Morning Star XMS 1.00 REFERENCE CARD ==================================== Morning Star XMS 1.00 by Christopher Antos Copyright (c) 1990-1993, All Rights Reserved Morning Star is ShareWare - please see the file REGISTER.TXT for information on how you can help support a talented college student. NOTE: The difference between the normal Morning Star (MORNSTAR.COM) and Morning Star XMS (MSXMS.COM) is that the former requires EMS memory and can draw several different designs and has a popup control panel. The latter requires XMS memory and can only draw one design. I'm still brain- storming on how to get Morning Star to be able to use XMS memory and still be able to draw several designs and have a popup control panel. This does not appear likely, though, for tech- nical reasons. -- COMMAND LINE OPTIONS ------------------------------------------------------ /I this option must be used to install Morning Star into memory. /U this option is used to uninstall Morning Star from memory. /T use this option to view the current settings. /- disables Morning Star from automatically engaging; hotkeys still work, though. /+ reenables automatically engaging after the time limit has expired; NOTE that /- and /+ are nestable: ie, if you use /- twice, you must use /+ twice to enable Morning Star. /D disable Morning Star completely; even hotkeys don't work. /E reenable Morning Star (after using /D). /S save a copy of the current settings. /R restore settings from a saved copy. /R- forget all saved settings. /Ln set delay factor for line-drawing speed to n (0..1000). The following switches can be turned OFF by following them with a minus sign (-). Options with a star (*) next to them are ON by default. /B blanking only; never draw the design, just blank the screen. /F fade out to blank when blanking the screen. /G * Ghost mode (see section "Ghost Mode"). /H alternate method of blanking the screen; some VGA cards require this option to work correctly. /M * watch for mouse movement or clicks and restore the screen. /P enable password protection; screen will not restore until the correct password is entered and [Enter] is pressed. /V watch for video activity and restore the screen; usually this is not necessary. /Wn sets time limit to n minutes; Morning Star waits until n minutes have passed without any activity and then engages. /Zn set which COM ports to watch; COM ports recognized are 1-4, use 0 to clear the list of ports to watch, eg. /Z1 watches port 1 and whatever other ports were already being watched, /Z01 watches only port 1. -- HOTKEYS ------------------------------------------------------------------- [LeftShift]-[RightShift] - engage Morning Star. [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[<] - turn Morning Star off (hear one beep). [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[>] - turn Morning Star on (hear two beeps). -- MSCONFIG ------------------------------------------------------------------ Use the program MSCONFIG.EXE to change the default settings and change the password. MSCONFIG creates a configuration file (MORNSTAR.INI) which belongs in the same directory where you keep MSXMS.COM. -- GHOST MODE ---------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to a friend in Arizona (Gary Dobbins), Morning Star has a special mode which makes it compatible with modem redialers and also with networks. Morning Star will allow DOS programs to continue processing even while it is drawing the design. It draws bits and pieces of the design during the time when other programs are idle. This means that you can leave Morning Star on while your terminal program is dialing and it will draw the design until your modem connects to another computer. Then it will restore the screen for you. Once you are connected, however, it will only blank the screen to avoid interfering with high-speed file transfers. -- IMPORTANT NOTES ----------------------------------------------------------- ** Never install or remove Morning Star from a menu system. Always do it from the DOS prompt (you can use a batch file if you want to) or in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. (Don't do it from Norton Commander, either). ** Morning Star does not work in conjunction with Windows. It automatically disables itself to avoid crashing Windows. ** If you have a modem and Morning Star is watching the COM port to which it is connected, you will see the border color flash whenever the phone rings. Now you can wear headphones while working on your computer and still "hear" the phone when it rings! ** DESQview - To use Morning Star with DESQview, set it to ignore the mouse and always blank the screen (use options /M- /B). ** SuperVGA - Some SuperVGA cards (particularly those with Tseng Labs chips) are *NOT* 100% IBM compatible, and there may be minor problems when restoring the screen (eg. in Word for DOS, the background colors may blink). ** GAMES - Most games are incompatible with screen savers. It's a good idea to turn off Morning Star (use option /D) before running video games. -- COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS -------------------------------------------------- All comments and suggestions are welcome, even if you are not a registered user. Please let me know how Morning Star works for you and what you think of it. My time is limited (as I'm a full-time student), so registered users get first priority when it comes to reply mail. Correspondence should be addressed to: Christopher Antos 2115 Windsor Drive Ann Arbor, MI 48103-5652 USA or via InterNet email: antos@engin.umich.edu