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Text File | 1991-02-05 | 19.6 KB | 354 lines

The COMEDY GENERATOR Version 3.1 copyright 1991, Jeff Napier ANOTHER COMPANY P.O. Box 298 Applegate, OR 97530 INSTRUCTIONS AND ADVANCED FEATURES Welcome to the Comedy Generator. The first thing to know is that you will not need to read these instructions. The program is designed to be so easy to use that no instruction is necessary. However, this information is here for those of you who would like to know as much as possible. 1. Copy all the files on your distribution disk so that if something goes wrong, you'll still have a good copy left. Simply copy everything to another disk or directory. In DOSese this translates to: COPY *.* x: where x is the destination. If you want to copy to a typical hard drive it would be copy *.* c:. Optionally, you can make a subdirectory named COMEDY by typing: MD \COMEDY. Then type: COPY *.* c:\COMEDY. 2. Start the program. Simply type: BEGIN and press <Enter>. If you have an older PC or XT-type computer, you may have to wait a few seconds for things to happen. The Comedy Generator is doing many invisible thinking sorts of things in the background and therefore is sometimes slow to respond. 3. The way to control the Comedy Generator is by using the MENU on the right side of the screen. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight a function then press <Enter>. After that, instructions will appear in the lower left box. 4. Start by selecting BEGIN from the menu. 5. The Comedy Generator will now want you to type a sentence. Try something with at least one noun in it. Just like any sort of computer typing, press the backspace key if you make a mistake. If you can't think of anything to write, just press <Enter> and the Comedy Generator will give you a sample sentence. You have a limit of 6 lines. Your "sentence" can actually be several sentences, as long as they fit within the six lines of the upper box. When the sentence is complete, press <Enter> to let the Comedy Generator know that you are done. 6. Now the menu will be active again. Select 'WORD' from the menu. Type a word exactly as it is in your sentence. For now, a noun is best. For instance, if you have a sentence such as "THE CAT IS SITTING IN A BIG BOX." You might type: BOX. The Comedy Generator is pretty smart. If your sentence has punctuation marks, you can ignore them. If your sentence looks like this: MY DOG, "SPOT", LOOKS LIKE A BIG WOLF. you could type SPOT, "SPOT", "SPOT, SPOT", or even 'SPOT., and it will still do the job. 7. Look at the top box. Your sentence has been changed. It may or may not be funny. Practice with all the Comedy Generator's functions will make you better and better at getting funny results. 8. For now, let's experiment with some of these functions. The simplest is REPEAT. Select REPEAT from the menu, or just type R and then look at the top box again. The Comedy Generator tries again with the same parameters. You can select REPEAT as often as you like. Each time you do, the Comedy Generator makes another selection from a random word file. After several repeats, you will start seeing some of the same words appear again. 9. You may want to use a different word from your sentence. Just select WORD from the menu and type a different word that is in your original sentence. The original version is displayed in the lower left box. 10. So far, the Comedy Generator has been using the file called WORDS, which is a highly varied but small list of nouns. Soon, these would get tiring if that's all there were. But there are many more lists supplied with the Comedy Generator. Select LIST from the menu. You'll see a box on the right which is a menu of these lists. Using the up and down arrow keys, select one then press <Enter>. Do not select CUSTOM at this time, we'll talk about that choice later. Now, the menu is active again. You can choose WORD or REPEAT and the next selections will be from the new word list you have chosen. You can even select BEGIN and start with a new sentence. 11. I think you may be starting to see how you can make the Comedy Generator work for you. You can select the list which is most appropriate for the subject matter you are trying to make funny. But there's more you can do. 12. Select NUMBER from the menu and the bottom box will tell you to select a number between 1 and 9. This is the number of words you can pick from your sentence for substitution. As you know, the Comedy Generator normally allows you to pick one word. In many cases, however, substituting two different words in one sentence can be much more effective. Substituting up to 9 words is possible, but the outcome is usually so weird that it is useless. On the other hand, you'll get sentences so unlike the original that you'll certainly have some food for thought. After selecting a number, the Comedy Generator automatically takes you to the LIST function because with a different number of substitutions, it has to know what lists you'll now want to use. The LIST function repeats for as many substitutions as you have chosen. If you chose 4, for instance, the list menu will appear 4 times. The first time, in the left box on your screen, it will say for "selection #1", the second time for "selection #2" and so on. This gives you a chance to substitute a noun, then an adjective then a name, etc. You can also pick the same list more than once. You can pick "TITLES" for selection #1 and then "TITLES" again for selection #3 if you like. To see the result, now select WORD, which will repeat for the number of times you have chosen. Look at the last line of the lower left box and you will see that it is reminding you which list is being used for each substitution. 13. Do you remember the "CUSTOM" option on the list menu? It's the bottom option. If you select CUSTOM, you can type in your own filename. Any MS-DOS legal name is ok. But first, you need to have created it. This is one of the Comedy Generator's greatest features. Let's say that you have to prepare a speech for a group of architects. You could make a file called building and fill it with words and phrases relating to building design or materials. To do this, use any word processor that can create ASCII files and make a file that has each word or phrase on a separate line. Here's an example: gutter frank lloyd wright corner nails plaster & lath GIRDERS CARPENTER MASON CORNERSTONE Ok, I'll admit it's a stupid example, but you get the idea. Notice that capitalization is not important. The Comedy Generator automatically fixes that. The Comedy Generator can also work with some non-ASCII files. It understands WORDSTAR files just fine. Notice too, that spaces are ok. There are some limits. You can only have up to 50 characters per line and up to 200 lines per file. This limitation is to keep the Comedy Generator flexible. It must be able to run in computers with less that 640k RAM. We hope those of you with fancier computers find these limits acceptable. One little surprise: It is important that you don't add blank lines at then end of the file. Your file should end exactly at the end of the last word. If you can move the cursor below the last word, press the backspace key until the cursor is at the end of the word. Otherwise, the Comedy Generator thinks you have entered some blank words into the list. If you don't have a word processor, you can create a file directly from DOS. Here's what you do: 1.Type COPY CON FILENAME where "filename" is any legal MS-DOS filename, in other words, up to eight letters or numbers and optionally a period followed by up to three more letters or numbers. COPY CON tells the computer to copy whatever is typed at the "CONsole" into a file called whatever you typed for "filename." 2.Type words or phrases and end each one with <Enter>. 3.When your list is complete, hold the <CTRL> key and press <Z>. Then press <Enter>. <CTRL><Z> tells the computer that you are done making the file. After you have created a file, you can then start the Comedy Generator and select LIST, then CUSTOM from the list menu. Then type in the name of the file you have created. Obviously, you can create and use as many files as you like. You can also store them in a different disk or sub-directory and type the full drive and pathname before the file name with the CUSTOM Function. Note that you can also add to or modify the existing word files. A big surprise: The Comedy Generator is also a Creativity Generator! You can make other word lists and use them for non-comedy applications. For instance: Rent SPENT BENT RELENT EquivALENt Mendicant Expenient requirement ...This list was used for a poetry application. For more general creativity, you can use a first name and a last name list to create character names for a story, or you can use lists of ideas to force an interesting story plot into existence. 14. Let's say you have already written some material. It would be silly to retype your sentences so the Comedy Generator could operate on them. Instead, you can choose IMPORT from the menu. Then type the name of the file that contains your previously written material. It must be an ASCII file or one that the Comedy Generator can convert. It can convert files created by most word processors such as Wordstar. (But with one notable exception: WordPerfect, version 5.0 or later. If you use this word processor, you must convert the file to ASCII first, and WordPerfect can do it, I'm told, but I don't know how. If I did, I would tell you, because I'm sure many of you like that program and want to use it in conjunction with the Comedy Generator.) The Comedy Generator will use only the first 6 lines of a file, (and that's 6 wrapped lines of 59 characters per line) If you have a file longer than that, simply make another file and paste part(s) of your first file into the new one, then use the small one with the Comedy Generator. Without this limit, the Comedy Generator would try to operate on your whole huge file and it would go nuts and your computer would start to overheat and start smoking, and be a fire hazard and.... 15. If you've been experimenting along with this tutorial, by now you have probably lost a sentence that you would like to have saved. There are two places to keep Comedy Generator output for future reference. You can save your sentences to disk or to paper if you have a printer hooked up. To make a paper copy, with your printer on line, select PRINT from the menu and look at the lower left box. You have several options. Selecting Q will get you out of the printer options and back into the main part of the program. If you type O, for "One" the last sentence you created will be printed. If you type A for "All", everything from this point forward will be printed. To stop the printer from printing everything, you can later re-select PRINT from the menu and type S for "Stop printing" and the printer will no longer mock your every move. By selecting KEEP from the menu, your sentences are saved to disk instead of paper. If you type A, then all sentences will be saved. O will save the one last sentence you created. S will stop saving sentences if A (All) was previously selected. Unless you select C for "Change filename," the output will be saved in a file on the default drive and directory called RESULTS. If a file called RESULTS already exists, the new sentences will be added to the end of that file. You can use any word processor to access this file and edit it, paste it into other documents etc. If you do select C, you will be asked for the name of the output file. You can choose one that already exists or create a new one. If you choose one that already exists, the new sentences will be added to the end of that file. You can tack the drive and directory to the beginning of a filename if you want the Comedy Generator to put results somewhere other than the default disk/directory. If you have a hard disk, you really ought to select KEEP right at the beginning of every session, in case something incredibly good happens, then you'll have a record of it. If you have a floppy, you may not want to use this feature as much because it will slow down the Comedy Generator. Important note: if you have not turned on the A function to keep an on-going record either to paper or to disk, and if then you do have a particularly good sentence, select KEEP or PRINT right away and then the O option, before you change the sentence again. 16. If you have a color monitor, you can change the colors of almost anything in the Comedy Generator's displays. Select COLOR from the menu and look at the left box. Using the up and down arrow keys, select a display part and press <Enter.> Then you will be able to move the indicator in the right box. Notice that the top color is black. You can't see it, because it's black, but the indicator can point to it and you can select it. Press <Enter> to actually select a color. Then you can select other display parts to change and repeat the process for every part you want to change, or go back to the main display to see what results your color selections have had. To return to the main program display, press the <Esc> key at any time. Be careful about selecting color combinations that will hide text. Selecting a blue background and then blue text, for instance, would be stupid. In the upper left box of the main display will be a message: "Do you want to save color changes to disk?" You must answer by pressing Y or N. If you select Y, then it will create a file on the disk called COLORS.CFG. The next time you use the Comedy Generator, it will look for this file and if it finds it, instead of using the regular colors, it will use the ones you have chosen. HINT: If you have created a set of colors that are so terrible that you cannot read the Comedy Generator's displays, you can always delete COLORS.CFG and then it will use the normal colors again when you restart it. 17. As the author of the program, my favorite part is the selection called SHOP. This function takes you on a tour of other products I have created for your use or amusement. When done with this small catalog, press the <Esc> key to return to the main program. 18. Select QUIT from the menu when you are done with the Comedy Generator. It will ask whether you are sure in the lower left box. If so, type Y. THANK YOU I hope you enjoy using the Comedy Generator as much as I enjoyed making it. I must confess that in various stages of testing I came across some very funny sentences that had me falling out of my chair laughing. If your results start out more silly than funny, stick with it, practice with the use of this tool will help tremendously. This is shareware. You are invited to copy it and give it to your friends or distribute it for profit. The only requirement is that all files remain intact and unchanged. For those of you who don't know, shareware works like this: This program is offered to you on a try-before-you-buy basis. The author makes NO money until you send some. If you have paid a few dollars for this disk, you paid a distributor for the service of copying, not for the program itself. Because of this unlimited distribution many people get to see shareware products yet there are no advertising costs. That's why some software of this quality costs $300 but the Comedy Generator is only $9.95!!! If you like it, please 'fess up. Send $9.95 to: ANOTHER COMPANY P.O. Box 298 Applegate, OR 97530 (Outside USA: Send US funds drawn on a US bank) Orders 1-800-345-DISK; All other business 503-846-7884 - Jeff Napier February 5, 1991