DUMPY

Natural Software
19 South 5th. Street
St. Charles, Illinois 60174
(312) 377-7320

This share-ware utility package contains three programs SDUMP.COM,
SDMONO.COM and DISPLAY.EXE. They provide a very simple means to
capture screens from a running program and later replay those screens
in slideshow fashion. This may be handy for quick demonstrations,
where more complicated slide show programs are "too much".

!!! Note !!!: SDUMP.COM works with IBM CGA (color) and MDA
(monochrome) compatible text mode displays (ie: Hercules and EGA in
80 by 25 text mode is OK).


SDUMP.COM
---------

The program: SDUMP.COM (or SDMONO.COM for monochrome displays),
allows you to capture screen images from other programs, save them in
separate files, and later display them with DISPLAY.EXE.

SDUMP is a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program. When you run it
from the DOS command line, it will announce its presence and quietly
sink into the background and wait to be called into action (when its
"hot key" is pressed). When you run SDUMP, you must provide it with
the location and starting file name to use to store the screen images
it captures. For example, you might start SDUMP with this command:

SDUMP C:\SCREENS\SCREENA.DMP

or, if you have a monochrome or Hercules display:

SDMONO C:\SCREENS\SCREENA.DMP

Now SDUMP will store its screens in the SCREENS sub-directory. The
first screen it saves will be called SCREENA.DMP, the second will be
called SCREENB.DMP. Each subsequent .DMP file will increment the
character in the filename just before the extension. These files are
binary data files (a simple dump the the CGA screen buffer) and
cannot be printed or "typed" on the console.

To activate SDUMP and save the current screen to a .IMG file, you
press the [Alt + left Shift] keys together. You will hear a beep when
SDUMP is called. Three beeps means it successfully wrote a file to
the specified directory. Only one beep means it was unable to create
the file (could not find the directory?). Only two beeps means it
created the file, but could not write the full 4k screen buffer,
(disk full?).

Like any other TSR, SDUMP may have compatibility problems with other
software, especially other TSR's. If you have trouble, try installing
SDUMP by itself and adding your other TSR utilities one at a time
after you get SDUMP to work.


DISPLAY.EXE
-----------

Once you have saved several screen dumps with SDUMP.COM, you can re-
display them in sequence with DISPLAY.EXE. This program takes one or
more command line arguments. Each argument represents file
specifications. Each file specification follows the standard DOS
format and wildcards are allowed. For example the following methods
to start DISPLAY.EXE are all valid:

DISPLAY C:\SCREENS\SCREENA.DMP -- shows one screen

DISPLAY C:\SCREENS\SCREEN?.DMP -- shows all screens:
SCREENA.DMP,
SCREENB.DMP, etc.

DISPLAY \SCRNS1\*.* \SCRNS2\*.DMP -- shows all screens in
sub-directory \SCRNS1
and all screens in
\SCRNS2 that have a
DMP extension.

DISPLAY shows a screen, waits for you to press the Enter key, then
(if there are more files that match the wildcard) shows the next
screen.


Monochrome Display:
-------------------

If you have a Monochrome display adapter or Hercules, you must use
the SDMONO.COM screen dump program. Also, when you run DISPLAY.EXE,
you must provide an additional command line argument: "-M" to tell it
to used the monochrome display. For instance, the third example given
above would be entered:

DISPLAY -M \SCRNS1\*.* \SCRNS2\*.DMP


ShareWare:
----------

The DUMPY package is being distributed as shareware. This means that
it is not free. This means that you must pay to use it. However, you
do not have to pay to try it, test it, and to determine if it is
going to be useful to you. You are probably familiar with the concept
by now. ShareWare programs give you the advantage of "test driving"
them. The advantage to the developer is a relatively inexpensive





distribution method. For this concept to work and keep working for
our mutual advantage, you really must register and pay for the
software you actually find useful.

To register your use of DUMPY, send $20.00 to Natural Software at the
address above. We will send you a description of our other software
offerings and provide telephone support.

If you have suggestions for improvement, or problems please write or
call.