NOTE: the most up-to-date documentation is in CLOCKY.HYP file (read with ST-Guide) Clocky¿ 2.22beta 1998/03/29 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ this is a sort of README.TXT for English version of Clocky. Sorry for my English, I translated the programs roughly word by word and wrote this document in a hurry. What is Clocky? It's the most useful all-in-one utility for Atari range of computers (ST, STe, MegaSTE, TT, Falcon). It's very small (under 5 kB) because it's written in pure assembler. Its development started when I bought my first 520STM in 1989, and still continues as I keep buying new Atari hardware (last time it was NOVA graphics card). When you start using Clocky, you can usually remove many others TSR from your AUTO folder, so you minimize memory consumption and risk of unwanted collision between the many other AUTO programs. Installation: ------------- 1) put CLOCKY.PRG into your AUTO folder. I prefer to put it as the first program, so its functions are available as soon as possible. 2) start SETCLOCK.PRG and configure CLOCKY.PRG for your system and according to your needs (see below) 3) Clocky is able to read date and time from 'DATE' and 'TIME' Cookies. You may want to put DTCOOKIE.PRG into your AUTO folder for this. 4) reboot your computer so CLOCKY starts. Clocky's features: ------------------ [T] shows Time and date in upper right corner of screen (on Falcon in all resolution depths including TrueColor). Graphics cards are partially supported (on my NOVA 1-bit and 8-bit color depths work fine). [?] allows you to define and use two different keyboard layouts (if you are not English or American, you may want to use first keyboard layout for programming and second one for quick typing of texts in your national language - for instance Czech contains 30 additional letters that are mapped on different keys on first and second keyboard layouts). Then you can switch between the [O]riginal layout from ROM, the first [N] and the second [C] keyboards on-the-fly. [D] you can type special letters with Dead keys (this is hardcoded for Czech characters ATM, though I plan on making this freely editable). Dead key is the second key left from Backspace. [A] on TOS < 2.06 you might type special letters (e.g. with ASCII code 240) by holding down Alt and typing the ASCII code on numeric keypad. [M] dynamic Mouse accelerator with variable acceleration (twice or four times). [S] Screen saver - at this moment for VGA monitors on Falcon and for SM124 on ST - saves screen by disabling screen output. On Falcon this also speeds up the computer itself, because VIDEL doesn't hog the data bus when screen saver is active. [L] Latin2 real-time conversion on printer (hardcoded for Czech characters ATM, but might be freely editable soon) [K] Keyboard clicks and/or bells might be disabled [B] Black on white or white on black? This enables invers colors (on Falcon even in 16 and 256 color modes) [+] special support for MegaSTE - enables 16 MHz and caches during boot (greatly speeds up booting). Later you can switch between Slow and Fast mode by pressing [-] and [+] on numeric keypad (just like on older PC's) It is possible to enable and disable all these 10 features by simple pressing the hotkey. Hotkey is the letter in brackets together with some shifts, control or alternate keys - defined by Hotkeys buttons in the Configuration program of Clocky. By default the Hotkeys are defined as LeftShift+RightShift (i.e. both shifts hold down at the same time). Additional features: -------------------- Fufin didn't want to have the Time showed on screen all the time, but he wanted to have a quick look on it from time to time. For this I implemented so called Seekeys. You can watch the Time by simple holding down the Seekeys combination (by default LeftShift + Control). Clocky features Cookie Jar 'JCLK' which points to defined structure. You can drive Clocky by an external program or just read Clocky's settings. A good example is Clocky Tools, written by Fufin. This program is able to stop or enforce Clocky's screen saver by simple moving of mouses pointer to a defined screen corner. The most interesting feature is the possibility of external hotkeys. Clocky holds the control over keyboard buffer and steal any Control-Alternate-key combination. You can read the key in the Clocky Cookie Jar structure and if you like this key, you can take it and set the key value to zero in the Clocky's structure. If you don't react in 0.1 second, Clocky puts the key back to keyboard buffer so operating system or top application can detect it. First Clocky's External Hotkey Client is Clocky Tools, written by Fufin. It's an accessory with configuration file where you can define the GEM messages sent on different keys detected. This way you can easily launch or top your favourite applications (like is text editor, ST-Guide, e-mail program, WWW browser or programming environment) by simple pressing the hotkey (defined in JCLKTOOL.SET file). So with Clocky Tools you get unified environment for launching applications from any other application or desktop by simple keypress! It's even possible to start several different Clocky External Hotkey Clients. Every client has to register the keys he's going to use, so collisions between Hotkey clients are avoided. Don't know what to say about Clocky's Config app. Simply click on buttons, edit both keyboards and have fun. Clocky¿ is fairware. If you use it regularly and like it, consider sending me a small amount of money (read REGISTER.TXT, do not mind the Czech characters, note just the postal address and list of registered users). EnJoy Clocky! Petr e-mail: stehlik@cas3.zlin.vutbr.cz WWW http://cas3.zlin.vutbr.cz/~stehlik/