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1990-03-20
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PC-Stitch
Users Guide
PC-Stitch is a simple to use, yet powerful computer program for use
in designing and printing customized needlecraft patterns. PC-Stitch
allows you to create designs of up to 200 by 140 stitches in as many as
16 colors or symbols. You may then print the entire design or any
section of the design in one of two print sizes. All of the designing
takes place on an enlarged grid which automatically scrolls to the left
or right and up or down as your design passes the end of the screen. At
any time, you may see the entire design at the touch of a single key.
PC-Stitch requires an IBM PC Compatible with at least 256K of mem-
ory. In addition, PC-Stitch also requires an EGA (Enhanced Graphics Ad-
apter) compatible color monitor, a CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) compati-
ble color monitor, or a Hercules compatible monochrome monitor. PC-
Stitch will work with any printer and can be run from either a floppy or
a hard disk drive, however if it is run from a single floppy PC, you
will have to place a copy of the DOS COMMAND.COM file on the working
disk.
INSTALLATION
PC-Stitch can not be run from the installation disk. It must be
installed on another drive. To install PC-Stitch, place your in-stalla-
tion disk in the floppy drive and enter the following commands:
A: <ENTER>
INSTALL <ENTER>
Note: <ENTER> means press the enter key.
You will be prompted to choose what display type you have, and what
drive on which to install PC-Stitch. After these questions have been
answered, all of the necessary files to run PC-Stitch will be auto-
matically copied to the drive that you specified. If you are going to
install PC-Stitch on drive A:, it is suggested that you format the
floppy with the /S option to place a copy of the COMMAND.COM file on the
disk, since this file is necessary for the operation of PC-Stitch. After
the files have been copied, you will be asked whether or not to print
the documentation files. If you answer 'y' the files will be printed.
If not, you may print them out yourself later with the following
command from your installed PC-Stitch disk:
COPY *.DOC PRN: <ENTER>
SETUP
PC-Stitch comes with a SETUP program to allow you to enter the
escape codes to enable your printer to print in the small print size.
The default escape sequences supplied on the installation disk work with
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most printers, but the SETUP program will allow you to change them if
you need to. You may run the SETUP program by typing '/' from inside of
PC-Stitch or by typing "SETUP <ENTER>" from your installed PC-Stitch
disk. Before running SETUP, you should locate your printer manual and
locate the escape sequences to turn compressed pitch on and off and to
turn 8 lines per inch on and off. These are the sequences that PC-Stitch
needs to print in small mode. When entering these sequences into the
SETUP program, enter the decimal number for each character in the
sequence and press <ENTER> after the last one. For example, if the
sequence to turn on 8 lines per inch is "ESC 0" you would enter "27 48"
in SETUP. Your printer manual should contain both the decimal and ascii
codes for these sequences. PC-Stitch is installed with a default print
size of large. You may change this default to small print by running
SETUP.
STARTING PC-Stitch
If you are running on a single floppy drive system, you may start
PC-Stitch by entering the following commands:
A: <ENTER>
PCSTITCH <ENTER>
If you are running on a two floppy drive system, we suggest that you
leave the DOS boot disk in the first drive and place the PC-Stitch disk
in the second drive. The commands for starting the program in this
situation are:
B: <ENTER>
PCSTITCH <ENTER>
If you have installed PC-Stitch on a hard disk drive, the commands
for starting the program are as follows:
CD \PCSTITCH <ENTER>
PCSTITCH <ENTER>
USING PC-Stitch
Using PC-Stitch is as easy as placing you pencil on the grid and
drawing a picture. When you first see the design grid, you will see a
small X in the box at the upper left corner of the grid. This box will
always mark your current position on the grid. You can move this X on
the screen with the letters Q,W,E,A,D,Z,X, and C on your keyboard. If
you look closely at the keyboard, you will notice that these letters
form a box around the letter 'S'. The direction that each key moves the
X is the direction of that key from the letter 'S'. For example,
pressing 'E' will move the X diagonally one square up and to the right.
Pressing 'X' will move the X one square down. If you try to move the X
off of the total design area (not the currently displayed design grid)
you will hear an alert tone and the X will remain where it is. If you
move the X off of the current screen, the design grid will scroll in the
direction that you are moving. If you are not sure where you are
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located in relation to the entire design cloth, you can use the view
cloth function to see the entire design area. While you are looking at
the large cloth, your current position will be marked with an arrow.
Drawing takes place when you move the X while your pencil is down.
If your pencil is up, you just move along the grid without making any
marks. While you are not in mirror mode, one block is colored with the
current color (or erased if the current color is set to erase) each time
you move the X. When you are in mirror mode, the square that you move
through and its mirror image point are both colored or erased (see MIR-
ROR MODE in the functions section for more information).
FUNCTIONS
Function Key Description
-------- --- -----------
Main Menu M Changes the menu area on the EGA/Hercules screen to
display the Main Menu help keys.
Grid Options G Changes the menu area on the EGA/Hercules screen to
display the Grid Options help keys.
Cloth Options H Changes the menu area on the EGA/Hercules screen to
display the Cloth Options help keys.
File Options F Changes the menu area on the EGA/Hercules screen to
display the File Options help keys.
Change Color O Allows the user to change the current color/symbol.
A color/symbol bar is displayed in the prompt area
with an arrow under one of the colors/symbols. The
user must then move the arrow with the left and
right (A and D) keys until the arrow is under the
new current color/symbol. Press 'S' to save the new
current color/symbol.
Pen Up/Down P Toggles the status of the pen. If the pen is curre-
ntly up, 'P' will put it down. If it is down, 'P'
will put it up.
Paint B Paint allows you to fill in an any bordered area
with a color/symbol. Paint will prompt you if you
are sure if you want to paint. You should always
make sure that the X is at a point which is entirely
enclosed by some color/symbol. If it is not, you
will end up painting the entire design cloth. Paint
may take a while, since you may be painting an area
that is not on the current design grid. You will
know that paint is finished when you see the X
return to your current position.
Mirror Mode V The 'V' command toggles the status of mirror mode
similar to the way the 'P' command toggles the pen
status. You will know if you are in mirror mode if
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you see two pencils on the screen instead of one.
When you enter mirror mode, you may only move around
on the design grid to the left of the place at which
you entered mirror mode. The area to the right of
that point is where the mirror image will be drawn.
It is possible that the mirror image may be drawn
off of the design grid that you can see. If you try
to move to a spot that cannot be mirror imaged or is
to the right of the spot where you entered mirror
mode, you will hear the alert sound and the X will
remain where it is.
Jump J Jump allows you to move to any portion of the design
cloth without having to use the movement keys. When
you are shown the cloth, move the arrow with the
movement keys until it is the new upper left corner
of the design grid and press 'S' to save. You will
then be returned to the design grid and it will be
filled with the design at that location. When you
JUMP, your pencil will be lifted and mirror mode
will be exited automatically.
View Cloth T View Cloth allows you to see what the entire pattern
will look like on the screen. When viewing the
cloth, press any key to return to the design area.
In the EGA PC-Stitch, the cloth view function will
accurately show the entire pattern in the colors
that it was designed in. Due to the limited colors
in CGA and Hercules PC-Stitch, only outlines of
objects that are a solid color in the design will
appear when you view the cloth.
Copy/Move N Copy/Move allows you to move or copy any portion of
your design to another place on the cloth. Upon
entering this function, you will be shown the entire
cloth and asked to move the arrow to the upper left
corner of the place to begin and press 'S' to save.
You will next have to move the arrow to the lower
right corner of the area to copy/move and press 'S'
to save. A box will then be drawn around the area
that has been defined. Next you must move the arrow
to the upper left corner of the place you wish to
copy/move to. You will then be asked whether to
copy or move the defined section of the design.
After answering this question, the move/copy will
take place, and you will hear the alert sound when
it is finished.
NOTE: copy/move will overwrite anything which may be
in the area you are copying/moving to only for the
colored points. Anything that is inside the box
that is the background color will not be copied.
Center K PC-Stitch will automatically center your design on
the entire cloth. You will be shown the cloth and
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then prompted if you wish to center top to bottom
and/or left to right. After these questions are
answered, the design will be centered accordingly,
and you will hear the alert tone when it is finis-
hed. When you are returned to the design grid, you
will be located in the section which has the upper
left point of the newly centered design. As with
JUMP, center will automatically lift your pen and
exit mirror mode.
Save Pattern S The save command will prompt you for an eight or
fewer character file name under which to save the
pattern. The entire cloth will then be saved to the
named file. You may load this pattern back in at
any time with the load command.
Load Pattern L The load command allows you to load a previously
saved pattern to the design grid. The menu area of
the screen will be cleared and the current file name
to load will be displayed. You may step through the
available patterns with the up and down movement
keys ( W and X ) and press <ENTER> when you find the
one that you wish to load. When the pattern is done
loading, you will hear an alert tone.
NOTE: Loading a pattern will overlay the stored
pattern with anything currently on the design grid.
This allows you to merge patterns by loading them on
top of one another.
Delete Pattern I This function allows you to delete a pattern from
the disk that you do not want anymore. The file
selection works exactly like load, except you press
<ENTER> for the file to delete.
NOTE: For Load and Delete to work on a single floppy
PC-Stitch installation, the DOS COMMAND.COM file
must be present on the disk.
Print Pattern R The 'R' command allows you to print all or a section
of a pattern. If your default print size is large,
the printout will be on a grid that is 50 wide by 35
down and will be printed sideways on the page. If
your print size is large, the printout will be on a
grid that is 50 wide by 70 down and will be printed
up and down on the page. If you choose to print the
entire cloth, only those sections of the cloth that
are within the leftmost and rightmost, and highest
and lowest points will be printed. Every row and
column which is divisible by 5 will be labeled with
its number. At the bottom of every page of the
printout, the size of the entire design on the cloth
will be printed.
Toggle Print Y This option will allow you to toggle the print size.
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If the current print size is large, pressing Y will
make it small and vice versa. Changing the print
size is valid only for the current execution of PC-
Stitch. If you want to change the default for every
time you bring up the program, you must run SETUP.
Run SETUP / This function allows you to run SETUP from inside of
PC-Stitch. Running SETUP will cause you to exit
from PC-Stitch. If you have not saved your current
design, you will be prompted to do so if you wish
before running setup.
If you experience any difficulties or have any questions or comments
regarding this product, please contact:
M & R Enterprises
P.O. Box 9403
Wright Bros. Branch
Dayton, OH 45409
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