
                   Gear Sub-Menu F7 Detailed Help Notes

        "Directory of output files."
        Provides an easy way to see what files already exist.
        The user is prompted to edit the mask or if "Enter" is
        pressed the current mask will be used.

        "File to act on."
        This is the file name that this page will use to write to,
        print, or delete.

        "Save current gear chart output to file "
        Writes the calculated gear inch values as determined
        on F5 "File to act on".

        WARNING:
        THERE MUST BE ENOUGH AVAILABLE MEMORY IN YOUR MACHINE
        FOR THE FOLLOWING TO WORK.  (If you are calling this
        program from another there may not be enough left
        for these to dynamically use the extra memory that
        they need.)

        "View file"
        Allows the user to look at the data without going to DOS.

        "Erase file"
        Deletes the file if it is found.  No caution is provided.
        WARNINGS:
          1.  It just deletes the file.  No "are you sure" stuff
              here!   ( Just write it again.)
          2.  If the command to "Erase" the file is given too soon
              after the "Print" command then it is likely that
              only part of the file will be printed.
              If the file is a longer file then the DOS "print"
              buffers and the printer's buffers then the file
              will be deleted before it gets to the printer.
              (This is true unless you are using a more
              sophisticated "spooling" print queue utility than
              the standard DOS one.)

        "Print file"
        Passes the name of the file to the DOS "print" queue buffer.
        The second warning under "Erase" applies here in addition
        to the following...
        WARNING:  this can have unwanted side effects!
        If the DOS "print" queue buffer was not previously run
        or set up before this program was loaded then DOS sets
        up the "print" queue buffers in the memory after the
        memory this program is using.  Then when this program is
        exited DOS will not recover the program memory because the
        "print" buffers were loaded after it.  The only (normal)
        way to recover this memory is to reboot as DOS cannot
        recover fragmented memory.
           (This problem may be avoided by allocating memory
        at boot time by placing the following two lines in your
        autoexec.bat file:
            "mode LPT1:
             print/d:LPT1"
        The exact form of this may vary slightly from clone to
        clone so see the DOS "mode" and "print" commands for
        your machine.)

        "Copy file..."
        Uses the DOS "copy" command to copy the file to the 
        DOS device "lpt1" which is normally the printer.
        Use this instead of "Print" to avoid the memory buffer
        problems mentioned above.  (A possible penalty here
        is that it may tie up the machine longer while the
        file is being printed.  This depends on the file length
        and the length of the printer's hardware buffer.)


        "Open a door to DOS"
        If enough memory is available the program will be temporarily
        suspended and the user will be able to access DOS directly
        to do whatever they wish.  To get back into the program
        hit "Enter" without typing any other characters at the
        prompt.

