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Text File | 1995-03-25 | 18.4 KB | 363 lines

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │░ │ ──────────────────────────────────────── │░ │ │░ │ RIPterm Pro Test Drive v2.00.02 │░ │ │░ │ ──────────────────────────────────────── │░ │ │░ │ │░ │ March 25, 1995 │░ │ │░ │ │░ │ Copyright (c) 1992-95, TeleGrafix Communications, Inc. │░ │ All Rights Reserved │░ │ │░ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Program Requirements ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ RIPterm requires that you be using an 80386 or higher IBM-PC compatible computer system running MS-DOS version 3.0 or higher. You must have at least 2Mb of memory in the system configured as XMS memory (EMS memory is not recognized). A hard disk is also required. You must have an EGA or greater video adapter and a modem connected to serial port COM1 through COM4. A mouse and a color monitor are not required, but are strongly recommended. This software is a 32-bit protected mode application that takes advantage of the 80386 microprocessor's features and capabilities. It requires and makes use of extended memory. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ RIPterm Test Drive Installation ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ RIPterm Test Drive must be installed via the INSTALL.BAT program provided. It may not run correctly if it is just UNZIPped. Just type INSTALL and press ENTER. RIPterm is installed into the C:\RIPTERM directory ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Changes in This Release ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Release 2.00.03 changes: - A problem was discovered in the external application system. If you tried to link a program to a specific downloaded filename extension (e.g., ".GIF"), the application wouldn't run if you omitted the period (.). Now, RIPterm is intelligent to run the program whether you specify the period or not. - Found a problem with the "resident query" portion of RIPscrip. The problem was that resident queries were being processed before mouse fields were. In versions of RIPterm prior to v2.0, mouse fields were always processed first. In this release, we returned to the old method of processing queries. This caused mouse fields and buttons used with Remote Access BBS to not be clickable. It could also have contributed to some annomolies with Wildcat and Searchlight. - If for some obscure reason the terminal crashed the first time you ran it, some files couldn't be opened correctly the next time you try running the software (i.e., RIPTERM.DB, RIPTERM.APP and possibly RIPTERM.PHO). Now RIPterm understands how to properly handle these situations. - A problem arose when downloading files from non MS-DOS systems (e.g., Macintosh, UNIX and Windows NT platforms mostly). The problem arose when you attempted to download a file with a filename longer than 12 characters as used in MS-DOS. This version will now properly "truncate" the filename and not crash the system. - A new screen wipe was added to the initial startup of RIPterm. Can you guess which one it is? Release 2.00.02 changes: - A RIPscrip demo is now included with RIPterm. Press F1 to check it out. To change this key, use the Keystroke Macro Editor. - Status Bar is now clickable! - The banner screen that is displayed in the terminal window immediately before modem initialization has been removed due to popular demand. - A text display is shown at exit time showing information on how to contact TeleGrafix. - Display of BMP files (RIPscrip icons) is considerably faster. Performance tests shows that display is nearly 100% faster (in some circumstances, even faster). - Default font in RIPscrip was unable to display characters above ASCII 127. Now fixed to support the international character set of the extended ASCII system. - Status bar wasn't being disabled upon bootup if your setup had it disabled. - Changing the status bar setting in general settings wouldn't actually change the status bar's on/off status. - The RIPscrip RIP_IMAGE_STYLE command wasn't being obeyed correctly. The first image style would basically take precedence some of the times and act as the only image style available. - Bitmap buttons (e.g., RIP_BUTTON) can now be scaled to any arbitrary size. If the RIP_BUTTON command has lower-right X and Y values then that will be used in combination with the upper-left corner to extrapolate the button's size. If these lower-right values are zero then the last RIP_BUTTON_STYLE is checked and if its width/height options aren't set to 0 then they are used as the width and height of the button (in world coordinates). If those are set to zero as well, then the icon is displayed as if it were a 1.54 icon (backwards compatibility mode). - When scaling icons "wider", sometimes a black line would appear on the very far right of the image - now fixed. - Added hotkey support to simple mouse fields (i.e., the RIP_MOUSE command). - Added an "abort" flag to both the RIP_BUTTON and RIP_MOUSE commands. This allows a button or mouse field to be triggered if the user hits the ESCAPE key (just like the "default" flag executes the button if the user hits ENTER). - Fixed a problem with the RIP_MOUSE command when the reset attribute was enabled - when the user clicked on that mouse field, the reset option was sometimes clobbering memory leaving the machine in a potentially unstable state. - The reset flag of the RIP_BUTTON command was acting unusual in that it was sometimes not resetting the screen and sometimes it was. - Made it so that when you connect to a host system with either manual dialing or the dialing directory, the screen is cleared. This causes the host system to have a "blank" screen when the connection is established. This should clear up some auto-sensing RIPscrip problems. The problems arose from some computers using RIPterm in VESA video modes where the VESA support on the video card was fairly slow. This frequently caused the scrolling to be too slow to allow the computer to respond to the host system rapidly enough. This would show things like "RIPSCRIP020000" on your terminal screen (you should never see this normally). - Made it so that when a connection is established via manual dialing or via the dialing directory, the alarm sound that you hear may get cut short if additional modem activity is encountered after the CONNECT message. This should make auto-sensing RIPscrip more reliable. - Fixed a couple of bugs with the RIPscrip text variable database system RIPTERM.DB. Under some circumstances, this database file was becoming corrupted causing permanent database text variables to be saved only to memory. The database software refuses to add/modify/delete records from the database if the database is corrupted. If there are any database problems, it will report them in pop-up display messages now. - A new "debug" option is available from the debug menu, "Debug Database". Most of the information in here is of a highly technical nature and should is of primary use only to TeleGrafix for technical support purposes. - Added a new "debug" option to the debug menu, "Debug Image Styles". This option will display all image styles currently defined in the drawing port data table of RIPscrip. This lets you find out what images will be displayed and how they will be displayed. - Changed the functionality of the "data security" option in General Settings. When data security is enabled, you will be prompted when a host system attempts to force your terminal to upload files to it (data security defaults to on). The original design purpose of data security was to allow the user to control access to the permanent text variable database. For many uses of text variables though this was too restrictive of a policy. Now, each permanent text variable may have its own "protected" attribute. Now you can create variables that have protected access rights, but others that the host can work with without your involvement. This makes things like auto-logon sequences possible where you can logon to a system without typing a keystroke. - Added a small RIPterm Tutorial in the help system. The first time you install RIPterm, or any new upgrades, the tutorial will be invoked. This is designed so that a first time user can see how to use RIPterm without having to search around and get easily frustrated. - All pop-up dialog boxes of a yes/no or ok/cancel nature had help buttons associated with them. However, those help buttons didn't function. Now they do. - The pop-up picklist system of RIPscrip has been enhanced to support X/Y placement of your pop-up list. This gives you control over where it appears on the screen. Here is an example showing how to generate a pop-up picklist at (20,30) in world coordinates: ((20,30:Question::option1,option2,option3)) - When in the help system, the "Contents" button becomes unavailable when you are at the table of contents. In addition, the "Back" button becomes unavailable when you cannot move back anymore (at the top of the list). - Changed the help table of contents so that it is more clear how the user is to navigate through the help system (i.e., it talks about what "links" are and how to recognize them). - Fixed some problems with icon conversion. Under some circumstances, icon files may not have been able to be converted. This is now fixed some that conversion of 1.54 icons to 2.0 format should now be accurate. - Upgraded the protected mode loader program DOS4GW.EXE included with the software. - Made it so that if you custom directories setup for host system icons, that those directories are checked for old 1.54 icons and are automatically converted if any are found. Previously, only the icons directory was checked. - RIPscrip buttons now handle vertical centering of text better than it did in the previous 2.0 releases. - When saving macro files, the last filename entered for the macro file will be displayed so that you do not have to type it in over again. - Enhanced the RIPscrip command that starts an audio sound to play. This command now has the ability to make the sound "loop" over and over again until something tells the terminal to stop looping. - Fixed a problem with the RIPscrip parser. It had problems when the host system had a "tap any key" type message. When this happens, the host typically backspaces over the message and usually RIPscrip graphics comes over immediately (without a carriage return before it). RIPscrip strictly says that for the !| part of a RIPscrip command to be recognized, it must begin at the beginning of a line. When backspacing, it was possible to trick the terminal into thinking that it wasn't at the beginning of a line when it actually was. Now the terminal properly tracks these situations and works correctly. - Fixed a problem with the dialing function. When performing a dialing directory dial or a manual dialing operation, the dialer function would sometimes "hiccup" and say that a connection wasn't established when the system hasn't even started to ring yet, or anything. - Fixed a problem with the file transfer protocols where if you were in the process of receiving a file with a very long filename (e.g., aVERYlongFILENAMEindeed.ZIP, etc) it would cause the terminal to crash to DOS (i.e., a GP error). Any filenames longer than 12 characters (including the extension) would cause this error to occur. - Eliminated a single pixel "gap" at the bottom of the status bar. This was very noticeable when full-screen photos were displayed and the status bar was turned on "over" the photo. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ Extra Utilities Included ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ For diagnosing modem configuration problems, there is a utility called RIPTECH.EXE, located in the RIPTERM directory. See the second paragraph below under Technical Support. There is also a utility for viewing the FF1 outline font files used by RIPterm v2.0. This program is called DEMO_ONE.EXE, and is located in the FONTS directory under the RIPTERM directory. The utility DIALCONV.EXE has not changed from RIPterm version 1.54. It still converts Telix and TeleMate dialing directories into RIPterm v1.54 dialing directory files. RIPterm v2.0 will automatically convert a RIPterm 1.54 dialing directory into a v2.0 dialing directory at startup. Just put the file in the RIPterm v2.0 directory, and name the file RIPTERM.PHO. It will be updated to v2.0 automatically. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒ TeleGrafix Technical Support ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ RIPterm Test Drive comes with NO tech support from TeleGrafix. To troubleshoot problems, you can reference the TeleGrafix Technical Bulletins, the program RIPtech (included with the Test Drive), and whatever help can be gleaned from the message forums on The Vector Sector. -- OR -- You can purchase RIPterm Professional for the special introductory price of $10 through April 1, 1995, and get 30 days free technical support, plus have all the features of the RIPterm Professional program, such as a Dialing Directory, External Applications, etc. The special introductory period is over after April 1, 1995, and RIPterm Professional will sell at its regular retail price of $29.95. RIPterm Professional version 2.0 comes with 30 days unlimited technical support from your date of purchase. After this time has expired, you will fall under our new paid Technical Support plan. There will be options for paying as you go, 900 number technical support access, and yearly support contracts that can optionally include software updates. Contact TeleGrafix for more information on this program. We expect it will be in place in March 1995. TeleGrafix has a new phone numbers just for Sales and Technical Support. This will help those who need assistance from getting mixed in with the calls for sales or the business office. Before contacting Technical Support, please use the Troubleshooting Guide in Appendix A to see if your question is discussed. TeleGrafix has found that most of the tech support questions are on the same issues, and we have documented them here for your convenience and to save you (and us) time. You can also download the latest technical bulletins from TeleGrafix's BBS (The Vector Sector) at the number listed below. This program is thoroughly tested by a large team of beta-testers, and is as bug-free as possible. However, there are most likely some bugs that have not been discovered. If you find any, please report them to TeleGrafix right away at the following address: ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ TeleGrafix Communications, Inc. │ │ 16458 Bolsa Chica #15 │ │ Huntington Beach, CA 92649 │ │ │ │ Sales / Orders ..... (714) 379-2141 │ │ Technical Support .. (714) 379-2130 │ │ Main Office ........ (714) 379-2131 │ │ Fax (Office/Tech) .. (714) 379-2132 │ │ TeleGrafix BBS ..... (714) 379-2133 │ │ │ │ Internet Address: │ │ rip.support@telegrafix.com │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── # # # ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────