Kosovo Orphans' Appeal Charity CD

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Text File | 1997-04-26 | 12KB | 242 lines

Possum Version 1.16 ⌐ Peter Gaunt, 1997 ----------- This application is Freeware and has not been released into the Public Domain. Consequently, you may not sell it or include it with anything which is sold. If you wish to include it in Public Domain discs which you sell for the cost of the media plus your costs then you'll need my permission to do so. Similarly, if you wish to include it on magazine discs or distribute in any other way connected with trade then you'll also need my permission. You may pass this software on freely so long as all files, including this one, are included unaltered. This program requires RISC OS 3. See end for version changes. ----------- What is Possum? --------------- Quite simply, Possum is a little clock which sits on your desktop and counts down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the third millennium (whether you consider that to occur in the year 2000 or in 2001). Sad really. How to run it ------------- Just double click it. Possum will load and display its window in one corner of the screen. Configuration -------------- Possum has a configuration window. Open the menu and select 'Settings'. There'll be a slight delay before the settings window opens. There is a grey rectangle labelled 'corner' with a little red rectangle at one corner. Choose one corner of the grey rectangle to select which corner of the screen Possum will live in. From the 'Display' menu choose the type of display you want. At the top of the menu is a 'System/desktop' item; choosing this makes Possum use the system or desktop font for the display. Choosing one of the other items makes Possum use one of its 'fancy' fonts and borders for the display. Some of the 'fancy' fonts may not look too good in TV-resolution modes (such as mode 12). You can design your own fancy fonts and borders if you wish. See the file called 'What?' inside !Possum.Fancy to see how this works. If 'Leading zeroes' is ticked then when necessary the number of days is padded on the left with zeroes otherwise it is padded with spaces. There's an option icon labelled 'Local time'. If this is ticked then Possum will count down the time to 00:00 1st Jan 2000 (or 2001) in your local time zone. If it's not ticked Possum displays the time until 00:00 1st Jan 2000 (or 2001) GMT (i.e. along longitude 0). Whether this works depends on whether you have your computer's timezone configured correctly. If 'Local time' is ticked then another option is available labelled 'Will occur in DST'. Tick this if the start of the millennium will occur during daylight saving time in your neck of the woods. Finally, there's an option icon labelled 'Starts in 01'. If this is ticked then Possum will count down the time to 00:00 1st Jan 2001 instead of 2000. Click on 'Set' to apply these settings for the current session. Click on 'Save' to apply the settings in this and future sessions. Anything else? -------------- Possum always lives at the bottom of the window stack immediately above the Pinboard. Or at least it should do. If it doesn't, or it disappears behind the Pinboard or causes other windows to behave oddly then please let me know. Possum's display may be dragged around the screen with Select. It'll return to its corner if you change screen mode or double click it with Select. You can also drag it around with Adjust. If you do this then when you stop dragging, Possum will attach itself to the nearest corner of the screen. This then becomes the configured corner for the current session. If you've dragged Possum away from its corner with Select then double clicking it with Adjust will make it attach itself to the nearest corner. Please note that the settings functions live in a separate program to Possum itself. I've done it this way in order to keep the amount of memory normally used by Possum to a minimum (after all you probably won't alter the settings very often once you've got it set up how you want it). The two programs talk to each other via scrap files stored inside !Possum. If you're running Possum from floppies, or another removable medium, you'll need to make sure the floppy is in the drive when you choose 'settings'. If you're running it over a network then it'll need to live somewhere writeable. What happens when the millennium has passed ------------------------------------------- One thing that happens is that Possum simply starts counting down to the next one (in 3000 or 3001). After all, it is supposed to be a millennium clock... Anymore? -------- Not really. I'll probably try to fix any bugs that folks report. Oh yes, you can't run more than one copy at a time on the same machine. If you try the second copy will close down as soon as it starts up. Contact ------- Any suggestions or bug reports to pete@beard.demon.co.uk Versions -------- 1.00 (10-Apr-1997) First release 1.10 (11-Apr-1997) 'Fancy' font added 1.11 (11-Apr-1997) Now doesn't go funny when the start of the millennium has passed and every 10000 days thereafter (it'll now just wrap to zero on 19th May 2027 or 366 days later if 2001 is set). By then I'll probably be too old to care anyway... 1.12 (11-Apr-1997) Slightly altered the way in which the next update time is determined so that it compensates for any drift in the machine's monotonic timer which could mean the time was up to one second out. It now gets updated on one second boundaries read from the real time clock (or as close as the machine's polling allows). Also altered the 'fancy' font so it's slightly smaller. 1.13 (12-Apr-1997) Changed to using Julian days (astronomical stuff) to calculate time left. Gives same results as the old (This version version but a) I'm happier with it and b) the old version not released will crash on 19 January 2068 (at 03:14:08) due to but changes overflows in some C-library function or other. The new carried version doesn't crash but it does just stop sometime through to in 2107 (dunno why as yet). I'm a sad bastard... next version) Changed 'fancy' font again so that it uses thinner lines. Also added proper sprites file for TV resolution modes (not great though). The old 'fancy' fonts files are still there (in Resources) and called 'original' and 'smaller'. If anyone can do better fonts please let me have them. 1.14 (13-Apr-1997) Fixed bug in fancy template which allowed other windows to open behind it. Should now not be possible to lose it behind the icon bar. Added leading zeroes option to settings window. '2001' item in the settings window renamed to 'Starts in 01'. Except when there are less than 100 days left it now always starts up without padding spaces or zeroes in the day field. Increases on the fly if necessary but never decreases. If less than 100 days there are always three positions in the day field. If the day field should overflow (it shouldn't) the day digits (fancy display only) will be inverted. At the end of a millennium a it now starts a countdown to the next one instead of counting up from the last one and wrapping every 10000 days. Fancy display completely altered. Now made up entirely from sprites in the spritesXX file, including the borders. See the 'What?' file in !Possum.Fancy for details. 1.15 (18-Apr-1997) Starting up with ALT held down allows multiple copies to be run. This is really for testing purposes and users should be aware that all copies read and write resources (which can cause unexpected things to happen in some circumstances). Stopped using the 'C' time library entirely and am now using the Territory SWIs throughout to read time. The old version just stopped at 06:28:15 on 7th Feb 2106 claiming there were 401767 days left to the year 3000 (which is wrong). At 06:28:14 it claimed there were 326490:17:31:46 left to 3000 which I think was right but may be a day out. The new version manages to keep going until 06:57:57 on 3rd June 2248 when there is 274508:17:02:03 left to 3000. At 06:57:58 it suddenly changes to saying there are 36524:00:00:00 left. This is because the real time clock wraps at this time back to 1900. So, unless someone pours some more centiseconds into the real time clock before 2248 it looks like this is as far as Possum can go without keeping its own flag to say the clock has wrapped. Pity really, since in 3000 it would have started counting down to 4000, then 5000 but is it really worth worrying about it, I ask myself? One thing I wonder is how did the 4-byte 'C' timer manage to keep going until 2106 when it wraps for the *second* time (the first time being in 2038). New fancy sprite file supplied, 'Minute'. This is probably about as small as you can sensibly get while still being readable (digits are 8 by 7 pixels). Also included 'Watch' sprites by Alex Blamey which he originally also called 'Minute'. These are even smaller. For info on Alex's eyesight contact him on alex@cubitt.zynet.co.uk Some of my own fonts edited just a little. 1.16 (26-Apr-1997) Configuration moved to a separate application. Possum is quit and then re-run when 'Set' or 'Save is clicked in the settings window. 'Fancy' font is now configurable from the configuration program. No longer any need to edit the configure file. 'System font' item removed from settings window. An item to select it now appears at top of 'display' menu. 'set.sysfont' item removed from configure file. System font is now indicated by the 'set.ffont' line reading 'set.ffont:$system'. A few more fancy fonts added, mainly converted from various places on the Internet which supply digits for web page counters. One or two other minor changes but nothing really worth mentioning here. Settings window now responds to interactive help requests.