EchoMon 1.02 Wed 05-20-1992
----------------------------

New features:

- If you have an Tseng Labs ET4000 based SVGA card, you may wish to
use EM_4000.SYS in place of EchoMon.Sys. This will force your VGA
card into 16 bit mode, except when accessing the monochrome adaptor.

Most VGA cards (good ones) will auto-sense that you have a monochrome
adapter installed, and kick into 8 bit mode. This is necessary
because of the way the IBM ATs (and clones) were designed. This
slows down video performance considerably. ET_4000.SYS will toggle
ET4000 based vga cards back and forth as required. Thanks to Gerry
Rozema for the idea (and the code example).

- Mouse/Key stuffing support. I added this the day after I released
1.00 then promptly forgot about it (about 18 months ago). Sorry.
Look in STUFF.LZH for instructions.

- M2.CMD is a sample batch file you may wish to use. It launches
a background program on your second monitor. For example,
if you would normally start a program thus:

PBW help.c

Simply stick 'M2' (for "2nd Monitor") in front, thus:

M2 PBW help.c

New Comments:
------------

- There was some confusion with the "MODE MONO" command. You do not
need to ever use this command with echomon. In fact, it is strongly
suggested that you do not tell OS/2's INSTALL that you have a second
monitor. If you already have, change the "VIDEO_DEVICES" (in
config.sys), as desbribed later, to remove references to VIO_IBMMPA.

- Real Herculese cards, and many clone Herc cards, will not function
as plain IBM compatible MPA cards. They may not work with echomon
correctly. This is not a shotcomming of echomon, but rather the way
some herc cards clash with VGA cards.

- Echomon does not run DOS programs on the monochrome monitor.

- Echomon 1.01 was an internal release.

EchoMon 1.00 beta, Wed 11-07-1990
----------------------------------

OS/2 does not support two monitors very well. If you type "MODE
MONO", you may indeed switch over to the monochrome monitor, but
your colour monitor remains dormant until you switch back to it.
Furthermore, any program you start while using the monochrome
monitor will only display information when it is the foreground
process. So what OS/2 supplies you with is the ability to use
either monitor, but not both at the same time.

EchoMon solves this problem by precisely echoing the contents of one
full screen colour session to the monochrome monitor. Therefore,
this one session is (when it is in the foreground) running on BOTH
monitors. The advantage is that this session continues to display
on the monochrome monitor after it looses focus and another screen
group is made active, including Presentation Manager. The result
is simultaneous output to both monitors.

Because of OS/2's design, EchoMon can not redirect an OS/2 windowed
session, only full screen sessions.

Any full screen application will run under EchoMon. You could, for
example, run a BBS program (such as BinkleyTerm/Maximus) in the
echoed session, so you could always keep an eye on it. Or you may
choose to run large jobs in that session (such as a compile), so
that you can visually monitor it while working on something else on
your colour screen.

EchoMon requires OS/2 1.20 (csd level WR4051 or greater).

EchoMon is shareware. It is not "CrippleWare" or "DemoWare". The copy
you have is 100% functional and will not stop working no matter how many
times you use it, and it does not have an expiry date. If, however,
you decide to continue using it, you must pay for it.

INSTALLATION
------------

EchoMon is three files:

EchoMon.DLL - Must be placed in one of the directories listed
in the config.sys LIBPATH statement. If you're
unsure, copy echomon.dll to C:\OS2\DLL.

EchoMon.SYS - Must be installed in config.sys, thus:

DEVICE=C:\path\ECHOMON.SYS

Where "path" is the directory where echomon.sys
is located.

You must restart your computer before this part
of EchoMon is installed in memory.

EchoMon.Exe - This file can be located anywhere. You may wish
to place it on your PATH, so that it is always
accessible.

OPERATION
---------

After installation, simply run the EchoMon.EXE program. You will
notice your monochrome screen jump to life, with the standard OS/2
command prompt.

Any parameters given to EchoMon.exe will be passed directly to the
command interpreter defined by COMSPEC (probably CMD.EXE), except
as noted below. You can therefore, have EchoMon automatically
start a program from a batch file or the Desktop Manager. For
example, to "launch" CHKDSK on the monochrome monitor, you could
use this in a batch file:

start /N EchoMon /C CHKDSK

The /N and /C cause the session to close automatically when CHKDSK
is done (the monochrome screen will retain the output from chkdsk
after the session has closed). If you replace /C with /K, the
session will remain open after chkdsk completes.

To "launch" a program from the PM desktop, add a new program and
fill in "Properties" dialog in this manner:

Program Title :
Path and File Name: C:\path\ECHOMON.EXE
Parameters : /C CHKDSK

Run Program : Full Screen

One possibly undesirable side effect of this is that the Program
Starter will bring this session to the foreground when you start it
-- so both monitors will be running the same program. To avoid
this, start EchoMon with a first parameter of "/B". This will
cause EchoMon to start in the background. The /B parameter is NOT
passed to the target program. Modifying the second example (above)
to start in the background would result in:

Program Title :
Path and File Name: C:\path\ECHOMON.EXE
Parameters : /B /C CHKDSK

Run Program : Full Screen


NOTE: With OS/2 2.00, it is possible to start a full screen session
"minimized" (ie: the session is started in the background), so the
/B parameter need not be used.

CAVEATS
-------

- There can only be one copy of EchoMon running at any one time.

- The /B parameter does not actually start EchoMon in the
background. What it really does is start EchoMon in the
foreground, then switch to the Task Manager right after
initialization, thus leaving EchoMon in the background.

- If any programs are STARTed or DETACHed from the EchoMon session,
they must be ended before EchoMon can be restarted. For example,
the following sequence of events will cause EchoMon to report an
error:

EchoMon (simply start an echoed command prompt)
DETACH QH (detach a background process)
EXIT (end the echoed command prompt)
EchoMon (error: "EchoMon can only run in one session")

Before EchoMon can be restarted, the QH process would have to be
terminated. Had the QH program been loaded in an unrelated
session, or had been DETACHed before EchoMon was first loaded,
this problem would not have occurred.

- When installing OS/2, you DO NOT have to tell the OS/2 install
program that you have a monochrome monitor installed. If you
have already done so, you may have something like this in your
config.sys:

SET VIDEO_DEVICES=VIO_IBMVGA,VIO_IBMMPA
SET VIO_IBMVGA=DEVICE(BVHVGA)
SET VIO_IBMMPA=DEVICE(BVHMPA)

You may wish to remove the support for your monochrome screen and
leave just:

SET VIDEO_DEVICES=VIO_IBMVGA
SET VIO_IBMVGA=DEVICE(BVHVGA)

- EchoMon MAY work with later versions of OS/2 1.10 (let me know).

- EchoMon does NOT work with early versions of both OS/2 1.10 and
1.20. The symptom: All output sent via "stdout" and VioWrtTTY()
will not be visible.

- EchoMon works with MS OS/2 1.21.

- EchoMon has been tested and works with OS/2 2.00 (GA).


DISCLAIMER
----------

The Program is supplied "AS IS" without any warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the
implied warranties of merchantabilty and fitness for a particular
purpose.

In no event shall A:WARE INC be liable for any damages, either
direct or consequential, caused by the use, or inability to use,
this program, even if A:WARE INC has been advised of the
possibility of such damages.

LICENSE
-------
You are granted the right to use, at no obligation, EchoMon for a
period of 30 days. After that period, you must either stop using
EchoMon or register it with A:WARE Inc.

You are free distribute, with no obligation, the EchoMon package
provided that:

a) you distribute only verbatim copies of the EchoMon package
as you receive it; and
b) it is accompanied by unmodified copies of this documentation.

You MAY:

a) Use a different compression tool to re-package the unmodified
EchoMon files before distribution.

You may NOT:

a) distribute the contents of the EchoMon package in a modified
form. This includes adding files and/or comments to the EchoMon
package/archive. The EchoMon archive contains exactly 8 files:

ECHOMON.SYS
ECHOMON.EXE
ECHOMON.DLL
ECHOMON.DOC
ECHOMON.REG
STUFF.LZH
EM_4000.SYS
M2.CMD

If you distribute an EchoMon package with more or less than
the above listed files, you are in violation of this
license agreement. If you add an ARC/ZIP/ZOO/LZH/PAK
"comment" to the EchoMon package, you are in violation of
this license agreement.

b) distribute EchoMon in connection with any other product, service
or "value added" package, without prior written permission from
A:WARE Inc.

c) distribute EchoMon for general use within a company or
institution without first purchasing a site license.

d) distribute EchoMon for any consideration or 'disk fee'.

Electronic Bulletin Board operators are encouraged to post EchoMon
for downloading by their users, provided that all of the above
conditions are met.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
--------------
The author would like to thank Gerry Rozema for testing EchoMon,
and for providing the "/B" idea.


REGISTRATION
------------
The registration fee is US$20 (CDN$24). Please see the EchoMon.reg
file for more information.

EchoMon is Copyright (c) 1990 A:Ware Inc.

A:WARE Inc.
6056 Cayeswood Court, Ste 100.
Mississauga Ontario
Canada
L5V 1B1

Voice: (416)858-3222 (Peter Fitzsimmons. Inquiries only).

The most recent version of EchoMon will always be posted for
downloading on RT Lab bbs, (416)-867-9663 and 9664. FidoNet node
number 1:250/628 (Magic FileREQuest name is ECHOMON).