
                   Gear Sub-Menu F6 Detailed Help Notes

        "Vga(=on) or ega(=off) mode on vga card."
        This switch only means something if you have an IBM
        Video Graphic Adaptor hardware in the machine you
        are running the program on.  If you have a VGA
        and the switch is set to on then the program will
        use the VGA adapter in VGA mode (640x480 pixels.)
        With this switch set to off then you will be
        using the VGA card in the lower resolution EGA mode,
        Enhanced Graphic Adapter (640 horizontal x 350 vertical
        pixels.)  If you are not running with a VGA card the
        switch will be ignored.

        "Epson=off. ibm pro/graph printers=on."
        If "current= ... OFF" then this program is set to
        work with an Epson FX (9 pin ) dot matrix printer
        when the Epson DIP switch set to Epson mode.  (See your
        printer manual as they vary.)
           If current= ...ON" then this program is set to
        work with the IBM Professional and Graphics printers
        and compatibles (including Epson set to IBM compatible mode).

        "Colors set back to default"
        Restores the program settings to colors selected by the
        programmer at compile time.  This is intended as a
        easy way out if the user gets himself in trouble with
        the menu picks below.

        "Accent hot key color"
        Determines what color the letter of hot keys will be
        displayed in when in text mode.

        "Main text color"
        Determines what color normal text will be displayed in when
        in text mode.  Note that true black (color 0), does not show
        up when in graphics mode if one tries to reverse the video.
        One can work around this by substituting dark grey (color 8)
        as the main color and then using whatever other color one
        wants for the background such as light grey (color 7).
        All of the foreground colors change 0 to 8 on input.

        "Background text color"
        Determines what color the negative space will be when in
        text and graphics mode.

        "Plot color."
        Determines what color the plot boundary lines and tick marks
        will be.

        "Which color gear position."
        Determines the color the lines indicating the gear inch
        of that gear combination are in on the plot.

        "Graphics hardware parameters."
        A diagnostic to show what hardware the program finds in the
        machine you are running on.

        "Directory of gear setup files."
       Allows the user to do a directory of files on the disk.  The
       current mask is displayed which the user may change by typing
       in a new one:  if the "Backspace" key is hit first then the
       string may be deleted and changed one character at a time;
       else if a normal ASCII character is struck the whole string
       will be deleted and the user may input a new string.
       The arrow keys are not implemented in editing this field.
       When the user hits "Enter" then the program will shell out
       to DOS and do a directory if there is memory available in the PC.

       "File to save/restore from."
       Allows the user to change and customize the default settings of
       "gear".  This just allows the user to change the name.  Nothing
       else is done unless "Save" or "Restore" (below) is executed.
       If this file is "gear.ini" then the program will come up
       according to the values saved in "gear.ini".  If "gear.ini"
       is not found the program will use internal (compiled) defaults.
       The user is at liberty to make a new "gear.ini" file at any time
       by setting this menu pick to "gear.ini" (as above in "Directory..")
       and then hitting "Save" below.

       "Save current program settings to the following file: ..."
       Saves most program variables to the filename.  This allows
       some user customization of "gear".  There can be as many
       configurations of "gear" as the user has disk space.

       "Restore most program defaults from the file: ..."
       Writes most program variable to the filename.




