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WINCHIME.DOC
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Text File
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1991-11-19
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7KB
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131 lines
WINCHIME: A Talking Chime
Version 1.0r
-------------------------
Copyright 1991, Farpoint Software
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This program may be freely copied and distributed, as long as the following
conditions are met: (1) No fee is charged other than a normal time usage fee
required by some Bulletin Board Services, or a small disk duplication fee
not to exceed $8, (2) The program is distributed in its original, unmodified
form, and (3) This document file is included with the executable file without
modification. This program may not be bundled with, or transferred as part
of, any package which is sold or for which any licensing fee is charged.
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Winchime is a Microsoft Windows program whose purpose is to announce the
time of day at 30 minute or 1 hour intervals, using digitized human speech
reproduced through the built-in speaker in most 286 or 386 computers. The
machine must be at least as fast as an 8 MHz 286. The program will function
in all Windows modes: real, standard, or enhanced.
There are four files in the archive:
WINCHIME.EXE - The executable program.
WINCHIME.UEV - The compressed voice data (4 bit u-Law PCM format).
WINCHIME.NDX - A binary index to the .VOI file.
WINCHIME.DOC - This file.
To install the program, simply copy all files into the same directory,
then start the program as you would any other windows program (i.e. place
an entry into the Program Manager and double-click it, or select File/Run
from the Program Manager menu and type the full pathname of WINCHIME.EXE
as the comamnd line). Note that the first time the program is run, it will
decompress WINCHIME.UEV into WINCHIME.VOI and delete WINCHIME.UEV.
There is one caution to be observed when starting Winchime: DON'T START IT
WHILE AN ENHANCED MODE DOS SESSION IS IN PROGRESS WITH THE "BACKGROUND"
FLAG SET. Doing so will cause no actual harm; however, the CPU speed will
probably be incorrectly calibrated and the announcements will play at the
wrong speed. Once Winchime is running, it's OK to use enhanced mode DOS
sessions with this flag set.
For those unfamiliar with the various modes of Windows, here is a way to
find out which mode you are using: From the Program Manager menu, select
Help/About Program Manager. A dialog box will appear. Just below the center
horizontal line in the box, a line of text will read either "Real Mode",
"Standard Mode", or "386 Enhanced Mode". Another bit of information:
any program that you run under Windows that was not specifically written
for Windows (i.e. can run without Windows) is considered to be a DOS Session.
This includes COMMAND.COM or "Command Prompt". If you are in 386 Enhanced
Mode, and at least one such program is currently running, then an Enhanced
Mode DOS Session is in progress. To find out if such a session has its
background flag set, press Alt-Spacebar while the session is in the
foreground. Select "Settings..." from the system menu that appears. In the
resulting dialog box, a checkbox under Tasking Options is labelled
"Background". If this box is checked (X'ed), then the background flag
is set for that session.
Because of the above situation, if you like and plan to use this program
regularly, we suggest that you load it automatically when starting Windows.
This may be accomplished by placing the following line under the [windows]
heading in your WIN.INI file:
load=c:\winchime\winchime.exe
(Of course, substitute the actual name of the directory containing the
Winchime files.)
Winchime has no "main window", only an icon and a system menu. All features
may be accessed through the system menu. The announcement interval may be
set to 1 hour or 30 minutes; the starting default is 30 minutes. The volume
level may be set to full, medium (-6 db), or low (-12 db); the starting
default is full. The program does not "remember" these settings between
invocations (no complaints, please; it's free, after all).
When the program is first started, a logo banner will appear. During this
time, the CPU speed is being calibrated. This will take anywhere from 10
to 20 seconds in standard or enhanced mode; the longer times correspond to
slower machines. In real mode, the calibration takes 4 seconds. (I am
looking for ways to speed this up, but this is the best I have at the
moment.) After the calibration, the banner will disappear and the icon
will appear. At this point, Winchime is running with default settings.
If you want to hear an announcement without waiting, use the Windows
Control Panel program to temporarily set the time of day to an even hour
of half-hour; the announcement will occur within 5 seconds.
When you are using DOS sessions while Winchime is running, the following
facts are of interest:
(1) In real or standard mode, announcements will not occur while the DOS
session is in the foreground since this freezes all Windows programs.
(2) In enhanced mode, announcements will not occur while a DOS session
flagged as "exclusive" is in the foreground unless it is displayed
in a window.
(3) In enhanced mode, announcements MAY occur while a non-windowed DOS
session is in the foreground if it is NOT flagged as "exclusive".
This seems to depend on the activities of the program running in
the DOS session. Apparently Windows, while in this state, delivers
WM_TIMER messages (upon which Winchime depends) only erratically
to background Windows programs. Two things which seem to help
slightly: (a) a lot of int 21h calls by the foreground program,
and (b) not setting the "detect idle time" flag in the PIF file.
This program was created using the same voice digitizing technique as
that found in the Digitized Voice Programmer's Toolkit, Version 2.0
(to be released in December 1991 as shareware).
There are two versions of Winchime in circulation, labelled as
versions 1.0f and 1.0r. The difference between these versions is as
follows: Version 1.0f (full) is distributed with untouched voice data
files and produces maximum sound fidelity. Version 1.0r (reduced) uses
a "lossy" data compression technique to reduce the size of the bulky
voice data file for faster modem transfers. The sound quality of the
reduced size version is adequate, but audibly inferior to that of the
full size version. This DOC file should be associated with the reduced
version. The full version, in addition to slightly better sound, provides
(a) the word "It's" preceeding the announcement phrase, (b) the word
"o'clock" where appropriate, and (c) the option to announce at 15-minute
intervals. These non-essential words were removed from the reduced version
in order to achieve further reduction in file size.
Our mailing address is:
Farpoint Software
2501 Afton Court
League City, Texas 77573-3438
Compuserve ID:
74030,554 Alan D. Jones