=============================== == STarSaver Documentation == =============================== _First public release_ _Version 0.50_ _October 8, 1991_ This document, the STARSAVE.PRG and STARSET.PRG programs are all copyright 1991 by DynaSoft Systems and John L. Stanley. They may be distributed ONLY if all three files are together and without any changes whatsoever. Any second-party programs or documentation may be included along with these files, but must be seperate files clearly labled as not being part of the original STarSave package. Please read all of this document before using STarSaver..... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - INTRODUCTION - STarSaver is an animated screen saver program that works in all standard ST, STe, and TT screen modes, mono and color. It installs as an AUTO folder program, doesn't use an accessory slot, and works fine while in .TTP and .TOS programs as well as all .PRG programs. While blanking the screen, it displays a moving 3D perspective starfield. It blanks the screen 3 minutes after the last keystroke or mouse motion. Touching the mouse or any key (any shift key is a good choice) restores the original screen. The timeout period and the speed of the stars can be temporarily changed using the STARSET.PRG program included in this archive. (A future version will provide a way to alter the default settings for these parameters...) STarSaver does not currently work with any add-on expansion graphics cards (but I would be VERY happy to talk with anyone having technical info that would allow me to add support for these cards). - INSTALLING - Place STARSAVE.PRG anywhere in your AUTO folder. In general, it's best to place the program as early in the folder as possible, but if you have too many auto programs installed before it, the only effect will be a random flickering effect of stars that gets worse the closer the star is to the top of the screen. Rearranging the AUTO folder to load STARSAVE.PRG earlier should correct this problem. When loading, if STarSaver detects any problem that prevents it from being properly installed, it will display a message ("Sorry, StarSave could not be installed."), wait for a keystroke, and then exit without installing itself. If this happens, moving the program to run earlier in the AUTO folder should correct the problem. CAUTION: It's a bad idea to have more than one screen saver active in your system at any given time. Failure to disable any other screen saver you're using before loading STarSaver may cause your screen to go blank when you try to restore the normal screen with no way out except rebooting. (If this happens, it may help you to know that the program you were running is still there, you just can't see the screen. You may still be able to safely save your work using keyboard commands before you reboot. Check the documentation for the program you were using to see if this option is available.) - ANIMATION EFFECT - The program blanks the screen after 3 minutes (or some STARSET configured time period) of keyboard and mouse inactivity. At that time, the background animation effect generates a moving 3D starfield consisting of 65 stars. The stars slowly grow brighter and larger as they approach. The effect is virtualy the same under any resolution or screen size. (Yes, even on a monochrome screen...) - VISIBILITY - Direct light shining on the screen or bright room lighting may make it difficult to view the starfield effect. Indirect light with no direct light on the screen will give you the best results (as well as making it easier on your eyes for normal computer use). I have been told by a number of people that some ST mono monitors have brightness problems when displaying very few pixels on the screen. You may find that adjusting the contrast and brightness will correct this problem and I may try making the stars a bit larger in ST mono mode in a future version if this proves to be a common problem. - CONTROL POINTS - Moving the mouse pointer to the BOTTOM-LEFT corner of the screen will cause the screen saver to blank the screen and display the starfield right away. Moving the mouse pointer to the BOTTOM-RIGHT corner will suppress the screen blanking until the mouse is moved away from that corner. Either corner can be selected via the keyboard even if the mouse is hidden by holding down the [Alternate] key, holding down the down-arrow key for 4 seconds, releasing the down-arrow key, and then holding down the left-arrow or right-arrow keys for another 4 seconds (while still depressing the [Alternate] key). (The exact time needed depends on the location of the mouse (hidden or invisible) and the presence/absence of a mouse accelerator program.) The bottom two corners were choosen after experimentation showed that using either of the upper corners would sometimes cause problems with programs that use the GEM menu-bar. - ANIMATION OVERHEAD - While the screen is blanked, the 3D animation effect takes up about 50% of the capacity of an 8mhz ST or Mega. This drops down to only 9% on a TT. This means that on an average ST or Mega, any program doing pure data manipulation will run at about half-speed while the screen is blanked. This may seem like a lot of overhead, but it may help if you remember that the screen blanker is ploting the stars using true 3D perspective transforms in realtime. Calculating and redrawing over 3200 points per second in 3D and only taking up 50% of the available CPU time is actualy doing pretty good. - REDUCED NUMBER OF STARS WHILE ONLINE - Durring my initial testing I discovered that modem (serial-port) file transfers sometimes bog-down when the animation is running. Because of this (and because many ST users use commercial timesharing systems where time online costs money) the program now reduces the animation to 10 stars while the ST is online to another computer. (The program tests the CD (carrier detect) line on the modem port.) Because TT machines can run the fullscale animation without any noticable effect on file transfer speeds, the carrier detect line is ignored on TT machines. (BTW, If anyone can suggest a better way of handling the online problem or a better animation effect to use while online, I'd be very grateful for any suggestions.) - DISK ACCESSES - To prevent a problem that occurs with some screen savers when disk I/O is happening at the same time that the screen saver is updating the image on-screen, STarSave detects any disk I/O and temporarily pauses the animation effect. This will cause a slight star flicker when accessing a hard disk and a more noticable pause-jump-pause when accessing a floppy. (Think of it as an added-feature disk-activity indicator...) - TECH NOTES - STarSaver uses the XBRA vector protocol on all vectors it intercepts. (If you don't know what that means, don't worry, it's just a fancy way of saying the program plays by the rules where it can.) The only standard system call STarSaver modifies is the _physbase xbios call. While blanking, yt modifies the call to ignore the STarSaver animation screen and return the normal physbase pointer. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - STARSET.PRG - The current verion of the STarSet configuration program only effects the copy of STarSaver currently loaded into memory. You can use it to temporarily modify the default timeout and speed settings. Running the program provides a fairly normal gem interface with the current settings displayed. Use the [+] and [-] buttons to adjust the settings and click on [OK] to save the changes into the copy of STarSaver currently in memory. If you rename the program to STARSET.TTP, you can use the program in CLI scripts or from HotWire with command line arguments. Three CLI options exist: Set starfield speed (1-100)........: -speed # Set timeout period (whole minutes).: # Set timeout period (in seconds)....: -s # Don't pause before exiting STarSet.: -p Thus, a command of "STARSET.TTP -s 320 -speed 5 -p" would set the in-memory copy of STarSaver to speed 5, a timeout of 5 minutes 20 seconds, and would not pause before exiting. I had planned to include a way to make permanent changes to these settings and accessory versions of the configuration program, but I ran into a last minute bug and decided that making the program bug-free was more important than creating acc/cpx versions or making a way to save changes to the speed and timeout settings. I'll look into adding these features to the next version. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - COST - The STarSaver program is dedicated to the memory of Henry Lee Stanley (my father) who was born 100 years ago today (on October 8, 1891). He passed-on March 11, 1988, a victum of Alzheimer's disease. This program is donation-ware. All I'm asking for a registration fee is a donation of $3 (or more) to an Alzheimer's research foundation or Alzheimer's family-aid fund. Send a check to the charity of your choice (labeled as a Henry Lee Stanley memorial fund donation) and, if you want to, send me a postcard letting me know where you sent the donation. Recommended Alzheimer's foundation: Address: Henry Lee Stanley memorial fund c/o Alzheimer's Association 8053 E. Bloomington Freeway Bloomington, MN. 55420 U.S.A. Make check out to: Alzheimer's Association Note in corner of check: for the Henry Lee Stanley memorial fund - PLEASE NOTE - You may have obtained this program by paying a user group, shareware collection library, or a timesharing system or network. If so, please realise that none of the money you've paid so-far for this program will come to me or go to the charities I want to help. If you feel STarSaver is worthwhile having, then please take a few minutes and send the requested donation to a very worthy cause. Thank you... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - CONTACT INFORMATION - If you have questions, suggestions for future refinements to STarSaver, or ideas for other programs you'd like to see, you may contact me via land-mail or email at any of the following addresses: Mail....: John L. Stanley 4157 Lyndale S. Minneapolis, MN. 55409 U.S.A. GEnie...: JLS Internet: jls@dynasoft.mn.org