152 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
152 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
_______________________________________________________________________________
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AGTxT069 AGATE MANUAL Tony Marques
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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LEGALITIES
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AGATE is copyright 1991 by Tony Marques, and is released as ShareWare to be
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freely transfered and copied for the purpose of distribution. However, as
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ShareWare there is an expectation that users register the software with the
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author, and offer whatever they may feel the software is worth. Registered
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users shall be entitled to any future updates. AGATE bears no warrentees or
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guarantees and it shall not be libal for any damage or loss inccured during
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it's use or possession.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Tony Marques 2602 Molitor Street, Terrace, B.C., V8G-3A2, Canada
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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AGATE was archived as AGATE069.SHK and contains the following members:
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AGATE.SYSTEM - system file - essential component
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AGATE.SCREEN - title screen - not necessary for execution
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AGATE.URDATA - user data - essential component
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AGATE.PIECES - AGATE pieces - essential component
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AGATE.FONTS8 - graphic fonts - not necessary for text operation
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AGATE.MANUAL - 'documentation' - not necessary for execution
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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REQUIREMENTS
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AGATE requires an enhanced Apple II computer with 128k. AGATE will disconnect
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the 64k ProDOS /RAM disk located in Slot 3, Drive 2 on 128k machines. AGATE
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does not support disk swapping so source and destination paths have to be
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on-line when performing select disk functions. Consequently, multiple drives
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are recommended. It is also recommended that AGATE be placed on a /RAM or
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/HARD disk when used.
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WARNING: To ensure that AGATE is compatible with your /RAM disks, it is
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recommended that the first time you use AGATE check the validity of your /RAM
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disk before and after use. It has no problems with AE /RAM or GS /RAM disks
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and most others.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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ON-LINE
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AGATE has not been provided with dialing facilities and acts as a dumb
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terminal. Consequently, dialing and other modem commands must be issued by
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users using the basic 'AT' commands. Refer to your modem manual to learn about
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the 'AT' command set and how to use them.
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Basic commands include:
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ATE1 - 'AT'tention, 'E'cho on ('1') - turn on echo while in command mode.
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ATD911 - 'AT', 'D'ial '911' - 'T'one or 'P'ulse may prefix the
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number to determine dialing mode.
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+++ - three '+' with brief pauses - enter command mode after connected
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ATH - 'AT', 'H'ang up - after '+++'
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ATO - 'AT', 'O'n-line again - after '+++'
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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EMULATION
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AGATE's ANSI (DEC VT100) emulation has been further refined and now also
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supports ANSI Music (which may someday be tuned for all computers).
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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OMEN (OA-A)
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The option menu allows you to configure some stuff. The left and right arrow
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keys shift menus while up and down select settings. Pressing OA-S saves
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whatever you have chosen to disk.
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Of the several options two need to be explained.
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SAY -o This option allows you to tell AGATE the system speed of your
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SPEED computer. AGATE is incapable of setting or reading the system speed
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and so it relies on you to SAY what the system speed is. The value of
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the system speed controls the cursor blinking rate, the length of the
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tones, and most crucially timing during file transfers. This is a
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MOST important setting.
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KEY -o This option re-interprets keystrokes. Naturally, keys pressed in
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MAPPING conjunction with the solid apple key have their most significant bit
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set and so they are interpreted as an IBM characters.
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o KEYPAD allows those users without SA-Q W E --> 7 8 9
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keypads to more easily emulate them. A S D --> 4 5 6
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Uppercase is important. Z X C --> 1 2 3
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o ARROW causes the arrow keys to send the ANSI sequences as opposed to
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the true arrow control codes. To allow you to send the actual arrow
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control codes while this option is active, solid apple combinations
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will send the arrows.
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NOTE: LFT and CTRL-H, RGT and CTRL-U, DWN and CTRL-J, UP and CTRL-K
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are all synomous on Apple computers.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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FILE UTILITIES
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Generally, AGATE ignores all file errors. AGATE is also incapable of handling
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volumes which are off-line so it is necessary to keep the SOURCE and DESTIN
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paths in the drives at the same time -- no disk swapping is supported.
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PIZZA AGATE supports unZIPing and is capable of unSTOREing, unSHRINKing,
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EXPLODING members of .ZIP archives. AGATE is currently unable to
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unREDUCE members, but because of it's GREAT rareity no one should
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miss it's presence. AGATE recognizes ZIP files by their .ZIP
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extensions. PKZIP and ZIP are rigistered trademarks of PKWARE.
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.ALZ Before writing PIZZA, I gained some practical experience in the field of
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data compression by writing my own shrinker. The 12bit LZW algorithm
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is capable of producing compressed files smaller than either LZW/1 from
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SHKiT or LZW/2 from GSHKiT, and this is taking into account the overhead
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produced by NuFX archives. It is not as effective as SHRINKing as
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implemented within PKZIP, but not because I am not capable.
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o To prevent it from becoming used as a compression utility, this
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implementation intentionally lacks any means of preserving file
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attributes including filename or filetype, and it also is devoid support
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for multiple members, disk archival, or other any other features
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o Compressed files are named 'FILE.ALZ', but they may be renamed and any
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file may be decompressed which has the '.ALZ' suffix. Decompressed
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files create or replace 'FILE.UNC'.
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VIEW The view option may be slowed with the Open Apple or stopped with the
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Solid Apple. The space bar pauses while ESC abort the viewing.
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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TRANSFER PROTOCOLS
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Currently, only YMODEM and ZMODEM downloading has been implemented.
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Those of you who feel that the user interface is lacking, I must agree.
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YMDMR This YMODEM implementation, by default, supports YMODEM-4k as proposed
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by Morgan Davis, but will also fall back supporting XMODEM-1k or -CRC,
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and even plain XMODEM. Optionally, you may select to use 4MODEM by
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responding 'Y' to the initial prompt. This variety of YMODEM has been
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implemented within METAL and ACOS, but it is also called YMODEM-4k.
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Files downloaded without BATCH (i.e. with any of the XMODEMs) will be
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downloaded under the name 'DOWNLOAD'. Finally, all downloads will be
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placed within the current DESTIN path and will replace existing files.
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o ESC - Abort
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ZMDMR The ZMODEM implementation will again download to the DESTIN path, but
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it will not replace existing files. Instead, it will attempt to resume
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the file transfer from the end of the file, and allow you to resume
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incomplete, interrupted, or aborted transfers.
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o ESC - Abort TAB - Skip file
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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Tony Marques 2602 Molitor Street, Terrace, B.C., V8G-3A2, Canada
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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