MONO.COM
Command

Michael J. Mefford
1989 No. 6 (Utilities)


Purpose:Makes the display of color applications legible on laptop
computers and other monochrome screens that have limited intensity range
capabilities by translating the color attributes into black-and-white.

Format:MONO [U]

Remarks:MONO is a memory-resident utility that is normally loaded as
part of an AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If no other TSR programs are installed after it,
MONO can be deinstalled by re-entering the command with the U parameter added.

Once installed, MONO automatically converts color attributes into black-
and-white, updating the screen approximately five times each second. Since a
typical 80 x 25 display contains 2,000 attribute bytes, some loss in speed must
be anticipated, though the amount of degradation will vary with the type and
clock speed of the system microprocessor. For applications that do not require
MONO, its active state can be toggled off and on by alternately pressing Alt-M,
the default hotkey.

Instructions for changing the default hotkey and the screen update
frequency, as well as for reversing the algorothm (should the entire screen
appear in reverse video after color translation) and eliminating "snow" produced
by CGA adaptors, are contained in a sidebar to the published article.

Note:MONO is not intended to work with graphics programs.

Available for downloading from PC MagNet (see the MONO by Modem sidebar
in the article), MONO.COM is already compiled and ready to run. As an
alternative, MONO.COM can be created from either of two program files that are
both printed in the article and are available for downloading from PC MagNet.
MONO.BAS will automatically create MONO.COM when run once in BASIC. To create
MONO.COM from the MONO.ASM source code requires use of a macro assembler (IBM or
Microsoft, Version 2 or later) and the following commands:

MASM MONO;
LINK MONO;
EXE2BIN MONO MONO.COM;