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OS/2 Help File
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1994-12-17
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ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. Crazy Clock ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Crazy Clock
Version 1.0
(C) 1994 Nicole Greiber
N&O Design
This program is Postcardware!
Hello!
Are you looking at this in a puzzled way, thinking: "What's all this good for?"
At least you are curious enough to have a look at the helpfile, good! Come on,
don't give up that early, try to figure it out yourself! Play around with it,
turn the seconds on and off, adjust the colors and try to discover the system!
Oh, you did this already? And you don't have a clue? Well then, let me help
you: It's a clock! And it tells you the time!
Hmm, you still look confused. All right, if you really want to know how it
works, have a look at the page What are these coloured circles good for?
Crazy Clock will create an .INI file in the current working directory. When you
exit the program, it stores all settings in this file and restores them at the
next start.
You will notice that the display refresh will sometimes take a short while (e.
g. after you uncovered the window). This is not a bug, it's a feature :-) Since
some or all parts of the display are refreshed every second, I don't refresh
the window every time when it's necessary but simply wait for the next second
where the window will be painted nevertheless. This is my attempt to minimize
painting overhead.
For an explanation of the menus please refer to
Options Menu
Help Menu
Last not least, you should be aware that this program is distributed WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY of any kind; not even with the implied warranty of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
You are allowed to copy and distribute the program as long as you don't charge
more than a nominal fee for handling etc. and as long as all copyright notices
are kept within the program and the documentation.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.1. What are these coloured circles good for? ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
For those of you who haven't guessed it yet, it's a clock! Now that it's clear,
you may ask: How does the clock work? I assume that all of you have seen a
clock with a digital display, also known as 7-segment-display. You can
enumerate these seven segments like this:
For every number that is displayed, each of the segments is either on or off.
Now you can arrange the segments in any order you like, and they will still
have the same information (the on/off code for each number is unique, otherwise
you'd have two numbers in the "normal" digital display that looked the same).
And that's what I did: I simply reordered the segments like this:
Then I stacked the numbers on top of each other, so that the 1-second
indicator is the lowest, followed by the 10-second-indicator, the
1-minute-indicator and so on, up to the 10-hour-indicator. For example, when
it's 12:34:56, the time will be displayed like this:
You don't believe that anybody will be able to tell the time from this crazy
display? Uh, don't be so pessimistic! Give it a try, and in a few weeks you'll
be able to read it like any other clock. When you remember how the segments are
coded, you can always count them and thus figure out what they display.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.2. About the author ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
This crazy little program was written by Nicole Greiber. It was inspired by a
real Crazy Clock that I've built out of a radio alarm clock. Since this clock
is not able to display seconds, and since I'm very fond of funny nonsense
programs lying around on my computer and wasting my precious CPU cycles, I felt
the urgent need to create a software Crazy Clock. And here it is!
When you also like this program (and also when you hate it), if (not when) you
find any bugs or have complaints, wishes or any ideas on how to improve it,
please contact me
via eMail (InterNet):
greiber@wrcs2.urz.uni-wuppertal.de
or via SnailMail (that's also where you can send your postcard to):
Nicole Greiber
Brueningstr. 6
42119 Wuppertal
GERMANY
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1.3. Postcardware - what is it? ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
This program is released as postcardware.
That means, when you like it and want to use it, I ask you to send me a
postcard with a nice picture of your home town.
I have two reasons for this: First, I like to get mail (well, who doesn't?) and
second, I'm curious to see whether there is anybody who likes and uses this
program (apart from myself).
For my address see my address.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Options Menu ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
The following menu items can either be accessed via the options menu in the
menu bar or via the popup menu.
Seconds
With this option you can toggle the seconds' display. When this menu item
is checked, seconds are displayed.
Colors
Selecting this menu entry opens a window where you can choose the colors of
the four clock elements Lights On, Lights Off, Frames and Background.
Simply click on the desired color for each of these components, and it will
be applied after having pressed "Ok" in the dialog window. When you leave
the window by pressing "Cancel", the colors will not be changed.
Show / Hide Frame
This option lets you hide or unhide the titlebar and menu bar,
respectively. To make all entries of the menu bar accessible when the frame
is hidden, a popup menu is available. It can be displayed by clicking on
the clock with the second mouse button (normally this is the right button).
The popup menu is available even when the menu bar is visible.
Exit
This option is only available in the popup menu. It was added because when
the titlebar is hidden, the system menu cannot be accessed, so there were
no possibility to exit Crazy Clock.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Help Menu ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
The menuitems of the help menu are:
Help index
Here you can get an index of all help entries.
General help
This option shows general information about Crazy Clock.
Using Help
A system help page is displayed which explains how to use the help.
Product information
Selecting this option will open a window that contains some information
about Crazy Clock and its author.