Category : Display Utilities
Archive   : HEREIAM.ZIP
Filename : HEREIAM.DOC
PROGRAM: HEREIAM.COM
AUTHOR: Brett Glass
PURPOSE: Detect those hard-to-find laptop cursors
ACCESS: PC Computing, September 1990
HEREIAM.COM Flags your cursor
and saves sore eyes
Users of laptop and CRT displays with small characters know how easy
it is to lose sight of the cursor. The problem is worse for those with
non-backlit LCDs: To find the diminutive marker, you have to stare at the
screen for a long time, especially if the cursor's not flashing.
A tiny memory-resident program, HEREIAM.COM, lets you tap a key
to make the cursor reverse colors so it stands out from its surroundings
for a second and then returns to normal.
Run HEREIAM.COM before the first use of any application in which the
cursor easily gets lost. The best method is to include it in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Then, whenever you lose track of the cursor, press
the hotkey to make the cursor pop out. The hotkey is set for Alt-C,
but you can change it.
The enclosed file, HEREIAM.SCR, creates a version of HEREIAM.COM
that highlights the character under the cursor when you hit Alt-C. But
if one of your applications uses Alt-C, create a different hotkey by
changing the hexadecimal code 2E, on the first line, to any of the
hex codes in the following key codes chart. For more codes, see
PC Computing's September 1990 issue.
Key Codes Chart:
Alt-Q 10 Alt-F 21
Alt-W 11 Alt-G 22
Alt-E 12 Alt-H 23
Alt-R 13 Alt-J 24
Alt-T 14 Alt-K 25
Alt-Y 15 Alt-L 26
Alt-U 16 Alt-Z 2C
Alt-I 17 Alt-X 2D
Alt-O 18 Alt-C 2E
Alt-P 19 Alt-V 2F
Alt-A 1E Alt-B 30
Alt-S 1F Alt-N 31
Alt-D 20 Alt-M 32
HEREIAM.COM assumes that the application program you're running
displays the cursor in the way IBM originally intended: by calling on the
routines built into the ROM chips in your computer. Occasionally, a
program tries to display a cursor differently -- either by flashing a box
character on the screen via software or by manipulating the PC's hardware
directly. In these situations, HEREIAM.COM may not be able to find the
correct cursor position.
Also, some other memory-resident programs, such as SideKick, take
over the machine so completely that they disable HEREIAM.COM while they
run.
Finally, HEREIAM.COM works within text-mode programs only; it doesn't
attempt to handle the many kinds of cursors used in graphical user
interfaces (GUIs).
FDB 1990
Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!
This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.
But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/