EXPLOSIV.COM - GRAPHICS SCREEN SAVER - VERSION 1.22


Reidar Gresseth and
Chris Hook
Februray 20 1990


Explosiv copyright (c) Reidar Gresseth & Chris Hook 1989, 1990.
This product may be distributed freely to users. It may not be
sold or packaged, either individually, or as part of any other
product without the express written consent of the authors. Any
financial remunerations may be paid to the authors. This product
may not be changed or altered and then distributed without the
express written consent of the authors.

DISCLAIMER: Explosiv is offered on an as-is-basis without any
guarantee as to the correct functioning or fitness for specific
purpose. The authors believe this program to work as described
but you use the program entirely at your own risk. The authors
will not be responsible for any hardware or software damage, loss
of data, or incidental or consequential damage that may result
from its use, whether or not such use is in accordance with
the instructions.

Any enquiries regarding this program should be sent to :

Reidar Gresseth
#207 - 2345 W. 5th Ave.
Vancouver, B.C. Canada
V6K 1S6

As this is shareware and not freeware, a payment of 5 dollars is expected if
you find Explosiv to be at all useful. This amount would also encourage us to
write improved versions of this program.


Explosiv is a screen saving utility which prevents pixel burn-in on your
computer video display. Rather than simply turning the screen off while
the computer is running, Explosiv displays an always moving fireworks show.
As a benefit, you never need wonder as to whether your computer is turned
on or off (a typical problem with simple screen blankers), and you may
even find the fireworks display to be somewhat enjoyable. This, of course,
is a matter of personal taste.


NOTE : Some features included in version 1.22 that were unavailable
in version 1.2 are :

- The maximum time until activation of EXPLOSIV.COM is
now 30 minutes (i.e., the maximum value for the "m"
parameter).

- There is now a "novid" option which prevents explosiv
from reseting the counter when a program is writing
to the screen. This means that explosiv will NOT be
affected by things such as resident clocks, etc..

- A bug with newer versions of mouse.sys and
DOS 4.0x ansi.sys was fixed. Now the order in which
explosiv is loaded in memory should be unimportant.


FILES INCLUDED WITH THIS UTILITY :


EXPLOSIV.COM 9192 the screen saver utility
EXPLOSIV.DOC 11385 this document


NOTE: This program will not become a memory resident screen saver until the
m command line option is invoked. Without this option set, Explosiv
will simply be an amusing, but temporary display of fireworks. It is
suggested that you try out Explosiv in non-memory resident mode first
so that you may see what configuration of Explosiv suits your tastes
best (this is accomplished by trying out the other command line options,
which are spelled out in detail below).


USAGE :

To invoke Explosiv, type the following in the DOS command line :

To initially run or install Explosiv

C > explosiv [] [c] [d] [e] [m] [p] [novid]

To change characteristics of memory resident Explosiv

C > explosiv new [c] [d] [e] [m]

To turn Explosiv on or off type

C > explosiv on|off

To get help, type:

C > explosiv ?


Explosiv runs on many different video display adapters including

MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, MCGA, Hercules graphics card and Hercules graphics plus.

Once memory resident, explosiv can be turned on immediately as a screen saver
by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Shift. However, this should not be done during input/output
operations in order to prevent possible I/O errors (such as during modem
operations or when checking disk access time, etc.).

When Explosiv is invoked as a screen saver it will halt the currently running
program until a key is pressed. If this will be problematic then Explosiv can
be deactivated by pressing Ctrl-Alt-E ( E for end ) and activated again by
pressing Ctrl-Alt-B ( B for begin ). This feature is perhaps most useful
when using Hercules graphics cards as there is no foolproof method of
distinguishing graphics mode from text mode.


OPTIONS :

Explosiv can be used with the following options ( Note : Not all options
can be used with all video cards )

d specifies a delay factor. n must be an integer in the
range ( 1 - 255 ) where the default is n = 1.
For example,

C> explosiv d255

for slowest possible output

e specifies number of simultaneous explosions. n must be an
integer in the range ( 1 - 15 ) where the default is n = 6.
For example,

C> explosiv e1

for most possible explosions

m specifies number of minutes of inactivity before Explosiv is
invoked. n must be an integer in the range ( 1 - 30 ). If
this parameter is not specified Explosiv will not become
resident. For example,

C> explosiv m1

becomes a 1 minute screen saver

c specifies the colour to use for each explosion. n must
be an integer in the range ( 1- 15 ) where the default
is n = 15. This switch will ONLY work with the 'mono'
option. For example,

C> explosiv mono c4

displays red fireworks

p specifies number of text pages to save in memory. n must be
an integer in the range ( 1 - 4 ). Each additional page
to be saved adds 4000 bytes to the amount of memory needed
to run Explosiv. By default Explosiv saves one page in
memory. THE DEFAULT SETTING HAS BEEN FOUND TO BE SUFFICIENT
UNDER ALMOST ALL APPLICATIONS TESTED THUS FAR. This switch
only works when used with the m option and does not work
with the 'herc' option. For example,

C> explosiv cga p4 m1

saves all text pages in memory


on Turn the first deactivated Explosiv found in memory on.

off Turn the first activated Explosiv found in memory off.

new Change any of the following options on Explosiv once it is
memory resident.

novid This option causes explosiv to ignore other programs
writing to the screen. This option can not be changed with
the new command.

By default, Explosiv will detect which card is present
and will determine which option to use. Specifying
one of the following options forces Explosiv to run in the
indicated mode.

mda Use 25 by 80 text mode ( assume that the video card has no
graphics ability ).

cga Use 640 by 200 two color graphics ( video mode 6 ).

herc Use 720 by 348 two color graphics ( Hercules graphics mode ).

mono Use 640 by 350 two color graphics ( EGA\VGA's video mode 16 ).
This mode will display all explosions in the same colour.

vga Use 640 by 350 sixteen colour graphics ( video mode 16 )
regardless of video system present. This mode will display
each explosion as a different color ( one of the fifteen
colors available to VGA/EGA color systems ).


NOTES :

- By default the hardware is tested to determine exactly which
graphics card is in use. The switches should be used
with care. However, if you are in doubt as to which
graphics card are available to you, type

C > explosiv ?

This will inform you as to what graphics card has been
found. If Explosiv cannot correctly determine the video
system then you must specify one of each time
you run the program.

- CGA simulating utilities for Hercules cards will not affect
Explosiv in detecting which graphics card is present, however,
Explosiv cannot be invoked for Hercules cards until Video mode 7
is restored.

- The CGA/EGA/MCGA/VGA adaptors uses the same memory area to store
text and graphics. This is a problem when Explosiv is used as a
screen saver where memory usage should be minimized. Explosiv
reserves enough memory when it becomes resident to save from 1 to 4
text pages ( 25 by 80 characters ). This adds 4K for each page
included.

- Care should be taken when running a graphics program on a Hercules
driver as Explosiv has no reliable means of determining what state
the Hercules card is in. It is suggested that Explosiv be deactived
before starting the graphics program and activated again once the
program has completed. This can be done using batch files such as
following

C > copy con run.bat
echo off
explosiv off

explosiv on
^Z

- The mda option blanks the screen without the fireworks display.
This is done by saving the screen in its own internal buffer and
filling the screen in with spaces. There are two motivations
for blanking the screen this way. First is safety, many screen
savers directly access the video controller's write-only ports
and this could lead to a damaged monitor ( particularly Hercules
monitors ). Second, less hardware dependence means that Explosiv
can be used on a wide variety of monitors ( MDA, Hercules, CGA,
EGA, VGA, etc. ) Explosiv will not invoke with this option if it
finds that the computer is in graphics mode.

- Multiple versions of Explosiv can be installed in memory and
run by using the 'on/off' feature of Explosiv. This is possible
since 'explosiv on' only affects the first 'off' Explosiv TSR
and 'explosiv off' only affects the first 'on' Explosiv TSR.
To illustrate, if two versions of Explosiv are installed then
the first can be enabled by typing

C > rem the first TSR must be disabled to access the second
C > explosiv off ( turn off first TSR )
C > explosiv off ( turn off second TSR )
C > explosiv on ( turn on first TSR )

and the second can by enabled by typing

C > rem the first TSR must be enabled to access the second
C > explosiv on ( turn on first TSR )
C > explosiv on ( turn on second TSR )
C > explosiv off ( turn off first TSR )