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Tame Release 2.41 Copyright 1988-1990 by PowerSoft and David G. Thomas Table of Contents Tame Users Guide .................................................. 1 Abstract ....................................................... 1 Copyright ...................................................... 1 Applications that definitely NEED Tame ......................... 2 Seeing if your applications need Tame .......................... 2 Running Tame ................................................... 3 If your program runs slower with Tame .......................... 4 Placing Tame in a batch file ................................... 4 Using Tame with other multi-taskers ............................ 4 Advanced Tame concepts ......................................... 5 Setting the frequency value .................................... 6 Setting default options ........................................ 7 The Tame status ................................................ 8 Tame Command Reference ............................................ 10 Task switching options ......................................... 10 Fine tuning for an application ................................. 11 Other options .................................................. 14 Multi-tasking Specifics ........................................... 16 DESQview ....................................................... 16 Double Dos ..................................................... 16 Omniview ....................................................... 16 Topview ........................................................ 16 VM/386 ......................................................... 16 Windows 3.0 and Windows/386 .................................... 16 Application Specifics ............................................. 17 Tame Upgrades ..................................................... 18 Tame Users Guide Release 2.41 Copyright 1988,1989,1990 by PowerSoft and David G. Thomas Abstract If you run in a multi-tasking environment such as DESQview, you may have noticed that some programs really slow down the whole system, even though they seem to be doing nothing except waiting for you to type something. When I first encountered this type of program, I accepted it as part of the price that is paid for multi-tasking. The Tame program proves that this is not the case. In fact, the Tame program will significantly reduce the overhead of many programs, without hindering their performance when they really are working. Tame is designed to work with any DOS based multi-tasking environment, and it contains special hooks for use in DESQview, Double Dos, Omniview, VM/386, and Windows. If you use Tame with another multi-tasker, please let me know whether or not it helps. Copyright This program is copyrighted material. It may be freely distributed. If you use Tame to speed up your applications, please contribute to the author. If you send $20 or more, you will receive a registered copy of the latest version of the program, and also a printed manual. If you have any questions or comments, I may be reached at the PowerSoft BBS, (404) 928-9294. Contributions should be mailed to the following address. David G. Thomas c/o PowerSoft P.O. Box 956338 Duluth, GA 30136 Applications that definitely NEED Tame The following applications will continually poll the keyboard, waiting for you to press a key. Tame has been proven to significantly reduce the overhead on all these applications. For each application listed here, there are probably 100 more that need Tame! See the end of this document for special options that may be desirable with these programs. Brief, by solution Systems EM4105 Epsilon Harvard Graphics Kedit, by Mansfield Computing Lucid 3D, by PCSG Lotus 123, by Lotus Development Corp. Lotus Agenda, by Lotus Development Corp. Lotus Manuscript, by Lotus Development Corp. Microsoft editor, by Microsoft Norton Commander, by Peter Norton Computing PCBOARD, by Clark Development Company, Inc. Plan Perfect by Word Perfect Corp. Sidetalk, by Lattice Telix by Exis Inc. Tornado Notes by Micro Logic Corp Wildcat BBS Systems Word Perfect, by Word Perfect Corp. Word Perfect File Manager ZCOMM, by Omen Technology Seeing if your applications need Tame Any program that uses CPU cycles looking for keyboard input needs Tame. The best way to see if a program does this is to run a simple test. You should test all your favorite programs that you spend time entering data with. This includes programs such as word processors, spreadsheets, editors, and DOS shells. One way to see if a program needs tame is to use Tame to run the program, and see what happens. You may evaluate whether or not Tame is effective by looking at statistics generated with the Tame command, or you may use one of the many standard CPU benchmarks to test its effectiveness. To test a program with Tame, be sure you are in DESQview or another supported multi-tasking system, and type the following command line. TAME-RES Now, run your program, and work in the program for a little while, then exit normally. Type the following command line to obtain a summary of Tame activity. TAME /STATUS The displayed totals include the number of keyboard polls that the program performed. If this number small or zero, then Tame may not be needed with the application. With some extremely keyboard-hungry programs, the number of keyboard polls can number into the thousands. A second, and more direct way to test the effectiveness of Tame is to run the application without Tame, and simultaneously run tame with the /Geiger option in another task. This is done with the following command. TAME-RES TAME /GEIGER You will hear ticks that indicate how loaded the CPU is. If the ticks slow considerably when you are in the application, it probably needs Tame. If this is the case, run TAME-RES, and re-run the application. The ticks probably do not slow nearly as much as before. This is because Tame keeps your background tasks running at nearly full speed, at least while you are not actively needing the CPU. If you don't trust the Geiger counter that is built into Tame (you may think that I have "loaded the dice"), try a more standard CPU benchmark, such as Norton's System Information (SI) program. To do this, load Tame in one task, then execute your program in that same task. Wait until the application is idle, and waiting for keyboard input. Your program is now being Tamed. Now, switch to another task and run the benchmark program. Try this again without Taming the first program (Either type TAME /OFF or TAME /Uninstall). If the benchmark indicates that the CPU is faster with Tame, then you know it is helping. Also, experiment with which program is in the foreground and which is in the background. This experiment is necessary if you have set the DESQview background task priority to a very low number. In any event, it is informative, since it indicates the amount of processing time that the background can get while you are using that application. Running Tame Tame is composed of a resident (TSR) program, and also a controlling program. The resident portion of Tame must be loaded before running the main Tame program. This is done with the TAME-RES command. For example, the following command lines will run Lotus 123 with Tame active. TAME-RES LOTUS If you always want Tame to be used, you may create a batch file (possibly named RUNLOTUS.BAT), with the following command lines. TAME-RES LOTUS A general purpose variation of this batch file comes with Tame, and is named TAME-RUN.BAT. Using the batch file, the following command line will do the same thing as the previous examples. TAME-RUN LOTUS If you normally execute the program with the DESQview "Open Window" menu, you will need to modify the definition of the window. To do this, use the "CP" (for Change Program) option of the "Open Window" menu, and change the Program to TAME-RUN (or your custom batch file) and add what was previously the Program to the beginning of the command line parameters. The TAME-RES command has some of the functionality of the TAME-RUN command built into it, with a few restrictions. It must run a .COM or .EXE file, and the full path name of the program must be specified. For example, the following will Tame Lotus without using a batch file. TAME-RES C:\123\LOTUS.COM A variation of this syntax is available when a "cloned" TAME-RES is being used. In this case, you may preset the Tame options that work best with LOTUS, and automatically invoke LOTUS whenever the cloned copy of TAME-RES is run. If your program runs slower with Tame In some cases, the program may initially run slower (or "feel" choppy) with Tame installed. This is frequently corrected by a few steps that will tune Tame for the application. First, try specifying the /Max parameter (described below) to increase the number of polls allowed before Tame tries to switch tasks. A good value to try is /MAX:32,3. In some cases, changing /Max will have little effect if /KeyIdle is also specified. This is the case with most well-behaved programs that issue the keyboard idle interrupt. If the program prints very slowly, try the /PARallel option. This allows Tame to watch the parallel port, and will not invoke a task switch while the port is being used. For example, the following command lines should be used to run Word Perfect. TAME-RES TAME /PARALLEL WP Placing Tame in a batch file If you run your application with a batch file, you may like to add Tame to that batch file. The only problem here is the fact that different programs like different Tame options, and also some programs will run other programs using a DOS Shell. Tame has special options for dealing with this situation. The following batch file will run Lotus 123, and will restore the original Tame parameters before exiting. :* It is assumed that TAME-RES :* has already been loaded :* TAME /GETALL:TAME_123 /ON /MAX:3,0 123 TAME %TAME_123% SET TAME_123= Using Tame with other multi-taskers Tame has special hooks to work very effectively with DESQview, Windows, Omniview, VM/386, Double Dos and Topview compatibles. Tame may be used with other multi-tasking environments, but may not be quite as effective. Also, you may need to include a command line option to specify the method that Tame should use to give idle time to the other tasks. The /KeySwitch method will be effective with programs that are polling the keyboard, and are not polling any other devices. It may not be compatible with some applications such as communications programs. The /HaltSwitch option is compatible with most programs, but may not be effective, depending upon the multi-tasking software being used. In either case, run Tame as normal, and Tame will default to the /HaltSwitch task switching option. The following command will run Lotus 123 in an environment that is not directly supported. TAME-RES LOTUS If you use a multi-tasker that Tame is not effective with, I would like you to contact me. I need to know some technical data regarding how to detect and control the multi-tasker. If it is feasible, I will add direct support for that multi-tasker to the Tame product. Advanced Tame concepts Tame works by detecting when a program is continually polling the keyboard, and does its best to allow the multi-tasking software to switch to another task. It detects that a program is polling the keyboard after 3 successive keyboard polls that occur within 1/18 of a second, and during that time, the program does not write to the screen or issue any DOS requests. When the application polls the keyboard a fourth consecutive time, Tame checks one last time for a key-press, and if a key was not pressed, it tries to switch the task. This threshold may be increased or decreased using the /FREQUENCY:n,m option, where n is the main threshold. The n parameter specifies how many consecutive polls that may occur in a single PC clock tick before Tame switches tasks. There are 18.2 clock ticks per second, so the "true" frequency is actually 18.2 times the value of n. If n is too low, then Tame will switch tasks while the application really is working. If it is too high then Tame may never switch tasks. Unfortunately, a "one size fits all" value of n is not possible, since it depends largely on the speed of the machine, as well as the software that is being used. A reasonable value for n will be computed by Tame if you specify /Frequency with no parameters. This is done using a very crude formula based on the speed of the CPU. Since the CPU speed measurement can take a few seconds, it is recommended that this feature be used only one time, and an actual value is specified on subsequent runs. The /FREQUENCY option restricts the time period that Tame is allowed to count keyboard polls. This allows Tame to measure the amount of real work that the application is doing, where more polls per clock tick are associated with less actual work being done by the application. In some instances, it may not be appropriate to watch the clock while accumulating keyboard polls. This is the method that Tame used prior to release 2.2, and is very effective in many instances. It also happens to be much more easily tuned, since the values do not normally depend on the speed of the machine. This may be done by specifying /MAX:n,m option, where n is the main threshold. If n or m is much too low, then Tame will switch tasks while the application really is working. If it is too high then Tame will not switch tasks until long after the program has settled into a polling pattern, reducing the effectiveness of Tame for a brief period after each key is pressed. Since most programs are capable of polling 100 to 300 times per second, these parameters indirectly correspond to an "idle time limit" that is enforced by Tame. After Tame detects excessive keyboard polling, a second threshold is used. This threshold is normally much smaller than the initial threshold, and defaults to 2. In effect, Tame will allow 3 keyboard polls, switch tasks, and then switch tasks on every third successive keyboard poll until a key is pressed, or the program does something besides poll the keyboard. This allows the first threshold to be raised to a high number to accommodate some programs, without significantly sacrificing the effectiveness of Tame. In most cases, the default of 2 for the second threshold is adequate, abut it can be lowered all the way to zero if desired. It may be changed by specifying a second parameter of the /Max or /Frequency option. Some applications will grab the timer interrupt that always occurs 18.2 times per second. In many cases, this interrupt takes a lot of processing time, but really provides very little utility. To avoid wasting processing time servicing the timer interrupt, you may prevent the application from controlling the timer interrupt by specifying the /NOTIMER option. In many cases, the timer interrupt may be used to keep a clock running on the screen. This clock may not be worth much to you when you consider the amount of processing time it uses. For example, the following commands will run the Brief editor, (as long as the auto-save feature of Brief is disabled), and will gain a significant amount of processor time for background processes. TAME-RES TAME /NOTIMER B Some applications spend a lot of time polling the system clock, normally for the purpose of an maintaining an on-screen clock while it is waiting for other devices to have a character ready. The /TIMEPOLL option instructs Tame to treat the date and time query in a manner similar to the keyboard poll, and yield the time slice after successive date or time queries. The following commands run PCBOARD, which keeps an on-screen clock while waiting for the communications port. TAME-RES TAME /TIMEPOLL PCBOARD Most applications will also benefit by specifying /NoBackGround. This option is only available with DESQview, and should not be used with communications programs. When this option is set, Tame will set the task to not run in the background when it is polling. This will completely shut down the task until it is brought into the foreground. When the task becomes active again, Tame will restore the task status, to again allow it to run in the background. This automatic mode switching is extremely effective with most application programs. Setting the frequency value Tame will compute a nominal value for the frequency threshold when you specify /Frequency with no parameters. This is done using a very crude formula based primarily on the speed of the CPU. In many cases, this number is adequate. However, when computing this number, Tame does not factor in any special characteristics of a specific application program. To tune the frequency for a specific application, some real measurements are needed. Start by closing all tasks except a single task that is at the DOS prompt. There is a batch file named TAMETUNE.BAT that comes with the Tame distribution archive. Run this batch file and supply the name of the application as an argument. This batch file will simply clear Tame totals, and then run the application. Run the batch file, and bring the application to its normal input state as soon as is possible. Let it remain idle for at least ten seconds. During this time, Tame is counting actual keyboard polls. After waiting ten seconds, exit the program as quickly as possible. Tame will display a total number of polls per clock tick that occurred while you were in the application. Since you know that you were idle during most of that time, this number represents that rate which the application is capable of polling the keyboard. A good value to specify for the frequency parameter is between ¼ to ½ of the measured poll rate. Setting default options A special version of TAME-RES with custom options may easily be created. This is done by specifying the default options, and then using the /CLONE option. This creates a new program that may be used in place of the TAME-RES and TAME command combination. The following example creates TAME-123.COM which defaults to the /NoBG and /FREQ:20,2 options. TAME-RES TAME /NoBG /FREQ:20,2 TAME /CLONE:TAME-123 Later, to load Tame resident and run Lotus 123, the following commands could be used. TAME-123 123 Alternatively, the following command could be used. TAME-123 C:\123\123.EXE Since this cloned version of Tame is set up with options specifically tuned for 123, then we may wish to place the 123 command into the new COM file. This is very convenient since it allows the Tamed version of 123 to be run with a simple command. This may be done using the following commands. TAME-RES TAME /NoBG /FREQ:20,2 TAME /CLONE:123T,C:\123\123.EXE Note that this creates a modified version of TAME-RES.COM that will automatically run the 123 command - it does not modify the 123.EXE file in any way. Later, to run Tame and Lotus 123, the following command may be used. 123T The Tame status The /Status option prints many statistics that Tame accumulates while running. These statistics are interesting to see, and they may also be useful for tuning Tame and the multi-tasker. This is a sample status report. TAME release 2.40 (Non-Registered version) Copyright 1988-1990 by PowerSoft and David G. Thomas Tame Totals - Running in DESQview Task #2 Key Polls = 21,575 Time polls = 21,262 Task switches = 10,658 NoBG requests = 1,043 Elapsed Time = 4,172 seconds (Active=7 Polling=29 Input=0 Yielded=4,137) Poll rate = 10 polls per second 1 polls per tick 66 polls per running tick Options: /ON /NoBackGround:10 /NoTimer /TimePoll /KeyPoll /NoSerial /NoParallel /NoSYMbols /NoKeyIdle /Freq:20,2 Key Polls The total number of times the program polled to see if a key has been pressed. Time Polls The total number of times the program called DOS requesting the current date or time. Task Switches The number of times that Tame has forced a task switch. NoBG Requests The number of times that Tame instructed DESQview run this program only when it is in the foreground, not in the background. This number can sometimes get very high because Tame has no way to know if the program is currently in the foreground, and, if it is, DESQview will ignore the request. Elapsed Time The total time that Tame has been running. This time is measured in seconds. Tame does its best to break the time down into useful categories which are shown on the next line. Active The amount of time the task was active doing real work. Due to limitations in the measurement capabilities of Tame, this may also include some time that was actually spent in other tasks. This can happen when the multi-tasker switches tasks before Tame sees a need to, which is the normal case when the task is working very hard. The measurement will be fairly accurate except times when this task is working hard and other tasks are also working very hard at the same time. Polling The amount of CPU time this task spent polling the keyboard. Input The amount of time this task spent waiting for input. This is different than polling because the task specifically requested to not receive control until a key has been pressed. This is the normal case when waiting at the DOS prompt, unless Tame or another program is monitoring the idle interrupt (INT 28h). Yielded The amount of time that Tame has yielded to other tasks. It is a measure of the time difference between when Tame switches tasks, and when control is returned to tame. Presumably, each other task has had a time slice during this time. Poll Rate This is the ratio of total polls (Key-polls plus Time-polls) that has occurred per second, per tick and per running tick. A tick is a measure that is internal to the PC, and there are 18.21 ticks per second. The total number of running ticks is a sum of active time plus polling time, multiplied by 18.21 ticks per second. The polls per active-tick is an indicator as to how fast the program normally polls. Tame Command Reference Task switching options The main purpose of Tame is to switch to another task when it detects that the application is wasting time polling the keyboard. With DESQview, Windows, Omniview, Topview, VM/386 and Double Dos, the native pause function is used to switch tasks. Since Tame does not have specific support for other multi-taskers, you need to set the task switching method for these other multi-taskers. The following options specify the method that Tame should use in order to switch tasks. ........ /DESQVIEW Use the native DESQview task switching method. ........ /DOUBLEDOS Use the native Double DOS task switching method. ........ /HaltSwitch The /HaltSwitch option specifies that Tame should execute a HLT instruction when polling is detected. This instruction has been found to cause some multi-taskers to immediately switch to another task. This is the default task switching method when Tame does not recognize the multi-tasker. ........ /KeySwitch The /KeySwitch option specifies that when the program polls the keyboard, Tame should tell a white lie and say that a key has been pressed. Most applications will immediately read the key that Tame claimed was already pressed. Since it really was not pressed, DOS will wait for a key to be pressed. Most multi-taskers use this wait for a key press as a queue to switch tasks. The /KeySwitch option could be the most effective task switching method in Tame, but it will not work with some applications. Specifically, it will not work with any applications that poll devices other than the keyboard, or with programs that occasionally flush the keyboard buffer. It is also not effective in Windows/386. ........ /OMNIVIEW Use the native Omniview task switching method. ........ /TOPVIEW Use the native Topview task switching method. ........ /VM386 Use the native VM/386 task switching method which happens to be the same as /HaltSwitch. ........ /WINdows Use the native Windows task switching method. This is effective with Windows 3.0 and Windows/386. Fine tuning for an application The default Tame options will work well with most programs. However, portions of some programs will run slower with Tame. With other programs, Tame may not reduce the CPU overhead, even though the program polls the keyboard. The following options may be specified in order to adjust the effects of Tame on a specific application program. ........ /INT15 This option improves the effectiveness of Tame with some programs, but it does not work on all computer systems. In fact, with some machines, it will lock up the system. This option may be turned off by specifying /NoINT15. ........ /NoBG:n This option can be very effective with DESQview, and will /FGonly:n be ignored if another multi-tasking system is being used. When this option is specified, Tame will patiently do a normal task switch n times. If no activity is detected, then it will instruct DESQview to temporarily run this program only while it is in the foreground. As soon as this program is brought to the foreground, Tame will instruct DESQview to again allow it to execute in the background. This option is extremely effective in preventing idle background processes from slowing performance of working processes. However, since its net effect is to completely stop the task (if it is in the background), it is very sensitive to how well the /Frequency or /Max parameters are tuned. It also will not be effective with background tasks which may remain idle for a period of time, and become active based on external events (e.g. communications program). This option may be turned off by specifying /NoFGonly or /BackGround. ........ /Freq:n,m This option may need to be used in order to fine-tune Tame. It sets n as the number of consecutive keyboard polls per clock tick that are acceptable before Tame decides that the program is doing no other work except polling the keyboard. This number defaults to 3. If this number is too low, then Tame may switch tasks while the program is really working. Specifying /Frequency with no parameters will allow Tame to compute a reasonable value based on the speed of the CPU. Since some application programs poll the keyboard at a high rate (even while they are working), so this option does not always provide advantages over /Max. ........ /KeyIdle:n This option works well with many programs that are gracious enough to inform DOS that it is somewhat idle while it polls the keyboard. When Tame detects this idle situation, it will temporarily lower the /Max or /Frequency threshold to n. This seems to work especially well with programs that always inform DOS when it is idle, and the standard threshold can be set to -1, telling Tame to never switch tasks unless the application confirms that it is really idle. Beginning with DESQview release 2.26, this option is not recommended for tasks that spend a lot of time at the DOS prompt. This is because DESQview detects the fact that Tame is watching the idle interrupt, and when at the DOS prompt, DESQview goes out of its way to make sure the idle interrupt is called, wasting some processing time unnecessarily. This option is still very effective inside some programs, and the problem only occurs at the DOS prompt. This option may be turned off by specifying /NoKeyIdle. ........ /NoKeyPoll This option instructs Tame to not look at keyboard polls. This may be useful with some programs that poll the keyboard whether they are working or not, but they poll the date or time only during keyboard input. In this case, it may be best to switch tasks based on the /TimePoll switch, and ignore all key polls. This option may be reversed with /KeyPoll. ........ /Max:n,m This option may need to be used if the application seems to run slower with Tame. It sets n as the number of consecutive polls that are acceptable before Tame decides that the program is simply polling while waiting for input. If this number is too low, then Tame may switch tasks while the program is really working. If you suspect that the program (or a particular aspect of the program) is slower with Tame, raise this number. Parameters as high as a few thousand may be needed in some cases. Note that the /Frequency parameter may be used in place of /Max, and /Frequency is generally more effective. The second number may optionally be specified in order to change the number of consecutive polls that Tame uses to switch tasks after it has already determined that the program is in a polling mode. Either n or m may be -1, which indicates that Tame should not cause a task switch based upon polling alone. This is effective with programs that issue the keyboard idle interrupt while they are polling the keyboard, and will prevent Tame from switching tasks from intermittent keyboard polls. In some cases, changing /Max will have no apparent effect when /KeyIdle is also specified. This is the case with most well-behaved programs that issue the keyboard idle interrupt. ........ /NoTimer This option prevents the application from processing the timer interrupt that is normally issued by the PC 18.2 times per second. This option may disable some features of the program, and should be used with caution. It is very useful with programs that use a lot of CPU processing the timer interrupt, and accomplish little. This option works by intercepting the programs request to be called by the timer interrupt. The program assumes it will be called on a regular basis by the timer interrupt, but, since Tame did not pass this request on to DOS, the program will never be called by the interrupt. This option may be turned off by specifying /Timer. ........ /PARallel This option instructs Tame to watch BIOS level parallel port accesses, and if the port is frequently being used, do not allow a task switch. This option is not normally needed except with programs that bypass DOS in accessing the printer. It should be used only when it is really needed. ........ /SERial This option instructs Tame to watch BIOS level serial port accesses, and if the port is frequently being used, do not allow a task switch. This option is not normally needed except with programs that use the serial port (e.g. comm programs, bulletin boards, etc...). It should be used only when it is really needed. ........ /TimePoll This option instructs Tame to consider a request for the current time to be similar to a keyboard poll. This works well with programs that constantly update an on-screen clock. This option may have no effect when /KeySwitch is specified. It is recommended that the second /Max or /Frequency parameter have a minimum value of 2 when /TimePoll is specified. This option may be turned off by specifying /NoTimePoll. Other options ........ /CLeaR Zero the totals that Tame displays on the status report. ........ /CLONE:file This command will make a special version of TAME-RES.COM that has customized default parameters. The currently active defaults will be placed into the cloned program. In all cases, the /CLONE option should be the only command line option that is specified. The cloned program is specified with the file value, and should be named TAME-xxx where xxx is an abbreviation for the application name. The new TAME-xxx.COM may be run in place of the TAME-RES.COM and TAME.EXE duo that is frequently needed when starting up a new task. ........ /CLONE:f,c This command will make a special version of TAME-RES.COM that has customized default parameters, and also will automatically run a specific command. The currently active defaults will be placed into the cloned program. In all cases, the /CLONE option should be the only command line option that is specified. The new COM may be run in place of the TAME-RES.COM, TAME.EXE and program combination that is frequently needed when starting up a new task. Note that f is the name of the new COM file (without the .COM suffix), and c is the full path name of the EXE or COM style command that is to be run. ........ /Geiger:p,t,f This option starts up a sound that is similar to a Geiger counter. This sound speeds up when the system is idle, and slows as other tasks demand CPU resources. It is a very useful tool for monitoring the effectiveness of Tame, since it allows you to monitor the amount of CPU that an application will use with and without Tame. There are three optional parameters that may be specified. The p parameter sets amount of time (in 1/18 second units) between eich Geiger tick. The default value is one, which will make about 18 ticks per second. Setting it to zero will give a tick each time this task gets a time slice, but the zero setting requires TAME-RES to be loaded. The t parameter sets the amount of time each tick takes. The default is based on the speed of the CPU. When t is zero, a faint tick may still be heard. The f parameter sets the frequency of the ticks, in Hertz. ........ /GETALL:var Get the current Tame parameters, and place them into an environment variable named var. This option is designed for use in a batch file, in order to restore the Tame parameters after running a program. This option has been tested with DOS versions 3.1 and 3.3, but it will not work with DOS 3.2. I hope to correct this problem with a future release. If you are running a multi-tasker with DOS 2.0, I strongly recommend you upgrade to DOS 3.x so you can take advantage of the protections provided with the SHARE command. ........ /OFF Temporarily disable Tame, but leave it in memory for later use. ........ /ON Enable Tame task switching. Tame is on by default. ........ /Status Display a summary report. The summary includes the number of task switches that were initiated by Tame, the total number of keyboard calls that the application made, and also a summary of the current options. ........ /Uninstall Remove the resident portion of Tame from memory. Multi-tasking Specifics DESQview Tame will automatically detect the presence of DESQview, and will use its native task switching method. Tame has been tested with DESQview versions 2.01 through 2.26, and appears to work well with all versions. If you set the /Frequency parameter correctly, the /NoBackGround option is strongly recommended with most application programs. It will prevent idle background programs from affecting performance. Tame is most effective with DESQview when QEMM and DESQview are combined on an 80386 based PC. Tame will also be effective on a machine with an 8088 or 80286 and should be used with many programs that do not have special DESQview loaders. Double Dos Tame will automatically detect the presence of Double Dos, and will use its native task switching method. Omniview Tame cannot tell the difference between DESQview and Omniview. After loading TAME-RES, run TAME with the /OMNIVIEW option. Topview After loading TAME-RES, run TAME with the /TOPVIEW option. VM/386 Tame does not specifically detect VM/386. After loading TAME-RES, you should run TAME with the /VM386 option. Windows 3.0 and Windows/386 Tame will automatically detect the presence of Windows, and will use its native task switching method. When the /FREQ option is used, the optimal value may vary drastically from the value used with other multi-taskers. Tame can be much more effective than the idle detection that is built into Windows. When using Tame, it is best to disable Windows idle detection for each window that uses Tame. Also, if you had previously set a window to run with a low background priority, you may wish to raise it and let Tame decide when it really needs the CPU. Application Specifics Most applications may be run with Tame without any special parameters. However, for best results, certain command line parameters may be desirable for some applications. The following table represents the benefits and effects of recommended command line parameters for each program when run under DESQview. In most cases, tuning Tame so that /FREQuency and /NoBackGround may be used is strongly recommended. Results may vary with other multi-taskers. Application Recommended options Results & Program Side effects Brief (use defaults) About 75% of the CPU overhead is eliminated. Brief /NoTimer /KeyIdle Nearly all the CPU overhead is eliminated. On screen clock and auto-save feature are disabled. Info Select /NoKeyPoll Nearly all the CPU overhead is /TimePoll eliminated Kedit (use defaults) Nearly all of the CPU overhead is eliminated. Lotus 123 (use defaults) Nearly all the CPU overhead is eliminated. Lotus Agenda (use defaults) Nearly all the CPU overhead is eliminated. Lotus /NoTimer /Max:-1 Nearly all the CPU overhead is Manuscript /KeyIdle eliminated. Lucid 3D (use defaults) Nearly all the CPU overhead is eliminated. Microsoft (use defaults) Nearly all the CPU overhead is Editor eliminated. Norton (use defaults) Nearly all the CPU overhead is Commander eliminated. Tame will also cover programs that are run by the shell. PCBOARD /TimePoll About 75% of the CPU overhead is eliminated. Quick C /NoTimer Nearly all of the CPU overhead is eliminated. Side effects (if any) of /NoTimer have not been determined. Sidetalk (use defaults) About 75% of the CPU overhead is eliminated. Tornado Notes /NoKeyPoll Nearly all the CPU overhead is /TimePoll eliminated Word Perfect /Parallel About 75% of the CPU overhead is eliminated. ZCOMM /Serial About 75% of the CPU overhead is eliminated. Tame Upgrades The latest release of Tame will be continuously posted on the PowerSoft bulletin board system at (404) 928-9294. Also, since Tame is distributed as a shareware program, the latest release will normally be available on a local bulletin board. If you are a registered user, you have paid for a perpetual license, and may register each new version of Tame using a utility program that is provided with your registration kit. This utility may be run completely from the command line. For example, the following command line will register Fred Smith if the password of ABCD is correct. TAME-REG "Fred Smith" ABCD If you prefer, the registration program may be run without specifying any arguments, and you will be prompted for the information.