Best Objectech Shareware Selections/UNTITLED.iso/boss/util/misc/003/alarm.doc

Text File | 1991-01-08 | 11.6 KB | 207 lines

TITLE:         ALARM 3.02
PURPOSE:       Resident clock, chime, and alarm program
DATE:          12-6-90
AUTHOR:        Thomas A. Lundin
               16267 Hudson Avenue
               Lakeville, MN 55044
               Daytime # [phone]

DESCRIPTION:   ALARM provides a memory-resident on-screen clock in the upper
               or lower right corner. On the hour and half-hour, a short
               tune is played (the tunes are programmable by you). The
               program can also store up to 10 alarm times per day which
               will be indicated by another tune and a flashing reminder
               message at the bottom of the screen, all of which are
               programmable. The clock display, chimes, and alarms can be
               toggled on or off individually.

OPERATION:     The command line invocation is:

               alarm302 [-options]

               Options:

               -?             displays program usage
               -c             toggle Chimes on and off
               -a             toggle Alarms on and off
               -k             toggle clocK display on and off
               -p             toggle clock display Position
               -s             Set alarms (read from ALARM.DAT)
               -tFILENAME     load a Tune from FILENAME
               -dMM/DD/YY     load alarms for specified Date

               The first time ALARM is run, no options can be specified on
               the command line; they won't be processed. Subsequent
               executions can invoke the options. Multiple options can be
               specified on one command line.

               1.   FORMAT OF THE ALARM.DAT FILE:
                    ALARM.DAT is an ASCII file which contains the alarm
                    dates, times, and messages that the program will store.
                    Up to 10 alarm times can be programmed for one date, but
                    your ALARM.DAT file can contain alarms for as many dates
                    as you want. Each alarm is entered as:

                    MM/DD/YY HH:MM Your message here!

                    The first item in the line is the date. It must be
                    followed by only one space. The next item is the time
                    that the alarm will be called. It is entered in 24-hour
                    notation (where 1:00pm is 13:00, also known as military
                    time). It must be followed by only one space. The last
                    item is the message that will be displayed at alarm
                    time. It can be up to 40 characters long. See the sample
                    ALARM.DAT file for examples.

                    If you enter an alarm time that is on the hour or
                    half-hour, the alarm tune will override the normal
                    chime. Since I like listening to tunes, I usually set my
                    alarms to sound off a few minutes before or after the
                    hour or half-hour.

                    Alarm messages will be displayed on the last line of
                    your screen, and the alarm tune will cycle through
                    twice. The message remains on the screen only as long as
                    no other program writes over it.

                    Use the -s option in the command line to set the alarms
                    from ALARM.DAT. ALARM.DAT must reside in the current
                    subdirectory, or in a subdirectory that is part of your
                    PATH command. When alarms are set, the alarm is
                    automatically turned ON, even if you toggled it off
                    earlier.

               2.   FORMAT OF THE TUNES FILES:
                    A tune file is an ASCII file which contains the
                    individual musical frequencies which make up an hourly,
                    half-hourly, or alarm chime. Each tune file can contain
                    up to 3 lines, one for each type of chime. The format of
                    a tune line is:

                    ALARM_TYPE,BEEP_SPEED,NOTE1,NOTE2,NOTE3,...,NOTE63,0

                    All elements are comma-separated.

                    ALARM_TYPE must be one of three letters: A for Alarm, T
                    for Top-of-the-hour, or H for Half-hour.

                    BEEP_SPEED must be a number from 1 to 18. It determines
                    how long each note is played, in increments of 1/18th of
                    a second. For example, a BEEP_SPEED value of 3 will play
                    each note for about 1/6 of a second. BEEP_SPEED is an
                    absolute timing measure based on the 18.2 ticks per
                    second of the system clock, so chimes and alarms will
                    sound the same regardless of processor speed.

                    NOTE1 through NOTE63 are the individual notes, entered
                    as frequency values, which compose the tune being
                    played. See the sample file SCALE.TXT for a chart of
                    musical note frequency values. A "rest" is entered as a
                    -1 frequency. Two or more consecutive notes of the same
                    frequency will sound like one long note (useful for
                    providing aesthetically-pleasing musical phrasing). The
                    series of notes must be terminated with a 0.

                    The Top-of-the-hour and Half-hour tunes can each be up
                    to 63 notes in length. The Alarm tune can be up to 29
                    notes in length. Violating these restrictions could
                    cause the program to crash, possibly locking up the
                    system, or, more likely, emit an interminable series of
                    random beeps instead of the tune you want.

                    To load a tune into memory, use the -tFILENAME option,
                    where FILENAME is any valid PC path/filename that
                    contains tune information. You can do as I've done, and
                    create a little library of tunes -- one tune per file --
                    and mix and match them on a single command line (see the
                    ALARM.BAT batch file for an example), or you can load
                    pre-defined combinations of tunes in each file.

                    See the sample files with an extension of .TUN for
                    examples of tunes. Notice how I've subdivided the basic
                    tempo in some of the tunes into halves or thirds to
                    allow for simulated rests, quarter- and half-notes, etc.

NOTES:         The way I write my tunes is to use the PIANOMAN program to
               tap out the tune on the keyboard and write down the notes.
               Then I transpose them into frequency values with SNR, a
               multi-string search-and-replace program.

               ALARM loads the alarms for the current date only. Use the -d
               option to load alarms for a different date. If your computer
               runs past midnight, the time will show correctly, but the
               date will not be updated.

               ALARM uses approximately 17K of RAM when resident.

               ALARM is written in Turbo C++ (ANSI mode). No assembly
               language was required.

MACHINE:       The program will run on any PC-compatible computer using
               MS-DOS 2.x or higher, with a minimum of 128K RAM.

DISCLAIMER:    This program is distributed as shareware.  Use it, copy
               it, upload it, give it to your friends.  No warranties,
               either expressed or implied, are given by the author or
               distributor of the program, and the user accepts all risk of
               damage arising out of the application and use of the program.

BEG:           If you find this program to be of value, contributions ($10
               suggested) will be gratefully accepted. If you'd like the
               source code to this program, please send $20 and a stamped
               disk mailer. If you decide not to contribute, but suffer with
               the guilt instead, at least upload this file to as many BBSes
               as you can.

               Send comments/bug reports/contributions to:

                         ╔═════════════════════════════╗
                         ║      THOMAS A. LUNDIN       ║
                         ║     16267 Hudson Avenue     ║
                         ║     Lakeville, MN  55044    ║
                         ║   Daytime # [phone]  ║
                         ╚═════════════════════════════╝

               Thank you for using ALARM.


CATALOG:       Other shareware programs I've written:

               SBREAK.EXE: SuperBreaker (ver 3.1B)
               What I call the world's best file splitting program -- splits
               files by size, string match, line count; converts fixed-length
               data files to CRLF-terminated text files; can split files to
               floppy diskettes; splits binary or text files; files split to
               size can also be split at the next nearest user-definable
               string (e.g. CRLF); other features. You can use this program to
               split a really big .ARC file onto multiple floppies and then
               easily reconstruct it on a different computer.

               SNR.EXE: Search-N-Replace (ver 4.0)
               This is a multi-string, global file search-and-replace
               program. It allows you to create up to 50 search-and-replace
               equations of up to 200 characters each. You can search for
               and replace all text and binary characters. A toggle feature
               allows you to make the same search string output two
               different replacement strings. All translations occur in a
               single pass. This program is very handy for making fast,
               easy, global changes to the contents of a disk file (or group
               of files).

               CCUR.EXE: The Counting Cursor (ver 3.1)
               This program uses your cursor as a counting device, allowing
               you to count the number of characters between two points on the
               screen simply by moving the cursor. These width counts can be
               written to a disk file for use in other programs. CCUR will
               also record row-column screen coordinates if you choose. The
               HEX and ASCII decimal values of the character under the cursor
               are displayed, giving you a fast way to identify those control
               and graphic characters by code value. An on-demand screen
               blanker is built-in. A screen capture command is provided,
               allowing you to capture the display to any disk file or DOS
               device (yes, the printer, too). This is a handy program for you
               database file hackers.

               If you are interested in any of these programs, check your
               local BBS or call me or drop me a note at my work address.