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---------------------------------- ROBIN! An Online Aid for Prodigy(r) Users ---------------------------------- VERSION 1.6 Copyright 1990 McQuay Technologies Prodigy(r) is a registered service mark and trademark of Prodigy Services Company, a partnership of IBM and Sears. Robin!(r) is a service mark and trademark of McQuay Technologies. TABLE OF CONTENTS --------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN! 1 INSTALLATION AND GETTING STARTED 1 WHOOPS! Did not work? 3 Starting prodigy and robin 4 ROBIN!'S FEATURES 5 Introduction 5 User Input 5 Main Menu ALT-TAB 6 ALT-X Canceling ROBIN!'S Actions 6 Using ROBIN! to Log On to Prodigy 7 Sending Printer Output to a File 9 LOG FILES 11 Formatting Printer Output 12 Uploading a Text File to Prodigy Message Center or BBS 13 Quick Notes 13 Long Notes 15 Sending Long Notes to a List of People 17 Using Your Word Processor or Editor 18 Using ROBIN! scripts to Automate Prodigy Services 19 What is a ROBIN! script? 19 How do you use them while online with Prodigy? 19 How do you create them? 20 What are some of the things you can do with Scripts? 20 The SYSTEM MENU 21 Using The Dialog Box 21 Printer Format 21 System Path 22 Script Display 22 Node Wait Time 22 TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONT) --------------------------------------------------------- ROBIN! SCRIPT WRITER AND LANGUAGE. 22 How To Start The Compiler 23 How To Write A Script File 23 Script file structure 24 Prodigy Workings 25 The Language 27 ADVANCED FEATURES 29 Command Line Switches 29 A=<n> Automatic Login 29 V=<video type> Set Video Mode for Prodigy. 29 D=<pathname> Path to all ROBIN! scratch files 30 ROBIN! IN THE WINDOW (WINDOWS 3) 30 ROBIN! Configuration Program RCONFIG.EXE 31 REGISTERING YOUR SHAREWARE VERSION OF ROBIN! 32 What does shareware mean? 32 How do you register? 32 The Reality of Shareware 35 PROBLEMS 36 Possible Problems and Solutions 36 How to contact us about ROBIN! problems 39 APPENDIX 41 System Requirements 41 Installing on a floppy system 41 MEMORY PROBLEMS - UNLOADING TSRS 42 Technical Aspects of Robin! 43 Some Technical Aspects of Prodigy(r), We Think! 44 Some non technical aspects of ROBIN! 46 Possible future enhancements 47 Why is it called ROBIN!? 48 What is McQuay Technologies? 49 ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 1 INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN! INTRODUCTION TO ROBIN! Robin! is an online aid for Prodigy(r) users. It is designed to make Prodigy(r) easier to use for beginners, and faster and more productive to use for advanced users. ROBIN! is structured around online menus that provide 3 major tools 1) The ability to upload textfiles to Prodigy(r) from a floppy or hard disk. 2) The ability to route information to a textfile that Prodigy(r) would normally send to the printer. 3) A script language that can be used to "playback" keystrokes as if they were typed in from the keyboard. Robin!'s tools can be selected from menus or selected with hotkeys. Beginners will find Robin!'s menus make it easier to access Prodigy(r)'s services. Advanced users will be able to access Prodigy(r) services faster, and send and receive mail with just a few keystrokes. The following sections discuss how to install ROBIN!, how to use each of Robin!'s features, how to solve problems you may encounter and how to register your shareware copy. This document also contains several appendicies that provide some additional technical information about ROBIN! and Prodigy. We at McQuay Technologies believe in excellence in our work and our products. We have tried to do our best in crafting ROBIN!. Our goal was to create a product that is easy to use and meets your needs. After using this document and the ROBIN! software, if you, our customers feel we have not done so, then we would be the first to admit we have not yet achieved our goal. But more importantly we want to hear from you on what's missing or wrong so we can add it or fix it. We are designing ROBIN! for you, so ENJOY! and be critical. INSTALLATION AND GETTING STARTED INSTALLATION AND GETTING STARTED We have tried to make the installation of ROBIN! as painless as possible. This is your first impression of us, and we want to make it pleasant! With your shareware ROBIN! package is an install program which will help you to install ROBIN!. We suggest you follow these steps. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 2 1) Make a backup copy of the ROBIN! shareware software and data files, NOW! If you originally downloaded or received ROBIN! as an ARC or ZIP file, then back up this file. If you received ROBIN! on a disk then back up this disk. Better safe than sorry. If you received ROBIN! as an ARC or ZIP file, then it will have to be uncompressed. Likely if you are reading this, that has already been done. Backup your ARC or ZIP files! 2) View, list, or print the README.ASC file that came with your shareware version of ROBIN!. It will provide whatever has been updated since this document was prepared. +-----------------------------------------------+ The current version of ROBIN!'s install | | program is designed for those with Hard | | Disks. If you are using a floppy version | | of prodigy, you will have to install ROBIN! | | by hand. This is not difficult. Refer to | | Floppy Disk Installation in the Appendix | | for installing on a floppy based system | | instead of using steps 3 and 4 below. This | | section also shows how to start ROBIN! with | | a floppy system. | | +-----------------------------------------------+ 3) Run the install program from the DOS prompt. If the ROBIN software is on a floppy disk, then put that disk in a drive, make this drive the default drive by typing at the DOS prompt the drive's letter followed by a colon and pressing the return or Enter key. For example. If you have an A: drive, put your ROBIN! disk in drive A:, and at the DOS prompt (which should look something like this A> or this C> type the following: A: Then press the RETURN key. Then type RINSTALL followed by the RETURN key. If the ROBIN! software is on a hard disk, then make the directory where it is located the default directory. Once this is done, then type RINSTALL and press the Return or Enter key. 4) Robin!'s install program will first try and find your Prodigy directory. This should take no more than a minute. If it does not find one (perhaps you have given it some name other than PRODIGY) then it will ask you to type in the full path name of the directory that you have installed Prodigy. If it finds your Prodigy directory, ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 3 it will ask if this is the directory in which you want to install ROBIN!. You must install ROBIN! in which Prodigy is installed. But if you have Prodigy installed in several places, you can then identify a one of these other directories. ROBIN!'s install program will now install ROBIN!. This should take from 30 seconds to 4 to 5 minutes to install, depending on the speed of your system. If the Install program finds any unusual conditions, it may print out some error messages. If so, follow the directions displayed. For most of you, this is all you will have to do. You can then start PRODIGY with a new batch file called ROBIN. Do the same things you did before to start Prodigy, but now type ROBIN instead of PRODIGY. If you have problems, first refer to the following paragraphs. If that does not solve your problem then refer to the Problem Section of this document. If your problem still persists, then lastly contact us on Prodigy. You should still be able to run prodigy as you have in the past. See the Problem Section below on how to contact us. WHOOPS! DID NOT WORK? Now we can not honestly leave our instructions for installation at just the above. Unfortunately, for some there may be more you will have to do. In this day and age of TSR and Batch File heaven, there are so many possibilities on what software you are using and how your PC is configured it would be impossible for us to cover all possibilities in an INSTALL program (Well maybe not impossible, but not desirable). The biggest concern you and we will have about installation is memory. If you are using a lot of TSR programs, it is quite possible that you will not be able to run ROBIN! and Prodigy at the same time. If this is the case you should know fairly quickly. The ROBIN! install program will likely complain about this if there is a problem. And it is possible that when you try to run Prodigy, it will tell you there is a problem. If either of these happen, then you have only two choices. 1) Unload these TSR programs from memory before running the ROBIN batch file, or 2) Do not use ROBIN! (there is a third option below). Many of today's TSR programs provide very few ways, if any, to unload their software from memory, let alone provide clear instructions on how to do so. The simplest way is to exclude it from your CONFIG.SYS file or your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. However, this is also the most inconvenient. In the Problem Section, under Not Enough Memory, we have tried to provide some guidance for unloading TSR packages from memory, and some other solutions you may try. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 4 The other major problem may be the batch file you used to start Prodigy. If you created your own batch file to start Prodigy, then you should be able to look at the ROBIN.BAT batch file and modify yours to use ROBIN!. STARTING PRODIGY AND ROBIN STARTING PRODIGY AND ROBIN ROBIN!'s install program creates a batch file in your prodigy directory called ROBIN.BAT. This batch file will load ROBIN! and the start prodigy just as prodigy installed itself on your system. Starting ROBIN! is fairly simple. If Prodigy is installed on your hard disk, simply change the default drive and directory to the Prodigy directory, and type ROBIN. Example C: CD /PRODIGY ROBIN If Prodigy is installed on a floppy, then insert that floppy in Drive A: and type A: CD / ROBIN That is all there is to it! There are a couple command line parameters that you can provide when starting ROBIN!. These are explained in detail in the Advanced section of this document. +-----------------------------------------------+ See Floppy Disk Installation in the | | Appendix for starting ROBIN! on floppy | | based systems. | | +-----------------------------------------------+ ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 5 ROBIN!'S FEATURES ROBIN!'S FEATURES INTRODUCTION There are a variety of things you can do with ROBIN!. o You can upload quick messages or big text files spread over multiple messages, o download messages to a file on your system or download to a file any information prodigy will let you print, o develop scripts that are like little programs that will automatically enter keystrokes into PRODIGY for you, o automatically log on to Prodigy with 6 different IDs when you first start PRODIGY or later using PRODIGY's exit/logon feature. There are two ways to use ROBIN!'s features. First, all of ROBIN!'s features can be reached from the main menu, which is displayed on PRODIGY using a hotkey. Second, many of ROBIN!'s features can be started directly with hot keys of their own. The following sections describe each of these features. User Input __________ ROBIN! uses three types of methods to ask for user input, keyed menus, text entry fields and toggle fields. Keyed menus will display a menu with a number or letter by each option. You can select an option by pressing the key that corresponds with the number or letter. If you press the ESC key while using one of these menus, then ROBIN! will cancel the current operation and return you to Prodigy, or the previous Robin! menu. Text entry fields allow you to type in words for a response. These fields display a box in which you can type your response. You can use the Backspace key to erase what has been typed in the box. When you press the carriage return then ROBIN! accepts what you have typed. Pressing the ESC will abandoned what you have entered in the field, and ROBIN! will discard what you typed and restore the field to its original value. An extra feature in those fields where you are typing in a filename is the Directory. If in these fields you type a dir search expression that contains a *, (example *.ASC) ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 6 then ROBIN! will display a directory of the files that match your search specification. Toggle fields are fields in which only a set number of responses are appropriate. For example, in one field only YES and NO may be allowed. With the toggle fields you can use the space bar or the + key to change the value in the field. Pressing either of these keys will toggle the field between its values. Robin! will use Dialog boxes to request user input. With these dialog boxes you can move from field to field with the cursor keys or the return key. You exit the dialog box by pressing the ESC key. MAIN MENU ALT-TAB All of Robin!'s features can be accessed from its main menu. This menu is displayed on PRODIGY's screen using a hotkey. ROBIN!'s default hotkey is the ALT-TAB key. (See advanced features on how to change this hotkey to another key). ROBIN!'s main menu displays the following options: +------- ROBIN! Main Menu <time>-----+ | | | 1 - Logon. | | 2 - Upload a Quick Note ALT-E | | 3 - Upload a Long File | | 4 - Execute Script ALT-S | | 5 - System Parameters | | 6 - Open Print Buffer ALT-D | | | +---- Press Number Key To Select ----+ All of ROBIN!'s hotkeys are done by pressing first the ALT key and then while it is still held down pressing another key. For ROBIN's main menu this is the TAB key. You can exit the main menu, and return to Prodigy, by pressing the ESC key. When you press ALT-TAB, the Prodigy service is suspended, Robin!'s main menu will pop up over the Prodigy screen. You can then select a Robin! feature by pressing the number key that corresponds to the number in the menu of the feature you desire. After you are finished with the feature or if you press ESC, then Robin! will return you to the Prodigy service. ALT-X CANCELING ROBIN!'S ACTIONS At this point it may be a good idea to explain the ALT-X hotkey. This is a special ROBIN! hotkey that cancels any ROBIN! script or command that is in progress. This comes in ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 7 handy when things seem to be going crazy. Just press the ALT-X hotkey and ROBIN! will stop sending stuff to Prodigy. USING ROBIN! TO LOG ON TO PRODIGY Robin! can help you log on to the Prodigy service in two ways. First, ROBIN! can automatically log you on to Prodigy when you first start Prodigy. Second, when you are at Prodigy's log on screen, and the cursor is positioned in the Prodigy ID box, you can have Robin! automatically log you on to Prodigy. We will start with this second way so you can understand where ROBIN! gets its IDs to logon on to Prodigy, which you will need to understand before you can use ROBIN! to log on automatically. You can reach ROBIN!'s log on menu by first pressing ALT-TAB to bring up Robin!'s main menu. Then you select the Logon feature (1) from the menu. This will display a list of up to 6 Prodigy IDs and user names that is displayed as follows: +---------- Log On Prodigy -<time>--+ | | | KEY ID# NAME | | ------------------------------ | | 1 ABCD00A MY NAME | | 2 ABCD00B YOUR NAME | | 3 ABCD00C HIS NAME | | 4 ABCD00D THEIR NAME | | | | | +------ Press key to Log On --------+ You can then select one of these IDs by pressing the number key that corresponds to the number of the ID you want to use. Robin! will then use that ID to log you on to Prodigy. These IDs, names and passwords are stored in a file called ROBIN.DAT. This file is a simple text file with the following structure: 1st ID<CR> 1st Password 1st Username 2nd ID 2nd Password 2nd Username 3rd ... . . 6th Username<CR> ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 8 For example WDTC55A GREEK JIMMY THE GREEK YTGH77A MONSTER HERMAN MUNSTER You can create such a file with a word processor that creates simple ASCII file (non formatted), such as Microsoft Word or Word Perfect. You can also use DOS's EDLIN to create this file. If you want you could create such a file from the DOS prompt as follows: 1) Change the current directory to your Prodigy directory. Type CD \PRODIGY if this is the name of your Prodigy directory. 2) Type COPY CON: ROBIN.DAT and press the RETURN key, 3) Type in your Prodigy ID, press the RETURN key, 4) Type in your Prodigy Password, press the RETURN key, 5) Type in your name, and press the RETURN key, 6) then press the F6 function key, and press the RETURN key. This will create a file with one ID in it. You can also create or edit this file with the DOS EDLIN program or again with most word processors that will let you save the file in a regular text file or ASCII file (non formatted). The only requirements with this file other than the above structure is that it must be called ROBIN.DAT, and it must be in the same directory as your Prodigy(r) program (See Command Line Switches on how to change this to a different directory). You can make ROBIN! log you on to Prodigy(r) when you first start Prodigy(r) by placing the number of the ID in the ROBIN.DAT file that you want to logon with on the command line when you start Prodigy(r). For example, to log on using Jimmy the Greek's ID in the above ROBIN.DAT file, at the command line that starts prodigy you would type: ROBIN 1 To logon on with Herman Munsters ID you would type: ROBIN 2 For most, this will work fine. For those of you who have changed your PRODIGY.BAT file our have created a start up BAT file of your own, you will need to read the section Command Line Switches to figure out how to modify your BAT ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 9 file to have PRODIGY.BAT file our have created a start up BAT file of your own, you will need to read the section Command Line Switches to figure out how to modify your BAT file to have ROBIN! automatically log you on to Prodigy. SENDING PRINTER OUTPUT TO A FILE Probably one of the most useful features of ROBIN! is the ability to save messages and other information from Prodigy in a text file on your computer. ROBIN! does this by capturing the information Prodigy let's you print to your printer and put it into a file. This is done by opening up a print buffer. Once opened, everything Prodigy tries to send to the printer is grabbed by ROBIN! and placed in a file. You can reach this feature while using Prodigy either from ROBIN!'s main menu (Press ALT-TAB key) or using the ALT-D hot key. Selecting item 6 - Open Print Buffer, from ROBIN!'s main menu, or pressing the ALT-D hot key displays the following menu. +----------- Print Capture Menu -<time>-----+ | Enter filename for Download. | | [+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------------ Press Esc to Exit ------------+ You use this menu by just typing a filename to which you wish to send printer output. You can either type in a file name as follows NEWFILE.ASC or you can include a specific path as well C:\MYFILES\NEWFILE.ASC You can also type in a search specification and Robin! will display a directory of the files that match your search specification. For example, *.ASC will display a directory of all the files in the current directory with an ASC extension. If there are more files than will fit in ROBIN!'s menu box, then just press the RETURN key and another set of filenames will be displayed. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 10 After you have finished typing the filename, press the RETURN key. If the file you have identified already exists, then you will see the following message, File exists. Press (A,O,N) [A]ppend,[O]verwrite,Enter [N]ew name? If you made a mistake and you do not want to use this file, then press 'N' and ROBIN! will let you type in a new filename. If this is the file you want to use, then you have two choices. First, you can choose to have ROBIN! add to the end of this file any information you ask Prodigy to print. Each time you tell Prodigy to print something, the file will get bigger. You can tell ROBIN! to do this by pressing the 'A' key for append at the [A]ppend,[O]verwrite [N]ew prompt. Second, if you want to put the printer's output into a new file, but use this filename, you would press the 'O' key for [O]verwrite. ROBIN! will then erase the old file (getting rid of whatever was in the file) and start a new file with the same name. CAUTION! When you choose this option, everything that was in the old file will be erased. Now if all this was a big mistake, and you just want to start over, then rather than selecting 'A','O', or 'N', at this point if you press ESC, ROBIN! will take you back to Prodigy(r). +--- ROBIN! TIP ------------------------------------+ Though it is not required, we advise that you | | use the .ASC extension on you downloaded files. | | The .ASC extension has been traditionally used | | to identify an ASCII file. This is a file that | | contains only text and no formatting. This is | | the type of file that ROBIN! creates. Most | | word processors will let you use such a file, | | so you can edit downloaded files fairly easily. | | +---------------------------------------------------+ Once a file has been specified all you have to do is tell Prodigy(r) to print to the printer as you normally would. However, instead of something being printed on your printer, it is placed in the file you specified. ROBIN! will give you a little ticking sound as an audible feedback that your information is being added to the print file. It is just as easy to stop sending information to the file and tell Prodigy(r) to send it to the printer once again. Just do the same thing you did before to display the Print Capture Menu (Select 6 on ROBIN!'s main menu or press the ALT-D hotkey). This time you will see the following menu. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 11 +------------ Print Capture Menu -----------+ | | | To close ROBIN!`s print | | capture Buffer, Press RETURN. | | | | Press ESC if you DO NOT | | want to close the Buffer! | | | | | +------------- Press Esc to Exit -----------+ Now if you press RETURN, ROBIN! will close the print capture buffer and your file, saving everything you would have printed, and tells Prodigy to once gain send everything to the printer from now on. If you press ESC, then the print buffer will stay open, and everything that normally would go to your printer will still go into the same file as before. Normally, ROBIN! puts the information that would have gone to your printer into the print buffer file in exactly the same way as it would have appeared on your printer. That is in a 40 column format. But that is not the only way ROBIN! can do it. ROBIN! can also put it into the file in an 80 column format, or a format that has no margins. These two other options are explained in more detail in the System Parameters section below. LOG FILES _________ Robin has a feature that helps you maintain a series of log files for your down loads. When specifying a filename for a down load file (as described above), if you type in LOG# and RETURN on the line you enter the filename, ROBIN! will place in the filename field a filename that contains the current date. This name will be LOG<year><month>.<date>. For example, on Christmas day, 1991, it would create a filename as follows: LOG9112.25 Once ROBIN! has created this logfile, you have three options: 1) You can press RETURN and accept the filename ROBIN! has provided. If a file with this name already exists, ROBIN! will let you overwrite or append to this file. Using this feature you can create a daily log file to which you can then just keep appending new downloads. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 12 2) You could add a * to the end of the filename ROBIN! has provided and then press RETURN. ROBIN! will then display all the files with a filename similar to the one just specified. 3) You can add another character or number to this file and press RETURN. For example in the above Christmas Day file you could have added the letter 'A' LOG9112.25A Using the directory feature above first will show all the files of similar date to which you have added a character. This feature of ROBIN! was designed to provide you with a quick way to maintain a dated log file system for your message and data downloads. From the DOS prompt you can then sort and manage these files. +--- ROBIN! TIP ------------------------------------+ A variety of file management programs will | | allow you to view directories in some sorted | | order. Each sorts files in slightly different | | ways. You will need to experiment to see which | | way works best. We would suggest sorting by | | filename, and then if possible by extension. | | We would also suggest you always add an 'A' to | | the end of the filename if it is the first one | | you have created for that date. | | +---------------------------------------------------+ FORMATTING PRINTER OUTPUT You can also use Robin! to format what is printed on your printer in different formats. Prodigy prints to your printer normally in a 40 column format. This means that each line that is printed is 40 characters wide. However, Robin! can have your printer print lines 80 columns long. This is done just as you would print to a file. You bring up the print capture menu. When it asks for a file name you type in PRN. Robin! will say this file already exists. Simply respond that you which to [O]verwrite the file. Now print using Prodigy as you normally do. ROBIN! will capture the info Prodigy tries to send to the printer, reformat it, and then send it to the printer. When you want to stop this formatting, simply close the print buffer as described previously. What you will find is that this also provides you with a certain amount of buffering as well. ROBIN! will not print to the printer right away, but will wait until the buffer is full, and then send a whole buffers worth. You can force it ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 13 to send everything to the printer by simply bringing up ROBIN!'s main menu, this will tell ROBIN! to send everything in the buffer to the printer. UPLOADING A TEXT FILE TO PRODIGY MESSAGE CENTER OR BBS Not only does ROBIN! let you save information from Prodigy(r) in a disk file, but ROBIN! also let's you send information in a text (ASCII) disk file to Prodigy(r). This is done normally (though not absolutely) when you are writing a message or replying to a message in the message center or in a bulletin board. This feature can not only be accessed from ROBIN!'s main menu, but also with the ALT-E hotkey. ROBIN! let's you upload text files in two ways, via a quick note which is simply a 4 page message (or 6 pages if in the bulletin board) or send a very long text file that is spread over several messages (which can only be done from the message center). Quick Notes ___________ A quick note is easy to send. But the location that you are at in prodigy is critical. To send a quick note, you must first move the cursor to the upper left hand corner of Prodigy's word processor window. This is where you normally begin entering the text of your messages. Once you are in this location, then you can ask ROBIN! to send a text file to Prodigy. This can be done from ROBIN!'s main menu (remember ALT-TAB) or by pressing the ALT-E hot key. When you select option 2- Upload a Quick Note from ROBIN!'s main menu, or if you press the ALT-E hotkey, you will see the following menu: +------ ROBIN! Quick Note Menu -<time>------+ | Enter filename to Send. | | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------------ Press Esc to Exit ------------+ You use this menu by simply typing the name of the text file you want to send. You can either type in a simple file name as follows: ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 14 TEXTFILE.ASC or you can include a specific path as well C:\MYFILES\TEXTFILE.ASC If you can not remember the name of the file you want to send, you can also type in a search specification (EXAMPLE *.ASC) and Robin! will display a directory of the files that matches your search specification. For example, *.ASC will display a directory of all the files in the current directory with an ASC extension. If there are more files than will fit in ROBIN!'s menu box, then just press the RETURN key and another set of filenames will be displayed. After you have finished typing the filename, press the RETURN key. If the file you have identified does not exist, ROBIN! will complain and ask you to type in a valid file name. At this point you can either press ESC to go back to Prodigy(r) or you can type in another filename (or a search specification as above). After you have identified the file you want to send, you will see the following message: +------ ROBIN! Quick Note Menu -<time>------+ | | | Press ... | | | | 1 if E-Mail | | 2 if Bulletin Board | | 3 if Script File | | | | | | | | | +------------ Press Esc to Exit ------------+ If you are using Prodigy's message center to send your message (this is the personal email system) then press 1, if you are using a bulletin board then press 2, if you are not uploading at a message center or BBS, then press 3 (sounds like a recorded phone message). Once ROBIN! knows how to send the message, it will then enter the message into Prodigy just as if you typed it. This will normally happen fairly quickly. If you selected options 1 or 2, ROBIN! will page down to the next page as each page is full. Once all of your message has been entered, then you can work with it just as if you had entered it by hand. You can edit it, add to it, and eventually send it by selecting the SEND button on the Prodigy menu. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 15 When using quick notes, ROBIN! can only send one message. If you are using the message center this means that it can send only 4 pages, or 48 lines of 40 column text. If you are using the bulletin board you can send only 6 pages or 62 lines of text (1 7 line page and 5 11 line pages, strange huh!). Under both of this conditions, even if the file you want to send is longer than the above, ROBIN! will stop after it has reached the limits of one message. The third option above, '3 if script file' is different than sending a message. When sending a message ROBIN! automatically enters your text, including the [NEXT] or PgDns needed to page your message. But under this third option, ROBIN! does not do that. It just reads the characters from your file, and enters them as if you were typing from the keyboard. This option can be used to upload IDs in mailing lists, items for purchase in grocery lists, and other areas where entering text is appropriate. However, ROBIN! has a much more powerful file upload system to send longer files to more people. Long Notes __________ As explained above, ROBIN!'s quick notes will not send all of a text file if it is longer than one message. However, ROBIN! can also send an entire text file, no matter how long it is (up to 25 messages) by breaking it up into multiple messages and sending all of these messages automatically. We call these long notes. Long notes can only be sent from Prodigy's message center, and only as a new message. To send a long note, first you must select the WRITE menu option in the message center. This will place your cursor in the TO input box (this is where you enter peoples ID or address list name) above Prodigy's word processor. If you have a list active, Prodigy will not show this box, but rather have the words DISTRIBUTION LIST displayed. If you see this, you must go a delete the active list before ROBIN! can upload the file. Once the cursor is in this position and Prodigy is ready for input, you can tell ROBIN! to send a long note. This feature can be accessed only from ROBIN!'s main menu. Press ALT-TAB to display the main menu, and select option 3 - Upload Long Note. This will display the following menu: ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 16 +-------- ROBIN! Long File Menu <time>------+ | Enter filename to Send. | | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------------ Press Esc to Exit ------------+ You use this menu by typing the name of the text file you want to send. You can either type in a simple file name as follows: TEXTFILE.ASC or you can include a specific path as well C:\MYFILES\TEXTFILE.ASC If you can not remember the name of the file you want to send, you can also type in a search specification (EXAMPLE *.ASC) and Robin! will display a directory of the files that matches your search specification. For example, *.ASC will display a directory of all the files in the current directory with an ASC extension. If there are more files than will fit in ROBIN!'s menu box, then just press the RETURN key and another set of filenames will be displayed. After you have finished typing the filename, press the RETURN key. If the file you have identified does not exist, ROBIN! will complain and ask you to type in a valid file name. At this point you can either press ESC to go back to Prodigy(r) or you can type in another filename (or a search specification as above). Once you have specified a file, robin will then prompt you to enter the ID (or address list name or address list in your address book) of the person to whom you want to send the list. After you have entered this then ROBIN! will ask for the subject of your note. After you have entered this, then ROBIN! will look at the file you have specified, sort it into multiple messages so it can send it in reverse order (ROBIN! displays a number for each message worth of text it finds in the file), and then ROBIN! will send your file. Since ROBIN! sends these messages in reverse order this means these messages will show up in people's mail box in the correct order. ROBIN! gives each message the same subject title, but it uses the last 4 characters of the ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 17 subject line to number the messages. This will help you and others keep track of their proper order. It also becomes fairly obvious when you look in your mail box that the messages are part of one long message. When uploading a multiple message long file, ROBIN! will make Prodigy pause after the second and subsequent message uploads. This is to give Prodigy time to catch up with its communications with the Host system. This is needed to keep ROBIN! form cramming to much, to fast down Prodigy's throat. Prodigy has a tendency to gag when this is done. While ROBIN! is making Prodigy pause, you will here a beeping (or tweeting or buzzing or some noise depending on the speed of your computer). This is just to let you know that ROBIN! is still uploading your file. If this pause seems to long, then you can use the System Menu to shorten (or lengthen) the time for this pause. Sending Long Notes to a List of People ______________________________________ ROBIN! can send long notes to more than one ID, up to 25, automatically. ROBIN! can use a list or database of Prodigy IDs that you store in a disk file, and send a long note to each ID in the file. You can tell ROBIN! to do this by typing in the word LIST (Type the letters 'LIST'), when ROBIN! prompts you for the ID to whom you want to send the Long Note. ROBIN! will then ask you to type in a file name for the list of IDs you want ROBIN! to send the long note (or you can enter a search specification). ROBIN! will then go on and ask for a Subject, and then sort and send the file. But know it will use Prodigy's list facility to send the long note to the IDs in your file. ROBIN! can send this note to a maximum of 25 people (regardless of how many are in the file). The structure of this list file is very flexible. All that is required is that it be an ASCII file, that each ID be on a separate line which ends with a carriage return, the ID must be the first seven characters on the line, and the line can not have more than 255 characters total. ROBIN! will ignore all the other characters on the line. This means that for each ID you could include a name, address, phone number, what ever. You could even keep these in a database, and simply print out the list to an ASCII file when you need it. Here are some examples of a ID lists: ABCD01A Tim Bobcat's ID DEFG01A My brother's ID ZXYW01A Someone's ID but I am not sure whose ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 18 ABCD01A,Big Bear,1103 Cave Road, Yellowstone, WY, 99099 ZZXZ99F,Little Beaver,The Lake,Craig,CO,99089 When ROBIN! is uploading a list, you will here it beeping for a while after each list. This is normal. At this point ROBIN! has forced prodigy to pause. This beeping let's you know that ROBIN! is still active, and your upload is proceeding as it should. +--- ROBIN! TIP ------------------------------------+ Though it is not required, we advise that you | | use the .LST extension on your ID list database | | files. This will be a good reminder when you | | want to do a directory search for list files. | | You can also give a message and its list the | | same name, and use the ASC and LST extensions. | | | | WARNING: ROBIN! does very little error checking | | while reading this file. Abnormal formats will | | result in abnormal actions by ROBIN! and | | Prodigy. | | +---------------------------------------------------+ Using Your Word Processor or Editor ___________________________________ Prodigy's online word processor is not the best (not the worst either) and provides almost no advanced word processing tools. This makes it a pain to compose any type of note other than a simple 'Hello'. So being able to use your own (or someone else's if that be the case) makes it a lot easier to compose messages. Here are some hint's at using your word processor or editor to compose notes and then upload them with ROBIN!. 1) If you have a Word Processor, let it and ROBIN! do the work. Do not worry about putting a RETURN or Carriage Return at the end of each line. Let your word processor word wrap your paragraphs and put a RETURN only at the end of each paragraph. 2) Save your file as a pure vanilla text or ASCII file. Most word processors DO NOT do this by default. You generally will need to save your file in a special way. Check your manual for how to save your file as an UNFORMATTED text or ASCII file. 3) If your using an Editor instead of a Word processor (Sidekick, Brief, and Edlin are editors) then it is likely that it does not do word wrap, but rather puts a RETURN or Carriage Return at the end of each line. If this is the case, then you will get the best results if you set it's margins at 78 columns. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 19 USING ROBIN! SCRIPTS TO AUTOMATE PRODIGY SERVICES Though ROBIN! has many useful features, the primary reason it was written was to provide a keyboard macro feature. The next section describes what is a script (or macro) and how they work. Those that are familiar with macros and scripts might want to skip this section. What is a ROBIN! script? ________________________ Essentially ROBIN!'s scripts provide a way to make a recording of keystrokes that you would normally just type and play them back later. How do you use them while online with Prodigy? ______________________________________________ ROBIN!'s script can be started from ROBIN!'s main menu or with the ALT-S hotkey. When you select option 4 - Execute Script from ROBIN!'s main menu, or you press the ALT-S hotkey, you will see a menu that looks similar to the following. +----------- Robin! Script Menu <time>------+ | A - MESSAGES I - | | B - KIDS CLUB J - | | C - COMP CLUB K - | | D - KIDS BB L - | | E - COMP BB M - | | F - PRN NEXT N - | | G - BB MAIL O - | | H - P - | +------ Press Key to Execute Script --------+ Each of these sixteen letters and its associated title represent a series of keystrokes that have been recorded and can be played back. You can play back the keystrokes by simply pressing the letter that corresponds to the script you want to playback. When you use ROBIN! for the first time, you should have the above scripts available. The following section explains what each of these scripts does, and where to use them. WRITE - Where: Use this almost anywhere at anytime (We have not found a place where this does not work). What: This script will take you to the message center, select Write Message, and leave you in the TO: box. MESSAGES - Where: Use this almost anywhere at anytime (We have not found a place where this does not work). What: This script will take you over to the message center and leave you in your mail box. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 20 KIDS CLUB - Where: Use this almost anywhere at anytime (We have not found a place where this does not work). What: This script will take you over to the Kids Club's main menu. COMP CLUB - Where: Use this almost anywhere at anytime (We have not found a place where this does not work). What: This script will take you over to the Computer Club's main menu. KIDS BB - Where: Use this almost anywhere at anytime (We have not found a place where this does not work). What: This script takes you over to the Kids Club Bulletin Board. COMP BB - Where: Use this almost anywhere at anytime (We have not found a place where this does not work). What: This script takes you over to the Computer Club Bulletin Board. BB MAIL - Where: Use this script with the Bulletin boards. All the bulletin boards have an option that allows you to search for notes that are from or to a particular ID. To use this script first go a bulletin board (Use a ROBIN! script!), then at the bulletin board's main menu, use this script. What: this script will enter your ID and ask Prod to search for messages to you. PRN NEXT - Where: While you are reading a message from your private mail box, you can use this macro to print the current message and go to the next message in your box. From anywhere on the Prodigy read message screen this macro should work. What: Goes to the options box, prints the message, and the selects the next message option. These default scripts are ones that we have found to be generally useful to every one. In the appendix is a list of scripts that you may find convenient as well. How do you create them? _______________________ ROBIN! scripts are created using a special program while off line from Prodigy. This is program is the ROBIN! Script Code Compiler (RSCC). Scripts start out as text file containing lists of keystrokes. RSCC compiles these into a special format that ROBIN! then uses. Because the ROBIN! script language and script compiler have so many options, this document has a whole chapter devoted to creating scripts. To create your own scripts refer to the chapter ROBIN! Script Writer and Language. What are some of the things you can do with Scripts? ____________________________________________________ As far as we can tell, anything that you can do from the keyboard while using prodigy, can be put into a script. However, scripts are best used to automate common tasks. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 21 Scripts can improve the productivity and ease of use of Prodigy by automating how you get to the features of Prodigy you use most. This way with just a few keystrokes you can access prodigy features that normally would take a lot of keystrokes. You will also find that a script's keystrokes actually get entered faster than you could type them. This is because ROBIN! knows exactly when Prodigy is ready for another keystroke. Also, since ROBIN! provides you with a menu of scripts to choose from, it makes it easier to remember how to access various features. Currently, you can not use scripts to access or automate any of ROBIN!'s other features. But we are working on that. THE SYSTEM MENU ROBIN! has a variety of defaults that it uses for its various functions. These include default directories, system values, and menu options. Occasionally you may find it useful to change these defaults for a short period of time. The system menu provides a way to do so. The following describes several of these defaults, and how to change them. IMPORTANT: changes made here are not permanent, and will revert back to the default next time you run ROBIN!. These defaults can be changes permanently using ROBIN!'s configuration program RCONFIG, which is described in the Advanced Features section of this document. Using The Dialog Box ____________________ There are three types of fields in this dialog box, text entry fields, numeric entry fields, and toggle fields. Text entry fields let you enter text. Numeric entry fields let you enter a number. The toggle fields let you toggle the field between 2 or more set states (like a switch) using the SPACE bar or the + key. Printer Format ______________ The printer format can be set to one of three states, 40 Column mode, 80 Column mode, and No Format mode. In the 40 Column mode, ROBIN! will insert a Carriage Return/ Line Feed after every 40 columns of text. In the 80 Column mode ROBIN! will insert a Carriage Return/Line Feed only after 80 columns. In the no format mode ROBIN! will use as few Carriage Return/Line Feeds as possible. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 22 System Path ___________ This is the default pathname that ROBIN! will use when creating or looking for upload and download files you specify. You should enter a path only, and it should end with the '\' character. Script Display ______________ This determines if the Script Menu will be displayed when you press the ALT-S hotkey. After you become familiar with your Scripts, you will likely not need to see the menu to no which letter corresponds to the script you want to use. If this field is toggled Yes (default) then when you press ALT- S the script menu will be displayed. But if it is NO, then the script menu will NOT be displayed. In this mode you just press ALT-S and the key for the macro you want to use. This is typically faster than waiting for the menu. You can always display the script menu from ROBIN!'s main menu regardless of how this field is toggled. Node Wait Time ______________ As discussed in the section on long file uploads, ROBIN! makes Prodigy wait between file uploads. This field has the value that defines how long the interval that ROBIN! makes Prodigy wait will be. This value can be anything from 1 to 255. By watching the lights on your modem, you can tell if Prodigy finishes before ROBIN!'s pause expires. If it finishes substantially sooner, you can lower this value to speed up your uploads. If you are having problems with your long file uploads, you might try making this value longer. ROBIN! SCRIPT WRITER AND LANGUAGE. ROBIN! SCRIPT WRITER AND LANGUAGE. ROBIN!'s scripts provide a way to reduce the keystrokes you need to type to use Prodigy's services. In their simplest form, a ROBIN! script can be thought of as a recording of keystrokes that can be played back when you want to use it. ROBIN's scripts can also be used to insert the time, date, user id, or your name. ROBIN!'s scripts are assigned to a key A through J, which can be selected from the script menu or used as hotkeys. Creating ROBIN! scripts is a three step process. First you have to decide exactly what you want the script to do and write down all the keys you would have to press to do that on Prodigy. Second you have to record these keystrokes in a ROBIN! script text file. Lastly you have to compile this script text file in a form that the ROBIN! program can read ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 23 and use. Any word processing or editor that supports plain ASCII files can be used create a script text file. HOW TO START THE COMPILER ROBIN!'s Script Code Compiler reads script text files and converts them into a format that can then be used by the ROBIN! program. The compiler is started by typing RSCC followed by the file name of your script text file. For example: RSCC MYSCRIPT.ASC Here the script compiler will start, and use the file MYSCRIPT.ASC The script compiler will generate two files (if compiled successfully), an RSF file and a RSL file. The RSF file is a file format that is read by the ROBIN! program when it is first executed. The RSL file is a listing of the results of the compile. If there were errors during compilation, these errors will be in this listing file. HOW TO WRITE A SCRIPT FILE To write a ROBIN! script, you must first write a ROBIN! script text file. This script text file contains a series of lines, each representing a different keystroke or group of keystrokes. This file is then compiled using the ROBIN! script code compiler, and converts it into a special file that ROBIN! will load when it is run. ROBIN! then uses the information in this file to playback the keystrokes you want for each script. The best way to begin writing a script file is to fire up Prodigy. Decide what you want your script to do. Then starting from a known point, press the keys needed accomplish what you want your script to do, writing down the keys you press. You can then place these keystrokes in a ROBIN! script file. Writing simple scripts is fairly straight forward The best way to master simple script writing is to look at the examples and write some of your own. Then begin experimenting. Once you have mastered simple scripts, then you can move on to more advanced script writing. Writing advanced scripts is half art and half observation. For example, writing a script that prints a message seems fairly easy. But writing a script to print a message, NO MATTER WHERE YOU EXECUTE IT FROM, is both and art and requires close scrutiny of how Prodigy works. In this limited space, we could not provide a thorough discussion of how all of ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 24 Prodigy's services work. After all, Prodigy has not even done that in their own documentation! But we can include some insight into some key aspects of prodigy and some hints. One of the most difficult things about writing a script is knowing where you will be in Prodigy when you start a script. This may seem impossible at first. In fact you can not guarantee where the script will start. However, with in limits, there are things you can do to get to a common starting point. Generally it is reasonable to assume that you will be at a certain level when executing certain scripts. For example, it may be safe to assume that if you want to print a message, you will be reading the message. You may not know where the cursor may be on that screen (which is ok as we will show later) but you may assume you are somewhere on the read message screen. Other times such assumptions may not be valid. But there are ways that you can almost guarantee that you can get to specific spot that will always be the same. Jump Menu - One way is to use the jump menu. The F6 will almost always bring up the jump menu. The only exception is if you have a process under that requires a response. For example you are composing a message, but have not sent it yet. Once you can establish you are on a certain screen, there are also ways to get to a know position on the screen, no matter where you are on the screen. The END and Home keys are extremely useful for this. Usually (we have not found a case but one may exist where this is not true) The Home and End keys will take the cursor to a very specific place on every screen. Once you are in this position, then you can use the script to move to the button or entry box you need. SCRIPT FILE STRUCTURE First, it is VERY IMPORTANT to note that every script file you compile, must contain the system scripts. These are the scripts located in a file RSYS.RSF (Source for these is RSYS.ASC). The script file compiler will automatically include these scripts, but you should never delete or modify the system scripts in this file. If you do, ROBIN! will not operate properly. Each script in a Script text file must begin with a start marker and must end with a stop marker,. A start marker is the word START inside two vertical dash characters, here called the Vbars. A stop marker is the word STOP inside two Vbars. Everything outside of these markers is ignored, ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 25 everything inside these markers is considered part of the script. Comments can be inserted between a start and stop marker if they are preceded by a semicolon (;). Each script must have the script key code as the first line following the start marker. Valid key codes are A - P with A through P accessible as user scripts. Each key id is then followed on the next line with a script name. Each of the lines from the script name to the stop marker presents actual keystrokes or Script commands (comments excepted). This provides for a general structure as follows ;MAIL SCRIPT |START| A GO MAIL ; Bring Up Jump Box |F6| COMMUNICATION . . Other Keys or Commands . |STOP| This is a script that is assigned to the A key and is called GO MAIL (GO MAIL is what you will see in ROBIN!'s script menu). It brings up the jump table, and enters the word communication. There are several scripts near the end of the RSCRIPT.ASC script text file. These scripts should not be modified and must be included in any future script file you may create. PRODIGY WORKINGS The following section describe some if the workings of Prodigy is a manner that makes it easier to develop scripts to meet your needs. COMMAND LINE (Bottom of Prodigy's screen) These are the hotkeys available when not editing a message. B - Backup (same as F9) L - Look E - Exit M - Menu G - Guide via Jump Box N - Next H - Help (same as F1) T - Tools via Jump Box I - Index via Jump Box V - ViewPath J - Jump (same as F6) ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 26 FUNCTION KEYS F1 - Help F2 - F3 - Path List F4 - F5 - Menus F6 - Jump Table F7 - F8 - Find F9 - Backup F10 - Review List HOME and END Key Performance Place Key Action ----------------- ------ ----------------------- Message Center - Home Page # box Mail Box End Print button Message Center - Home TO: box Write Message End Options button Message Center - Home Reply button Read A Message End Options button Message Center - Home Subject box Write A Reply End Options button Bulletin Board - Home Bulletin# box Reply# box Read Bulletin End Options Button Bulletin Board - Home FROM: id box Selection By ID End Continue button Bulletin Board - Home Month Browse Box Browse Bulletins End Options button ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 27 THE LANGUAGE ROBIN!'s script language can be divided into three groups, key macros, string macros, and commands. We call them macros, because each causes one or more characters to be pushed into the script keyboard buffer. Key macros push a particular key stroke, just as it would be typed at the keyboard. String macros insert a series of characters into the script buffer. Commands actually insert nothing into the script buffer. Commands tell ROBIN! to preform some action, which will usually insert something in the script buffer. KEY MACROS RETURN The ENTER keys F1 F1 Function Key ESC Escape Key F2 F2 Function Key BS Back Space Key F3 F3 Function Key DEL Delete Key F4 F4 Function Key INS Insert Key F5 F5 Function Key HOME Home Key F6 F6 Function Key END End Key F7 F7 Function Key PGUP Page Down Key F8 F8 Function Key PGDN Page Up Key F9 F9 Function Key TAB Tab Key F10 F10 Function Key UP Up Cursor Key U Up Cursor Key DOWN Down Cursor Key D Down Cursor Key RIGHT Right Cursor Key R Right Cursor Key LEFT Left Cursor Key L Left Cursor Key STRING MACROS LOGPASS Inserts the Password for the Current ID logged on by ROBIN! LOGNAME Inserts the Name for the Current ID Logged on by ROBIN! LOGID Inserts the ID of the current ID logged on by ROBIN! TIME Will insert the current time as if typed from the keyboard DATE Will insert the current date as if typed from the keyboard. SCRIPT COMMANDS RESPONSE This is used to respond to a Prodigy Button. Similar to using the Return key when the active cursor is on a Prodigy button. This should be used rather than the RETURN key macro to respond positively to a Prodigy Button. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 28 CALL Used to call another script. Syntax |CALL #| where # is the letter of the script to be installed. WAIT Causes Prodigy to pause for a qtr of a second or less. Often useful when a script overruns Prodigy's ability to respond in a timely fashion. For example, some prodigy features take so long to respond that Prodigy may attempt to clear the keyboard buffer several times. This helps to prevent Prodigy from clear the rest of the script. Syntax is |WAIT #| where # is a number 1 to 255 and represents how long to wait. SETID Sets the current number that ROBIN! uses to look up the LOGID, LOGPASS, and LOGNAME. Syntax is |SETID #| where # is a number 1 to 6 that corresponds to the ID in the ROBIN.DAT file you want to use. PAUSE This tells ROBIN! to make Prodigy pause for a while. Very useful when sending a lot to prodigy. Syntax, |PAUSE #| where # is a number that tells ROBIN! how long to pause. Pause can cause a delay of up to several minutes. Exactly how long # will make ROBIN! pause is dependent on the speed of your computer. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 29 ADVANCED FEATURES ADVANCED FEATURES COMMAND LINE SWITCHES There are several system level features you can change or activate using command line switches when you start robin. A=<n> Automatic Login; This feature allows you to have ROBIN! automatically log you on to Prodigy when it first starts. Place on the command line 'A=' followed by the number that represents the order of the ID in ROBIN.DAT you want to log on with. For example if you had a ROBIN.DAT file as follows: ZAXB01A PASSWORD MY NAME ZAXB01B PASSWORD SPOUSE and you wanted to logon with the id ZAXB01B, then you would include in the command line for ROBIN! ROBIN! a=2 Which would use the second ID set in ROBIN.DAT to automatically logon to Prodigy. Now the ROBIN.BAT batch file has this set up for you. When running ROBIN! from this batch file, simply specify the number on the command line as follows: ROBIN 1 V=<video type> Set Video Mode for Prodigy. This is normally a switch you will not need to use, but must be specified each time Robin! is run. This tells ROBIN! the video mode that Prodigy will be using. Here are the possible options V=C is for CGA V=E is for EGA (or VGA) 320 x 200 mode V=H is for Hercules V=P is for Multigraphics Array V=M is for EGA (or VGA) Ver 3 640 x 200 mode V=U is for EGA (or VGA) Ver 3 640 x 350 mode V=V is for VGA Ver 3 640 x 480 mode ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 30 D=<pathname> Path to all ROBIN! scratch files This switch can be used to identify an alternative path for ROBIN!'s temporary files. If you have a RAM drive, specifying a path to this RAM drive will improve the performance of ROBIN! This path must end in a /. Example: F:/ ROBIN! IN THE WINDOW (WINDOWS 3) ROBIN! will work with Prodigy under Windows version 3. When ROBIN! installed itself on your hard disk, it copied three files into your Prodigy directory, ROBIN!.PIF ROBIN!.ICO ROBIN!.GRP These files will allow you to use ROBIN! with Windows 3. To setup ROBIN! for Windows, follow these steps: 1) Copy (or move) the above files from your Prodigy directory to your Windows directory. 2) Now exit and restart Windows. Windows will now recognize the ROBIN! file group. Either a ROBIN! file group icon should be in your Progam Manager window or the ROBIN! group window should be open. If it is not, double click on the ROBIN! group icon. 3) You should now see the ROBIN! program icon (tweet tweet little Robin). You can now copy or move this icon to any group you wish to keep it. Refer to the Windows Manual if you do not know how. 4) Evoke the PIF editor and open the file ROBIN!.PIF. 5) Change the directory field to the directory in which you have prodigy installed. Also, add to the command line field an autologon value (See autologon). 6) Save the ROBIN!.PIF file, then exit the PIF editor. 7) Now you should be able to double click on the ROBIN! icon to start Prodigy with ROBIN!. If you have enough RAM (4mb seems sufficient) you can switch out of Prodigy and back to Windows safely by pressing ALT- ESC and switch back to Prodigy with ALT-R. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 31 ROBIN! CONFIGURATION PROGRAM RCONFIG.EXE ROBIN! has a configuration program that allows certain system defaults to be changed permanently in the ROBIN!.EXE file. To start this program at the DOS command line simply type RCONFIG This program will display the values of several default parameters, and will allow you to change the value of each. These include the default path for ROBIN! scratch files (see D switch above), the default path used for uploads and print files, the node wait time (See System menu) and the Script Display value (See System Menu). ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 32 REGISTERING YOUR SHAREWARE VERSION OF ROBIN! REGISTERING YOUR SHAREWARE VERSION OF ROBIN! WHAT DOES SHAREWARE MEAN? Shareware is a concept for distribution of software that allows people to try before they buy. Shareware software developers allow you to make as many copies of their software as you like, freely give it to as many people as you like, and only pay for it if you (and they) decide to use it on a regular basis. When you decide you like the software and will use it, then you register it, normally for a fee but often less than what you might pay for an equivalent commercial package. With registration frequently comes other benefits like free upgrades, newsletters, pride of ownership and guiltless sleep at night. These will vary from one program to another (particularly the guiltless sleep part). Now in reality, many people use shareware software on a regular basis and never pay for it. Thus, very few software developers have made much money on shareware software. That is unfortunate because there are a lot of shareware products floating around today that are worth their price. There are also a lot of shareware software developers who work hard to produce a professional package, and get few rewards. So why did we choose to distribute this version of ROBIN! as a shareware product? Well to be honest here are our reasons: 1) Most people using Prodigy are new to computers, and have a hard time knowing what software they need, and paying commercial prices for it. This way they can try it free, toss it if they find it useless, or pay a low price if they find it useful. 2) We just do not have the funds or backing to enter the commercial market with ROBIN! in the traditional manner. 3) We are rebels at heart, and kind of like being part of the "underground" software market. HOW DO YOU REGISTER? If you decide to use ROBIN! on a regular basis, and we think you will, we ask that you register it with us. We have two registration options, regular at $10.00 and extended at $15.00 (Do not worry about sales tax we will take care of that). Here is what you get: Regular - Fee $10.00. What you get - guiltless sleep about using ROBIN!, notification of new versions via EMAIL, TWEET ROBIN!'s newsletter as long as EMAIL is free, quick responses to questions via EMAIL as long as EMAIL is free. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 33 Extended - Fee $15.00. What you get - everything you get from the regular registration plus if you do not have the latest version, we will mail it to you free, plus one free future upgrade mailed to you. We will notify you when each upgrade is available, what the new features are, and YOU decide when you want to cash in your free upgrade. To register your version of ROBIN!, send the following form (filled out please!), along with your registration fee to: ROBIN! McQuay Technologies Suite 291 8045 Antoine Houston TX 77088 ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 34 DO NOT FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR REGISTRATION FEE ! Name ___________________________________________ Prodigy ID (IMPORTANT MUST INCLUDE!) ________________ Address ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ [ ] Regular Registration [ ] Extended Registration. Which Version Of ROBIN! are you using? (you can find the version number on the System Menu) ___________________________________________ What kind of Computer Equipment are you using? (CPU, SPEED, VIDEO ADAPTER, HARD DISK SIZE ... etc) ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Any comments about ROBIN!? ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Where did you get your Shareware version of ROBIN! ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 35 THE REALITY OF SHAREWARE This last section is a warning, disclaimer, and plea. If after a while we have very little cash flow on the shareware version of ROBIN!, we will probably drop support for it. All of us here at McQuay Technologies make our living doing other things in a variety of jobs. We all have families. And we are all over achievers. Time is our most precious resource. So in reality we have to place priorities on our time. We all enjoyed developing ROBIN!, and so far we have enjoyed supporting it. But in the end, if ROBIN! does not benefit us financially, then we would rather spend time with our families (probably swimming, playing tennis, golf, or coaching soccer) and go off on another project. We are sure you can all understand that approach to our work. We developed Robin!. We hope you like it. More importantly we hope it makes a big enough difference in your life that you will gladly send us a little cash. Please! ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 36 PROBLEMS PROBLEMS POSSIBLE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS 1) Robin! displays an error message when I first run it. There are several errors that could be displayed, almost all of them relate to a file that ROBIN! uses is missing or not located in the Prodigy director. The following files need to be in the Prodigy for ROBIN! to work properly: ROBIN!.EXE ROBIN.BAT RSCRIPT.RSF ROBIN.DAT LITT.CHR VGA16.BGI HERC.BGI CGA.BGI If these files are not in your directory, then you should reinstall ROBIN! using your original disk or downloaded ARC file. 2) Robin! gives me an error message when I try to install it. There are couple reasons that the ROBIN! install program would do this: o you may not have enough memory to run ROBIN! and Prodigy. You need at least 512K of memory available at run time which means you will have to have at least 640K of RAM installed. o You do not have Prodigy installed in a subdirectory called Prodigy. o You have a version of Prodigy we have not seen. o You are using a TANDY 1000 or an AMSTRAD which we have no graphics driver to provide support. 3) Prodigy gives me an API error message or Prodigy gives me a DM error message. This is most likely caused by not enough memory being available for Prodigy. Try running Prodigy again, do the same thing that caused the error previously. If the error occurs again, try freeing up RAM by uninstalling some of your TSRs. See the UNLOAD TSRs in the appendix. 5) Prodigy gives me a CM error message. This is likely caused by something happening to your phone line. Call waiting will cause this error. Also somebody picking up the phone can cause this error. If ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 37 this becomes a persistent problem, try switching phone jacks, or disconnecting your extension phones. 6) Robin! will not work while I am using prodigy. First, Try reinstalling ROBIN!. Second check and see if when your start ROBIN!, if it loads or if it displays a message that it did not load. If all this fails, send us a note and we will try and help. 7) Robin!'s Script Compiler gives me and error message. There is an error in your script code. Look in the list file which ROBIN!'s script compiler generates. It will have the same name as the file you were compiling, however it will have a RSL extension. This list file will show where the error was and what kind of error it found. It will look something like this: SYNTAX ERROR LINE # 38 8) A Robin! script I created will not work right. First make sure you are starting it in the right place. Then try doing what you wanted the script to do by hand. Following your script instructions, see if it fails or if it succeeds. Be sure to use the compiler listing to make sure you are following the EXACT key sequence in your macro. If it still fails, then find the right key sequence to make it succeed. If it succeeds, send us a note. 9) When I press ALT-TAB for the first time, ROBIN! locks up my system. Probably ROBIN! has not locked up your system, but just is not configured for your current video mode. Try pressing the ESC key and see if your system becomes unlocked. 10) My computer locks up while I am using PRODIGY, but I was not using any of ROBIN!'s features. Most likely, somebody picked up your phone line. 11) When I was installing ROBIN!, the install program told me it did not support my video board. If you are using a TANDY 1000 or AMSTRAD, then we do not support those video modes at this time. If you are using a VGA board, then it is possible you have a version of Prodigy we have not seen. Send us a note which includes which video mode you installed Prodigy for, and we can give you a patch for your batch file. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 38 12) I am using the EGA version of Prodigy and when I bring up the Script menu, the characters are so large that go outside of ROBIN!'s box. Then parts of them get left behind when I go back to Prodigy. Most likely the file LITT.CHR is not in the directory that ROBIN!.EXE and VGA16.BGI is located. Copy it from your master disk into this directory. 13) When I am trying to upload a long note, after about the 4th or 5th message, Prodigy locks up or gives me an OCM error message. Likely ROBIN! has overwhelmed your Prodigy program or the Prodigy node you are logged onto. Try increasing the value of the NodeWait field on the System Menu. If that solves the problem for your current session, but it happens again later, you may want to use RCONFIG to change this value permanently. 14) While I am using ROBIN! to upload a long note, ROBIN! makes Prodigy pause for a long time which is annoying. Well, if you watch your modem lights, and they stop blinking long before ROBIN!'s pause ends, you may want to decrease the node wait value. If that solves the problem for your current session, but it happens again later, you may want to use RCONFIG to change this value permanently. 15) I installed version 3 of Prodigy, and now ROBIN! does not work. ROBIN! must be installed for the version of Prodigy that you are using, install ROBIN! again. 16) I want to install ROBIN!, but the install program can not find Prodigy. When RINSTALL tells you that Prodigy was not found, then it will ask for a Path to where prodigy is installed. Type in a full path (including drive ID) to where you have Prodigy installed. 17) While I am installing ROBIN!, a message appears on the screen "Insert disk for drive B:", then if I press return it displays "Insert disk for drive A:", and keeps going back and forth between these two. You only have one floppy drive. But DOS emulates that you have 2 floppies by allowing you to insert a disk for drive A: and then take it out and insert another for drive B:. Just keep pressing the RETURN key in response ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 39 to each of these prompts, until RINSTALL is done, and ROBIN! should install fine HOW TO CONTACT US ABOUT ROBIN! PROBLEMS They best way to contact us is via Prodigy. Our ID is WPTD01E. Ask for Richard. If you have to contact us by mail, you can send a letter or disk to ROBIN! McQuay Technologies Suite 291 8045 Antoine Houston TX 77088 We can not be reached by phone, and likely will never provide phone support. Sorry! When you contact us provide the following (You can upload the file HELPME.ASC as a template using the quickload option): 1) Your registration number (Which we send you when you register your copy of ROBIN!), the version of ROBIN! that you are using (this is displayed when Robin! first runs), where you obtained ROBIN! and your Prodigy ID. If you do not have a registration # we will still try and provide support, but registered owners get priority in our help que. 2) A brief 5 to 10 line description of your problem. 4) The type of display adapter you have, the type of computer you have, how much RAM is installed, which version of DOS do you have, which version of Prodigy, and what other TSRs you are using.. Here is an example I can not get Prodigy to run when I use the ROBIN.BAT file to start Prodigy. It tells me I do not have enough memory. The install program said I had enough? EGA adapter and EGA monitor with a Compaq portable III with 3MB of RAM. I have DOS 4.0 and I am using Prodigy version 3. I have a network TSR loaded while using Prodigy. We may ask you for a copy of your Config.sys file, your autoexec.bat file, and the .BAT file from which you are running ROBIN! and Prodigy (Very helpful and will save a lot of time!). If you have any questions about these files see the technical aspects of Prodigy section and the glossary of this document. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 40 ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 41 APPENDIX APPENDIX SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS An 8088, 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, or 80486 system using MSDOS or PCDOS version 2.x, 3.x, or 4.x; an external modem and a serial port or an internal modem(required for Prodigy), a CGA, EGA, VGA or Hercules graphics adapter, and 640K of base memory. When you run Prodigy and Robin! together there must be at least 512K of available memory. You must have either version 2 or 3 of Prodigy installed. INSTALLING ON A FLOPPY SYSTEM ROBIN!'s install program is designed to install ROBIN! on systems that have a hard disk. However, ROBIN! will work on a floppy system. To install ROBIN! on a floppy system, first make a backup copy of your ROBIN! disk. You will use this disk to start ROBIN!. Follow the steps below: 1) Follow these steps for the version of Prodigy you are using: Version 3 Do a directory of your Prodigy disk. Look at the size of the file called DRIVER.SCR. You will need to record the following video codes for the size of file you have: Video File Video File Code Size Code Size ----- ------ ----- ----- C 15416 H 21348 E 15486 P 10969 M 17757 U 22092 V 24565 Version 2 You will need to record the following video codes for the equipment you have: H - Hercules Graphics Card C - CGA Card E - EGA or VGA Card ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 42 2) Insert your ROBIN! disk in drive A: Type COPY CON: ROBIN.BAT and press RETURN. Then type the following but replace the '#' below with the character you have recorded for your video system above: ROBIN! V=# A=%1 For example, if 'C' was the video code for your system you would type ROBIN! V=C A=%1 Then press RETURN and then press the F6 key (or enter a CNTRL-Z) and press RETURN. 3) To start ROBIN!, insert your ROBIN! disk in drive A: and type A: ROBIN This will load ROBIN!. Then insert your Prodigy disk and start Prodigy as you usually would. When you exit Prodigy, insert your ROBIN! disk and type ROBIN! U This will unload ROBIN! MEMORY PROBLEMS - UNLOADING TSRS The following describes how to unload various TSRs or DOS features. Unless you are using a TSR manager, unloading TSRs can be difficult. Generally TSRs needed to be unloaded in the reverse order that they were loaded. PCTOOLS - There are two ways to unload PCTOOLS (desktop shell etc). PCTOOLS comes with a program called KILL.EXE (really!). Running this command from the command line will unload PCTOOLS assuming that PCTOOLS is the next in line to be unloaded. You can also unload PCTOOLS from the program itself by selecting the Tools option in the main menu and selectin UnLOAD as the action. WINDOWDOS - WindowDOS can be unloaded by running WindowDOS with the U command line switch. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 43 TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF ROBIN! ROBIN! is a fairly sophisticated program (at least we like to think so). It has been designed to be a friendly TSR program, and to use as little memory as possible. It still uses a lot though. We are constantly trying to streamline ROBIN! and make it work with less memory. Right now, your version of ROBIN! requires between 75K and 80K, depending on what video equipment you have. We found writing ROBIN! to work transparently under version 2 of Prodigy to be very difficult. To be blunt, we consider version 2 of Prodigy to be unstable and version 3 to be unfriendly. The only thing more unstable than this code is the tech support you get when you have problems. Version 3s mouse support is very unfriendly and caused a variety of problems. We have found that almost all of the problems we have experienced with Prodigy have resulted from not enough memory available or a communications problem. For those of you that are technically oriented, we thought we would share with you some of the technical aspects of ROBIN!. First of all, ROBIN! is written using Borland's Turbo Pascal(r) Ver. 5.5. It does utilize some of the object oriented features of the language. We used Turbo Power Software's Object Professional(r) package for most of the low level TSR support. The graphics are generated with Borland's BGI graphics system. A substantial portion of ROBIN! is written in very carefully crafted assembly language, compiled with Borland's TASM. Except for the size of the BGI kernal, we are pleased with this development configuration. To reduce the amount of memory needed to save and restore Prodigy's screens, a scratch file is created and data is written to and read from this file each time a ROBIN! menu is first placed on the screen. We chose this technique over saving in to memory because it required 12K to save Prodigy's EGA screen. Using this technique saved 10K in memory. Some will experience some performance degradation with this approach, but for many the approach would have been this or nothing. For those with a RAM disk, there is a switch to allow the scratch file to be saved on the RAM disk. See the Command Line Switches section. ROBIN! was developed with little technical assistance from the Prodigy people. They did provide us a BETA version of the Version 3 software. For this we are very grateful. Most of the work however, was trial and error. One of the most time consuming aspects of ROBIN! was mastering Prodigy(r) word processor. Essentially ROBIN! has to understand all the quirks of the system in order to be able to upload files as efficiently as it does. This was a pain. It is possible that there are some quirks we have not ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 44 discovered, and if you find em, we really want to hear about it. One of the fundamental aspects of ROBIN! is the script system. Almost every feature of ROBIN! utilizes the internal script engine. Many of the upload and logon feature are driven by internal scripts. This is so critical to ROBIN! and, as we found, so difficult to do with Prodigy(r) that we consider it to be a trade secret, and are registering it. ROBIN! is not simply filling the keyboard buffer with keystrokes. This is why ROBIN! is capable of uploading 48K worth of text to Prodigy. The ROBIN! script system is actually a tokenized system, with the Script Compiler creating a intermediate token language which the ROBIN! main system interprets at run time. Messing with the .RSF files will likely result in critical Messing with the .RSF files will likely result in critical errors and is strongly discouraged. We have not tried it errors and is strongly discouraged. We have not tried it and really have no idea what might happen if you try it. SOME TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF PRODIGY(r), WE THINK! Gathering together info about the technical aspects of Prodigy is difficult. As most of you know, the manuals that come with Prodigy provide NO technical information. So most of the info we have on Prodigy comes either from Bulletins posted, from the ASK PRODIGY tech notes, or just our experience. Right now we consider Prodigy ver 2 to be an unstable program. That is it does not react or recover well from events that are out of the ordinary or beyond what Prodigy expects to happen. We have tried to design ROBIN! to work in this unstable environment. Version 3 is much more stable, but is still not written in a way that is friendly to TSRs. One critical aspect of the Version 2 Prodigy system that we discovered that is important to ROBIN! users is that memory checking is not done by the Prodigy system at runtime, but rather by Prodigy's initial menu (MENU.EXE). Interestingly, Prodigy can actually run under less memory than the Menu program checks. For those of you having memory problems, a recommendation of last resort is that you load ROBIN! after the MENU program is run in your batch file that starts Prodigy. Unfortunately with out this initial memory check, if Prodigy runs out of memory it will just crash (hard). If you are lucky you will get an API error code. We also found that sometimes you can get an API code even if the Menu program decides there is enough memory. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 45 Version 3 has one EXE program that simplifies the starting of Prodigy. This version does its error checking at runtime, and will generate a fatal error if it does not have enough memory. The Prodigy program is also very sensitive to communication noise. For example, if some one picks up an extension while you are online, it is very likely that Prodigy will just lock up your computer and you will have to reboot. If your lucky you will get a CM error code. Prodigy has a voracious appetite for keystrokes. It frequently just sucks up keystrokes in the keyboard buffer and tosses them away. It is one reason why so many TSR macro programs have problems with Prodigy. Prodigy ver 2 actually has an undocumented feature that allows it to use a log file of keystrokes to start Prodigy. This makes a very cheap autologin feature for Prodigy and is one way to start Prodigy and preform some automated tasks. Prodigy mail service is fairly fast in posting private messages, but it is not instantaneous. Using ROBIN! to send long notes (files that have more text than one message) is fairly fast. And it is not likely that a multiple message file would be split in some ones mail box by another message, but it is possible. This really should be of no real inconvenience if it happens, and there is really nothing you can do to avoid it other than posting your message at a non peak hour. There are a variety of files in your Prodigy directory. Two are interesting, CACHE.DAT and STAGE.DAT. These files apparently used by Prodigy to store information as it is received. STAGE.DAT seems to have the most recent info, and CACHE.DAT is a temporary overflow for STAGE. Some people have reported problems with these two files in Version 2. Below we have tried to assemble the "known" Prodigy error codes, with some "reason" why they may be occurring and what you can do to avoid or correct them. We have qualified the phrases "known" and "reason" because the only place some of these have been documented is in the Public exchange on the Ask Prodigy bulletin board. Each provides a letter code, which will be followed by a Number. CM # - Communication error. Caused by noise on the line, some one picking up the phone, bad modem, etc. Hang up and try again. API # - An error condition was detected in a Prodigy application. Our experience with this error has been related to not enough memory, particularly error number 8 and 15. Interestingly, prodigy online tech people say "avoid this application area for a while if this occurs." ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 46 What? Apparently this is also an error code for a bug or something. Try to free up more RAM. DM # - The display module detected an error, more than likely not enough RAM. Try and free up more RAM. OMCM # - This is a rather low level error that indicates that the communications interface detected an error in transmission. A data packet was found to fail the checksum test. It is possible to upload a very long file, on a fast machine and generate this error. Try breaking the file up into smaller chunks, or increase your NODE WAIT value in the system menu. KM # - This error apparently is a Prodigy System error on the host computer. Is a bug in the Host Prodigy software. Report this error to Prodigy and then "Try and avoid this application for a while." Well, what else would you do? OBS # - This is an error at your current local Prodigy node (local access number). Report this to Prodigy when you call back. OMS # and SMGR # - These are two unusual errors that have been associated with the Stage.DAT file. Prodigy uses this file to store "stuff". Occasionally users have experienced this file growing to enormous size. For version 2.1 of Prodigy it size should be no larger than about 200,064 bytes. Version 3 can be as big as 1 MB. Most advice to date is that with this error, or if you see the file larger than this, copy the original RS.EXE and STAGE.DAT back into your Prodigy Directory. SOME NON TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF ROBIN! One thing that has greatly pleased us is that ROBIN! has actually generated a lot of uses we never really envisioned when we first started creating it. This section discusses a couple of ideas. We think there will be a lot more and we want to hear about them, so be creative! Forwarding mail. Ever get a message from someone that was meant for someone else. Or get a message you would like to share with others. Using ROBIN!'s download and upload features you can do this very quickly. In fact you can create a script to help with the process. When you are in a message you want to forward, just open a download file, call it temp.asc, print the message, then close the print file. Then select the write feature, enter the ID to whom you which to forward it, and send it with a ROBIN! upload, uploading TEMP.ASC. The script you can create can be evoked to automatically print the file and take you over to the ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 47 write message. You than close the file, enter the ID,and upload. Create a Log File. ROBIN!'s download feature does not limit you to one message. You can open a file and download a whole lot of messages. Ever find your mailbox full of messages making it a pain to find the one you want, but you don't want to delete any. Open a log file, and print them all, then delete them. You can even have one log file that you just keep appending messages to. You can even create a script that prints a message, deletes the message, and then moves to the next message. POSSIBLE FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS It is our intent to continue to provide enhancements to ROBIN! What has been done to date has required a lot of effort. Our reward to date has been self satisfaction and the use of a productivity tool that meets our needs. That has been enough so far. But, continued improvement of a shareware version without any of reward for our efforts just does not excite any of us. We will give Robin! a chance and see how many people register the version they are using. There are several enhancements we have in the works that we will provide through a future upgrade of the shareware version. The biggest barrier right now is memory. We are trying to trim down the memory requirements of ROBIN! so we can add new features. One possible solution will be to use overlays. We will also try to keep up with changes that Prodigy services may make in the Prodigy system that affect the operation of ROBIN!. This version of ROBIN! was developed under Prodigy 2.1 and 3.0. We will release and upgrade for future versions when they become available to us. One big change in Prodigy's service that may change our support for ROBIN! is the proposed EMAIL surcharge. This is something we can ill afford. If this action occurs, it will destroys the "community" that has developed on Prodigy. After this there will likely be no market for ROBIN!. Here are some of the features we think may be (or know are) technically possible, let us know which ones excite you: 1) Expand the Robin Script Language to include features such as the ability to add looping in scripts and be able to test certain Prodigy(r) conditions (like new mail). 2) Be able to load alternative script files while online with prodigy. 3) A script library manager, ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 48 4) Enhanced memory management including the use of EMS memory if available, 5) An online Text based word processor that is better than prodigy's, 6) be able to send small .EXE or .COM via Prodigy using an automated HEX file format. 7) be able to execute very large scripts contained in a specific file. 8) provide links to special programs such as stock market analyzers. 9) Be able to record keystrokes while in ROBIN! 10) Print screen (doubt we will add this), 11) Online Script debugger. 12) Keep track of when IDs log on and provide an automatically incrementing date to stick in the date field on the BBS browse dialog boxes, and 13) Use Prodigy's autologon files rather than ROBIN.DAT. WHY IS IT CALLED ROBIN!? Good question. That deserves a story. Once upon a time their was a not so typical house with a GrandPa Bear, Grandma Bear, Pappa Bear, a Mamma Bear, a Sister Bear named Robin, and a Baby Bear. Now into the Bear house came Prodigy! First GrandPa Bear tried it, and said "Phoey!". Pappa Bear tried Prodigy and said "This is interesting, but it is awfully slow, is a pain to get around in, bores me with the stupid little ads, and is an unstable program that really upsets my finally tuned 386!" Sister Robin Bear watched Pappa Bear and said "OOOHHH thats rad, can I get on there and cruise around dad." Papa Bear let Sister Bear have a wack at it and before Pappa could even blink, she became a Prodigy "prodigy". Now Baby Bear watched Pappa Bear and said "Oh that is neat, I want to do that, hold me daddy and help me." "Not now Baby Bear, get Robin to help you." said Pappa Bear. "ROBIN!", cried Baby Bear, "help me, help me, help me!"; and she did. Then Grandma Bear watched GrandPa Bear and said "You mean I can order groceries and they will deliver to my door and I do not have to fight traffic or haul bags around .... breath ... help me." "Phoey!', said GrandPa bear, "Tell that Robin to do something constructive for a change." So GrandMa Bear shouted "ROBIN! come here and help me work this!" And Robin Bear did just that. Then Mamma Bear watched Pappa Bear, and said "You mean I could send as many notes as I wanted to your mother, my mother, my sister, Sarah, Diane ....breath ... and it would not cost anything and they would get them right away and could write right back the same day and I would not need to be home and they would not need to be home and ....(breath)..... Show me." "I do not have time now," said Pappa Bear, "get Robin to help you." So Mamma Bear shouted, "ROBIN! come here and show me how to work this!" So Robin Bear did. ROBIN! 1.6 November 12, 1990 page 49 One day Robin Bear said to Pappa Bear, "You know dad, it would really be bogus if you zapped a little robot that can help Mom, and GrandMa and the brat when you and I are not around." And with that, ROBIN! was launched. WHAT IS MCQUAY TECHNOLOGIES? Almost 10 years ago, with the birth of the 6502 and the Z80, a few of us became entranced by the capabilities of microcomputers. We were all "professionals" in a variety of unrelated fields and from varying backgrounds, and our imaginations ran wild with the possibilities. But after a few years we became disappointed in the things for which micros were being used. So in our spare time we started pushing our machines to their limits and applying what we learned to our chosen fields. To support our habit and our drive to stay on the leading edge while pursuing somewhat unrelated fields, we formed a partnership called McQuay Technologies. We have all become fairly successful in our other careers (some what due to McQuay Technology projects), but McQuay Technologies has remained alive and we are still pushing our systems to their limits, exploring new possibilities (which still seem endless). ROBIN! became a challenge, so after many sleepless nights it now is available to you. We see a lot of possibilities for Prodigy(r) and feel strongly that ROBIN! may be able to accelerate the reality of these possibilities. And if it helps to feed your and our habit along the way, so much the better. We hope you will find ROBIN! and this document unique, innovative, provocative, useful, and standard setting. There now, aren't we just the worst greedy little egotistical monsters you have ever met! ;-)