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Text File | 1990-08-29 | 36KB | 657 lines

                          *** WELCOME ***

    PC-Images is user-supported software.  This means you are freely given
    this copy in order to evaluate it.  If after your evaluation you decide to
    continue using it, you should become a registered user by sending the
    registration fee of $35 to:

        PC-Images                           Mastercard or Visa customers:
        1157 57th Drive SE                         [phone]
        Auburn, WA 98002                       Compuserve: 72371,1557

    You are encouraged to freely distribute copies of the PCIMAGES.EXE
    file as long as you don't charge anything for the copies.  DO NOT
    distribute the individual, extracted, files; only PCIMAGES.EXE.

    As a registered user you'll receive these additional benefits:

    1.  Technical support
    2.  Latest version of PC-Images, PLUS one "Free Upgrade" card.
    3.  Capability to:  Use the "screen-saver" feature
                        Create stand-alone slide shows (briefings)
                        Adjust the delay between pictures
                        Change the Capture and Display "hot keys".
    4.  Our "Sampler" disk which contains the latest versions of our
        other user-supported products, including PC-FileNotes, PC-
        Directory, Conjecture, Remind Me!, and Nabbit.
    5.  A sincere "Thank you" for supporting our efforts to develop
        quality software and offer it at reasonable prices.

    Those using PC-Images in a commercial or educational environment must
    register.  Site licenses are available, as well as quantity discounts.
    Overseas customers please add $15.

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          Have a photograph you'd like to display on your computer?

    If you're a registered user of PC-Images, for a $10 fee per picture,
    we'll have your photograph or artwork (up to 11x17) professionally
    scanned into a full color picture your computer can display.  To have
    your favorite photograph or artwork converted to a color computer
    image send us:

             *  your mailing address
             *  the type of display you have (CGA,EGA,VGA,MCGA,SuperVGA)
             *  whether you want 5.25 or 3.5 inch disks
             *  the photograph(s) or artwork
             *  $10 per photograph

    If you want your photo back, also include a suitable self-addressed
    stamped envelope  Send to:
                                   RSE Inc
                                   1157 57th Drive SE
                                   Auburn, WA 98002

    This is a service only afforded to registered users of PC-Images.
    Please allow 3-4 weeks for conversion and delivery.  Sorry, but we
    can't provide this service outside the United States.

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                           **** Introductions ****

    PC-Images is a strange program.  It doesn't really do anything unique, it
    just combines things in a unique way.  It includes a memory resident
    program (Fred) that lets you capture (take a picture of) virtually
    anything that appears on your screen.  It compresses and stores these
    "pictures" to disk.  You then use another program (Wilma) to group sets of
    pictures together into what we call Carousels.  These Carousels are much
    like grouping pictures together in a slide projector carousel.

    Once you've defined a carousel you can have it "pop-up" at most any time,
    within most any program.  It will sit there and run through the pictures
    in the Carousel just like you were watching a slide projector in the
    automatic mode.  It will continue running until you press a key, and then
    it will disappear as though nothing had happened. If you want, you can
    make a Carousel hold only a single picture.  For example, lets say you
    make a Carousel consisting of just a spreadsheet.  There you are, playing
    your favorite game and you hear the boss coming.  You press Ctrl-D and the
    Carousel "pops-up" displaying the spreadsheet picture.  Your boss is so
    impressed with your diligence and dedication that he gives you a raise and
    then leaves.  Press any key and you're back into your game, exactly where
    you left off.

    In addition, you can use the first picture of a carousel as "DOS filler".
    This means that whenever DOS finishes a program it will display the first
    picture in your carousel, instead of a blank screen.  How about displaying
    a picture of the wife (husband) and kids everytime the program ends.  Or
    maybe the company logo?  It may not be much, but when it comes to making
    computers more personal, I think every little bit helps.  (Pun intended)

    Registered users can also turn a Carousel into a "screen-saver", where it
    pops up after a certain period of keyboard and screen inactivity.  It
    continues to display your pictures until someone comes along and presses a
    key.  It sure beats other "screen-saver" programs.  With a little
    creativity you can create all sorts of carousels, including humorous comic
    strip like sequences that tell people where you've run off to.

    Registered users can also create "stand-alone" Carousels that let others
    run your Carousels without having to use Fred or Wilma.  The most
    obvious use for this feature is to create business presentations, or
    briefings, but it comes in handy for other things as well.  For example,
    let's say you've been having problems with a certain program.  You could
    take pictures of different screens leading up to the problem, and then
    take a picture of the the end result, put them together into a stand-alone
    carousel, and ship it off to someone for technical assistance.  Or maybe
    you've finally figured out how to get into the secret alien chamber while
    playing "Martians take Manhattan" and you've just got to prove it to your
    friends.

    PC-Images has something for virtually everyone.  For the business user it
    has its practical side, briefings, screen-saver, etc..  For the graphics
    connoisseur it is a great way to combine and display your pictures.  The
    more you use it the more ways you'll find to put it to use.  Use your
    imagination and have a little fun.

                         *** System Requirements ***

    CGA, EGA, VGA, or MCGA and DOS 2.1 or greater.

    DOES NOT RUN ON A MDA OR THE HERCULES MONO GRAPHICS CARDS.

    If you don't have a hard disk, you can still use PC-Images.  However,
    all the pictures for a particular carousel must fit on a single disk,
    along with the PC-Images files.  Your disk can fill up VERY fast.  In
    some modes, it would only take a couple of pictures.  So while a hard
    disk isn't required, it certainly is recommended.

                             *** Installation ***

    If you haven't already, copy the PCIMAGES.EXE file to its own blank
    floppy (if you don't have a hard disk) or to its own subdirectory.
    The subdirectory name is not important, name it whatever you want.
    IMAGES works nice.

    Move to the subdirectory, or floppy, where you copied PCIMAGES.EXE.
    Extract the PC-Image files by entering "PCIMAGES" at the DOS prompt.
    Follow the instructions.


                            *** Fred and Wilma ***

    PC-Images consists of two important programs: Fred and Wilma.  Fred takes
    all the pictures and is responsible for displaying the Carousels.  Wilma
    puts the pictures together into Carousels, and determines what Carousels
    Fred gets to display.  Lets look at Fred and Wilma a little more
    carefully.

    ***  FRED.COM  ***

    Fred is a memory resident program.  That means that when you run him he
    stays hidden in memory until you need him.  He takes up about 7K of
    memory.  He basically has two functions: he takes the pictures and he
    displays the Carousels.

    Getting Fred into memory:

    1.  Move to the disk or subdirectory where he lives.
    2.  Enter "fred" at the DOS prompt

    That's it.

    If you have a hard disk, you can have Fred loaded automatically when your
    computer boots.  Assuming Fred lives in the IMAGE subdirectory you would
    add these commands to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

    CD IMAGE
    FRED
    CD \

    It's important that you move to the subdirectory where Fred lives before
    entering "fred" at the DOS prompt.  DON'T put Fred's subdirectory in the
    PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and DON'T activate Fred from
    another subdirectory by entering his full pathname (allowed in DOS 3.0 and
    later).  ALWAYS MOVE TO FRED'S SUBDIRECTORY BEFORE LOADING HIM INTO
    MEMORY.

    Taking a picture:

    Once you've loaded Fred into memory, then all you do to take a
    picture of the screen is to press the Capture "hot key".  By default,
    this is Ctrl-C.  In other words, when you want to take a picture of
    your screen, press the Ctrl key and the C key at the same time.
    Wilma lets you change this "hot key" if you want, but we'll get
    around to that later.

    Some programs don't like anyone interfering with their operation so
    they take deliberate steps to keep TSRs (like Fred) from being
    activated.  If you can't get Fred to take a picture within a certain
    program (games seem the most prevelant examples) then there is an
    alternate way to instruct Fred to capture a picture.  You press the
    left shift key, and while holding it down you press the right shift
    key.  This is called the "alternate capture hot key".

    This alternate method comes at a price.  Sidekick (registered
    trademark of Borland International) uses this same sequence to
    activate.  Some other programs may as well.  For this reason you
    should only use the alternate method when you absolutely have to.
    And make sure SideKick isn't loaded.  Later on we'll discuss how you
    use Wilma to tell Fred whether to act upon or ignore the alternate
    method.  By default Fred ignores the alternate hot key so as not to
    interfere with SideKick.

    Displaying a Carousel:

    Fred has a variety of ways he can display your Carousels, but in the
    manner of things, Wilma dictates most of what Fred does.  She tells
    him what Carousel to use as the "screen-saver" and which to use as
    the "DOS-filler" and which one he is to display when you press the
    display "hot key".  Catch that?  You can have Fred display a carousel
    at most any time, even within other programs just by pressing the
    display "hot key", Ctrl-D by default.  In other words, when you want
    to display your Carousel, just press the Ctrl key and the D key at
    the same time.  Your Carousel will "pop-up" and continue running
    until you press a key.  It then disappears and restores your screen
    as tho nothing had happened.  Fred's a pretty sneaky guy.

    When a carousel is being displayed you have four options:

    - You can sit and watch it run
    - You can press PgDn to immediately move to the next picture
    - You can press the "End" key to freeze the current picture
    - Or press any other key to return to your original application.

    Exercise:  Let's have Fred take some pictures.

    1.  Go to the subdirectory or disk where Fred and Wilma live.
    2.  Enter "FRED" at the DOS prompt
    3.  Go around and take a few pictures by pressing Ctrl-C.  These
        pictures don't have to be anything interesting, they could just
        be of the DOS prompt if you want.  We're just using them to
        become familiar with the program.  You can delete them later.


    ***  WILMA.COM  ***

    In the manner of things, Wilma is quite a bit more complicated than Fred,
    but unlike the manner of things, our Wilma is easily understood.

    Wilma essentially does 3 things:

        *  She lets you group your pictures into Carousels
        *  Determines what Carousels (if any) Fred uses for the "DOS-filler",
           "screen-saver", manual display, and stand alone briefings.
        *  She lets you change Fred's Capture and Display "hot-keys".

    Let's give Wilma a try.

        1.  Go to the subdirectory or floppy where Fred and Wilma live.
        2.  Enter "Wilma" at the DOS prompt.

    Look at the screen.  There are five separate areas.  You move to a
    specific area by pressing the function key associated with that area, or
    clicking in that area with a mouse.  We will refer to each area by the
    function key you press to get there.  For example the list of pictures
    will be the F3 area, the list of Carousels is the F1 area, the pictures
    that make up the selected Carousel are the F2 area.

    Each area has its own set of commands.  These are displayed in the upper
    left of the screen.  To select a particular function click on it with the
    mouse or press the hi-lighted key associated with the function.  This is
    all better understood by an example.

        Note:  The bottom line of the screen often provides helpful
        explanations of what's going on.  Keep your eyes on it as we go
        through these instructions.  Much of what we say here will be
        summarized in this "help" area.

    Go to the F3 area (press the F3 function key).  A hi-lite bar will appear
    on one of the picture names.  Yes, these are the pictures you just
    captured.  They start at 0001 and can go up to 9999.  You'll probably want
    to rename them to something that makes more sense.  So let's do it.

    Notice the menu in the upper left of the screen.  You have four options:

        *  Press S to select this picture.  In other words, if you want to
           add this picture to the Carousel, press S for Select.
        *  Press the Delete key to delete the hi-lited picture.
        *  Press R to Rename the hi-lited picture.
        *  Press V to View the hi-lited picture.

    Press V to view the picture.  Hopefully the hi-lighted picture will
    be displayed.  Press any key to get back to the main program.  Now
    press R to rename the picture to something that has some relevance.
    Easy huh?

    Let's create a Carousel, shall we?  Select several pictures from your
    picture list.  (Hi-lite the desired picture, then press S for Select).
    When you select a picture it's added to the bottom of the list of pictures
    in the F2 area.  As it says, F2 is the list of the pictures in the
    selected Carousel.  After you've selected your pictures, move on over to
    the F2 area (by pressing F2).

    Notice the new menu in the upper left of the screen.  You can press:

        *  R to Remove the hi-lited picture from the list.  This doesn't
           delete the picture, it just removes it from the Carousel list.
        *  V to View the hi-lited picture
        *  You can change the ordering of the pictures by using PgUp and
           PgDn.  For example, to move a particular picture up the list you
           first hi-lite it and then press the PgUp key.  To move it down the
           list, hi-lite it and press the PgDn key.  With a mouse, you just
           "drag" the picture up or down the list by keeping the left button
           depressed while you move the mouse.  Do this for a while until you
           get a feel for it.

    Once you've got the pictures you want, in the order you want, then it's
    time to "Preview" your Carousel.  Notice in the upper right hand corner
    that Previewing is associated with F6.  Previewing your Carousel basically
    serves two purposes, it lets you see the pictures in your Carousel and it
    lets you set the delay between each picture.

        Note:  F6 and F7 have drop down menus.  You make your selection by
        either pressing the first letter of the desired option, hi-liting the
        desired option and pressing Return, or by clicking on the desired
        option with a mouse.  You can escape these menus by pressing the
        Escape key, or clicking on the F6 or F7.

    When you press F6 you'll be given these options:

    Touch Change        This changes the pictures when you press any key on
    the keyboard.  When you're done looking at one picture, press any key and
    the next picture will appear.  This option doesn't set the picture delay,
    it just lets you see what pictures are in your Carousel.

    As Is               This displays the carousel just as it will be
    displayed by Fred except that often times Fred will make the
    transition between pictures smoother.

    Default Delay       This sets the timing between pictures to the default
    delay amount.  We'll talk about how to set this default delay value when
    we talk about the F4 area.

    Save Delay          This is the same as "Touch Change" except that the
    delay between pictures is actually recorded in the Carousel, so that it
    will run just as you control it here.  (Registered users only)

    Lets try it.  Let's say you want to set the delay between all your
    pictures to the default delay value.  Press D, for Default Delay.  Each of
    the pictures in your Carousel will be displayed with a 10 second delay
    between each.  When you've finished, you'll be asked to give your new
    Carousel a name.  After that you'll be returned to the main screen.

    Let's see how things came out.  First, notice your Carousel has been added
    to the list of Carousels in F1.  The pictures in your Carousel are listed
    in F2 and an asterisk appears next to the name of your Carousel in F1,
    indicating it is the selected Carousel.  Press F6 to Preview your
    Carousel.  Press A (for As Is) to see how things came out.

    Now let's take a look at the menu options in F1.  Press F1.  A menu
    appears that lets you press R to Rename the selected Carousel, or press
    the Delete key to delete the selected Carousel.

    Okay, we've made a Carousel.  We've previewed it and we're happy with it.
    How do we tell Fred that this is the one we want to use as a "screen-
    saver", or as "DOS filler".  Pressing F7 lets you set the "DOS filler",
    "screen-saver", or stand alone "Briefing" to the selected Carousel.  In
    other words, to set the "screen-saver" to a particular Carousel you would:

        *  Goto F1 and hi-lite the desired Carousel.
        *  Press F7 to bring forth the "Set" menu
        *  Press S (for "Screen-saver") to "Set" the "screen-saver" to the hi-
           lited Carousel.

    There are several things to remember:

    1.  When you use Fred to manually "pop-up" a Carousel (by pressing Ctrl-D)
        he uses the "screen-saver" Carousel.  In other words, pressing Ctrl-D,
        while using Fred, just forces the activation of the "screen-saver".
        In fact, for unregistered users this is the only way you'll be able to
        activate the "screen-saver" feature as the normal method of activation
        (waiting for a period of keyboard and screen inactivity) is only
        available to registered users.

    2.  The "Briefing" option refers to the stand alone Carousel we discussed
        earlier.  This makes a program that displays your Carousel without the
        end user having to use Fred or Wilma.  This option only works for
        registered users.

    3.  The "DOS filler" option displays the first picture of your Carousel
        whenever a program ends, rather than the blank DOS screen.

                      *** Built in EGA color editor ***

    If you capture an image in one of the EGA graphics modes, it's possible
    the colors of the picture won't be right (this all gets explained in the
    "Problems?" section).  That's why we built an EGA color editor into Wilma.
    To activate the editor press any of the cursor keys while viewing the
    picture.  Five lines of different colors will appear at the top of the
    screen.  Most of the time each square will be a different color, however,
    in some cases there will be duplicates.  Your picture can only display 16
    of the colors shown.  The last row of colors is the current defined
    "palette", those colors your picture is currently using.

    To change a color you use the cursor keys to move the letter "S" to
    the square of the desired color and then press S (for Select) to
    select that color.  The letter P then appears in the first box on the
    last row.  Use the cursor keys to move the P into the box of the
    color you want to replace and press P (for Put).  The old color will
    be changed to the new.

    For those of you familiar with the EGA you know that it is supposed to
    only display 16 colors at one time.  We have to do a little magic to get
    it to display all 64 colors at once.  Unfortunately it's a very inexact
    science and depends greatly on the timing of your computer.  As a
    result, the color rows on your machine may not line up with where the
    P or S is placed.  You can adjust this by pressing the PgUp and PgDn
    keys.  Give it a try.  Remember the fifth row of colors should be the
    row where the "S" appears.

    Once you've changed the palette (the last row of colors) to the way
    you want, then press the Space Bar.  The changes will then be
    recorded as part of the picture.  If you don't want to save the
    changes then press "Esc"ape to exit.


                            ***  Configuration  ***

    F4 and F5 lets you configure a variety of items associated with PC-Images.

    Let's look at the items in F4 first:

    Picture Delay:   (Registered Users Only)  This is the default delay we
    talked about earlier, if you select "Default Delay" for your Carousel,
    this value is the length of time each picture will be displayed.  Press
    the right cursor key to increase the value (notice the menu in the upper
    left corner) or press the left arrow key to decrease the value.  This only
    affects the delay between pictures of newly created or changed Carousels.
    Established Carousels are not affected. If you want to change the default
    delay in an established Carousel, you must select it using F1, use F6 to
    preview it and then select Default Delay.

    Activation Time:  (Registered Users Only)  This is the period of keyboard
    and screen inactivity that occurs before the "screen-saver" Carousel pops-
    up.  Once again, use the right cursor key to increase the value, the left
    cursor to decrease it.  Setting the Activation time to zero deactivates
    the "screen-saver" feature.

    Display type:   All this does is tailor the list of pictures to include
    only those that work on the selected display adapter.  Although it
    defaults to the type of display you're using, you can select any of the
    others as well.  This is useful if you're making a Carousel for someone
    who has a different display adapter than you and you want to make sure
    the pictures you select will display on their machine.

    The last item in F4 configures Wilma to display in monochrome or in color.
    This just affects Wilma, not any of the pictures or carousels.

    The F5 areas:

    Flicker?   If, when you select this function, your screen begins to
    flicker then select yes (by pressing the right cursor key until "Yes" is
    highlighted).  If there is no flicker then hi-lite "No".

    DOS filler?  This lets you decide whether you want Fred to exercise the
    "DOS filler" feature.  In other words, do you want Fred to display the
    first picture of your carousel every time a program ends?  Select your
    answer by using the right or left cursor keys.  Remember, to get the
    DOS filler option to work you must not only select it here but you
    also must use F1 and F7 to select and save the carousel to be used.

    The last two items in F5 let you change the "hot keys" Fred uses for
    capturing pictures, and for displaying Carousels.  Follow the menu options
    displayed at the upper left of the screen.  (Registered Users Only)

    Remember when we talked about the "alternate capture hot key"?  An
    asterisk preceding the Capture HK value indicates Fred will respond to
    this alternate method of capturing an image.  No asterisk indicates Fred
    will ignore the alternate hot key method.  To change whether the alternate
    method is used or not you first change the Capture Hot Key.  You don't
    really have to change it, just go through the process.  You'll then be
    asked if you want Fred to act upon the alternate hot key.  Press Y for
    yes, N for no.

    If Fred is loaded in memory when you make these changes you'll have to
    exit Wilma, re-boot, and reload Fred in order to notice the changes.

    That's about covers it.  Wasn't that tough now, was it?  When you're done
    with Wilma you press F10 to Quit.

                 *** Removing Fred from memory ***

    You can remove Fred from memory by pressing Alt-X while he's
    displaying a carousel.  Only do this if you just activated Fred from
    the DOS prompt, and there are no other programs loaded after Fred.
    If you have loaded other TSR's after Fred, and you activated Fred
    from within another program, then trying to remove him from memory
    will likely result in a system crash.

                          *** Problems? ***

    "When I pop-up a Carousel, it takes a while for the first picture to
    be displayed"  That's because Fred captures the images on the screen
    before display the Carousel.  How long the wait is depends on much
    memory the current screen display uses, how fast your machine is and
    how fast your disk drive is.

    "Fred didn't accurately capture an image"   If you have an EGA Fred had
    trouble because many of the registers that dictate how your computer
    displays images are Write Only registers.  This means Fred can't read the
    values of these registers.  Usually this isn't a problem because there are
    established video modes most programs adhere to.  But some programs go off
    and re-program the video without telling anyone what they're doing.  In
    these cases Fred isn't going to accurately capture the image, whether you
    have an EGA or a VGA.  He just doesn't have enough information available
    to know what's going on.  He'll do the best he can with the info
    available, it just may not be enough.

    One of the most obvious examples of this on the EGA is in the way colors
    are displayed.  The registers that dictate which colors get displayed are
    write only.  If the colors are different than standard then Fred has no
    way of knowing what the colors are.  That's why we put an EGA color editor
    in Wilma, to let you correct the colors.

    Another example.  Several programs, including GIF viewers and others, let
    you horizontally pan across a picture.  To do this they re-program the way
    the video accesses its memory.  Unfortunately there is no way we can
    accurately determine what they've done.  If you run into this problem you
    might want to check and see if the host program can re-size the picture to
    fit within the screen limits.  Many do.

    Fred supports all the "standard" (I use that term loosely) super-VGA
    modes, however, most super-VGA cards have other unique modes they can
    also generate.  For compatibility reasons, Fred only recognizes the
    "standard" modes.  The others are ignored.

    "After Fred displayed my Carousel the screen wasn't restored correctly."
    When Fred displays a carousel, he has to capture the image on the screen
    before he displays the carousel.  Therefore, the situations we just
    discussed about the difficulties of capturing images comes into play here
    too.  Sometimes there just isn't enough information available for Fred to
    restore the screen accurately.  That's the bad news.  The good news is
    that in these situations the only thing that gets messed up is the screen
    image.  All your program data is intact, and the program will continue to
    run as though nothing had happened.  Therefore, if Fred displays a
    carousel, but afterward the screen isn't returned normally, your program
    will still work correctly.  Nothing has been harmed.  What you want to do
    is instruct your program to do something that will regenerate the screen.
    Pressing PgUp or PgDn may help, depending on the application you're in.

    The whole idea of a TSR is that it should pop-up and exit without
    interfering with the program that's running when it pops-up.  It
    distresses me that Fred sometimes doesn't have enough information to
    restore the screen exactly as he found it.  But unfortunately it's the
    nature of the beast.  The good news is that this situation may never
    happen to you.  In most cases you'll never encounter this problem.
    However, if it does happen, remember that even though the screen may look
    a mess, your program data, and screen data, are intact.  The only thing
    that's changed is the way the screen data is being displayed.  If you can
    get your program to regenerate the screen then things will be fine.

    Remember too, you don't have to use Fred to display your Carousels.  You
    can use Wilma, and registered users can create stand-alone carousels.
    Neither of these methods has the "capture" problem since they don't have
    to restore any screens when they're done.  In fact, if you're using a
    multi-tasker like Windows, GEM, or DesqView, I recommend using stand-alone
    briefings instead of Fred to display your Carousels.  Just run the stand-
    alone briefing as a separate application.

    "Some of my pictures aren't the same color as they were when Fred took the
    picture."  You've got an EGA.  As we mentioned before, Fred can't read the
    EGA palettes directly.  If a program changes the palettes (some do) and
    they don't update the data area in the BIOS (most don't) then we have no
    way of knowing what the palette values are, so we use the default values.
    Use the built-in EGA color editor in Wilma to adjust the colors.

    "Some of the fonts in my text screens aren't the same as they were when
    Fred took the picture"  Some display adapters let you change the fonts
    used in text modes.  We use the default fonts used by the BIOS.  It should
    be noted that often times those programs that use a variety of fonts, use
    graphics modes and not text modes.  PC-Images works fine in most of these
    cases.

    "Sometimes when my Carousel runs, the pictures "pop-up" quickly and other
    times it takes it bit longer.  Why the difference?"  When Fred decides to
    display a Carousel he asks your computer for enough memory to store the
    biggest picture in memory.  If he gets the memory he asks for, then while
    one picture is being displayed, he loads the other into memory.  When it
    comes time for the new picture he quickly moves it over, and then loads
    the next picture into memory.  This is pretty fast.  On the other hand, if
    the memory isn't available he is forced to read the new picture in
    directly from disk.  Disk reads are a whole lot slower than memory moves.
    Unfortunately DOS won't give us any memory when it's just sitting there
    flashing its stupid cursor, so if you "pop-up" a Carousel while at the DOS
    prompt, the slower method of display is used.

    "Sometimes I get this annoying flash between pictures."  Some display
    adapters flash when they change modes.  There's not anything I know of
    that can change this.  Fred does his best to eliminate mode changes, but
    you can't always avoid it.

    "Sometimes, especially during games, the screen-saver function activates a
    lot sooner that it should"  Some programs, mostly games, reprogram how
    fast the clock ticks.  This will directly affect how fast the "screen-
    saver" pops up.  You should use Wilma to set the Activation time to 0 in
    order to disable the screen-saver function when using these programs.

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                      ***  Where do we go from here... ***

    I may (could use input here) add the capability to add text to your
    pictures.  It would probably be real basic, and consist only of one size
    and type of font.  More than likely, it would just let you add a couple of
    lines of text to the bottom of your pictures using the default BIOS
    display character functions.  Nothing fancy.  Input?

    Someday, I'd like to be able to attach digital voice and/or sound to your
    pictures.  This would be a ways down the road, but it's something I'm
    definitely looking at.  If you know of any good text to speech conversion
    programs that will run on an unmodified PC, I'd sure like to hear about
    them.

    Here are some things I have NO plans to incorporate.  I don't like
    reinventing the wheel any more than I have too.  There are plenty of good
    programs out there that perform these functions admirably:

    Paint program.  If you want to modify your pictures (other than adjusting
    the EGA palettes as discussed earlier), do it using a paint program prior
    to having Fred take a picture of it.

    Picture translators.  If you have pictures coded in any of the many and
    varied graphics formats that you want to display, then find a program that
    will translate that format into a screen image, and then have Fred take a
    picture.  At this time I have no intention of making a translation program
    to translate these pictures into a format PC-Images can use.  And vice
    versa.

    Clip-Art.  If you want to take some part of a PC-Images picture and put it
    into your desktop publishing programs, then use a program designed to do
    that, cause we ain't gonna.

    Mono Display Adapter.  I can't see any reason at all to support the MDA as
    it's text only, making it a rather boring display adapter for this sort of
    thing.  However, if I get enough flack, I may expand PC-Images to support
    the Hercules Monochrome Graphic Cards.  I'd rather not.

    Please, if you have any suggestions, jot them down and send them to us.
    Although we can't respond to your letters, we do appreciate all input, and
    we seriously evaluate every suggestion we receive.

    Thank you for your time and interest.  I hope Fred and Wilma make your
    computing more interesting.  Have Fun!