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- NFL FORECASTER for Windows
- Version 2.0w
-
- Copyright 1993 by George Tylutki
- Association of Shareware Professionals Member
-
- 100% Cotton Software
- RR 1 Box 1622
- Hop Bottom, PA 18824
- 717-289-4019
-
-
- README.DOC
- ----------
-
-
- You should read this entire document before installing NFL
- Forecaster. Read "Catching Up" in forecast.wri or in the
- on-line help if you are installing Forecaster after the
- season has begun.
-
- --------
- CONTENTS:
- --------
- Introduction
- Minimum Requirements
- Installation
- Running Forecaster
- Registration
- Reading/Printing the Documentation
-
- ------------
- INTRODUCTION
- ------------
- Using only scores, NFL Forecaster assigns each NFL team an
- offense and defense ranking and a sum ranking (offense and
- defense combined). Based on these rankings Forecaster
- predicts winners of games and the point spreads. In
- addition, Forecaster performs a number of other functions
- such as maintaining various statistics and printing several
- types of reports. It only takes 10 minutes a week to enter
- this week's scores and obtain next week's forecasts.
-
- Over the past nine seasons, FORECASTER has correctly
- predicted winners 62% of the time and spreads 55% of the
- time. Forecaster predicted winners and spreads for 93.5% of
- the games (only 131 of 2,002 games were too close to call),
- not just Monday night games or "5-star specials." NFL
- Forecaster usually picks more winners than the handicappers
- and regularly predicts more spreads correctly than the Las
- Vegas odds-makers.
-
- Forecaster uses only scores to objectively rank teams.
- Therefore, it cannot take into account that the Raiders are
- very good on Monday night or that a quarterback broke his
- arm during practice, but you can. Forecaster is like a
- personal odds-maker; it doesn't bet, but it will tell you
- who will probably win, by how much, and why (it shows the
- rankings it has assigned to each team).
-
- --------------------
- MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
- --------------------
- NFL Forecaster will run on any computer system capable of
- running Microsoft Windows 3.0 or 3.1 (not in Real mode) with
- 607K free disk space.
-
- ------------
- INSTALLATION
- ------------
- To install NFL Forecaster, run SETUP.EXE using Windows Program
- Manager or File Manager "Run" command. Setup makes NO changes to
- your autoexec.bat, config.sys or win.ini files and it does not
- change your PATH statement (or any other environment variable).
- Therefore, you can uninstall Forecaster simply by deleting the
- various Forecaster files.
-
- Setup will correctly install Forecaster from the
- self-extracting file (4cast.exe) or from the group of files
- (already extracted from 4cast.exe) and from one drive and/or
- directory to another (that is, from a:\ to c:\forecast or from
- c:\temp to c:\sports or from c:\forecast to c:\forecast).
-
- Forecaster setup will do the following:
- --------------------------------------
- 1. Setup will ask if it should begin the installation
- procedures; you can answer "No".
-
- 2. Setup will ask you to enter a source path and destination
- path. It will offer the Setup directory as the source and
- 'c:\forecast' as the destination. If these are acceptable, just
- press the "Yes" button; otherwise, enter different paths.
- Press the "No" button to return to step 1.
-
- 3. Setup will ask if it should extract/copy the files.
- Press the "No" button to return to step 1.
-
- 4. Setup will either copy the files from the source to the
- destination path or extract the files from 4cast.exe to the
- destination path. If the source and destination path are
- identical, setup will not attempt to copy the forecaster
- files; it will simply extract the files from 4cast.exe (if
- it exists).
-
- If you already have a main-dta.nfl file in the destination
- path, Setup will ask if you want to replace it with the new
- main-dta.nfl. If you have used NFL Forecaster's Quick or
- Enter Scores functions to enter scores, the updated rankings
- were saved to main-dta.nfl. The updated rankings will be
- wiped out if the new main-dta.nfl replaces the one already
- on your disk.
-
- 5. Setup will move forecast.ini to your windows directory.
- If you already have a forecast.ini file in your windows
- directory, Setup will ask if you want to replace it with the
- new forecast.ini. If you have been using NFL Forecaster and
- have changed some options and saved them to disk, the
- changes are stored in forecast.ini. The changes will be
- wiped out if the new forecast.ini replaces the one already
- on your disk.
-
- 6. Setup will move bwcc.dll and commdlg.dll to your
- windows\system directory if they are not already there.
-
- 7. Setup will ask if you want to create a new Program
- Manager group called "forecast.grp" and install forecast.exe
- and forecast.wri (the docs) in it. Unless you want to put
- the files in a different group yourself, you should press
- the "Yes" button.
-
- 8. Setup will ask if you want to run NFL Forecaster. If you
- answer yes, Setup will end and Forecaster will run;
- otherwise, Setup will just quit. If, when you run
- Forecaster by answering yes, Forecaster is unable to find a
- file (such as schedule.nfl or main-dta.nfl), simply quit
- Forecaster and then run it again by clicking its icon. It
- may be unable to find some files when it is first run during
- the setup process because of the interaction of Windows
- versions, source and destination directories and compressed
- forms it is shipped in.
-
- If there is an error extracting or copying the files, setup
- will quit (after informing you); otherwise, the installation
- would be incomplete.
-
- ------------------
- RUNNING FORECASTER
- ------------------
- You run NFL Forecaster by double-clicking on its icon, by
- highlighting the icon and pressing the Enter key or by using
- the Program Manager's File/Run menu. A title and
- registration reminder dialog box is displayed while NFL
- Forecaster loads and initializes. When the main menu is
- displayed, you can press the "OK" button to continue (the
- button is inactive until then). The title dialog box of the
- registered version of Forecaster does not contain a
- registration reminder and will close itself automatically
- when Forecaster has loaded. The file PACKING.LST contains a
- complete list of files shipped with NFL Forecaster and a
- description of each.
-
- ------------
- REGISTRATION
- ------------
-
- The files REGISTER.DOC and FORECAST.WRI (and Forecaster's
- on-line help) contain complete information regarding the
- registration fee, benefits of registration and registration
- form.
-
- ----------------------------------
- READING/PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION
- ----------------------------------
- Although the manual (forecast.wri) was composed using
- Microsoft Write, you can read/print it using many other word
- processing programs. The other text files (readme.doc,
- register.doc, etc.) are straight ASCII text files and can be
- read/printed using any MS-DOS editor or word processing
- program.