TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED SM3.02 PAGE 1 OF 11 This tutorial assumes you have already installed the Stock Charting System on your hard disk, or have made working copy diskettes to use. It assumes you have already performed the "setup" procedure which tells the program where to look for your data files. (See Chapter 2, 3 or 4). It will take you through a step-by-step familiarization procedure. Before starting the program, you should make sure your computer's inter- nal time-of-day clock is properly set. Most IBM-compatible computers have a built-in clock-calendar that does this automatically, but some 8088-based and older machines do not have this feature. On those mach- ines, you set the clock-calendar by using the DATE and TIME commands from DOS (see Chapter 1 or refer to your DOS manual). Proper setting of the date and time is important, not only for the Stock Charting System, but also for other programs, for two reasons: First, the computer "stamps" with the date and time each file that it writes on disk. This is to aid in recognition of different versions of the same data which may have been updated at different times. Second, the Stock Charting System uses the current date from DOS to calculate all dates that appear in price history files (stock charts). TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 2 OF 11 The following steps tell you how to start the Stock Charting System, depending on how it is installed. If you have installed the batch file SM3.BAT in the root directory of your C drive, go to step (1). Other- wise if you have a hard disk go to step (2). If you are operating from floppy disks, go to step (3). NOTE: In this documentation, the notation means "press the Enter key". 1. Make sure you are in the ROOT directory. Start the program from the DOS prompt C:\> by typing the command SM3 . This should automatically load GRAPHICS first, so you will be able to print a graph. You should see the introductory screen. Press the Enter key once. You should then see the Master Menu. Go to step (4). TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 3 OF 11 2. To start the Stock Charting System from DOS, you must first load the GRAPHICS program (if you want to print graphs). You should be able to do this by typing GRAPHICS . If you get an error message like "command or file not found", you will need to know what direct- ory GRAPHICS is in. In many cases this will be \DOS\ and you should type \DOS\GRAPHICS . If all is OK you should see the DOS prompt return, with no intervening error message. 2a. Now make the directory which contains the Stock Charting System's PROGRAMS the current directory. If the name of this directory is \SM3PROG, type the command CD \SM3PROG to do this. You should see the prompt C:\SM3PROG\>. 2b. Type SM3 . You should see the Stock Charting System's intro- ductory screen. Press the Enter key once. You should then see the Master Menu. Go to Step (4). TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 4 OF 11 3. This assumes you are operating from floppy disk drive A. If you are operating from B substitute that for A. You should see the DOS prompt A>. If you do NOT want to print graphs you can skip to (3b). 3a. Insert your DOS diskette in Drive A. Type GRAPHICS . If you see an error message like "command or file not found", try a differ- ent DOS diskette (DOS sometimes comes on 2 or 3 diskettes). Other- wise the DOS prompt A> should return with no intervening error mes- sage. 3b. Insert the Stock Charting System STARTUP (or only) diskette in Drive A. The STARTUP diskette is the one with SM3.EXE and BRUN30.EXE on it. Type SM3 . In a few seconds the introductory screen should appear. 3c. If you have a separate PROGRAM diskette, insert that now in Drive A. Press the Enter key. If a few seconds the Master Menu should appear. Go to Step 4. TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 5 OF 11 4. At this point, you should see the Master Menu. The Stock Charting System consists of several program sections which perform major functions such as Stock Select or Graphics. Each program section has its own menus, which always appear at the bottom of the screen (except for the Master Menu which occupies the whole screen). Like its restaurant counterpart, a menu offers a choice of selections. To make a choice, press the letter key corresponding to the desired function, such as A for Add/Delete or G for Graphics. As soon as that key is pressed, the selection is activated. The correct program section is automatically loaded into memory as required, and menu choices permit switching freely among the functions. It makes no difference whether you use uppercase (CAPITAL) letters or lowercase letters. Each menu has a HELP function. Just type H to get an explanation of all the choices offered by that menu. Each individual HELP function dis- plays the appropriate user's manual chapter on your video display, one screenfull at a time. If you prefer, you can use the printed manual instead. TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 6 OF 11 The Esc (Escape) key is always active. You can almost always press the Esc key to get out of any situation you don't want to be in. The only exception would be if that choice might cause you to lose critical data. All menus have an EXIT function which can be invoked with the X or Esc key. From the Master Menu, press Q (for QUIT) or Esc to terminate the program and go back to DOS. Some menu functions will first ask you for confirmation of your choice, in case you press the wrong key. Type Y for a Yes response or N for a No response as appropriate. If you make an invalid response, an error message will flash on the bottom line until a correct response is entered. The Scroll Lock and Caps Lock keys are not used. The function keys on the left-hand side or top of the keyboard are not used. The Num Lock key is needed only once to put the cursor keypad in Numeric mode. Most keyboards have an indicator for the Num Lock key, which lights in numeric mode. When you press a cursor keypad key, the pro- grams know by context whether you want "PgUp" or "9", for example. TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 7 OF 11 Let's look at some of the data the program uses, step by step: 1. Before you can get the Stock Charting System to work, you must tell it where your data is. On the Master Menu below the PATH item, you will see inside a solid bar the name of the directory where your data should be. If this name is incorrect, press P and type in the correct drive letter and/or sub-directory name, for example B: or \PADATA or F:\PERSONAL. If you have done the "setup" procedure, this item should already be correct. The program will "remember" it until you change it again. 2. From the Master Menu, type S. This will take you to the Stock Select screen. Try using the up-arrow, down-arrow, PgUp, PgDn, Home or End keys to move the selector bar, and select an existing stock. The purpose of this screen is to select a stock (or other security type) for making a correction, for entry or "import" of HISTORICAL volume and price data, or for graphical analysis. NOTE: The entry of CURRENT volume and prices is a different function and will be described later. TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 8 OF 11 What you are looking at is the CATALOG (the file named CATALOG.POR on your disk); this is a list of all securities known to the system. Before you can enter volume and prices for a security, it must be on this list and the CHART CAPACITY (DAYS and/or WEEKS) must show a number greater than zero. If there is no data and you see the flashing message "File CATALOG.POR missing from data disk", you may have entered the wrong path name. Press the Esc key to return to the Master Menu; go back to step 1 above. 3. Notice the menu at the bottom of the screen. All menus have a HELP function. To display the chapter that corresponds to that menu, type H for HELP. Here the information is presented one screenfull at a time. Note the screen pages are numbered (2 of 5, for example) on the upper right corner; many chapters occupy 5-8 screens. Press Enter to advance to the next screen page, or Esc to cancel and go back to the previous screen. (It is not possible to "scroll" one line at a time). TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 9 OF 11 You have the option of using either the printed user manual or the "on-line" context-sensitive HELP screens, or a combination of both. 4. Select any security and press C to invoke the CHANGE/VIEW function. You will see the View Screen for Individual Securities. This screen shows only the security you selected, but displays more information about that one security. Try using the left-arrow and right-arrow keys to move the selector bar to individual data items. The purpose of this screen is to view and make corrections to individual data items, such as updating annual earnings. It can also be used to enter data items that have never been entered before. In Tutorial Part 2, we will be changing a data item. Press the Esc key when finished viewing, to return to the Stock Sel- ect screen. Then press it once more to return to the Master Menu. The Esc key is your friend - it will move you back through previous menus, eventually to the Master Menu. If you then press it one more time, it will put you back into DOS! TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 10 OF 11 5. Now, let's look at some historical data. Select any stock and press E. After a moment you should see the Historical Data Entry screen with a column of dates on the left side. Try using the up-arrow, down-arrow, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys to scan through the data. The purpose of this screen is for data entry of HISTORICAL volume and prices. It is normally used to fill a price history file right after you add a new security to the system. It can also be used to make corrections to volume and prices for any date, and it can also add a new date to the chart. However, there is a different screen for entry of CURRENT volume and prices for ALL securities at one time, for just one date. This will be discussed later, in Part 2. In the screen you are looking at, you can also process stock splits and mutual fund distributions, and you can set the moving average periods. This is discussed in Chapter 16, and there is more infor- mation about moving averages in Appendix C. TUTORIAL GUIDE PART 1: GETTING STARTED PAGE 11 OF 11 9. Press the Esc key. This will take you back to the Stock Select screen. Then press the Esc key once more; you should see the Master Menu. This concludes Tutorial Part 1; continue on to Part 2. In Part 2 we will add a security to the system and see how to update current volume and prices. In Part 3 we will examine the different kinds of graphs that the system can produce.