The Best of Select: Games 9/CD_1.iso/kids/bertpreh/bpa32.doc

Text File | 1993-09-01 | 16KB | 344 lines

                       Bert's Prehistoric Animals
              (Including All the Bert's Coloring Programs)
                   A Coloring Program For Introducing
                     Young Children to the Computer

                  Unregistered Version 3.2 User's Guide

                              Introduction


    This instruction manual was produced for use with the Bert's
Prehistoric Animals program. Several other Bert's coloring programs are
also available and these instructions are for use with these programs as
well.

    Bert's Prehistoric Animals is an enjoyable coloring program for
children of all ages, but is especially useful for introducing young
children to the computer. Bert's Prehistoric Animals was designed by
educators to be used by young children with a minimum of assistance by
adults. As a coloring program Bert's Prehistoric Animals is superior to
many other children's coloring programs in that it allows the user to
place the various animals, all in four different sizes, on a variety of
backgrounds. This allows children to easily create their own picture
before coloring. The opportunity to create their own picture will allow
children to take pride in their unique creation. Bert's Prehistoric
Animals also has a voice feature, which can be turned on or off,
allowing the animals to speak their names, much to the delight of
children.

    When first started Bert's Prehistoric Animals displays a title
screen and then the drawing surface with eight buttons on the left.
Children can operate the program with the mouse alone. A window is
provided which allows children to write a short story about their
picture using the keyboard. The fact that they created the picture will
help provide the motivation to write about it. One of the best ways for
children to learn to read is to write, even if their initial attempts
include phonetic spelling which is not always correct. If your child is
not ready to attempt writing his/her story, then another good strategy
is for you to type in your child's story as he/she dictates it to you.
Then have your child read back the story he/she created. This is another
very effective beginning reading strategy. They will love creating a
setting, writing or dictating their own story and printing out a copy.

                              Installation

    Bert's Prehistoric Animals requires an IBM compatible computer with
at least 512K of memory, a VGA display and a Microsoft compatible mouse.
A Sound Blaster card will improve the voice quality considerably. The
computer's speaker will be used if a Sound Blaster card and driver are
not found. The program installation process is quite easy.

    First, make a backup copy of your Bert's Prehistoric Animals program
disk. If necessary consult your PC-DOS/MS-DOS manual for a description
of the DISKCOPY command. Save the original program disk in a safe place
and use the copy as the working program disk.

Bert's Prehistoric Animals Version 3.2                      Page 1 of 6
    Second, while it is possible to use Bert's Prehistoric Animals on a
floppy disk system, a hard disk system is a necessity for reasonable
speed and storing a number of pictures your child has created. To
install Bert's Prehistoric Animals on a hard disk use the following
steps:

    1. Insert the floppy disk in your computer in drive A. (or B if
necessary)
    2. Type A: (or B:)
    3. Type INSTALL A C

    Any hard drive letters can be used, for example INSTALL B D will
install the program from floppy drive B to hard drive D. The
installation will create a directory called BERT3 on your hard drive and
you will need to enter a CD\BERT3 to change to the Bert's Prehistoric
Animals directory before running the program. Once installed just type
BERT to start the program. If your computer gives a series of beeps when
you run Bert's Prehistoric Animals it is probably because it cannot find
the image files it needs to run, and other problems are showing up as
well. All the files for Bert's Prehistoric Animals need to be in the
same directory for the program to operate successfully. You should not
mix the .DOT image files from Bert's Prehistoric Animals with those of
versions previous to 3.0 as they are in a different format.

    If you are installing more than one copy of the Bert's coloring
programs, ie. - Bert's African Animals, Bert's Dinosaurs, Bert's
Prehistoric Animals, Bert's Whales and Dolphins - you will get warning
messages during installation such as the following:

PKSFX: (W18) Warning! c:/bert3/BERT.EXE already exists. Overwrite (y/n)?

    You should type a letter N in response to this message, which will
speed up installation. Actually, typing a Y will not hurt anything, it
simply writes over the file with an identical copy.

    Users with a Sound Blaster card must copy the driver file CT-
VOICE.DRV, which comes with your Sound Blaster card, into the BERT3
directory. This file is usually found in the DRV subdirectory which is
in the Sound Blaster directory. The Sound Blaster directory has
different names depending on the model you have, for example SB16 for
the Sound Blaster 16 ASP. To copy the driver file you would type:

                  COPY  \SB16\DRV\CT-VOICE.DRV  \BERT3

    You should change the directory name SB16 in the example above to
whatever is appropriate for your Sound Blaster software. If the CT-
DRIVE.DRV file is not found in the BERT3 directory the program will use
the computer's speaker for voice output. For computers with normal
speakers the voice is quite recognizable. However, many of the new PC
computers are using cheap piezoelectric devices which makes the voice
sound like a duck. Users with piezoelectric devices or parents tired of
listening to animal names may wish to turn the voice off.

    Operation of Bert's Prehistoric Animals is quite easy. The eight
buttons are configured to do the following when the left mouse button is
clicked on them:

Bert's Prehistoric Animals Version 3.2                      Page 2 of 6
                           The Command Buttons

    SELECT AN ANIMAL

    When beginning a new picture six small backgrounds are displayed.
The user clicks with the mouse on the selected scene to have it drawn on
the screen full size.
    Next, a group of six animals are displayed. Clicking the mouse on
any one of the animals will select it. If the stop sign is clicked on,
no animal will be selected and you are returned to the drawing surface.
    Clicking the mouse on the box between the stop sign and the green
arrows sets the voice status. Voice can be set to on, off or voice only
- meaning the animals only say their name through the computer's
internal speaker. The sound quality is somewhat limited due to PC
speaker quality, but the advantage is that no additional hardware is
needed.
    If the down green arrow is selected the next group of animals will
be displayed for possible selection. The up arrow returns to the
previous group of animals.
    The selected animal appears in four different sizes. After the
animal of the desired size is chosen, a rectangle outlining its size
will appear in the upper left. When the left mouse button is held down
on the rectangle it can be dragged into its desired position. When the
left mouse button is released, the animal will be drawn and any
previously drawn lines under it will be erased. This allows you to place
one animal in front of the next. It is best to first place all the
desired animals on the drawing surface before filling with color, as
some colors cannot be drawn over with a animal outline. An additional
feature is that the animal figures can also be drawn in reverse. To
reverse a figure simply hold down the right mouse button as you release
the left one when you position the animal on the drawing surface.

    SELECT A COLOR

    When this button is clicked a group of thirty colors is displayed.
When a color is chosen it fil