MANUAL.DOC Page 1 B-B-B-B L A-A-A N N K K B L A A N N N K K B B L A A N N N K K B-B-B-B-B L A-A-A-A-A N N N K K B B L A A N N N K K B B L A A N N N K K B-B-B-B L-L-L-L-L A A N N K K E-E-E-E-E T-T-T-T-T E T E T E-E-E-E-E T E T E T E-E-E-E-E T M M A-A-A N N U U A-A-A L M M M M A A N N N U U A A L M M M M A A N N N U U A A L M M M A-A-A-A-A N N N U U A-A-A-A-A L M M A A N N N U U A A L M M A A N N N U U A A L M M A A N N U-U-U-U-U A A L-L-L-L-L BLANKET SCREEN SAVER SOFTWARE VERSION 1.01 COPYRIGHT THE WSA CONSULTANCY LTD 1990-1994 MANUAL.DOC Page 2 - : B L A N K E T : - Screen Saver System (C) The WSA Consultancy Ltd 1990-1994 The WSA Blanket program is a useful utility, to prevent phosphor burn-in on unattended Personal Computers. Personal Computer are used extensively for many varied tasks in Offices, Hotel receptions, and Banks etc, they can be left switched on with the same screen displayed for many hours, causing the phosphor coating of the Monitor to become burnt, creating a ghost like image on the screen, even when it is turned off. The software consists of a terminate and stay resident program (TSR) which may be loaded from the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Irrespective of the main application and the screen type, the display is blanked, after a pre-defined amount of time, provided that a key has not been pressed. The screen will stay blanked until a key is pressed. The time delay before BLANKET will activate can be set in minutes and seconds, from 1 sec to 1 hour in the form MM:SS and can be set in a number of ways. The delay can be set by using the program FIXTIME MM:SS, which will permanently change the delay for all sessions, or the program SETTIME MM:SS can be used to change the delay only for the current session. The delay can also be set for a single session from a batch file (say the AUTOEXEC) by using the program ASKTIME, which will then prompt you to enter the required time delay. The software will work in all screen modes, correctly restoring the screen after a key has been pressed. Supplied with the software are a number of programs that allow programmers to incorporate the features of Blanket in their own programs, such as the ability to force the screen to either switch on (BLANKON) or switch off (BLANKOFF), it is even possible to remove Blanket by running the program BLANKREM. These features are available from a program taking up less than 1K of your computers memory. MANUAL.DOC Page 3 Hardware Requirements. --------------------- Listed below are the equipment requirements for the WSA BLANKET Package. IBM-PC, IBM-XT, IBM-AT, IBM-PS/2 or Compatible Computer. One 5.25 Inch or 3.5 Inch Floppy Disk Drive. MS-Dos, PC-Dos, Version 2.01 or Higher. Minimum of 128K Bytes of Memory. Mono or Colour Screen. Optional : Fixed Disk Drive (Any capacity). The WSA BLANKET Package Consists of the Following: BLANKET.EXE BLANKON.EXE BLANKOFF.EXE BLANKREM.EXE FIXTIME.EXE SETTIME.EXE ASKTIME.EXE MANUAL.DOC Page 4 Installation. ------------- The set of programs must reside in the same working directory path, which is normally c:\BLANKET for correct operation, and the program can be used directly, if unpacked from a single file obtained from a library or bulletin board. Operating Environment. ---------------------- The WSA BLANKET System is a memory resident, or terminate and stay resident program (TSR). TSR's generally are small applications that can remain in memory, ready to be called up at any time. They can be brought up over other active programs such as Lotus 123, WordPerfect, DBase, etc. Some TSR's like Sidekick give the facilities to use a notepad or a calculator over say a spreadsheet. BLANKET gives the facility to blank the screen temporarily if there has not been a keystroke in the main application for a given amount of time. TSR's if used correctly can greatly enhance the use of a system especially in the saving of time. However they can also be a source of problems, especially if there are more than one in your system. All of WSA's products are well designed and programmed to the accepted standards, so that conflicts are avoided, not all TSR's are programmed to the same level. BLANKET should have little, if any compatibility problems. TSR's don't allow you to do more than one job at a time, they still use the same processor as other programs. The only difference is that they suspend the main application while they do their work. Normally most users will place the loading of the TSR into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, so that the program is loaded when the computer is first switched on. They can of course be loaded from the DOS prompt by typing the program name, in the case of BLANKET this would be BLANKET. However TSR's must NEVER be loaded after a system exit from an application that still leaves the application loaded. MANUAL.DOC Page 5 Using the Software. ------------------- The Software has a number of features that are explained in the following sections. It is assumed that if BLANKET is required to be loaded when the Computer is first switched on, that BLANKET is added to the AUTOEXEC.BAT File. No changes are required to be made to the CONFIG.SYS file. Setting up the Time. -------------------- Before running BLANKET for the first time, the time delay needs to be fixed in the program. This should be carried out before BLANKET is loaded as it has no effect on the current session. The program used is FIXTIME which should be found in the BLANKET directory. To run type FIXTIME HH:SS with the required time after it (remember to put a space between FIXTIME and the time). Once the time has been defined BLANKET can now be executed. If BLANKET has been added to the AUTOEXEC.BAT then re-boot the machine to activate BLANKET with the new time. When BLANKET is first installed the current time will be 5:00 and if FIXTIME is run without a time it will default back to 5:00 as the time delay. Using BLANKET. -------------- Note that on the boot-up screen it actually displays the time delay that has been selected. The screen will blank after the preset time delay provided that the keyboard has not been used, to return to the application just type any key, it is preferable to use say the {Shift} key so as not to affect the main application. Disabling BLANKET. ------------------ If you no longer want to use BLANKET and wish to disable it for the current session. 1. Change to the BLANKET directory. 2. Run the program BLANKREM. Having used this method to exit, BLANKET is disabled and the program is no longer available for use. Using this technique does not free the memory used, because this is not possible in all conditions. MANUAL.DOC Page 6 Advanced User. -------------- There are a number of functions available within the BLANKET System which should only be used once the operator has become familiar with the product and has a good understanding of DOS. Setting the Time for a Session Only. ------------------------------------ Although the FIXTIME program fixes the time delay in BLANKET, it is possible to change the time for a particular session by use of the program SETTIME. This program is used in exactly the same way as FIXTIME, with the time typed after the program name with a space in-between. BLANKET must be resident before attempting to run SETTIME, if BLANKET is not resident a warning will be given. If SETTIME is run without a time delay, it will return to the default time which is 5 minutes. There is another program called ASKTIME which performs the same task as SETTIME, but does not take the time delay in on the command line but prompts for it. This program can be used for instance in the AUTOEXEC.BAT so that a different time could be setup for a session on bootup of the computer, as with SETTIME the time delay is only set for a single session. Using the BLANKON AND BLANKOFF Programs. ---------------------------------------- The use of the program BLANKOFF enables BLANKET to be invoked without the time delay occurring. To try using the program, change into the BLANKET directory and just run the program, to restore the screen press any key. This program may be used by either batch files or by programming languages. It may well be useful to have a certain area of a batch where the screen is blanked, to restore the screen use the program BLANKON. To run in a language the files just simply have to be executed. For example in BASIC (GW & MS- BASIC, QUICKBASIC and PDS BASIC) to initate BLANKET the command would be :- SHELL "C:\BLANKET\BLANKOFF" and to restore the screen :- SHELL "C:\BLANKET\BLANKON" MANUAL.DOC Page 7 Common Problems. ---------------- Most TSRs by their nature are useful and well written, but despite this, they may conflict with certain applications or with each other. Some of the common problems and their solutions are here described. TSRs conflicting with each other. --------------------------------- If a new TSR is installed and a problem occurs it will probably be due to other TSRs that are already in the system. Some of the problems that may occur are that :- 1. On entering or exiting a TSR the System hangs. 2. The System fails to boot and hangs. Generally the way to approach solving this problem is to either re-arrange the order in which the TSRs are loaded, as for some the loading order is critical, or to remove them from the AUTOEXEC.BAT. TSRs conflicting with applications. ----------------------------------- Sometimes problems can occur between a TSR and an application, with either the TSR not activating over the top of the application, or the application not loading into memory with the TSR loaded. One of the reasons that sometimes TSRs will not load is that the application is in a graphics mode which the TSR does not support, generally this is because there is some difficulty in resetting the screen upon exit. To solve this make sure the application is in a text mode before invoking the TSR. This is not a problem for BLANKET, as the product has been designed so that it can be used with all graphic screens. The most common problem nowadays with TSRs is that they take up memory that the main application requires, particularly as the primary application takes the vast majority of memory after DOS has been loaded. When this problem occurs the primary application will normally give the error of OUT OF MEMORY. One way to solve this would be to remove all the TSRs not required and attempt to just run the TSRs required and the applications. This should not be a problem for BLANKET as it takes less than 1K.