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1991-10-02
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Dot Type by Matthew J. W. Ratcliff
Shareware Contribution - $10
A PRINTER'S PRACTICE TOOL FOR CHILDREN LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE
Send registration fee to: Matthew J. W. Ratcliff
Ratware Softworks
32 South Hartnett Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63135
System Requirements:
EGA or VGA graphics. A GRAPHICS.COM or equivalent
Shift-Print-Scrn graphics printer driver. (It's done this way to
make it easy for you to use this program with your printer of
choice - most folks have a good printer graphics driver handy.
If not, the GRAPHICS.COM that comes with MS-DOS works with most
Epson compatible printers - especially the latest one in MS-DOS
5.0.)
If you do not have a GRAPHICS.COM utility that works with EGA or
VGA graphics, then you may wish to use PRTSC.COM that is included
with this software package. PRTSC was written by Jonathan Zuck.
It works very well with either EPSON or HP LaserJet printers.
See the PRTSC.DOC file for details.
To run Dot Type with the PrtSc utility for an EPSON printer use
the following BATCH file:
doteps
To run Dot Type with the PrtSc utility for an HP LaserJet or
DeskJet printer use this batch file:
dothp
See the text file PRTSC.DOC for more details on Jonathan Zuck's
excellent graphics print screen utility. Note that to use
prtsc.com with an HP Laser printer, the documentation says you
may use the command line switch "r75" for 75 dots per inch
resolution. I have found that this does NOT work. The DOTHP.BAT
file uses "r150". You can also use "r300", for 300 dots per inch
resolution, but this only has the effect of making the printed
graph smaller!
You may also wish to load GRAPHICS.COM from your DOS utilities
and use it for screen dumps. I have found that GRAPHICS.COM from
DOS 5.0 works fairly well, but for some reason I get bogus
"divide by zero" errors when I exit the program, when using DOS
5's GRAPHICS.COM. This does not happen with any other screen
driver, so I suspect this latest version of GRAPHICS.COM.
What is Dot Type?
It is a typing utility for teaching small children good PRINTING
SKILLS. It will also help them learn to read and spell.
How does it work?
First load your GRAPHICS.COM. This comes with DOS, and the
version that comes with MS-DOS 5.0 works well with EGA and VGA
graphics.
Run DOTYPE, or one of the batch files described above if you wish
to use the PRTSC graphics driver. After the introductory
display, you will be presented with a menu:
Enter and Print Dot Type Page
Change Text Size
Set Printer Color
Program Information
Quit Program
Enter and Print Dot Type Page
Select the first option and begin typing a line at a time into
the input line onto the screen. Backspace edit each
line if necessary. Make certain it looks good before pressing
the [ENTER] key. The line of text is displayed in large
print with thick lines on your screen. The font is called
"simplex", which looks very much like the sample printing you see
in practice printing tablets for small children. Note that you
can enter about 20 characters per line. Extra text is chopped off
the end and does not wrap around on the screen. (Hey this is a
teaching utility, not a word processor! <grin>) Use the "Change
Text Size" menu option to get more characters on a line.
When you have a practice set on the screen and you like it, press
[ENTER] only on a blank line. The program then prints dashed
lines across the screen and converts the text to "dotted lines".
You are then prompted to send the graph to the printer, or to
cancel the plot and restart (the screen is cleared automatically
after the plot or restart). If you select printer output, then
the GRAPHICS.COM driver in your computer is called automatically
and the screen is printed on your printer.
The printed output is suitable for your children (students) to
practice filling in the outlines of the characters, to learn how
to print neatly.
Change Text Size
Press escape to return to the main menu from the text
entry mode. Select the "Change Text Size" option to set a scale
of 1 to 30. Use larger numbers for larger characters. A size 5
or 6 is good for 6 or 7 year olds who are familiar with printing.
For smaller kids ages 3 to 5, use larger values like 8 to 10 for
much bigger letters that are easier to trace. Sizes as large as
20 or 30 make huge letters and allow only a few short words per
page.
Set Printer Color
If you have an Epson EX (JX80) or Star NX-1000 Rainbow color
printer, use this option to change the printer's color. Get the
most out of your multicolor ribbons!
The color menu appears below:
1) Black (1 pass)
2) Red (1 pass)
3) Blue (1 pass)
4) Violet (2 pass)
5) Yellow (1 pass)
6) Orange (2 pass)
7) Green (2 pass)
8) No Change
Note the pass count to the right. This tells you if the print
head makes one or two passes as it prints each line of graphics.
When your ribbon is getting "tired", selecting a 2 pass color
will improve the look of your final printout.
Program Information
Display information about the program, current revision, and
registration details.
Quit Program
Exit the program and return to DOS.
Footnotes:
I wrote this program for my son Charles, who is now in
kindergarten. He is constantly asking me to help him learn to
read and write; and I love to oblige. However, it gets TEDIOUS
rather quickly, when trying to create a practice printing sheet -
printing all those infuriating dots on the paper! I think you
will find that Dot Type saves you lots of time and makes it much
easier to create practice lessons.
Registration:
Please REGISTER this program. If you ORDERED this disk BY MAIL
from ANYONE BUT RATWARE SOFTWORKS, I have NOT received a PENNEY
for my efforts, and will not unless you register it.
Please give me some feedback too. Let me know what features you
would like added to Dot Type. Let me know what other sorts of
educational programs you would like to see. I am always whipping
up new ones for my children as time permits. Encouragement from
enthusiastic, registered users, certainly helps improve my
productivity!
The easiest way to develop this program was to depend on an
external graphics printing driver. If it doesn't work for you,
DON'T REGISTER but PLEASE WRITE. I will probably put out another
revision soon, which has a dedicated graphics print driver "built
into the program". It will be specific to Epson printers, and I
might support HP Laserjet and Deskjet printers, if I can get my
hands on some documentation. If you are interested in other
printer support, let me know.
Thanks for Your Support
Matthew J. W. Ratcliff
Wed 10-02-1991 06:42:34