and from 1 to 9 cogs on the rear cluster.)
       The ratios may be printed out and easily mounted on the bike
       for later reference to help decipher and/or learn a new shifting
       pattern.  Select your particular combination of gears on "F5".
       "Gear" is very friendly and easy to use.  It is also responsive
       when run from a hard disk.

       But you could do a lot more.

       You can output the plot or graph to an Epson or IBM compatible
       9 pin printer.   You could save the current gear ratios to a file
       to easily recall it later for comparison to other combinations.
       You could go on to explore the relationships between how fast
       you peddle, your speed, and your gear ratios with the "M"
       selection on "F8".  (This is great for planning Triathlons and
       Time Trials.)

       "Gear" is very flexible.
       If you want to customize the plot to your liking then look into
       the menu picks on "F1" and "F2".  If you want to have "Gear" start
       up with your current ratios then save "Gear's" state into "Gear.ini"
       on "F6".  A number of people can have their own customized
       version with their own file on "F6".  You can have as many
       files as you have disk space.

       What you need to run "Gear".
       To run gear you need an IBM P.C. or compatible.  Any 80 column
       text and/or graphics display will work.  Gear is written in Turbo
       Pascal Version 6.0 which supports VGA, EGA, CGA, Hercules, AT+T,
       7814 (runs in VGA or EGA mode), PGA (in CGA mode).  (All of
       its features have only been tested on EGA,VGA, and PGA models.)
       It was developed and tested under MS-DOS Ver 3.3 on a machine
       with 640K.  It has not been tested on less but it should run
       in about 272Kbytes available without problems although it might
       not shell out to DOS without another 64K of free RAM.
       If you here a "beeb" when a menu is called up then that is a
       warning that "Gear" could not get enough memory (from DOS)
       to save the screen image of that menu.  To be safe one should
       exit and make some more memory available before running it again.
       (Results cannot be guaranteed and you may leave the screen
       in an odd state so that it is necessary to reboot.  Also
       the program output may no longer be accurate.)

       "Gear" is easy to use!
       The following is a brief description of what is directly
       available from the main menu or "hot" function keys.  What
       does "hot" mean?  It means that it is almost always active.
       For example you can be changing the gear ratio of the third
       cog on a sub-menu pick on "F5" when you decide you want to
       see the graph once more before you change it.  Just hit
       "F3" and the graph will be displayed with the old gear ratio!

       Installation:
       "Gear" is not copy protected so the DOS "copy" command may
       be used to install it on any disk.  To get everything
       copy "G*.*" from your source to your target.  The minimal
       you need is "gear.exe" but you might like to get the "*.hlp"
       files or "g*.hlp".  "Gear" may be run from a 360KB floppy or from
       a hard disk or a sub-directory.  "Gear.ini" and "gear.dat" are
       easily re-generated by the program itself from "F6" and "F5".
       Every menu pick has some explanation in one of the help files.

       "Help for general help or ALT-Fx where x=1..12) for detailed help."
       When "H" is pressed from the main menu this file will be displayed
       one screen at a time.  Although you can only go forward through
       the file you can hit "ESC" at any time to get back to the main
       menu and then hit the "H" key again.  To get more specific
       help relating to another sub-menu hit the "ALT" key and while
       holding it hit the function key you are interested in.  For
       help on how to use the "F5" sub-menu press "ALT" without releasing
       it and then "F5".  Every menu item has an explanation.  At the
       end is the name of the file so you can print it out if you desire.

       "F1 vertical gear chart plot setup."
       This people may find useful for changing some of the plot
       borders for the "F3" plot.  A few y-axis plot things may be
       re-positioned using this page if desired.

       "F2 horizontal gear chart plot setup."
       Besides controlling the x-axis coordinates as "F1" controls
       the y-axis, this does some useful things like controlling
       the beginning and ending gear ratios of the plot.  How many
       tick marks on the x-axis and how often to write out an x-axis
       label.  This is useful for customizing the plot to the ratio
       range of gears you are normally concerned with!  Also one
       can expand a portion of the range for a closer look!  The
       amount of customization possible with "F1" and "F2" are extreme
       and are left up to the user to use in an appropriate manner.
       It is not possible for the author to have tested all possible
       combinations!  Prudence is advised here.

       "F3 graphics plot of gear chart as set up above & on F5 sub-menu"
       This puts the screen in graphics mode, draws a border, and
       draws some lines and labels showing the gear ratios according
       to the graphic screen coordinates on "F1" and "F2" and the
       gears entered on "F5".

       "F4 show text gear chart as set up on F5 sub-menu"
       This calculates the gear ratios entered on "F5" sub-menu,
       sorts them, and displays them to the screen in text mode.
       The left most chart displays the gear ratio rounded to the
       nearest tenth of a gear is more useful for dreaming up new
       custom configurations.  The chart on the right is rounded to
       the nearest integer and is more of use for quick reference to
       learn the shifting pattern of your combination!  (The "M" option
       on "F8" will give the ratio rounded to the nearest 1/100 if
       you really want to see that accuracy.  Internal calculations are done
       in double precision and Turbo Pascal's is set to use an 80x87
       co-processor if it finds one at runtime.  My preference after
       trying a variety of formats is that too much precision is
       confusing.  Future versions could allow user customization
       if there is enough user support of this program.)

       "F5 setup gears and/or recall a gear file."
       Allows the user to enter his number of chain rings, number
       of cogs, and their values.  Save and recall different
       combinations to files and to preview the file before
       recalling it.  Also the user may see the results directly
       from this page without leaving it by pressing "P"="F3" or
       "G"="F4".

       "F6 save/restore setup & colors".
       This allows the user to customize "Gear" to their liking!
       Customization includes the program colors, saving and
       restoring program states, and controlling in what
       state "Gear" comes up by saving the current conditions
       to "Gear.ini".   (If you decide later that you want
       to start over you can at the DOS prompt type "delete
       Gear.ini", run "Gear" and then make a new "default"
       "Gear.ini" file with the "Save" option on this page!

       "F7 output text gear chart to a file."
       This does the same thing that "F4" does to the screen
       to a file.  Also the file may be printed from here
       as well.

       "F8 sub-menu for calculating speed verses rpm."
       This allows the user to make custom charts of the bikes
       speed in relation to the gear ratio and how fast the
       rider peddles (RPM=Revolutions Per Minute of the cranks).
       This can be of some value to people interested in racing,
       especially in Time Trials and Triathlons.  With a little
       study it is also interesting to the casual rider in
       demonstrating that pedaling slightly quicker in a lower
       gear usually result in a "faster speed" than the next
       higher gear and the (much) slower cadence and thus
       (even slower) speed that results.  (If you think the term
       "faster speed" does not interest you then you might find
       one of the following substitutions more to your liking!
       How about: "more efficient", "easier on the knees", and
       last but not least "less tiring"?)  If you don't have legs
       of iron and titanium knees or tire quickly then try running
       lower gears and "spinning"!  (It's all relative to your
       age and conditioning so listen to your own body!)

       "F9 registration and licensing information."
       Pressing this displays how to make your copy of this program
       a legal one!  Please do!  If you like and use this program
       please register it!

       All versions of "Gear", including Version 1.0, are not public
       domain software, nor are they free software.

       Gear is copyright (C) 1990 by R. Angstadt.

       A Gear registration licenses you to use the product on a regular
       basis.  For each license you wish please send $10.00 (U.S. only
       please) with your name and address to:

                R. Angstadt
                1020 Kaui King Ct
                Naperville, IL.
                        60540

       Your name              ________________________________________
       Company name (optional)________________________________________
       Street address or P.O. ________________________________________
       City and State         ________________________________________
                                     Zip______________________________


       IN NO EVENT WILL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES,
       INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR
       CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO
       USE THE PROGRAM OR IT'S OUTPUT IN ANY FORM, OR FOR ANY CLAIM
       BY ANY OTHER PARTY.

       "F10 exit program"
       Immediately exits the program.  No files are automatically
       saved or written to disk on exit.  All "save" files on "F5"
       and "F6" must be explicitly written to disk by the user.