Shareware Overload Trio 2

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Text File | 1994-08-06 | 16KB | 256 lines

SMART R8 CONTROL Copyright (c) 1992-94 FineWare VERSION HISTORY. v1.41 - Released 06 Aug 1994 - Special maintenance release. Fixed a small problem some users have been having when running under DOS. The problem tends to exist for users running on some fast 486 ma- chines. When used on these machines, the software interfaced to the radio at a throughput greater than the radio could handle. For this, Smart R8 Control now asks for a couple of pacing parameters when run- ning SCSETUP. The first parameter (TX pace) is the delay used between characters sent to the radio, in milliseconds (.001 seconds). The second parameter (RX pace) is the time window that Smart R8 Control expects a valid response from the radio, in hundredths of seconds (.01 seconds). This fix has been tested with the gracious help of Mr. Phil Potts, the moderator of the GEnie SWL RT. Added UT date to log records. This was inadvertently omitted from the log- ging facility in v1.40, and has been inserted in this special release. v1.40 - Released 19 Jun 1994. Added new VFO A=B function (Alt-=). With v1.40 of Smart R8 Control, the user may now set the unused VFO to reflect the settings of the one in use. This may be accomplished by pressing the Alt and "=" keys, and serves an almost identical function to that of the R8's A=B function key. If VFO A is set to VFO B, the faceplate will display an equal sign ("=") after the VFO selected. Added a UTC time adjustment for users in "half- hour" time zones (i.e., South Australia, -10.5). In previous versions of Smart R8 Control, users were only allowed to enter whole-hour UTC adjustments, which inhibited use of the integrated database and DX shows display. This addition should now be acceptable for most of the world, with the exception of Chatham Island (+12.45 hours). This change was also made to SETUP.EXE. Provided an entry point within Smart R8 Control to run the Printing Utility. Pressing Alt-U within the main program now invokes SCR.EXE. (Registered users only). Added prompts in logging facility to account for Station Name, SINPO and other notes. Added automated logging for mouse users. If the user has a mouse, clicking on the station name portion in any of the four station ID lines in the faceplate or the Who Else (F8) window now invokes the logging facility. Clicking on a displayed station name automatically fills the prompt with that station's name. Added intuitive database searches for mouse users. If the user has a mouse, clicking on the left-hand portion (time range) of any displayed station ID line in the faceplate will invoke the Find Frequency (F6) function for that station. Clicking on the left-hand portion of any undisplayed station ID line will invoke the Who Else (F8) window for the current frequency. Clicking on any time range in the Who Else (F8) window will invoke the display of the corresponding station's Frequency Schedule (F7). These automated additions should speed up searches for parallel frequencies as well as confirmations on station identification. Added a band indicator to the faceplace. When tuned to a shortwave frequency, the faceplate will now display "SW", "AM" (for AM BCB frequencies) or the appropriate meter band. If tuned to a VHF frequency, the indicator will display "VHF". Added capability for mouse users to invoke the Band Plan (F2) from the faceplate. Clicking on the band indicator will now bring up the Band Plan window. Added capability for mouse users to tune from the Band Plan (F2) window. Clicking on the lower or upper band frequencies will now tune the receiver to that frequency. This should facilitate user's ability to perform "band scans. Added capability for mouse users to re-select the Band Plan (F2), Frequency Schedule (F7) and Who Else (F8) Windows, if they are either partially hidden or unselected. Added an automatic update of Smart R8 Control's DX Shows (F3) and Available Stations (F5) displays, when swapping between databases. (Registered users only). Users in areas ahead of UTC showed an erratic UTC display after midnight. This bug has been fixed. Various users had problems interfacing the receiver, when using COM3: or COM4:. This was due to the use of non-standard IRQs and port addresses. Smart R8 Control now allows the user to specify these parameters when changing the port within SCSETUP.EXE. Smart R8 Control erroneously attempted to tune the radio to the VHF spectrum, when frequencies less than 175kHz from the Find (F6) and Frequency Schedule (F7) lists were selected. This has been corrected in v1.40. Added page indicators to each window's slide bar. Paging is now done by either clicking above or below the page indicator, rather than on the upper or lower halves of the slide bar. Fixed minor bug in the mouse/screen interface. The Stepsize, Mode and Synchro "hot areas" were off by one character to the right. Modified how the display in SETUP.EXE was updated to prevent erratic displays on slower machines. Added new prompt in SETUP.EXE for default printer type. This will allow users of the Printing Utility (SCR.EXE) to automatically print without having to enter the printer used. (Registered users only) v1.30 - Released 02 Jan 1994. Added separate Smart R8 Control Setup Utility (SCSETUP.EXE). This utility allows users to set serial port and receiver parameters externally from the main program. Additionally, the utility allows users to change the default screen colors. The Setup Utility automatically up- dates the SMARTCON.DAT file to the current version. Expanded maximum number of frequency records to 9999, and the number of stations to 700. This change does not vastly increase the overall memory requirement for the software. Added capability to tune the radio from full station frequency schedule when using a mouse. When a full station's frequency schedule is dis- played (using the F7 key), the radio can now be tuned by clicking on any of the frequencies shown. This should allow users to easily tune to other frequencies that are used by that station at other times of the day. Added capability to automatically switch radio to the proper demodulation type when tuning via either the current (F6 key) or full frequency schedule (F7 key) listings. If a station's frequency denotes a target area of 'uf' or 'lf', the radio will be automatically instructed to change to upper or lower sideband, respectively. If a different tar- get area is shown, the radio will automatically revert to AM. Station frequencies without a displayed target area will not change the de- modulation mode. Added capability to escape from queries. Pressing the Escape key or click- ing on the 'Esc' prompt will allow the user to abort any input query. Added an overwrite check for dumping the database to a text file (registered users only). Fixed bug that did not allow the use of non-alphanumeric characters in the logging facility and when searching the station schedules. Fixed bug that did not allow the use of the underscore character within filenames. This was primarily used when searching for a station's complete frequency schedule, and writing it to disk. v1.20 - Released 07 Aug 1993. Added a mouse capability. The program will now recognize a mouse driver, if installed. The mouse capability allows most of the keyboard and windowing functions to be replicated by a mouse. Radio functions may be changed by clicking on the radio faceplate window. Other tuning methods (via the station, frequency and DX show windows) can also be implemented with mouse clicks. The Help screen now doubles as a main menu, allowing all program functions to be invoked from there. If Smart R8 Control is to be used in a Windows v3.1 DOS window, the mouse will only operate if mouse drivers newer than v7 are loaded. Added an extra Import Utility for version 3.0 of the TRS Consultants' Eng- lish Language Shortwave Broadcast Database. After September 1993, the older v2 file format will be obsolete. The extra Import Utility pro- gram operates the same as the old one, but looks for the newer v3.0 database filenames. (Registered users only) Added capability to change the database within the main program. This is now called with the Shift-F9 key. After the Shift-F9 keys are pressed, the program will prompt the user for the database to use. If a correct response is given the new database will be retrieved. (Registered users only) Changed station window list to include time period annunciators. This will make the window less confusing to read. Modified 'Who Else Uses Freq' search to allow user input frequency. De- fault is now what the radio is tuned to. Modified the way that full station schedules are searched. The 'When is Station On' station prompt is now case insensitive. This way, searches for 'Kol Israel' can be searched using 'kol', 'Kol' or 'KOL' (etc.). Added radio connection detection within program. Smart R8 Control will automatically switch to Demo Mode if the radio is not hooked up at startup, or after a DOS shell. The DEMO.BAT program is now unneces- sary to start the program without a radio. Added reminder on bottom of windows to press Shift-Tab to return to the DX Shows window. Fixed database search status bar. The status bar did not display the pro- gress of searches smoothly. This has been corrected. Fix bug that attempts to switch Tape VOX on during scanning. Since the ra- dio does not accept commands while it is scanning, there is no way to switch on the timer relay. v1.10 - Released 29 May 1993 - First Formal (non-beta) Release. Added an Import Utility such that TRS Consultants' English Language Short- wave Broadcast Database can be used with Smart R8 Control. The Import Utility does a full database conversion by parsing, splitting and sorting the TRS Consultants database into the Smart R8 Control format. All of the utility station entries from the Smart R8 Control distribu- tion database are merging into the converted database. (Registered users only) Changed the way that the DX Shows window displayed information. DX Shows used to display shows for the entire calendar day, even if that day was almost over. This has been changed to display shows that will oc- cur for the next 24 hours. The first show of the UTC day in now pref- aced by a header, consisting of the day of the week Provided a smart link between the DX Shows window with the Find window (F6). A station's frequency list will be displayed by selecting a show in the DX Shows window. This will only work if the station is on at that time. Also, a previously called DX Shows window can be re- called by pressing Shift-Tab (Left Tab) from any other window. Added a separate DEMO batch file to automatically invoke Smart R8 Control in Demo Mode. If started in Demo Mode, the radio does not have to be connected in order to query the database. Reorganized the Band Plan window to better reflect WARC-92 changes. The new 15 meter band is now included. Added a bar graph indicator for the remaining database searches (schedule queries, printing, and database dumps). Added registration reminder for unregistered users, as well as a registra- tion number for registered users, on the opening screen. Fixed scanning bug. For some reason, the program switched to the current memory location before scanning. Also, scanning occasionally returned a 'Radio Off' condition. This has been fixed, as well. Fixed bug that incorrectly merged frequency records when printing. When two separate broadcasts from the same station overlapped in time (e.g., 1300-1400 and 1300-1330) they would be combined, using the first time period when printing. This did not corrupt the database, but gave incorrect listings for single station broadcast schedule que- ries. This has been corrected. Restructured how the SMARTCON.DAT file was accessed. The file structure was too messy and caused problems in the main program as well as in SCT.EXE. The old SMARTCON.DAT must be deleted before version 1.10 is run. v1.02B - Released 27 March 1993 - Enhanced beta release. Added interface to HF Propagation Prediction program (SCP.EXE). SCP is now invoked by pressing Alt-F. If the user is in the WHAT or FIND win- dows, SCP will automatically set the Station 2 pointer to match that station name, if data is available. (Registered users only). Added separate key to create a dump of the frequency database. This is now invoked by pressing the Alt-F9 keys. (Registered users only). Added capability to insert or delete individual frequencies within the 'Find' window. Dumping, altering and then compiling the database is now only required for major changes to the database. The insert key is used to modify the frequency record in the list. The delete key is used to delete the record from the list. Ctrl-Home and Ctrl-End are used to insert frequencies above or below the frequency pointed to in the list, respectively. Added capability to search utility stations, as well as shortwave stations. By pressing Alt-F5, the station window switches to search for all of the strict utility stations (time, maritime, WEFAX, etc.) in the data- base. Similarly, all AM Broadcast Band (BCB) stations in the data- base, as well as a table of CB channel frequencies can be searched by pressing Shift-F5. Redesigned and updated the input windows and help screen to be more func- tional. The input windows now have more room for log entries. Fixed bug that only allowed the user to set the radio interface to either COM1: or COM2:. Program now correctly allows up to and including COM4:. Fixed bug that incorrectly tried to compile an unchanged database. When a database dump is created, and the user shells into DOS, the program recompiled the database even if it wasn't changed. This has been cor- rected. (Registered users only) Fixed bug that mishandled the size of information displayed in the windows. Smart R8 Control was not correctly trapping the size of frequencies, stations, log entries, etc. in their respective windows. If more than the expected amount of information was retrieved, a run-time error would occur. This has been corrected. Fixed documentation. Documentation erroneously stated the command line switch to set the serial port was "P". This has been corrected to read "R". v1.01B - Released 01 February 1993 - Follow up beta release. Extended Band Plan to better reflect the set of frequencies in the data- base. Added display of registration number in the faceplate of the main screen. Fixed bugs in the companion Printing and Database Utility software. Updated documentation. v1.0B - Released 02 January 1993 - Initial beta release.