home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Tech Arsenal 1
/
Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO
/
tek-19
/
gear10.zip
/
GF7.HLP
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-12-18
|
4KB
|
81 lines
Gear Sub-Menu F7 Detailed Help Notes
"Directory of output files."
Provides an easy way to see what files already exist.
The user is prompted to edit the mask or if "Enter" is
pressed the current mask will be used.
"File to act on."
This is the file name that this page will use to write to,
print, or delete.
"Save current gear chart output to file "
Writes the calculated gear inch values as determined
on F5 "File to act on".
WARNING:
THERE MUST BE ENOUGH AVAILABLE MEMORY IN YOUR MACHINE
FOR THE FOLLOWING TO WORK. (If you are calling this
program from another there may not be enough left
for these to dynamically use the extra memory that
they need.)
"View file"
Allows the user to look at the data without going to DOS.
"Erase file"
Deletes the file if it is found. No caution is provided.
WARNINGS:
1. It just deletes the file. No "are you sure" stuff
here! ( Just write it again.)
2. If the command to "Erase" the file is given too soon
after the "Print" command then it is likely that
only part of the file will be printed.
If the file is a longer file then the DOS "print"
buffers and the printer's buffers then the file
will be deleted before it gets to the printer.
(This is true unless you are using a more
sophisticated "spooling" print queue utility than
the standard DOS one.)
"Print file"
Passes the name of the file to the DOS "print" queue buffer.
The second warning under "Erase" applies here in addition
to the following...
WARNING: this can have unwanted side effects!
If the DOS "print" queue buffer was not previously run
or set up before this program was loaded then DOS sets
up the "print" queue buffers in the memory after the
memory this program is using. Then when this program is
exited DOS will not recover the program memory because the
"print" buffers were loaded after it. The only (normal)
way to recover this memory is to reboot as DOS cannot
recover fragmented memory.
(This problem may be avoided by allocating memory
at boot time by placing the following two lines in your
autoexec.bat file:
"mode LPT1:
print/d:LPT1"
The exact form of this may vary slightly from clone to
clone so see the DOS "mode" and "print" commands for
your machine.)
"Copy file..."
Uses the DOS "copy" command to copy the file to the
DOS device "lpt1" which is normally the printer.
Use this instead of "Print" to avoid the memory buffer
problems mentioned above. (A possible penalty here
is that it may tie up the machine longer while the
file is being printed. This depends on the file length
and the length of the printer's hardware buffer.)
"Open a door to DOS"
If enough memory is available the program will be temporarily
suspended and the user will be able to access DOS directly
to do whatever they wish. To get back into the program
hit "Enter" without typing any other characters at the
prompt.