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JCSM Shareware Collection 1996 September
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JCSM Shareware Collection (JCS Distribution) (September 1996).ISO
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SASSI.DOC
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1995-07-22
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Sassi (tm) (Sight And Sound Simple Interface)
Version 1.0 7/15/95
Copyrighted 1995 by RSE Inc.
Licensed "As Is"
* Get Sassi! *
Have you ever been in a program and wanted to adjust the sound
volume? First you try the volume control on the speakers but they're
already maxed out, so then you stop what you're doing and look to see
if the program you're using has a volume adjustment. Often they
don't so you have to get out and use another program to adjust the
volume, or just live with it. What a pain.
My monitor is also gettin on. It's about 5 years old and it's been
gradually getting darker to the point where the brightness and
contrast controls can't make the image bright enough to enjoy Dino-
3D, Flight Simulator, games, videos, pictures, etc.. It looked as
tho I was going to have to spend $400+ on a new monitor.
Well, no more. Sassi lets me adjust sound volume and screen
brightness from my keyboard. It couldn't be easier. Just hold down
the left shift key and then press the right shift key to increase
sound volume. Hold down the right shift key and press the left shift
key to decrease volume. To increase brightness hold down Ctrl and
then press the right shift key. Likewise to decrease brightness hold
down Ctrl and press the left shift key. And if you're not happy with
the adjustments you make then just press Ctrl and both shift keys at
the same time and in most cases the brightness will be reset to its
original settings. Piece of cake.
* How Much *
Sassi is shareware. As such you have 30 days to evaluate her. If
after the 30 day evaluation period you decide to keep using her then
you're legally obligated to register. As a registered user you'll
get the following benefits:
1. The latest version of Sassi plus full function evaluation copies
of our other software including "Remind Me!" and "Hide-It".
2. The capability to assign any Sassi function to any of your
joystick buttons.
3. No more messages asking you to register.
4. A sincere "Thank you!" for supporting our efforts.
Sassi's registration is just $15, plus $1 shipping and handling in
the US and Canada, $5 shipping and handling elsewhere. To register
send your check or money order made out to RSE for $16 ($20 outside
the US and Canada) in US funds drawn on a US or Canadian bank to:
Gettin Sassi
1157 57th Drive SE
Auburn, WA 98092-8720
Visa or Mastercard orders may call or fax (206) 939-4105 or register
via e-mail by sending your name, address, credit card number and
expiration date to rse@aol.com.
* System Requirements *
Sound volume adjustment works only on Sound Blaster compatible sound
cards (almost all are). Brightness adjustment works on VGA and SVGA
modes utilizing 256 colors or less. Whether or not SASSI works on
SVGA direct color modes utilitzing more than 256 colors depends on
the type of card you have, whether it is VESA compliant and other
factors.
* Installing Sassi *
You'll probably want to put Sassi in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file so that
she loads automatically when your computer boots up. Just use any
text editor to add a line to the "c:\autoexec.bat" file that says
"Sassi" plus any command line options you wish to use. If your
memory manager is set up to do so you can load Sassi high by entering
"lh Sassi" plus any command line options.
If you want to use Sassi within Windows then it must be loaded before
Windows is run. In the case of Win95 that means you'll have to put
Sassi in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
* Note to users of our Hide-It! program *
The hot key in Hide-It! which allows you to enter your password and
instantly have access to all your hidden files contains one of
Sassi's hot keys as a subset. You must load Sassi after Hide-It! or
Hide-It! won't recognize it's hot key. In other words, make sure the
line that loads Sassi in your AUTOEXEC.BAT follows the line that
loads Hide-It!.
* Command Line Options *
Sassi has a variety of command line options. You can get a brief
listing of all of them by entering "Sassi ?" at the DOS prompt. Each
is explained below.
/U Uninstall Sassi
Sassi is a TSR which means that she remains in memory until you need
her. She takes up less than 3K of memory (VERY little). If you want
to remove her from memory then you enter "Sassi /u" at the DOS
prompt. If for technical reasons she can't be removed from memory
then she will be disabled instead.
/K Decrease contrast as brightness increases
By default Sassi brightens all colors by the same amount. You can
elect to have her brighten the darker colors more than the lighter
ones. This has the effect of decreasing contrast as brightness
increases.
/SL Use Scroll Lock to restore previous Brightness setting
/CL " Caps Lock "
Sassi doesn't adjust brightness in the same way your monitor does.
Instead of adjusting the hardware, Sassi actually adjusts the color
definitions in software. Programs also do this. You may have the
brightness adjusted the way you want and suddenly things are dark
again. If you elect to use the /SL and/or /CL command line options
then you simply press CapsLock or ScrollLock and the colors are set
to what they were after your last Sassi adjustment.
To illustrate, let's say you're in Flight Simulator. You use Sassi
to adjust the brightness to what you want. You're flying an ILS
approach. Suddenly Flight Simulator decides its dusk and changes the
color definitions. Everything is dark again and now you can barely
see your instruments. Impending death? No problem, just press
Scroll or Caps Lock (or a joystick button, see below) and instantly
the brightness is back to the way you want it.
/P???? sets sound port to ????.
The first time you use Sassi she automatically tries to determine
what port your sound card uses. She is good, and usually detects it
without problem. She stores the data in a file called
"c:\sassi.cfg" so that she knows next time that the port has already
been found. Don't delete the "c:\sassi.cfg" file.
Occasionally tho, Sassi may not be able to determine the port you're
using and in some very rare instances the program may halt, requiring
you to re-boot. In these cases you'll want to set the sound port
manually. You do so by specifying the sound port in the command line
prefacing it with a "P". For example, if your sound card use port
0230 then you would run Sassi by entering "sassi /p0230" at the DOS
prompt. Sassi trusts you implicitly and therefore doesn't test the
value you input to make sure it's valid. In addition, the value is
not stored in the SASSI.CFG file so you need to enter it every time
you run Sassi.
Use "Sassi /P0" to completely disable Sassi's sound volume adjustment.
/BS Assign standard settings to joystick buttons
Registered users can assign any Sassi function to any joystick
button. This /BS option assigns button one to increasing volume,
button 2 to decreasing volume, button 3 to increasing brightness, and
button 4 to decreasing brightness. The following command line options
let you assign the functions individually to the button(s) of your
choice.
/B?L Tells Sassi to use button ? (1-4) to make the sound Louder
/B?S Tells Sassi to use button ? (1-4) to make the sound Softer
/B?B Tells Sassi to use button ? (1-4) to make the screen Brighter
/B?D Tells Sassi to use button ? (1-4) to make the screen Darker
/B?P Restore brightness to Previous setting
This tells Sassi to use button ? (1-4) to perform the "Restore to
Previous Setting" feature discussed earlier. (See /CL and /SL above)
/B?R Reset brightness to original setting
This tells Sassi to use button ? (1-4) to reset the brightness back
to its original setting. This does the same thing as pressing Ctrl-
LShift-RShift.
In some programs Sassi doesn't always restore the colors to their
original values but they'll be bright enough so you can perform
a function that makes the program re-draw its screen.
* Common Questions *
"When I use Ctrl-LShift to decrease the brightness after first
increasing it using Ctrl-RShift the screen doesn't always end up as
it started."
You're right. To illustrate why let's say the max brightness value
for any color is 200 and you have two colors, one with a value of 195
and the other with a value of 183. You increase brightness and Sassi
adds ten to each value. The first value maxes out at 200 and the
second becomes 193. You then decrease the brightness and Sassi
subtracts 10 from each value with the end result being 190 and 183.
While color #2 ended up the same, color #1 started as 195 and ended
up as 190.
"While Sassi works great in some programs, in other programs she just
doesn't seem to do anything."
Sorry, but that's the nature of the beast. Some programs bypass
TSR's completely while others just take over the keyboard so Sassi is
never recognized.
If you can adjust volume but not brightness then you might want to
check to see what video mode the application is using to display its
images. If it's in one of the SVGA modes that displays more than 256
colors at one time then Sassi might not work depending on what type
of video card you have, whether it is VESA compliant, and other
technical factors. Basically if it works it works, if it doesn't
there isn't anything Sassi can do.
If you can adjust brightness but not sound volume then it's possible
the program is setting the sound volume every time it plays a sound,
thereby negating Sassi's adjustment. Microsoft Flight Simulator does
this.
"When I try to adjust the sound volume the computer halts requiring
that I re-boot."
The port Sassi thinks your sound card is on is not right. Enter the
correct port value on the command line prefaced by a "P" (see /P????
command line option discussed earlier). To completely disable volume
adjustment use "sassi /p0".
* Thanks! *
We hope you enjoy Sassi and decide to keep her. But if you decide
not to register we'd like to know why. Please send your comments
e-mail to rse@aol.com.
Thank you for taking the time to evaluate Sassi!