PC Answers 1995 May/PC Answers CD-ROM 7 (Future Publishing) (May 1995).iso/info/000info.txt

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 9.4 KB | 215 lines

IMPORTANT:
Whilst every effort has been made to insure that the programs supplied
on this CD are fully working, neither Future Publishing or PDSL make
any guarantee or claims as to the suitability of these programs or files
for any purpose. No charge has been made for the programs or files
supplied, and no technical support of any kind is offered. Neither is
any responsibility accepted for the consequences or your
use or inability to use them.

WARNING:
Before testing any software it is highly advisable to backup any valuable
data or programs on your system. It is possible though undetected program
errors, hardware or software incompatibility, user error or inexperience
to accidentally damage or corrupt other software or files on you system.

The programs supplied in the PDSL section of the PC ANSWERS
monthly CD are supplied in compressed ZIP archive form. Before you
can run the programs they have to be uncompressed back to their original
form. Mostly the VIEW program will do this but occasionally a ZIP file
will contain other compressed archive inside it. This is most common
where the source disk was a collection of different programs.
If when you have unpacked a file using the view program but find the
unpacked files include further ZIP files you will have to do a second
unpacking operation, do this as follows:

For example using VIEW you have unpacked a file XXXX.ZIP to a directory
called C:\PCA on your hard disk, you notice the unpacked files
include AAAA.ZIP and BBBB.ZIP.
The easiest way to handle this is to copy the program UNZIP.EXE from the
UTILS directory on this CD into that directory, so from DOS you would
type:
COPY D:\UTILS\PKUNZIP.EXE C:\PCA (Change the D: to whatever your CD drive)
                                   (is, eg. E: F: etc)
now move into the PCA directory by typing as follows:

C:
CD\
CD PCA

Now to unpack the first file type:

PKUNZIP AAAA

Repeat this with any other files needed.

The next step is to read any documentation files for the programs these
will be files with names like READ.ME, INFO.TXT, MANUAL.DOC or similar.

You will find a small utility program called T.COM in the CD UTILS directory
which will help with this. Just copy it into your PCA directory in the
same way you did the UNZIP program.
When you have done this log into the PCA directory and type:

T

This will clear the screen and Say

Filename ?

At this prompt just enter the file name you want to view and it will display
on the screen. To get help on how to use the T program type '?'

Now read the program documentation to find how to install and run the program.

The following is some general information on using PD and Shareware which
might help if you get stuck.


GENERAL HINTS ON RUNNING PD & SHAREWARE PROGRAMS

PROGRAM DOCUMENTATION.

Ding a directory listing of your shareware programs will often
reveal files with names like:- READ.ME, MANUAL.TXT,
PDSL.TXT, INFO.DOC etc. These files contain information about using
the programs. You can print them out or view them on the screen. DOS
has a built in command called TYPE for viewing files on the screen.
E.G. the command TYPE READ.ME<return> will display the file called
READ.ME on the screen. If you want to print it at the same time press
control and P at the same time to turn your printer on before entering
the command. In your directory listing you will most likely see files
with endings like COM, EXE, and BAT. In general, these are programs
which can be run by just typing the first part of the name. E.g..
many of our disks contain a file called GO.BAT. If you see this file
on a disk, typing GO will display information about using the disk,
and on some disks will also let you view the document files on the
disk. This is done with a program called T.COM which is a vast improvement
over the built in TYPE command mentioned above. Just substitute T
for TYPE. If the disk contains files with ARC or ZIP see section 3
below.

FUNNY FILES

To fit more data on a disk, and to keep related files together, some
disks contain "ARChived" files. These have special endings
as the last part of the file name, e.g., FILE.ARC, FILE.ZIP, FILE.LZH
or FILE.ZOO. Programs in this form need to be unpacked before you
can use them. Space allowing, the disk will also contain an unpacker
program. However, the most common type you will find on PDSL disks
is the ZIP type, and the self extracting archive. The self extracting
archive has an EXE extension just like a normal executable file but
it will also be accompanied with a file called SFXREAD.ME. For  ZIP
files you will need  PKUNZIP  to unpack them.  If you would like a
set of utilities for handling these files see under ARCHIVE UTILITIES.
The command syntax to use PKUNZIP is displayed on the screen by just
typing in the program name. E.g..

C>PKUNZIP<return>

Will produce a screen full of info on how to use it.

Typing

C>PKUNZIP FNAME<return>

Will unpack the file FNAME and put the contents in the current directory.
To extract to a different directory. E.G.:-

A>PKUNZIP FNAME B:\test<return>

Would unpack the contents of FNAME.ZIP and put it in the TEST directory
on B:

SELF EXTRACTING  archives  are handled as follows: When you
run them they will attempt to unpack themselves into current directory.
There probably will not be enough room on the distribution disk for
this to happen so you will have to copy the files to your hard disk
or to another floppy. E.g.. you have a self extracting archive called
ALDO.EXE on drive A, to extract the files from it to a blank disk
in drive B you would put a blank formatted disk in B, then type -

B:<return>   (this logs you into drive B:, then type- )

B>A:ALDO<return> (the files will now be extracted and put on drive B)

Once you have unpacked any archives go to step 2 to read the documentation.

BASIC PROGRAMS

Disks containing BASIC language programs (with a .BAS file extension).
Will need BASICA,GWBASIC or equivalent to run them. In general, to
run Basic programs you would type:-

C:>GWBASIC PROGRAMNAME

Your Basic interpreter GWBASIC or P-BASIC or whatever it's called
must be in the same directory as the program.

COMMON PROBLEMS

DATA ERROR READING DRIVE A, SECTOR NOT FOUND, GENERAL FAILURE READING
DRIVE A and so forth are error messages indicating that a disk
could not be read. Disk drives vary, so it can be worth trying the
disk in a different drive or a different computer to copy it. Also
1.2Mb drives do not read 360k disks as well as a real 360k drive.
Clean your drive with a special cleaning disk, this can often fix
the problem.

SCREEN GOES BLANK AND MACHINE LOCKS UP. Most commonly caused
by running a colour program on a mono system. Try one of the CGA emulators
on disk 730. Some programs give the same problem on certain VGA screens.
Try altering the dip switches on your VGA card for CGA emulation.


PROGRAM JUST WON'T WORK. By far the most common cause is conflicts
with other programs in memory, E.G.. Keyboard drivers, menu systems,
DOS shells, Windows, Xtree shell, Norton shell , PCtools shell, Pop
up clocks etc. If you have troubles, the rule of thumb is - remove
EVERYTHING. rename your AUTOEXEC.BAT file so the system can boot without
it. Check that your CONFIG.SYS file only has FILES=20 and BUFFERS=15
in it. Once you have the program working you can add back things one
at a time till you find the one that's causing the problem.

The most common error message is BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME.
All this means is that you have typed in something your computer did
not recognise. When you have the DOS prompt (e.g. A) on the screen
and type in something, your computer will first check if it's a built
in command like DIR or COPY. If not it will look on the disk for a
program of that name and, failing to find it, will give the error
message as above. New users have a lot of trouble with this. This
is mainly due to not knowing the purposes of different file types.
If you have trouble with this sort of thing or DOS in general, you
need a copy of our book A Guide to Personal Computing available
for just 3.95 plus 50p P&P.

DOS VERSIONS 4.nn is not fully compatible with earlier versions
and certain programs may not run, the same applies to DR DOS. The
best all round DOS versions are 3.3 and 5 and 6 which seem to run most
everything. DOS 6 disk space doubler compression system can sometimes
cause odd problems.

COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS

This term is often used in program documentation but not defined anywhere.
Here's an example of what it means. If we had a file on our disk call
READ.ME and we wanted to view it on the screen with the TYPE command
we would enter:-

A>TYPE READ.ME

The command is TYPE and the argument is READ.ME. Notice the space
after the command and the . (period) between READ and ME. This is
not shown when you do a DIR of the disk but when using file names
in an argument you must always add this.

OTHER ERROR MESSAGES

Error messages like:- access denied at line NN, can't open file, runtime
error NN etc are most often caused by incorrect program installation.
Some programs have to be installed in a sub directory with a particular
name, or may have to be set up so they know where their files are
supposed to be. Check the authors documentation. To find out about
sub directories read your DOS manual.