HELPSPEC - Special Character Aide v2.01 (C) 1992, Neal A. Sanche
* Programmed by Neal A. Sanche

Have you ever wished that you didn't have to look up the
IBM Extended ASCII codes for a special character every time you
needed one? Well here is a little TSR that will help with your
dillemma.

HELPSPEC is a menu driven special character generator. Just find
the special character that you want to put into a text document and
press ENTER and it will be placed right where the cursor used to be.
Easy as can be.

Line drawing characters can also be drawn one at a time. Some text
editors such as QEDIT have a built in line drawing mode. Due to
requests made by a few people, line drawing characters are now supported
in version 2.0 and 2.01.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HELPSPEC requires the following configuration:

- IBM PC/XT, AT
- 85K free RAM Memory on startup, swaps to less than 7K
immediately after loading.
- Color, Mono or Plasma displays (same as LCD for some Laptops).
- EMS, XMS or Hard Disk recommended for swapping. (not required)

FEATURES
~~~~~~~~
Here are some of the special features:

Will swap to EMS, XMS or disk leaving only a 7k resident kernel.
Will optionally keep all of it's code resident. Good for use with
QEMM386 and other HIGH memory loaders.
Can be Unloaded from memory. It will beep if unsuccessful.
Swap message can be disabled when disk swapping is used with very
fast hard drives. Or just because you find it annoying.
Supports both Color and Mono monitors.
Plasma monitor support.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To find out how to enable and disable certain options using HELPSPEC, type:

HELPSPEC /?

From the command line. This will give you a list of command line
parameters and their functions. The parameters need not be in upper
case and more than one command line parameter may be entered on the command
line. The help option does halt the program, however, so it can only be
used alone, i.e. no other parameters may be selected when help is requested.


DISK SWAPPING
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When swapping to disk, HELPSPEC opens a file in your C: root directory
called HELPSWP1.$$$. This file will be deleted by HELPSPEC upon unloading of
the pop-up. It is not a hidden file and if you ever need to reboot suddenly
while HELPSPEC is resident, it will be left behind in your hard drive's root
directory. It may be deleted but it is not necessary to do so because
HELPSPEC will use it next time it is resident. When you are using the
default two-swap-file implementation, you may also find a file named
HELPSWP2.$$$. This file is only used in the event that you want to pop up
HELPSPEC when your memory is full. HELPSPEC automatically swaps part of the
memory to disk so that it can fit into memory and pop up. If HELPSPEC is
not resident, you may also delete this file.

SHAREWARE LICENCE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This program is not free, but is nearly free. If you like the program
enough, a donation of $15 is requested and should be sent to the following
address:
Mr. Neal A. Sanche
R.R. # 1
Ferintosh, AB
TOB 1MO (CANADA)

If you are not able to send $15 dollars I would really like to hear about
your uses of the program on a postcard or short letter. I am very interested
in hearing who you are, what you do for a living, and where you came across
the program. And thanks for reading this documentation, intelligence
abounds.

REVISION HISTORY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April, 1992
- Re-released as Shareware, with the stipulation that $15 should
be paid whenever the user see fit. No money is necessary, but I do
like to know who uses the program. Version 2.01 is an updated
Shareware release.

September 22, 1991
- Added line drawing characters and rewrote the program for use
by ECP Communications. Removed old Shareware notices, and documentation
involving Shareware registration and general begging. Version 2.00 is
a limited distribution freeware release.

April, 1990
- HELPSPEC 1.00 released as Shareware to the general public.
Program was previosly released in beta form to McNamara Software
BBS for testing. ALL bugs found and dealt with.