HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS          SM3.02           PAGE 1 OF 6

The minimum hardware requirements for the Stock Charting System are
an IBM or other "fully compatible" personal computer with two floppy
disk drives or one floppy and one hard disk drive, and 384K of memory.
A color graphics adapter (CGA) or equivalent is required for displaying
or printing graphics.  The program does not support the Hercules or
equivalent "monographics" standard, but can be used with a special
software driver (described later).

The program may run on some computers with only 256K of memory, depen-
ding on what version of DOS you are using.

An 80-column graphics printer and the DOS GRAPHICS program (or equiva-
lent) are required for printing graphs.  Tabular price history data and
user manual chapters can be printed on almost any 80-column printer.
See the end of Chapter 18 for more information about the PRINT function
in the graphics screen.

PC-DOS or MS-DOS version 2.0 or a later version is required.



HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS                           PAGE 2 OF 6

If you have a Leading Edge Model D with a monochrome monitor, or if you
are using a Hercules or equivalent "monographics" video controller, you
MUST have a special software driver to display or print bar charts or
relative strength charts.  That software is NOT a part of the Stock
Charting System.  The author recommends, and has tested, a product
called HGCIBM.COM.  This product is available from most public domain
and "shareware" distributors, and may be available from a local computer
bulletin board system.

The instructions for use with that software product are not included in
this document, but will come with that product, and you should follow
those instructions for installation.

WARNING:  The HGCIBM.COM program - or other software graphics driver -
must be installed, with the required setup, BEFORE starting the Stock
Charting System.  In the case of HGCIBM, it makes no difference whether
it is installed before or after GRAPHICS is loaded.  It would be prudent
to put the command for starting HGCIBM into the batch file that is being
used to start the Stock Charting System.


HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS                           PAGE 3 OF 6

If you are using an IBM PS/2 computer, you will need a COLOR monitor in
order to display or print bar graphs or relative strength graphs.  Due
to a hardware "quirk", graphs won't display on a PS/2 monochrome moni-
tor.  Some other computers with VGA graphics may also require a color
monitor.  However, the program should work OK on most portable, laptop
and "notebook" computers with CGA or VGA graphics.

If you are upgrading from Release 2.5 or an earlier version of the Stock
Charting System, you can use all of your existing price history files
(files with names ending in .SMP).  However, your old list of securities
(file INDEXFIL.SMX) cannot be used.  You will have to re-add all of your
securities.  As you do so, the program will recognize existing price
history files.  See Chapter 10.

Registered users receive a free program upgrade which includes an auto-
matic conversion of the old index file (list of securities) to the newer
catalog format (CATALOG.POR).  See Appendix A.




HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS                           PAGE 4 OF 6

If you are using the Personal Portfolio Analyzer, Release 2.12 or a
later version, this release of the Stock Charting System can use its
catalog file (CATALOG.POR).

WARNING:  If you are using the Personal Portfolio Analyzer, Release 2.11
or an earlier version, you must upgrade to a later version.  Earlier
versions have a "bug" that destroys certain data items that are used by
the Stock Charting System.  See Appendix A.  Contact the author for more
information.












HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS                           PAGE 5 OF 6

Before installing or running the Stock Charting System, you should make
sure your computer knows the current date and time.  This is important,
because data written on disks is "time-stamped" with this information.
It is also important because the Stock Charting System and the companion
Personal Portfolio Analyzer use the current date in certain calculations.

Most IBM-compatible personal computers today have a built-in time-of-
day clock which automatically keeps track of the current date and time.
However, some older models, and models with the 8088 or 8086 micropro-
cessors, do not have this feature.

To set the correct date, first make sure the DOS prompt A> or C> is
visible.  Type DATE <Enter> and then enter the correct date in the for-
mat mm/dd/yy, for example 10/21/91 <Enter>.  Then type TIME <Enter> and
enter the correct time, for example 9:30 <Enter>.

In this documentation the notation <Enter> means "press the Enter key".




HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS                           PAGE 6 OF 6

If you have a hard disk, you must install the program on the hard disk
before running it.  "Installation" is the process of copying files onto
your hard disk and configuring programs to run with your particular
computer the way it has been set up.  The configuration process is some-
times referred to as "setup".

If you are a NEW USER, see Chapter 2 for the step-by-step installation
procedure on a hard disk.  If you are UPGRADING from an already-existing
version of the program on a hard disk, see Chapter 3 for the step-by-
step installation procedure.

If you plan to run the Stock Charting System on floppy disks, see Chap-
ter 4.  For best results you should have two floppy disk drives.
