
   This README file included with Pick Directory v1.2 by Scott Alan Hoopes
   is the same for all of his current FreeWare programs.
   *****************************************************

----[ KEY#.COM ]--------------------------------------------------------
 Simple utility for use in a batch file that waits for user to press a
key. KEY# will report the ASCII value of the key as a DOS ERRORLEVEL.
See your DOS manual for an explanation of ERRORLEVEL. Try this program
in conjunction with SHOWERR.BAT and EL.COM mentioned elsewhere in this
file. The latest version of KEY# can print a prompt for you. See the
example below.
Example of KEY# usage in a batch file:
      KEY# Press A to abort this process.
      IF ERRORLEVEL 65 GOTO DONE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ GSTRING.COM ]-----------------------------------------------------
 GetSTRING allows you to get information from the user of your Batch 
files. It prompts the user (with a prompt you supply) to enter the 
information. GetSTRING set an Environment Variable that may be used for
comparing, getting file names, or getting commands (as in the DEMO.BAT).
Use the DOS command SET to see the Environment Variable (G=...).
If there is not enough space in your Environment to hold the GSTRING
variable then GetSTRING will exit with an ERRORLEVEL of 105. See your
DOS manual for information on increasing the size of your Environment.
See your DOS manual for an explanation of Environment Variables.
Please see the DEMO.BAT file in the same directory for a demonstration.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ PASSWORD.COM ]----------------------------------------------------
 The first time you run PASSWORD, it will prompt you for a password. 
Anytime after that, just enter PASSWORD /C to change to a new password.
Of course, you must know your old one to change it. Put the PASSWORD 
command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT File to secure your computer from unwelcome
users. PASSWORD will keep asking for a password until the correct one is
entered. Remeber to run it once to initialize your password.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ T-PAUSE.COM ]-----------------------------------------------------
 Another simple utility to replace DOS's PAUSE command. This program can
do the standard PAUSE or a Timed PAUSE. Just enter T-PAUSE for the 
familiar DOS PAUSE or T-PAUSE xx where xx is the number of seconds to 
pause.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ STROBE.COM ]------------------------------------------------------
 STROBE is another batch enhancer. This one adds a little excitement to 
anything printed on the screen. Want to get someone's attention? Want to
make sure a message in your batch file is seen? Use STROBE. Print the 
message to the screen then use STROBE to flash the screen. STROBE
flashes until the user presses a key. As a bonus, STROBE now exits with
the ERRORLEVEL set to the key that was pressed (like KEY#.COM above). 
Please see the DEMO.BAT file in the same directory for a demonstration.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ LED.COM ]---------------------------------------------------------
 This little one gets the attention of those people who stare at the 
keyboard while they type. This program will blink the keyboard's LEDs in
succession until the user presses a key.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ FRED.COM ]--------------------------------------------------------
 This program reports the total free space on the current drive as a
DOS ERRORLEVEL. The result will be a number 0-255 Megabytes. Use it a 
Batch File to check if there is enough space for some disk operation.
Use this program in conjunction with DO.COM, FREM.COM, SHOWERR.BAT and
EL.COM mentioned elsewhere.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ FREM.COM ]--------------------------------------------------------
 This one is similar to FRED.COM but it reports Free Memory as an DOS
ERRORLEVEL. DOS limits ERRORLEVEL to numbers between 0-255, so you must
multiply the result of FREM by 3 to get you Free Memory. Use in 
conjunction with DO.COM and SHOWERR.BAT mentioned elsewhere.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ DO.COM ]----------------------------------------------------------
 This is a standard Command Line Calculator. Type DO /? for more help.
There is also a special version of DO in this directory. It is much
smaller in size, but will only work on systems with a Math Coprocessor.
If you are not sure if you have a Coprocessor, type DO87. If you do not,
the program will tell you.
DO is Windows Installable; see Windows Installation section below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ BATTIME.COM ]-----------------------------------------------------
 BATTIME allows you to time operations in a batch file. The sample below
explains how to use BATTIME. 
 Try this in a batch file:
 
 @ECHO OFF
 REM run it once to set the start time
 BATTIME
 REM now run your program (this one happens to be MS-DOS's Disk Defragmenter)
 DEFRAG
 REM run battime a second time to get finish time
 BATTIME
 REM the number of seconds is in the BT environment variable
 ECHO Defragmenting the hard drive took %BT% seconds.
 REM this will conserve your environment space
 SET BT=
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ SHOWERR.BAT ]-----------------------------------------------------
 This is a DOS Batch File you can use to report the exact ERRORLEVEL to 
the screen and also save it as an Environment Variable (ERR=). May be
used with KEY#.COM, FRED.COM, FREM.COM mentioned elsewhere.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ DISKINFO.COM ]----------------------------------------------------
 Provides useful information about your floppy disks. To try it, put a 
disk into any floppy drive and type DISKINFO. DISKINFO is Windows 
Installable; see the Windows Installation section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ ANALYZE.COM ]-----------------------------------------------------
 This program will give you interesting statistics about any file you
specify. Information includes character count, line count, white space,
and more. Just type ANALYZE filename.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ PD.COM ]----------------------------------------------------------
 Tired of typing all those CD..'s? Having trouble navigating through all
those directories and remebering all those directory names? Try PD. No 
matter where you are, you can get to your destination directory on the
same drive by remebering only some of the name. Or jump back to the root
directory, FAST! Just type PD [dir-name] or PD [: or \] to jump to the
root directory.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ PDX.COM ]---------------------------------------------------------
 Exactly like PD.COM above except for one very important addition. Not
only can you jump directly to your destination, but you can specify a
command to run also. PDX performs it all withon command. For example, to
jump to C:\CSERVE\DOSCIM directory and to run the program CIM.EXE, all 
you type is PDX CIM CIM and before you know it, the program is up and
running. What could be easier? May be used just like PD.COM because the
extra command is optional. To just get to the directory in the above
example, just type PDX CIM.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ SUBLIM.COM ]------------------------------------------------------
 This is a TSR that flashes any message you supply to the screen almost
unnoticeably every second. For example, SUBLIM I AM A COMPUTER WIZARD
will flash the uplifting message I AM A COMPUTER WIZARD subliminally
while you work or play.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ CCCTSR.COM ]------------------------------------------------------
 Character Cell Cartoons
 This one is really great! Have you ever seen animated Icons in Windows?
Now DOS users can have them, too. Well, sort of. CCCTSR creates a 
cartoon in the area of a single letter on your screen. Run the program
and then hold down the ALT key and enter 255 and release the ALT key.
You will see a little cartoon. To see the cartoon whenever DOS is 
waiting for you to use the keyboard, be sure to include ASCII character
255 in your PROMPT statement and add the command CCCTSR [cartoon file]
in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. You must specify which cartoon you want to see on
the command line. Several cartoon files (those which end with .CCC) are 
included with CCCTSR.COM.
 As an added bonus, I have included the program I used to create the
supplied cartoons. CCC_EDIT will help you change the included cartoons 
to your liking and MAKE YOUR OWN!
 CCCTSR uses less than 7Kb of memory and can be unloaded with CCCTSR /U.
NOTE: CCCTSR can cause some flickering on your screen. If you experience
     this try typing CCCTSR DELAY=x where x can be a number from 1 to 5.
     1 is the fastest and 5 is the slowest. This will change the speed 
     of the animation and should clear most of the flicker. The default
     delay is 3. When you find a delay that suits you, you can use that
     value everytime you start CCCTSR by typing:
     CCCTSR cartoon.ccc delay=x
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ NUMBER.COM ]------------------------------------------------------
 This was custom programmed for a customer to produce Number Search
Puzzles for Dell. It is a scaled down version of PUZZLE.EXE mentioned
elsewhere. NUMBER.COM is Windows Installable; see the Windows 
Installation section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ PUZZLE.EXE ]------------------------------------------------------
 Word Search Puzzle Creator. Make your own puzzles and save, print, 
solve or have the program solve them for you. It does word and number 
puzzles and will use your mouse if you have one. A mouse is needed to
solve puzzles on screen but it is optional otherwise. The PUZZLE.LST 
file has some puzzles made for you and over 3300 words. PUZZLE.EXE is 
Windows Installable; see the Windows Installation section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ EL.COM ]----------------------------------------------------------
 This TSR will warn you if another program sets the DOS ERRORLEVEL. A
program may exit with an error and it or DOS may never tell you. EL WILL!
It will report the ERRORLEVEL value, if greater than zero, to the screen
and will beep to warn you. EL.COM uses less than 5Kb of memory and can be
removed from memory by typing EL /U.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ ELBEEP.COM ]------------------------------------------------------
 This TSR does everything that EL.COM does and more. Windows users enjoy
the ability to attach sound to programs. ELBEEP does this for DOS users.
Everytime you start a program, ELBEEP will play sound through your
speaker. It's not as fancy as Windows, but still fun.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ DRVLT.COM ]-------------------------------------------------------
 This is a TSR that monitors your A & B disk drives and shows you if
they are busy. A green A and/or B will appear in the upper right corner
of your screen each time the drive is accessed. This lets you know when
a disk access is done (such as saving a file) and when it is safe to 
remove the disk without having to look at the front of your CPU. 
 DRVLT only uses 6 Kb of memory and may be removed from memory by typing
DRVLT /U. DRVLT accesses video memory directly and may not work on some 
monitors.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ POPVIEW.COM ]-----------------------------------------------------
 Have you ever wished you could just get a quick look at a file while
you're in another application. But you can't, you have to quit the 
program, load a file viewer, look at the file then finally restart your
program. Well, POP-VIEW is exactly what you need. POP-VIEW is a TSR that
will let you view a file anytime, either while running another program
or not. Just press ALT-P and up pops the window. Type the file's name
and there it is. You can even move the window to a different place on
the screen. POP-VIEW uses 14 Kb of memory and can be removed from memory 
easily.
NOTE: POP-VIEW cannot pop-up over a graphic screen (as with some games);
      it will, however, beep to let you know it cannot pop-up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ SMARTREP.COM ]----------------------------------------------------
 SMARTReporter monitors Microsoft's SMARTDRV cache. Microsoft provides
their own SMARTDRV monitor but it only works in Windows. SMARTRep is for
those of us that spend most of our time in DOS. We need to know if
SMARTDRV is doing its job effectively. The most important information
about SMARTDRV is its Hit Ratio. Too low of a Hit Ratio means your 
current SMARTDRV settings are not efficient. In that case, more memory 
should be allocated to SMARTDRV. 
 SMARTRep will show the Hit Ratio in the upper corner of your screen
while you go about your normal computing activities. It will print in 
Green if your ratio is over 50%, and Red if it falls below 50%. 
 SMARTRep may be unloaded from memory by typing SMARTREP /U.
NOTE: SMARTRep may not work with some programs that use graphic screens.
      SMARTRep is not designed for use with Windows and although you
      will not see it, it will remain in memory until you exit Windows.
      It will then reappear on your screen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ CMOS.COM ]--------------------------------------------------------
 CMOS.COM is a program to save/restore your CMOS memory. Restoring CMOS
would become necessary if your on-board battery ever fails (and they do
sooner or later). As long as the battery is good, your CMOS (which 
contains important configuration information) is always correct. If, and 
when, you must replace the battery, your configuration will be lost. But 
if you had run CMOS.COM previously, it would have saved all the 
important information so that all you would have to do is tell CMOS.COM
to restore your CMOS to its original state. 
 There are alot of CMOS save/restore programs available, but the one
thing that makes CMOS.COM better is that it needs only itself to do the 
job. Other programs create another file on your disks for you to keep
track of. CMOS.COM saves the information to itself and, therefore, 
always has the information available to it. Other utilities have a 
program to restore, one to save, one to compare, and a file to hold the
CMOS data. CMOS.COM does it all with one file! To see how useful and 
easy it is, put the following command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT :
ECHO C | CMOS
This tells CMOS.COM to do a check between the saved data and the CMOS.
Differences in these could warn you of a failing CMOS battery, an error
in your hardware setup, or that the saved CMOS data has become corrupt.
 Be sure to follow CMOS.COM's warning to save a copy of the program to
your Emergency Start-up Disk. You will need it if your CMOS does not
recognize your hard drive.
NOTE: The newest version of CMOS.COM (ver 1.11) will now determine if   
      your system has an Extended CMOS and will save, compare and    
      restore that information, too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ CONSUME.COM ]-----------------------------------------------------
 This is designed mostly for the programmer who wants to simulate a
system with less memory. All CONSUME does is hide memory so it appears
there is less memory. For example, if you have 504 Kb of free memory but
you want to see if a prpgram will run with only 400 Kb of memory you 
would type CONSUME 104 and you would then have only 400 Kb of memory
free. The minimum amount of mem to hide is 6 Kb. You can get back hidden
memory by typing CONSUME /U.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----[ SYSINFO.EXE ]-----------------------------------------------------
 The most important utility you may ever have. If you ever experience a 
problem with hardware or software and have to call the vendor's 
Technical Support or if you have a question about the configuration of
your machine or the machine your about to buy, SYSINFO will make your 
life easier. SYSINFO generates a clear concise report of many aspects of 
the machine it is run on. Reports 7+ pages of information, including 
disks, video, DOS, ROM, CMOS, BIOS, devices, ports, memory, cache, CPU,
environment, and much more. SYSINFO is updated regularly but you are
sure to recieve the latest version. SYSINFO can generate a file for 
later printing. Type SYSINFO /? for more help. SYSINFO.EXE is Windows 
Installable; see the Windows Installation section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

----[ Windows Installation ]--------------------------------------------
 Some of the programs listed here come complete with Windows' ICONs and
Windows' .PIF files. These files may be used to ease installation of the
files into Windows. NOTE: These are programs written for DOS that may be 
used in Windows.
Installation:
1) Open the group to which you want to add the new program.
2) From Program Manager's File Menu:
   Choose New
   In the next window, answer Program Item
3) In the New Program window, choose the Browse Button
   Choose the drive and directory of the new program
   Choose the PIF file with the same name as the Program
4) In the New Program window, choose Change Icon
   Choose the drive and directory of the new program
   Choose the ICO file with the same name as the Program
5) In the New Program window, choose OK
 The ICON and Program Name will appear as a new program in the Group 
you chose.
6) Certain fields in the PIF file will need to be changed for your 
   specific system. See your Windows Manual for information on editing   
   PIF files.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

----[ Author ]----------------------------------------------------------

Postal: Scott Alan Hoopes                   Voice:  (812) 948-8521
        62 Plaza Drive                     E-Mail:  Compuserve 73304,274
        New Albany IN 47150

Feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions.

We specialize in custom programming for special situations. Our advice
is free, our software is your solution.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

----[ Disclaimer ]------------------------------------------------------
 There is no guarrantee associated with this software. 
 Use at your own risk.
 The author, Scott Alan Hoopes, accepts no responsibility for any loss 
whatsoever due to the use or misuse or inability to use this software. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
