RSLClock is a superficially simple little utility that "runs" unobtrusively at the end of the screen title bar. The "close" gadget and "window to front/back" gadgets are there, but they are hidden from view! There it sits, indicating both the currently free memory, the time, and once a minute, the date. It also "pops up" to the front of the Workbench screen, once every minute. If you would like military time you can run the program with "Run RSLClock long" it will then read out 12 hour time in AM/PM type (hours & minutes), otherwise the default setting is Hours:minutes in 12 hour style. SYNTAX: LONG (this will toggle military 24 hour time with HH:MM:SS style) BACK (this will create a "backdrop" black screen that can be toggled in/out by using left-Amiga N/M keys or by double clicking the menu button when the window is activated - use it to hide the current screen) NOPOPUP (this disables the feature to "pop" the clock window to front of workbench screen at the beginning of every minute) SPLITUP (this will split up the memory display into free chip and fast memory, separately) COLOR [B],[D] (this sets the colors of the window pen - first number can be 0-3, and background pen - second number can be 0-3. Any other numbers will give you the default colors) POSITION [X],[Y] (this sets the left top edge of the window if the given width allows it, should you be utilizing WB 1.2 in 400 line Workbench mode use an asterisk * and a space before the position commands in order for the program to recognize more than 200 lines per screen) TINY (this shrinks the display window to its minimum dimensions) HIGHLIGHT [D] (this enables highlighting of the "Time:" type labels in the display window, by using 'I' instead of a number the labels will be made invisible) [disk drive] (i.e. DF1: this will indicate the number of free Kbytes on indicated disk drive, re-evaluated once every minute!) [# Kbytes before emergency shutdown] (i.e. 25 this will shut down this utility and reclaim the memory if your system's free memory falls below this point, default is 10 Kbytes!) "[command line]" (this will automatically run a program when the copyright notice submenu is selected (the notice that says: ***RSLClockPlus by Roy S. Laufer, ***) i.e. "RUN STARTERM" will startup Starterm if it is available! Caution: this default setting MUST be the last arguments, and MUST be enclosed in quotations!) FULLWIDTH (this will enable a window the full width of the screen) ? (this will display syntax) Note single letters are the same as typing the entire command! As an example RUN RSLClock b s DF1: p 120,45 will run the program with a backdrop screen, split memory into it's chip and fast components, display info on DF1: and displace the window to the given coordinates! ***************************************************************************** New In Version 1.1: This new update includes a menu which allows you to change all of the available options of RSLClockPlus, after it is running. An additional feature available via the Menu is the ability to summon an emergency CLI which runs completely independent of all other tasks. Since RSLClockPlus always pops up in front of all other Workbench windows, this may be helpful when there isn't any other way to get into a CLI. I found PopCLI redundant with this feature available, but be cautious since this feature, like EXECUTE, takes 40 odd bytes from your memory and won't give it back without a warmboot! A very small price to pay!. Also, if the backdrop screen is enabled and the RSLClockPlus window is activated, simply double clicking the right menu button twice will toggle you in and out of the backdrop screen! In addition to the new features, the older features have been "polished" up a bit! Although the program is a bit larger than 1.0, I think that it is worth it. To the best of my knowledge it runs on both 1.1 and 1.2 (beta 4). Please tell me if there are any problems running it under any of the available versions of KS! ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** New in Version 1.11: There is an unfortunate flaw in the ctime() function which came with my Aztec compiler, which I had to build a "fix" for. Now the date will not be displayed as "Nov 0" when in fact it is "Oct 31"! Another problem fixed in Ver 1.11 is due to the fact that the device driver for the floppy drives think that there are only 488 bytes per block, instead of 512, which is the way that INFO calculates it! Since everyone believes INFO, I have adjusted this "anomaly" so that the free bytes of the disk drive will be the same as displayed using the INFO command! **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** New in Version 1.2: I have found out that there in fact is ONLY 448 bytes per block on the disk drive! the remaining 24 bytes are used by AmigaDOS as its overhead. I have decided that in a rebellious mood I will display what space is really available to you, the user instead of the "Public Relations" space available indicated via the INFO command. Truth is more important than having my program agree with INFO's inaccurate value! So back to a 5% discrepancy with INFO's value! COLOR, and POSITION commands have been included in this version. I happen to prefer the default values (of course I do, I wrote them into it as defaults), but if you people want to customize it you own liking, GO AHEAD! Of course, the menu allows you to change colors "on the run". In previous versions only 3 significant digits were displayed for Kbytes free on peripheral storage devices. This is fine for floppies, but not for hard disks. In this version hard disks will be displayed with 5 significant numbers (if you have MORE than 99999K Bytes free, you shouldn't be caring about your available free memory)! Another small feature added in this version update, is that once the backdrop is enabled and brought to the front by double clicking the right menu mouse button, simply hitting any key on the keyboard will bring back the previously active screen and activate the last window used! **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** New in Version 1.3: The "PopUp" feature has been modified - it has an added "Hyper" feature. Use it with caution - it is able to PopUp onto any medium and high resolution screen that is currently in front, but don't close screens while RSLClock is on that screen, otherwise your Amiga may or may not go BYE-BYE! I tried to have it popup on lo-res, but the menus get all screwed up. An additional device has been added to the menu choice. It is called VD0: for virtual device. This is the device used in ASDG's recoverable RamDisk device (no, I don't own one yet, but I can hope, can't I?). If you wish to, you may do an "assign VD0: ..." to poll any other device that you wish. The window can now be shrunk to a smaller size if needed, either by using the TINY command on startup or by selecting this feature on the menu. A new highlight feature has been added to give a two tone option on the display. You can even choose to have the "Time:" labels invisible! The window color selection sub-menu has been made more "aesthetically pleasing". An automatic command line execute function has been added. If typed at the end of the command which runs RSLClock (and enclosed in quotations), by selecting the Copyright notice submenu you can summon any program into being! For example, my startup sequence is Run RSLClock "Run WTP" - this way I can run WTP (a PD terminal program) without dealing with my CLI! **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** New in Version 1.31: The only new feature in this revision is an option to enable a full width window to minimize the screen splitting during scrolling, at the cost of hiding more of the window behind RSLClock's window. **************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** New in Version 1.32: Unfortunately some new features added to 1.3X have slowed down the overall performance of the CPU. As a temporary fix, pending either optimization of the given features or elimination of them, I have lowered the task priority of RSLClock from its previous one of 20 to -1. Other than some sluggishness in the seconds count during intensive CPU usage there *shouldn't* be any problems. I have acted on another suggestion of moving the Time: title inorder to improve the readability of the display. **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** Version "S": Some people really seem to like to see the seconds ticking by, so I have made a very slightly modified version, noted with a "S" at the end of the version which has this feature on both 24 military and 12 hour standard styles. **************************************************************************** I know that there already is an abundance of "clock" programs, but this is optimized for my own needs. I hope that others find it useful! I would like to thank Addison-Wesley, without whose ROM Kernal books, I would still be using my C compiler to compile "Hello there!" type programs. Please feel free to use this utility and distribute it freely. Given all the suggestions for additional features, I hope that this program hasn't grown TOO BIG for a utility. I am presently considering adding an additional BACKSCRATCH option, using the chinese backscratch feature that was never a well documented feature in the Amiga A1000 hardware specs, it will scratch the user's back at a pre-selected interval! Feel free to comment, suggest, compliment, and disparage, as you wish! Happy Hacking! -RSL- AMuse BBS (212)269-4879: Roy S. Laufer CIS: 72435,1025 Delpi: RSLaufer P.S. STILL LEFT TO BE DONE: I would like to TOTALLY blank the screen, i.e disable the video DMA, but have yet to discover a "safe" way to do it! I would also like to incorporate a timer for automatic "black-out" of the screen (ala PopCLI), but I will have to wait for an update of Aztec so that I can use an assembler to do it right. I've tried the 'C' source by Perry K. in his "ScreenSaver", but find its accuracy erratic (to be kind)! If anyone has any suggestions, or 'C' source fragments feel free to send them via any of the above BBS's!