ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 1988 ^^^^^^^^^^COMMENTS ON CERTIFICATE 99 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good ^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group A review of this software was promised in the last issue of BB&&P. Since then, a rather comprehensive review by Steven D.^Mehr has appeared in the Dec.^87 issue of Micropendium. What follows is not a complete description of Certificate 99, but rather some additional comments and documentation aids. I really think Certificate 99 deserves better report card grades than those assigned by Mr. Mehr. It is VERY easy to use, and must people can follow the screen prompts successfully the very first time without referring to the documentation. It produces excellent certificates and signs. We have all seen "Print Shop" type signs printed with a border on a vertically alligned piece of 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Certificate 99 will do just as good a job making such signs, only the signs are alligned horizontally. This ability to print quick professional looking signs is perhaps the most useful potential for Certificate 99. This is truely application software. With it, your computer and printer can do something really useful. I purchased my copy from TexComp. It came in a very nice transparent plastic envelope with disk, documentation, and 6 single sheets of fancy parchment-like paper. I also received, outside the envelope 30 fan-fold tractor feed sheets of such paper. With the tractor feed perforations this paper would be too wide to fit into the envelope. I am not sure, but I suspect that this was a "free" bonus only from TexComp. You can get more of this fancy tractor feed paper from TexComp for $9.95/250 sheets. The documentation carries a very strong copy protection notice. The name and address of the owner are said to be encoded on the protected disk. I know that when this software was sold at the recent Chicago TI Faire the authors/vendors (one and the same) took each disk sold and appeared to encode something on it prior to turning it over to the purchaser. I really doubt, however, if a mass merchandiser such as TexComp or Triton would go to this kind of trouble. They probably just take the package off the shelf and put it in the mail. The original disk is said to be copy protected, and Great Lakes Software specifically does NOT offer to sell cheap backup disks. Since you are supposed to use both sides of the disk with the write protect tabs OFF, I felt very insecure about writing data to my one and only original disk. I therefore put write protect tabs over the holes for both sides of my original flippy disk and made my legal back up copy using DM1000's "copy disk" function. I had no trouble at all backing up my original this way, and use only my backup for actual certificate or sign creation. All of Mr. Mehr's comments about test entry are true, but text entry is really quite easy. You have full screen editing using FCTN and the arrow keys. Pressing drops you down to the left edge of the next lowest line. This may cause the cursor to disappear, however, because in the small sized letter field the left column is at the very left edge of the 99/4A's screen display. TVs and even some monitors don't show this extreme left column on the screen. The first time I used Certificate 99 on a friend's system (my monitor shows the cursor all the time) I was very mystified by the disappearing cursor. The DOCs state that you can alter the choice of graphics with most of the standard "artist" programs. The two files of graphics are 25 sector PROGRAM files (CDATA21 and CDATA22), and each of these files contains 12 graphics on its single screen. If you use another 25 sector PROGRAM graphic, be aware that only 1/12 of the graphic at a time can be used by CERTIFICATE 99 to ornament a sign or certificate. The original CDATA21 & 22 files are reproduced here graphically for reference. In my opinion such reproductions should have been included in the DOCs. An important UNDOCUMENTED feature is the ability to save files of defaults for a particular certificate or sign (font, text, graphic, border, signature, screen colors) and to load them onto the disk prior to using CERTIFICATE 99. The program normally saves all the data from the last certificate as the defaults for the next certificate. These data are saved as file CDATA00 on side 2 of the disk. There is also a CDATA00 file on side one, but I don't know what this file does. You can create a collection of certificate files by using a disk manager to lift the side two CDATA00 files off the system disk and keep these files on a data disk, each with a different file name. To print a particular previously created certificate use a disk manager to put the data file back onto side two of the system disk, rename the file CDATA00, and then boot the program. This procedure is, of course, cumbersome, but at least such a procedure exists. I don't understand why this feature isn't mentioned in the DOCs. It would be much nicer if you were prompted from within the program for the file name of a previously created certificate. Neither the DOCs, nor the several reviews I have read specifically state the default color combinations or available signatures. These are listed here in the accompanying reference sheet. Richard A. Paquette is listed among the famous people whose signatures are available. (You can also choose no signature, or a blank line for your own signature.) He is the CERTIFICATE-99 author, in case you are wondering. Since it is not possible to cycle through the various screen color combinations, as you can with the graphics and borders, these color combinations should have been listed in the DOCs. .PL 1