A l e r t T i m e r - Software Error Alert Timing Utility ========================================================= (C) 1993 SinSoft Function: ========= This little assembly-written program allows the user to modify and determine the time, for which the Software Error and similar exec Alerts are displayed. This feature has been introduced in OS3.0 and it is available on all machines running this system. AlertTimer requires V39 system to work and will return immediately with return code 20 if it is attempted to be used on older system versions. This program may be also used when the V39 kickstart is soft-kicked by the SKick program (from version 3.30) on the system containing 2.0 ROM (tested) or by the SoftBoot program (not tested). It will have no effect if Rekick or ZKick/LKick kickers are used. Function of AlertTimer (generally, alert timing function) may be suppressed if various alert enhancers (like NewAlert by Brian Gontowski, version 36.3) are used. They were written for 2.0 system and don't know about this new feature. AlertTimer Usage: ================= AlertTimer may be executed from Shell only. Its argument template is "TIMING/N,OFF/S". The TIMING value represents the time in seconds for which the alerts are displayed. Once specified, this value will survive a reboot and only the full system init (power on) will restore the default value. Switch OFF is used to turn this feature off. Alerts are then handled as if they were called by standard DisplayAlert intuition library call. By respecifying new TIMING value the timing mechanism is turned on again. The TIMING argument will always override the OFF one in the case both are used simultaneously. Specifying TIMING=0 will disable alerts at all, i.e. will cause that they are not displayed. This feature may be used if machine is working in unattended mode (BBS and similar applications) and the fast restart after a failure is required. Calling AlertTimer without arguments will cause a query and current timing (or OFF status) will be displayed. The initial value of alert timing is dependent on the VBlank frequency and AlertTimer will display 10s on PAL machines and 9s on NTSC ones. Specifi- cation of new value respects video frequency and adjusts the internal value correctly. To test this feature, simple program called MakeAlert is included in the archive. It will cause a Recoverable Alert to occur. Alert duration may be measured (using stopwatch, not Amiga) by it. Of course, any alert may be terminated by the mouse buttons. Program Description: ==================== Operation of AlertTimer is very simple: it modifies or displays contents of variable in ExecBase, responsible for the Alert timing. This variable is initialized during the first exec init (at the power-on time) and maintained by exec automatically so its contents, once specified, remains unaltered by reset. Please read the source code for more details. AlertTimer is pure and may be made resident, although I think it is not needed, because it will be called once for a long period of machine operation (possibly from startup-sequence). It is also position-independent. Copyrights: =========== The program, its source code and this documentation are copyright (C) SinSoft, Prague, Czech Republic, 1993. All the material is public domain and may be freely redistributed, included in software packages, placed on BBS etc. All the files including their copyright notices must be left intact and unchanged. No warranties of any kind are granted; using this program is totally at Your own risk. Any suggestions, bug reports, flames etc. may be sent to: Pavel Troller Internet: patrol@aci.cvut.cs Jagellonska 16 Bitnet: patrol@cspuni12 Praha 3 130 00 Czech republic Have fun, Pavel