F L A S H S C R E E N S v2.00
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* The program to make BBS's screens flash on your monitor in ZERO time *
User document
Authors:
Shaul & Harel Efraim
Background
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When we first entered world of communications a year and a half ago,
we used 1200 baud modem, what really frustrated us were the screens.
BBS's have a real nice screens with lots of ANSI graphics, so when
moving from screen to screen you had to wait and wait and wait till
the whole screen was transfered to your monitor and then you could
pick your choice. Of course, if you knew the BBS from previous logins
you remembered it's hot-keys and you could move real fast within it.
(The BBS's in Israel use the QuickBBS and the Remote Access which
allow the use of Hot keys, don't know what goes with others)
But, suppose you want to move within a BBS file base, of course you
don't remember all of it's hot-keys so you have to change area and
wait for the main file menu to show itself; Suppose you want to read
messages from different message areas, than same thing happens as with
the file base example I mentioned before.
What can you do to eliminate this waiting ?
Well, you could do nothing !!
Until now...
No more waiting for fancy screens to write themselves, no more waisting
time when moving around, exploring and testing the BBS. Real time saving
for users and SysOps too.
How does FLASH SCREENS work ?
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When loading the Flash to memory, it allocates 4000 bytes for each
additional screen you define (i.e 4 screens = 16000 bytes), then
you call a BBS that setted it's screens to work with Flash, you make
the Handshake that stores the BBS's defined screens in YOUR computer's
memory, than you return to normal work within the BBS but from now on
you see the screens in the speed of light because they come from your
computer's memory !!
After handshaking you can save the screens in a data file and call them
on future logins to the specific BBS, no more handshakes are necessary.
You will need to handshake again in case the SysOp changed his screens
or if the handshake was made in bad line, and garbage was added to the
handshaked screens. Another way of getting the screens is downloading
them (the SysOp will pack the needed screens for dl)
Program specifications
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Flash takes 4000 bytes for each defined screen in the RAM, it takes 2K
(two kilobytes !!!) of physical disk space. The data file which holds
the screens takes 4000 bytes for each defined screen.
Program Compatiability
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FLASH SCREENS had been tested with the following communication programs:
Telemate 2.xx
ProComm / ProComm+ 1.0 / TD ver.
Telix 3.xx
Boyan 4.xx
Qmodem SST
MTE / FL
BitComm 3.x
Mirror
The interrupt used in FLASH SCREENS was chosen to work with all comm
program. If you use another comm program, FLASH will work as well.
Installation
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User side is real nice and tidy. All you have to do is run FLASH
with some parameters just before running your comm program.
Command line: FLASH <upper row>-<lower row> <number of screens>
<Upper row - Lower row>
Some communication programs use line 1 (Telemate) or line 25 (ProComm+,
Telix, Boyan) as a status line. Flash allows you to avoid snapshotting
these lines when handshaking screens with the BBS.
For example, if you use Telemate with line 1 as a status line, your
command line should be:
FLASH 2-25 [x]
This will tell FLASH to snapshot the whole screen except line 1.
<Number of screens>
This switch allows you to decide how much memory will the Flash take
from your precious RAM, suppose you run Telemate which takes a big
chunk of memory, than you might want to grab less memory for use by
the Flash and of course less fast screens available.
Normal command line will usually look like that:
Flash 1-23 8 <Enter>
│ │ │
From line 1 <──────┘ │ └───────> Allocate 8 screens
to line 23 <───────┘
(BBS's screens are 23 lines only, rest are a status line for the SysOp)
Under correct and logical command line you'll to get:
"Flash installed !!!"
Loading & Saving
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ IMPORTANT !!! │
│ │
│ Flash commands are given from terminal environment only, trying to │
│ load/save from DOS will yield nothing. │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Saving:
@\S COMM.
This will save the file COMM to current directory and make it available
in future logins.
The save can be done by the BBS you handshaked screens with, but if
it don't give you the option to save screens on your disk you can
do it manually from terminal.
Loading:
Suppose you setted a long que of BBS's to which you want to enter, yet
you don't know which BBS will answer first, you won't load my BBS screens
if you don't know for sure it will answer on first try.
So you don't load any screens till the login !!
The Flash is capable of making disk I/O actions from the terminal.
As well as you type AT Z to reset your modem you can do the following:
@\L COMM.
This will load the file COMM from current directory, the moment you
press the . for the extension the flash jumps and loads the file to
memory preserved before by the Flash.
Yet you don't have to enter the load string because BBS who have the
Flash installed, also loads his screens from your memory automatically,
he puts the load string in one of his welcome screens and when your
Flash detects it, it loads the file containing the screens to your
computers memory.
Copyrights
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"Boyan, Procomm, Procomm +, Qmodem, Telemate, Telix, BitCom,
MTE and FlashLink"
are all Copyrighted by their respective authors.
Support
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Authors can be reached in the following ways:
1.
Shaul Efraim
58, Melchett ST.
Tel-Aviv, Israel
Zip code 64287
2.
Comm House BBS
Tel : 03-296489 (972-3-296489)
Hours : 22:00-07:00 (local time)
FidoNet : 2:403/122
Baud : 2400
New versions can be Freq'ed under the name FLASH.ZIP
End