Microreview for December 1998 Micropendium by Charles Good TI SPLASH SCREENS and THEME by Addatex software As you are working on your Windows 95 or 98 computer do you miss your good old TI99/4A? Do you mess the good old TI title screen, those familiar beep and uhoh warning sounds, and that good old cursor always flashing on the lower left of your monitor? Well I have just the cure for what ails you, and you can download it for free from the internet or have me mail it to you. Addatex software has created two software packages they refer to as “funware” (translate as “freeware” or “free”) which give the look and feel of a 99/4A to Windows 95 and 95. The first of these is called Splash Screens. When installed, this software will replace all the normal Microsoft Windows “white cloud” pictures with a graphic of the 99/4A color bar title screen. When you turn on your PC you will briefly see the 99/4A title screen until your desktop appears. When your desktop appears, you will have the good old 99/4A title screen as wallpaper with all your normal Windows icons easily visible. When you shut down your computer (“Start”, then “Shut Down”) you will first see the 99/4A title screen with the words “Wait for shutdown” just above the lower colorbar. Then, after your computer closes all of its files, if your computer is not one of those that automatically shuts itself off you will see the 99/4A title screen with the words “Please shut down the computer”. The Splash Screens software creates a program window (click on “Start”, then “Programs”, then “TI99”) and one of the options in this window is to turn on and off all these TI title screen graphics. If you turn them off you revert back to the Windows cloud pictures, but the TI graphics are still on your hard drive and you can turn them on again by clicking the appropriate icon in the TI99 program window. Another thing you can do from the TI99 program window is open an MSDOS window and have it look just like a session of TI BASIC in your choice of either 40 or 80 column display. The effect is very realistic! You see * TI READY * and a flashing rectangular cursor below in the lower left side of the screen with black TI letters on a light blue background. The 40 column display looks just like a real 99/4A in TI BASIC command mode. The 80 column display resembles a Geneve running MDOS or a 99/4A with an 80 column display. When you type, the font you see is identical to the 99/4A’s with lower case letters that look like small upper case letters. From this simulated TI Basic MSDOS window you can execute any DOS commands such as cd, dir, and copy. When you are finished just enter “exit” to return to Windows. The second Addatex software product adds 99/4A sounds and icons to Windows. This is a 99/4A THEME and requires Microsoft PLUS in order to run. PLUS is an extra cost addition to Windows 95 or 98 that adds a bunch of cosmetic features, has a great pinball game, and for Windows 95 users includes a greatly enhanced disk compression utility. Once you purchase and load PLUS then you can load up your free Addatex 99/4A theme. The theme adds 14 different 99/4A sounds that sound off during various windows operations. There is the famous Parsec “alert”, an “uhoh” if something goes wrong, the TI “beep”, and other familiar and not so familiar sounds. Most of these sounds are from TI game cartridges but not necessarily from well known cartridges. I think one sound is from the Manacala cartridge which very few folks have. The 99/4A theme also gives you lots of icons. For mouse pointers you get an animated (yes moving) TI title screen for the “working in background” symbol and an animated Parsec fighter ship for the “busy” indicator. You also get the Donkey Kong monkey for the recycle bin icon. He has a smile on his face and a fat stomach if there is something in the recycle bin and is thin with a frown if there is nothing in the recycle bin. Network neighborhood also has a new graphic. The “My computer” icon is a very cute green ball with a face that comes from the Jaw Breaker cartridge game. Within My computer you get your choice of any of three types of hard drive icons. The default is Munchman, with jaws about to close on a graphic of a hard drive. You can also switch to Robopod drive icons, which are based on an Addatex game that is free for the downloading from the Addatex web site. You can also chose “Lettered” icons in which each hard drive is indicated with a letter that comes from the 99/4A character set. Using the TI99 program window or using PLUS, the various icons and sounds can be switched in or out at will, alternating with the default windows equivalents or with others available from the PLUS software. In addition to sounds and icons, the TI99/4A Theme changes the overall appearance of your desktop. Theme gives you a 99/4A wallpaper on your desktop. The default background color is light blue, just like TI Basic command mode, and this background color caries over into many windows applications. The top command bar and the up/down left/right cursor arrow bars are usually green as in TI Basic run mode. A lot of command bar text is either white on green or green on white and some of the text is rather blocky and resembles TI Basic ascii characters. The effect of all this, the icons the sounds and the windows bar displays, is that no matter which windows applications you run you can almost always hear and see on screen aspects of the 99/4A. You will never forget your 99/4A computing roots when you run this addatex software on a modern windows capable computer. Both Splash Screens and 99/4A Theme require Windows 95 or higher. They won’t run on Windows 3.11. I haven’t tested them on Windows NT, but they will probably work on that platform. Splash Screens does not require additional software, so all 99/4A enthusiasts should set this software up on your windows PC. Theme requires PLUS, which can be purchased at most stores where Windows 98 and other Microsoft software is sold. I recommend PLUS users download and install both Splash Screens and Theme. The only overlap in the two products is that they both give you a 99/4A title screen desktop wallpaper. Both TI Splash Screens and Theme can be downloaded for free from the Addatex web site located at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/addatex/. Click on “download freebies” and then download the second and third freebie listed. If you don’t have access to the web then send me $1 and I will mail both the software packages to you on a single 3.5 inch IBM formatted floppy disk. Whether you download or get the software from me by mail you will get zip files which have to be unzipped. A good windows product that does this is Winzip, which is shareware. I will put a trial version of Winzip on the 3.5” disks I mail. Internet users can download Winzip from http://www.winzip.com. To install the addatex software properly: First install Winzip on your hard drive. Second, click one or both of the addatex zip files which will start the process of Winzip unpacking the files to a subdirectory under c:\unpacked and will open window to this subdirectory on your monitor. Third, leaving the c:\unpacked\... subdirectory window open go to “my computer” and click on the c drive icon to open the root directory window of the c drive. Fourth, find the “9-t-9” file folder in the open c:\unpacked\... window and drag this file folder to the root directory of the c drive. If you have downloaded and unpacked both Splash Screens and Theme then there will be two 9-t-9 folders in different subdirectories of c:\unzipped. Drag them both to the c root directory window and put one 9-t-9 folder on top of the other, having the second 9-t-9 directory overwrite the first as needed. These 9-t- 9 folders with all the addatex software will only work properly if placed in the root directory of drive c and named 9-t-9. You are now ready to go! Click on “start” then “programs” then “ti99” and begin to enjoy your new modern pentium powered super fast PC-TI hybrid. Access: Addatex software On the web at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/addatex Charles Good P.O. Box 647 Venedocia OH 45894 Phone 419-667-3131 email good.6@osu.edu