AquaTSR (c) 1992 by Ron, Chris and Kim Gray ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reading the AQUATSR.DOC file with VIEW program: o Use the UP/DOWN, PG UP/PG DOWN, HOME/END, LEFT/RIGHT keys to navigate thru the document. o Use the ESC key to exit out of VIEW back to DOS. o VIEW.COM can be used to read any text document file. o SYNTAX: VIEW [drive][path] textfile.doc Where textfile.doc is any text based file to view. Where path is optional if VIEW.COM resides in the same directory the textfile exists. To read a text file that is not in the same directory that VIEW.COM program is, just simply include the entire path. Where drive is the location of the textfile. If the textfile.doc is on the current drive then the drive is not needed. ex: VIEW A:\AQUATSR.DOC The textfile AQUATSR.DOC is on the floppy in drive A: in the root directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AquaTSR(c) 1992 Description: Is an "automatic" screen saving program. You specify the period of inactivity that AquaTSR(c) will wait prior to starting up. AquaTSR features many of the fish swimming in the AQUARIUM(c) program such as Seahorse, Divers Bell, Oscar, Angel and more. Not compatible with WINDOWS. The AquaTSR Control Panel (AQUACP.EXE) lets you select fish, create messages, unload and load AquaTSR etc. Further, you can load or unload AquaTSR from a batch file. Registration is $15.95. AquaTSR minimum requirements: XT IBM compatible turbo (10mhz) EGA color monitor with 256K video memory DOS 3.x or greater 243k DOS memory, 4.6k when resident! Hard Drive with 840k available- this includes space for program swap and video file save when AquaTSR is activated. Compatability: In order to move large amounts of objects, while in high resolution EGA screen mode 640 x 350, all the video routines were written in assembly code. Further, direct writes to the video registers had to be performed. AquaTSR has been tested on NCR, ZENITH, MIT, GATEWAY, PACKARD BELL, EVEREX, COMPAC, TECH486 and MAX machines succesfully. Incompatability: AquaTSR is strictly a DOS program and is not compatible with WINDOWS environment. Use a batch file to unload AquaTSR prior to starting WIN. ______________________________________________________________________________ INSTALLING AquaTSR ON YOUR HARD DISC Note: If you already own the AQUARIUM(c) program, both the AquaTSR files and AQUARIUM files can co-exist in the same directory. It is not necessary to create a seperate directory for AquaTSRs files. o Insert the AquaTSR diskette in drive A: and close the door. Next, log onto drive A: by typing A: (press ENTER key) o Start the installation by typing INSTALL C: (press ENTER key) Syntax: INSTALL Drive: Where 'Drive:' is the drive letter of the hard disk drive where you wish to install this program. Such as C: or D: ect. o Here is a list of the file names and brief description. AQUATSR.EXE Main TSR program AQUATSR.001 Graphics Picture File AQUATSR.002 Graphics Picture File AQUATSR.DOC This Document AQUATSR.CFG Last AquaTSR configuration saved here INSTALL.BAT Batch file that will automatically install the AquaTSR files on your hard drive. AQUACP .EXE AquaTSR Control Panel used to select the fish, period of inactivity, create floating messages, and load or unload AquaTSR program (optional). VIEW .COM Program to view the AQUATSR.DOC text file. ----------- ------------------------------------------ * TSRSWAP.000 Files created by AquaTSR when swapping * TSRSWAP.001 program memory out during pop up time. ** SCRSAV2.TSR File created by AquaTSR when saving the video screen that AquaTSR popped up over. AQGO .BAT Batch file created by AQUACP.EXE program when the LOAD or UNLOAD buttons are selected. This file is deleted when AQUACP.EXE program is exited. * These files will be created at start up time by AquaTSR. ** This file is created when AquaTSR pops up. ______________________________________________________________________________ LOADING AquaTSR method 1: Loading AquaTSR from the AquaTSR Control Panel program AQUACP.EXE o Log on to your hard drive by typing C: (press ENTER key) o Change to the AQUARIUM directory CD \AQUARIUM (press ENTER key) o Start up AquaCP program AQUACP (press ENTER key) While in the AquaCP program press the button "LOAD TSR" which will batch file out to start up the AquaTSR program and return to AQUACP screen. method 2: Loading AquaTSR directly from DOS prompt: o Log on to your hard drive by typing C: (press ENTER key) o Change to the AQUARIUM directory CD \AQUARIUM (press ENTER key) o Start up AquaTSR program AQUATSR (press ENTER key) You will now see the line- "AquaTSR will pop up after xx minutes of keyboard inactivity" If you forgot that AquaTSR was already in memory and you tried to load a second copy, AquaTSR will return the message- "AquaTSR will pop up after xx minutes of keyboard inactivity" "Aqua-TSR already loaded" ______________________________________________________________________________ POPPING AquaTSR DOWN Once AquaTSR starts up the aquarium activity, a touch of your keyboard key will cause AquaTSR to restore your video screen, swap back into CPU memory approximately 172K bytes of program code, and pop back down. The program or DOS that AquaTSR popped up over can now resume. AquaTSR does not monitor the mouse during animation, so mouse clicks or movement will not effect AquaTSR. o ESC key pressed after AquaTSR pops up will cause AquaTSR to unload from memory. If AquaTSR has popped up over another program, AquaTSR will sense this and display a message that it is unable to unload at this time. o All keys except ESC key will cause AquaTSR to pop back down. ______________________________________________________________________________ UNLOADING AquaTSR method 1: Unloading AquaTSR from the AquaTSR Control Panel program AQUACP.EXE o Log on to your hard drive by typing C: (press ENTER key) o Change to the AQUARIUM directory CD \AQUARIUM (press ENTER key) o Start up AquaCP program AQUACP (press ENTER key) While in the AquaCP program press the button "UNLOAD TSR" which will batch file out to remove the AquaTSR program and return to AQUACP screen. method 2: Unloading AquaTSR directly from DOS prompt: o Log on to your hard drive by typing C: (press ENTER key) o Change to the AQUARIUM directory CD \AQUARIUM (press ENTER key) o Unload AquaTSR program REMOVTSR AQUATSR.EXE (press ENTER) If AquaTSR was not loaded prior to trying to remove it you will see the message- "AquaTSR not in memory or was not the last program loaded" ______________________________________________________________________________ STARTING AquaTSR FROM A BATCH FILE To run AquaTSR from a batch file include these three lines: C: CD \AQUARIUM AQUATSR Note: Refer to DOs & DONT rules if you are loading more than AquaTSR in your batch. CD = DOS command to Change Directory. This is very important because AquaTSR will then use the current directory to locate the config file and where to put new files for swaping out program and video memory. If a different directory other than \AQUARIUM was used then replace with the appropriate name. C: = drive (replace with d: if using D drive etc.) May be omitted if the current drive is to be used. AQUATSR = The TSR program ______________________________________________________________________________ AquaTSR PROGRAM OPERATION The phrase "Terminate and Stay Resident", or "TSR", comes from the DOS service that provides the ability for a program to become memory-resident. As the name implies, a TSR is a program that is loaded and takes up residence in memory, waiting to perform its task. This task may require the TSR to pop-up over another program or DOS. When the TSR pops up or becomes active, it suspends any foreground process (program) while performing its task such as screen saving. TSR activation or pop-up always occur during the servicing of an interrupt. AquaTSR when resident in memory, hooks the clock interrupt such that AquaTSR code is called 18.2 times a second. AquaTSR keeps track of this to time the duration period of keyboard or mouse (if present) inactivity. The keyboard interrupt is also hooked such that each time a key is pressed, AquaTSR will examine it to see if the AquaTSRs' hot keys (ALT key and '.' period key) were pressed and also to reset the inactivity timer count to zero. When the inactivity counter reaches the period (1 - 30 min) selected by you, AquaTSR will then pop up, saving program memory and video screen prior to starting up your aquarium. When AquaTSR is resident in memory only a small kernel of approximately 4.6k remains resident in memory to monitor the interrupt process. Upon popping up, AquaTSR will swap out 172K of DOS memory to the file TSRSWAP.000 and swap in AquaTSR program from TSRSWAP.001 file. During this process a blinking green box will appear in the upper left corner of your video screen if you are in TEXT mode. Depending on your machine speed will take a second or two. If during animation you reset or boot your machine, the TSRSWAP.00x files will be present. Normally when AquaTSR is removed from memory these files are deleted. An additional file called SCRSAV2.TSR will be created to save the current video memory image. ______________________________________________________________________________ TSR RULES - DOs AND DONTs DO unload TSR programs on a last in first out. If you wish to later remove AquaTSR from memory, you must ensure that AquaTSR was the last TSR loaded. Remember, the last TSR loaded would be the first to unload. DONT try to unload AquaTSR, if you installed other TSR programs after AquaTSR. However, during AquaTSR animation you may unload it by pressing the ESC key. If AquaTSR detected it was popped up over another program, the display "UNABLE TO TERMINATE AT THIS TIME, TRY LATER." will appear, simply press a different key once to resume animation, and a second time to pop down AquaTSR. In this case you must first quit the current program that AquaTSR popped up over prior to using the ESC key to unload AquaTSR from memory. ______________________________________________________________________________ POSSIBLE PROBLEMS Q & A o While in the AquaTSR Control Panel program, upon selecting either the LOAD or UNLOAD TSR buttons the Control Panel program terminated and I was was returned back to my DOS SHELL or MENU program. Why? The AQUACP program creates a batch file called AQGO.BAT to allows AQUACP to quit momentarily, start up AquaTSR program and return to AQUACP program. If you used a shell or batch program to origionally start up the AQUACP.EXE program actually terminates prior to running the AQGO.BAT file, DOS assumes that it finished, in which control now passes back to the origional menu or DOS shell that started up AQUACP.EXE program. If you are using a menu that calls other programs thru batch files, then you must create two batch files for loading or unloading AquaTSR the same way that AQUACP would do it. example: UNLOAD.BAT (file) CD \AQUARIUM (changes directory to AquaTSR location) REMOVTSR AQUATSR.EXE (removes AquaTSR from memory) example: LOAD.BAT (file) CD \AQUARIUM (changes directory to AquaTSR location) AQUATSR (installs AquaTSR into memory) o When AquaTSRs hot keys (ALT and '.'period) are pressed, why does AquaTSR sometimes fail to pop up? AquaTSR monitors the DOS busy flag to make sure that something important is not in progress. If the DOS busy flag is set AquaTSR waits a short time to see if the busy flag goes away. If not then AquaTSR goes back to sleep. A second attempt to pop up AquaTSR will then be needed. Further, if AquaTSR refuses to pop up over a currently running program, it is because the keyboard interrupt is being interrigated before AquaTSR has a chance to. In this case you must first terminate (quit) the current program and then you should be able to POP up AquaTSR. o While working in GEM DRAW with the mouse, AquaTSR pops up anyway. Why didn't AquaTSR know that the mouse was being used? Because many CAD programs almost exclusively use the mouse, it is not enough to only watch the keyboard for inactivity. AquaTSR watches both mouse and keyboard for inactivity, however some programs ignore the mouse software already present in memory and uses their own mouse routines. When this happens AquaTSR can no longer monitor mouse activity. You have two choices here, 1- Unload AquaTSR prior to starting a graphic program that uses its own mouse code. 2 - Set the inactivity period to at least 20- 30 minutes. This way if AquaTSR rudely visits you while you are using the mouse, touch a key to pop AquaTSR back down for another 20-30 minutes and continue with your drawing. AquaTSR works fine with many other CAD programs such as SCHEMA or AutoCAD. o My graphic animation program screen was not restored properly when AquaTSR popped back down, Why? Most programs do not perform continuous screen updating, but simply wait for a key or mouse input in order to carry out tasks. Other programs involving "animation", will perform many thousands of video changes each second. These programs are "video intensive", meaning most of the time they continually perform some task with the video registers or video memory (images). The chances are very high that when AquaTSR pops up over these video intensive programs, it will interrupt setup calls to the video registers (ie:map, mask, overscan, pan and pel etc). The results may not be predictable. Further, the EGA palette registers that allow a program to map 1 of 16 colors to 1 of 64 are "write only" and can not be read so that they are restored properly. Given this, the results of popping AquaTSR over such a program could be loss of origional screen images or color, you have only one choice here, DONT. ______________________________________________________________________________ AquaTSR POSSIBLE ERROR CODES 1 = DOS Services are not available. AquaTSR should attempt to pop back down when this is encountered. You should not see this one. 2 = Not enough memory to become resident. AquaTSR will report the amount of memory detected in this case. If applicable you should off-load other TSR programs to free up memory. 3 = Unable to become memory resident. 4 = System is running under DOS 2.x, so AquaTSR cannot become resident. 10 = Error initializing disk swapping files. This may occur if there is insufficient room on your hard disk to create the files TSRSWAP.000 and TSRSWAP.001 when AquaTSR popped up. DOS CRITICAL ERROR CODES 7 = Out of memory. Not enough memory to load AquaTSR to begin with. ______________________________________________________________________________ AQUARIUM(c) 1991, 1992 - fish tank AQUARIUM(c) turns your monitor into a eye-catching fish tank. Aquariums are a proven method of relaxing. This realistic aquarium lets you control the number and type of fish, display floating messages in the background, make the fish change direction, and more. AQUARIUM features all objects shown in the AquaTSR Control Panel program AQUACP, plus a bubbler that starts up when viewing your AQUARIUM. AQUARIUM minimum requirements: DOS 2.1 or higher XT turbo machine (10mhz) 292K cpu memory EGA or VGA color monitor, with 256K video memory Single 360K floppy drive Mouse is OPTIONAL Registration is only $14.95. Registered programs include the FILE feature, which allows you to save up to 10 different AQUARIUM configurations. Ask your local BBS or Shareware Distributor for a demo copy. Regards Ron Gray