TSRBOOT
Version 1.2

Copyright 1990 by:

Community Educational Services Foundation
P.O. Box 636
Arlington, VA 22216

Voice Mail: 703-379-4568
BBS: 703-578-4542


CALLING SYNTAX: tsrboot hh:mm [x]
where: hh = hour
mm = minutes
x = optional "Alt-X" pop-up keys

ALTERNATE SYNTAX: tsrboot [x]
where: you will be prompted for the reboot time
x = optional "Alt-X" pop-up keys


TSRBOOT is a "quick and dirty" answer to a recurring
problem. It is one of those " ... someday I've gotta find a few
minutes to ..." projects, and "someday" finally came. After
completing it, I thought you might find it useful too.

TSRBOOT is a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) utility which
will cold-boot your machine at a time you select "come hell or high
water". It does so either from the DOS prompt, or from within a
running program. It purposely does not check (nor care) what's
going on in the computer when its appointed time arrives. That's
all it does. Nothing more, nothing less. As an afterthought, I
did give it one little option which lets you manually abort the re-
boot, either before or after the specified time arrives.

"My God!", you say, "... why on earth would anyone want to
reboot a computer while a program is running?" Well ... this
utility was inspired by the need to "get rid of" a voice mail
program which runs all day, so that its computer could do remote
file retrievals and other batch-controlled communications routines
during the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, like so many
other programs, that one has no "exit by time" function. It's
normal exit is by menu selections. Thus, the only easy way out of
it automatically is to reboot the machine. Prior to writing this,
I checked the largest BBS libraries for something similar, but came
up empty. So ... this little hummer does it, by sheer brute force.
It is neither elegant nor sophisticated. It just does it's thing
and vanishes.

TSRBOOT has a little (very little) intelligence, in that it
will sense a time you input which is earlier than the present DOS
time. If so, it will set the date for "tomorrow". The penalty
for this is that because it cannot really keep track of the year,
if you do that on December 31st, it must pop up (but not reboot) at
23:59 on that day for one minute to reset itself for January 1st.
(The date 1-1 is less than 12-31 and it's easier to do that than
worry about keeping track of the year ... it only happens on
December 31st, and then only if you set a time earlier than the
present.) Also, TSRBOOT does not know about leap year. There is
no such thing as February 29th for this program, and it will not
operate on that day. Sorry about that.

By default, after TSRBOOT goes resident, you may press the
"Shift-Print Screen" keys to pop it up on command. At that time,
or at the preset time you selected, it will begin a count of 30
prior to jumping to the reboot routine. During that count, you may
press any key to immediately abort the reboot, remove the TSR from
memory, and return to the DOS prompt.

If the "Shift-Print Screen" keys are not convenient for you,
you can specify "Alt-X" instead. To make that change, either add
"x" to the command line calling this utility (as in "tsrboot x
" or answer "y" to the prompt asking you if that's what you
want.

NOTE that this "immediate abort" function will ONLY work if
you have called TSRBOOT directly from the DOS prompt and you have
NOT run any other program after that. If you are running another
program when TSRBOOT pops up (the most likely situation), you may
still abort the boot, but to remove the TSR, you will have to first
exit your current program to do it. TSRBOOT will give you specific
instructions for doing so under those circumstances. Just follow
the prompts.

TSRBOOT will save and restore a monochrome, CGA, or EGA color
screen if you abort it prior to reboot. It will not, however,
necessarily fully restore a VGA screen. I did that purposely to
minimize memory requirements.


CAVEATS:

* TSRBOOT will only accept 4-digit 24-hour time. That is ...

3:45 - no good
03:45 - fine
16:7 - no good
16:07 - fine
3 pm - no good
15:00 - fine

* This utility uses "disk swapping" to save some of itself to
a disk file while it is "invisible" and waiting for its appointed
time, thus reducing memory overhead to about 4K bytes. The file
will be placed in the root directory of your "C:" drive, and is
normally called "SR00". If properly terminated, this program will
erase it prior to returning to DOS. If improperly terminated,
however, the "SR00" file may remain. Thus, next time this program
runs, it may create a "SR01" or higher number. NOTE that this
utility will also erase ANY files in your "C:\" directory beginning
with "SR0" and having NO filename extension. This is quite
unlikely to cause problems, but you should know about it
nevertheless.

* The slight delay when you attempt to pop up or abort this
utility manually is due to the disk swapping mentioned above.
Also, if DOS is "busy" when you attempt it, the delay may be
longer. As you might also surmise, you MUST have a hard drive
installed on your system to use this utility, and there must be
room in the root directory of the "C:" drive.

* TSRBOOT is most useful when called from AUTOEXEC.BAT. In
that application, you obviously MUST place the time on the calling
line as shown at the top of this file.

* All TSR's may interact in unexpected ways with other TSR's
and with standard programs. Before you assume this utility is
operating properly on your computer, put it through all the
variables you are likely to encounter, running whatever programs
might logically be running at the time this utility "does it's
thing". It is quite possible that certain files in use at that
time may not be properly closed, or other unpleasant surprises.
This utility is the equivalent to your pressing the "Ctrl-Alt-Del"
keys (plus a memory check). You can logically expect the same
things to happen which would if you were to press those keys while
in the middle of a running program. Some of those things may not
be exactly wonderful. Play it safe: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP.

* Yes, I know this utility does a "no-no" which all computer
"experts" recommend against. But under the circumstances for which
it was designed it works and works well, and there is often no
other way to do what it does. Please, don't lecture me about
rebooting a computer while a program is running. I don't want to
hear it. NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND IS EXPRESSED NOR IMPLIED
CONCERNING THE USE OF THIS UTILITY. It is my free gift to you, and
you may use it strictly at your own risk and responsibility. This
program works perfectly on the three different computers with which
I've tested it; running at three different CPU speeds and with both
monochrome and color monitors. But I make no promises of any kind
for yours, nor can I even know if it will run at all on your
computer.

* When I decided to offer this to you, I added a few alternate
options to make it more versatile. But, admittedly, it does
have a few KISS ("Keep It Simple, Stupid") compromises. If any of
them cause problems for you, let me know. Maybe I'll add a
calendar or something to this thing.

* This program is copyrighted FreeWare. It may not be
used for commercial purposes, sold, altered in any way; nor copied
for distribution without this accompanying documentation file.
You are encouraged to freely copy it and give it to others, but
only under these circumstances. Our attorney is not only hungry,
she's also very aggressive. You have been warned.

Good luck. This is a handy little utility for me. I hope
it's useful for you too.

Jon Larimore