Explore the World of Software 2: Kids, Adults, Educational

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Explore the World of Soft…ids, Adults, Educational / RocelcoInc-ExploreTheWorldOfSoftware-KidsAdultsEducational-Vol2-Shareware.iso / educate / disk097 / spell.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1991-01-03 | 100.7 KB | 1,915 lines

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor, Version 2.00 | | Copyright (C) 1988-1990 By Kenneth R. Casey, Jr. | | All Rights Reserved. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ TABLE OF CONTENTS: In order to accomodate the making of changes to the program and documentation, this document is referenced using a unique decimal/outline format. There is no reference made to page number. A quick glance at the table of contents will serve to introduce you to the features of The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor, as well as to a number of our other products! +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | TITLE SECTION | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ DEDICATION .............................................. 0.0 REQUIREMENTS ............................................. 1.0 BUG FIXES, UPDATES, ONLINE REGISTRATIONS, MAINSTREAM BBS ...................................... 1.1 IT REALLY WORKS! .................................... 1.3 REGISTRATION AND LICENSE INFORMATION ..................... 2.0 SPECIAL 7 DAY LICENSE FOR USE -- YOU MUST READ THIS! 2.1 REGISTRATION INFORMATION ............................ 2.2 LICENSE AGREEMENT ................................... 2.3 DISCLAIMER .......................................... 2.4 DISTRIBUTION WARNING ................................ 2.5 NEW IN VERSION 2.00 ...................................... 3.0 FEATURES OF THE SPELLBOUND! SPELLING TUTOR ............... 4.0 UNIQUE TEACHING METHOD! ............................. 4.1 FIVE, TEN OR TWENTY WORD SETS ....................... 4.2 ANIMATION FOR CHILDREN .............................. 4.3 GREAT FOR USE BY ADULTS ............................. 4.4 USE TO TEACH MEDICAL, LEGAL AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL VOCABULARIES ........................................ 4.5 TEST AND TUTOR MODES ................................ 4.6 THE ERROR LIST ...................................... 4.7 USE YOUR OWN WORD LISTS! ............................ 4.8 ON BOARD MINI EDITOR! ............................... 4.9 PERSONALIZED DIFFICULT WORD LIST CREATED FOR EACH STUDENT! ............................................ 4.10 CREATE EXHAUSTIVE REPORTS ON EACH STUDENT'S PERFORMANCE! ........................................ 4.11 VOLUMINOUS CONTEXT-SENSITIVE HELP FROM WITHIN THE PROGRAM! ............................................ 4.12 READ DOCUMENTATION FROM WITHIN THE PROGRAM! .... 4.12.1 COMPLETE SECURITY WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD PROTECTION! 4.13 3-D USER-FRIENDLY MENUS! ............................ 4.14 THE PROGRAM CAN BE COMPLETELY CONFIGURED TO EACH USER! ............................................... 4.15 EASY TO USE MAINTENANCE FUNCTIONS! .................. 4.16 INFORMATIVE REPORTS ................................. 4.17 DISPLAY, VIEW, RENAME, OR PRINT FILES WITH INTERNAL FILE VIEWER ......................................... 4.18 INSTALLATION ............................................. 5.0 IMPORTANT! .......................................... 5.1 PREPARATION ......................................... 5.2 FILES WHICH SHOULD BE ON THE DISKS AFTER INSTALLATION 5.3 PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION .......................... 5.4 STARTING AND RUNNING THE SPELLING TUTOR .................. 6.0 SETTING THE DATE AND TIME ...................... 6.0.1 WHAT IT DOES ........................................ 6.1 WORD LIST PROCESSOR ................................. 6.2 STARTING AND CONFIGURING THE SPELLING TUTOR ......... 6.3 SETTING UP SYSTEM DEFAULTS .......................... 6.4 CONFIGURATION MENU .................................. 6.5 IMPORTANT! ..................................... 6.5.1 CHANGING COLORS, CONFIGURING MENU PROGRAM ........... 6.6 TURN SOUND ON OR OFF ........................... 6.6.1 COLORS ......................................... 6.6.2 IMPORTANT! ................................ 6.6.2.1 EDITOR ......................................... 6.6.3 SPELLING TUTOR COLOR SETTINGS ....................... 6.7 TEACHER MAINTENANCE ................................. 6.8 EDIT WINDOWS ........................................ 6.9 REGISTRATION, INVOICE .................................... 7.0 REGISTRATION OPTION 1: $15.00 ...................... 7.1 REGISTRATION OPTION 2: $25.00 ...................... 7.2 REGISTRATION OPTION 3: $35.00 ...................... 7.3 INVOICE ............................................. 7.4 TELEPHONE SUPPORT ................................... 7.5 THE SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE SUPER DUPER NEW AND IMPROVED ALL PURPOSE SHAREWARE CURSE OR -- "WHO IS WELDON?" .. 7.6 PROBLEMS ................................................. 8.0 "INPUT RUN-TIME MODULE PATH:" MESSAGE ............... 8.1 STRANGE WORDS OR CHARACTERS APPEARING IN WORD LISTS.. 8.2 WHEN YOU FORGET YOUR TEACHER PASSWORD ............... 8.3 WORD SETS IN SPELLING TUTOR DON'T CORRESPOND TO PRINTED LIST ........................................ 8.4 DIFFERENT "SPELL.EXE" BEING RUN INSTEAD OF SPELLING TUTOR ............................................... 8.5 "OUT OF STRING SPACE IN MODULE..." MESSAGE AND CRASH 8.6 KNOWN BUGS FIXED IN THIS VERSION ......................... 9.0 FREE UPGRADE OF VERSION 2.00 TO ALL PREVIOUSLY REGISTERED USERS ............................................... 10.0 SPELLBOUND! DIRECTOR HARD DISK MANAGER, MENU SYSTEM & DOS SHELL ............................................... 11.0 SPECIAL OFFER FOR RESELLERS, CONSULTANTS, ETC. ...... 11.1 SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE'S "BOTHSIDES" TEXT FORMATTER ........ 12.0 BABYDRAW -- DRAWING GAME FOR CHILDREN 2 TO 102! .......... 13.0 UP TO FOUR PERSONALIZED COPIES FOR ONLY $19.95!!! ($5.00 FOR ADDITIONAL) .............................. 13.1 INVOICE/ORDER FORM FOR BABYDRAW ..................... 13.2 ADDITIONAL WORD LISTS AVAILABLE FROM SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE. 14.0 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................... 15.0 0.0 DEDICATION The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor is dedicated first to The Lord Jesus Christ, without whose help this project would never have been undertaken nor completed. He has sustained us financially and spiritually during the two years of hard work which has gone into the development of this program. In addition, it is dedicated to my wife, and for my four children, for whose education the proceeds from the program will be used. Every line of code reflects my love for both my Savior and my family. 1.0 REQUIREMENTS The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor requires at least 384k of free memory (memory free after DOS installed), DOS 3.00 or higher, a CGA, EGA, or VGA graphics monitor, and one of the following systems: 1) Two 360k floppy drives. 2) One hard drive. 3) 720k or greater single floppy drive. It will not run on MDA Monochrome or Hercules systems unless you use one of the CGA simulators, such as the excellent shareware program, SIMCGA, available from many quality bulletin boards and shareware distributors. 1.1 BUG FIXES, UPDATES, ONLINE REGISTRATIONS, MAINSTREAM BBS The latest shareware version of any of our software products including any bug fixes can be found on the Mainstream Computers BBS. MAINSTREAM COMPUTERS BBS, Alma, MI -- (517) 463-8474. 24hrs 300/1200/2400 8-N-1. Running WildCat! BBS Software for various discussion folders. Many files are available for downloading, and FREE ACCESS from the first call! SPELLBOUND! Software Products may be located in the Download areas using the following search specifications. Spelling Tutor -- SPELL???.ZIP, BabyDraw -- BABYDRA?.ZIP, BothSides -- BOTH??.ZIP, Floormat -- FLOOR???.ZIP, Pik -- PIK???.ZIP 1.3 IT REALLY WORKS! My daughter Shannon, the original beta tester of the spelling tutor, for whose spelling improvement this project was begun, won her class spelling bee the first year of its use! We have received many testimonials in regard to its effectiveness in training students to spell effectively and successfully. It really works! 2.0 REGISTRATION AND LICENSE INFORMATION 2.1 SPECIAL 7 DAY LICENSE FOR USE -- YOU MUST READ THIS! The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor Version 2.00 is being released under a special licensing concept. You are granted a limited license to use the program for a period of 7 days to determine its worth. If you continue to use the program after this trial period, you are required to pay for your copy by purchasing it from SPELLBOUND! Software. If after 7 days, you feel that you have been unable to adequately evaluate the program, you may call SPELLBOUND! Software and request a variance. We will grant another 7 days to those who request one. If you received your copy from a shareware distribution company, you paid a small amount for the service of copying and distribution. SPELLBOUND! Software receives no compensation at all until you pay for your copy. Use of the program beyond the 7 day evaluation period constitutes your consent to the terms of registration under which you must submit the proper fee for registration to SPELLBOUND! Software. Failure to do so is a violation of U.S. Copyright Law. If after the 7 day period you decide to forego further use of the program, you must completely remove the files contained in this package from your system. Registration is extremely simple! The program will calculate, total and print out an invoice for you. Just fill out the data entry screen when the program terminates. It even prints out a mailer for you! Put your invoice and check into the mailer, staple or tape, and mail! You don't even need a pen. It will be all filled out for you! Send it to: SPELLBOUND! Software P.O. Box 158 Shepherd, MI 48883 Of course you can simply call (517) 828-6520 to register and have the shareware messages removed immediately over the phone with Visa or M/C! 2.2 REGISTRATION INFORMATION There are three very affordable ways to register. Please see "REGISTRATION, INVOICE" near the end of this documentation. 2.3 LICENSE AGREEMENT Hereinafter, "THE SOFTWARE" shall refer to "The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor Shareware Version" and "THE AUTHOR" shall refer to Kenneth R. Casey, Jr. This is a legal agreement between you, the end user, and THE AUTHOR. By continuing to use the THE SOFTWARE, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of this agreement, promptly destroy all copies of THE SOFTWARE and any accompanying documentation. THE AUTHOR grants to you the user, the right to use one copy of THE SOFTWARE on a single terminal connected to a single computer (i.e. with a single CPU), for an evaluation period of 7 days after which you must pay for the program by registering the program with the AUTHOR. Registration of a single copy entitles you to telephone support and the use of a single copy of the program on a single CPU. Under no circumstances may the program be networked, or copies used on multiple computers simultaneously without purchasing the additional copies required. Failure to register the program after 7 days while continuing to use the program is in violation of the copyright held by THE AUTHOR. Federal law provides both civil and criminal penalties for copyright infringement. THE SOFTWARE is owned by THE AUTHOR, and is protected by United States copyright laws and international treaty provisions. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble THE SOFTWARE. THE SOFTWARE may be freely distributed on computer bulletin board systems in its ORIGINAL, UNINSTALLED form with all of its files intact. These files may be compressed into distribution files for uploading and downloading to bulletin boards. The Uninstalled files are: README.1ST INSTALL.EXE ARCHIVE1 ARCHIVE2 Tampering with or altering any of these files is an infringement of our copyright for which Federal Law provides severe civil and criminal penalties. Complete copies may also be freely distributed to individuals and institutions for evaluation. SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTION SERVICES It may also be distributed by scrupulous shareware distributors, providing no more than $8.00 is charged for the service of providing a single copy of THE SOFTWARE, and providing that the purchaser is made well aware that what he has purchased is the service of duplication and distribution for the sole purpose of evaluating the THE SOFTWARE, and not a license to use THE SOFTWARE. Distributors who advertise shareware programs as "Free Software" explicitly or implicitly are forbidden to distribute THE SOFTWARE. If your company meets these guidelines, no written authorization is required to distribute THE SOFTWARE. Under no circumstances may an installed copy (that is, other than the 4 aforementioned files comprising the distribution package) of THE SOFTWARE or an installed NONSHAREWARE copy of the program be distributed! 2.4 DISCLAIMER This program is provided "AS IS" without any warranty, expressed or implied, including but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitfulness for a particular purpose, with respect to THE SOFTWARE, the documentation, and the media upon which it is conveyed. In no event shall SPELLBOUND! Software, Kenneth R. Casey, Jr. or their suppliers be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use "The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor" even if SPELLBOUND! Software or Kenneth R. Casey, Jr. have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Because some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, the above limitation may not apply to you. 2.5 DISTRIBUTION WARNING This program may only be distributed in the form of the 4 files: README.1ST, INSTALL.EXE, ARCHIVE1 and ARCHIVE2. While they may be compressed into a single file, they must appear in this order and no tampering of any kind may be done to the files themselves. YOU MAY NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DISTRIBUTE AN "INSTALLED" COPY! -- That is you may not distribute any of the files resulting from an installation of the program. If you have received a copy of the program which, when installed, does not conform to FILES.LST, please report it to us so that we may investigate the source. When you pass on copies of this program to your friends, give them the original 4 files. DO NOT give them copies of your "installed" version! Failure to abide by these guidelines may result in the recovery of triple damages under Federal Law. 3.0 NEW IN VERSION 2.00 Menu options not available to the student are no longer displayed when a student is logged in. This includes both the "Dangerous" options (quitting, shelling, file viewing etc.) and Teacher Only options. This should help reduce confusion for the student. You may now specify your favorite editor to use instead of the mini editor supplied with the program. To specify the editor, just press ENTER while the Menu Configuration option on the Main Menu is highlighted. Press the arrow keys until the Editor configuration option appears and press Enter again. Enter the full pathname to your editor into the window which appears and press ENTER to save it. Now when you run the editor, your own editor will be run! Logging in has been made easier. Just press ESC while at the Main Menu to return to the login screen and enter the new name. You no longer use "Change Name" to do this as it is no longer available from the Main Menu. The ESC key always backs you up from whatever operation you are performing. When at the Main Menu, ESC returns you to the login screen. The Spelling Tutor now has its own file viewing utility. This makes the task of checking the contents of word lists, etc. much easier and quicker. You may now display files in any directory using valid DOS file specifications. When file names are displayed, you may rename a file by pressing F5 or send it to your parallel printer by pressing F9. To view any file, just highlight the file's name using the arrow keys and press ENTER! This option is disabled when the "Dangerous" options are disabled. The File Specification Edit Window will always display the last file created or accessed by default. You may now view the documentation in SPELL.DOC while you are in the Menu Module. Press F1 once to bring up context- sensitive help. When the help box is displayed, press F1 once more and the view utility will display SPELL.DOC. SPELL.DOC must be in your DATA or PROGRAM directory for this to work properly. If SPELL.DOC is not available, you will be apprised of this. If you would like to substitute a file of your own creation to be displayed, just rename it to SPELL.DOC and see that it is in your DATA or PROGRAM directory. Alternatively you could edit SPELL.DOC to add your own notes. 5 word sets are now supported. When selecting a Word List from the Configuration Menu, you no longer have to remember the available word lists or type in the name. Now a list of the files will be presented to you in a file selection box from which you can use the arrow and ENTER keys to select a Word List. The program now supports double words such as "all together". To include double words, just separate the two words with the caret character "^", which can be inserted by holding down the shift key and pressing the "6" key (not the number pad "6" key). When either the Word List Processor or the Spelling Tutor encounter this character separating two or more words, it will regard the linked words as a single word. The Spelling Tutor will translate the caret as a space when the word is displayed. Hyphenated words are now also supported. Whenever a hyphen separates two words, they will be displayed as one word. 4.0 FEATURES OF THE SPELLBOUND! SPELLING TUTOR 4.1 UNIQUE TEACHING METHOD! While in TUTOR mode, the student is not allowed to misspell the word. In conventional spelling methods the student is allowed to misspell the word, allowing for a period of time in which the student believes he has formed a proper memory image of the word. This is confusing and necessitates the inconvenient step of having to "unlearn" the wrong spelling. By prohibiting improper keystrokes from being displayed on the screen, The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor insures that the only spelling the student will ever see is the correct one. When in TEST mode, evaluation is not done by individual letter, but by word. The student is allowed to type in invalid characters and the word is evaluated only after pressing ENTER. While in TEST mode, a record of the student's scores is kept. 4.2 FIVE, TEN OR TWENTY WORD SETS The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor allows you to configure it to test on sets consisting of 5, 10 or 20 words. For smaller children with shorter attention spans, the 5 or 10 word set options are provided. For older students, the 20 word set option might be more appropriate. Since the grading is done on a percentage basis, this will have no effect on scoring. 4.3 ANIMATION FOR CHILDREN The Spelling Tutor allows you to set the minimum and maximum length for words, thus allowing you to define the program for a narrow age group. It has a child mode which makes use of animated graphics and music to maintain the child's interest and reward his efforts. This is accomplished by setting Smileys to ON in the Configuration Menu. 4.4 GREAT FOR USE BY ADULTS It has been designed for use by adults as well, as it is not uncommon for adults to experience difficulty with spelling, especially those with common learning disabilities such as dyslexia. 4.5 USE TO TEACH MEDICAL, LEGAL AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL VOCABULARIES A number of medical, legal and other professionals have told us how successfully this program has been used in the learning of esoteric vocabularies containing medical or legal terms. This is a great program for the office personnel to use to polish up on some of those more difficult terms! 4.6 TEST AND TUTOR MODES There are two different modes in which the Spelling Tutor may be run, TUTOR mode and TEST mode. TUTOR mode validates each letter of the word as it is entered. It will not allow the incorrect letter to be printed, thus preventing the student from developing an errant mental image of the spelling of the word. In this mode, the only spelling the student will ever see is the correct one. If a hint is needed or for some reason the word is completely forgotten, the spacebar may be tapped, resulting in the momentary display of the word for the duration set in the Word Flash Rate setting in the Configuration Menu. TEST mode only checks the validity of the word when the "ENTER" key is pressed and so the backspace key, insert key, delete key, and cursor keys are available for editing. One may cause the word to be flashed to him in TEST mode or in TUTOR mode by tapping the spacebar. The word will be briefly shown for the duration set in the Word Flash Rate set in the Configuration Menu. At the end of the test in TEST mode, a score and grade are given, and the results are printed to a unique data file corresponding to the individual's name. These records can be printed out or viewed from the RECORDS MENU. 4.7 THE ERROR LIST In addition to the writing of the records to disk, a record is also being made of the words that were misspelled during the sessions. This record is in the form of a list, which is updated during each session. The name of the file containing the list is in the form, STUDENT.ERR. STUDENT is the first eight letters of the name of the person, with the extension ERR appended to it. The misspelled word set from each session is prefaced with the time and date of the test or tutorial session. This list may then be used as the source from which to test when the minimum of 5 words is reached. The time and date will be ignored. Since this list will probably contain duplicates, (as the same word may be misspelled a number of times,) it is advised that you run the Word List Processor (available from the Main Menu), on it to delete duplicate words. Delete the list at any time you wish. A new one will be created when there are more errors. 4.8 USE YOUR OWN WORD LISTS! The Spelling Tutor allows you to create your own word lists. There is no special formatting required. Use actual text from the student's current reading if you wish. All punctuation, numbers, symbols, etc. will be ignored and the words will be grouped into sets of 5, 10 or 20, depending on what you have in your configuration. Use the onboard Mini Editor to enter the words, or use your own favorite Word Processor or Editor. Just use the "Change Colors, Editor, Etc." option on the Main Menu to indicate the full path name to your editor. From then on, when you edit word lists, the program will run your editor. CAUTION!!! If you use a word processor such as WordPerfect or WordStar, you MUST make certain to use the mode in the word processor which saves the text as a Dos (or ASCII) text file. Most word processors save formatting codes with the text file when saving and these codes may be interpreted as nonsense words by the Spelling Tutor or the Word List Processor. A special function is available from within the Spelling Tutor Menu Module called the Word List Processor, which will gather words from text files of any format, (lists, letters, Grandma's jam recipe, -- anything containing text!) sort the words, delete duplicate words, and print them sequentially numbered by sets of 5, 10 or 20 to a file you specify. The list may be sent to a printer and used as a reference from which to assign word sets. When you edit a file from within the Spelling Tutor, you will be prompted to run the text file you have created through the Word List Processor. 4.9 ON BOARD MINI EDITOR! Create word lists -on the fly- with the SPELLBOUND! Mini Editor. Words can be entered in any format to be used with Spelling Tutor or optionally run through the Word List Processor to remove possible duplicates and form them into discrete numbered sets. Optionally use your own editor from within the spelling tutor. (See "USE YOUR OWN WORD LISTS" above.) Just press the appropriate option from the Main Menu! 4.10 PERSONALIZED DIFFICULT WORD LIST CREATED FOR EACH STUDENT! Whenever the student misspells a word, that word is appended to a file called STUDENT.ERR where "STUDENT" is the first eight letters of his name. The file will contain the date and time of the errors as well, for teacher information. This file should then be cleaned of duplicates by using the Word List Processor function from within the Spelling Tutor Menu Module. The date, time and etc. will be ignored by the Word List Processor. This way the student may be tested exclusively on words with which he previously has had difficulties. This makes the most of the valuable time the student spends learning to spell. 4.11 CREATE EXHAUSTIVE REPORTS ON EACH STUDENT'S PERFORMANCE! Records are kept of all the students' work in The Spelling Tutor. Records may be viewed individually or printed out to a printer, a file, or even to the screen. The records menu always displays the average score for the previous 10 sessions. 4.12 VOLUMINOUS CONTEXT-SENSITIVE HELP FROM WITHIN THE PROGRAM! Help is available in the form of a one line help box just under the menu box, which displays help for the currently highlighted selection. If more help is desired, a help window may be popped up with context-sensitive help by pressing the F1 key at any time. Press F1 once again to read this documentation online. Press any other key to exit the help screen. 4.12.1 READ DOCUMENTATION FROM WITHIN THE PROGRAM! You may read the documentation contained in SPELL.DOC from within the program simply by pressing F1 while the help window is displayed. SPELL.DOC must be in the PROGRAM or DATA directory for this to work. 4.13 COMPLETE SECURITY WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD PROTECTION! The Teacher and each student may be required to use a password to gain access to the menu/records program so that unauthorized users may not view a student's progress. The Teacher may print out the students' passwords in the case one is forgotten. If the wrong password is entered more than once for a given name, a file called SPELLSEC.LOG is updated with the name of the person to whose records access was attempted, and the password which was tried. 4.14 3-D USER-FRIENDLY MENUS! The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor was designed for use by people with little or no computer experience. It observes widely held DOS conventions which are used in other DOS applications. Help is on the F1 key, ESC backs you up in the program, F10 is the exit key, etc. All of the configuration, viewing and printing of reports are navigable by use of the up, down, left and right cursor or arrow keys. Just highlight the selection you wish and press the ENTER (carriage return) key. Alternatively, each selection has a number just to the left of it which may be pressed in lieu of the cursor and ENTER keys. This facilitates the execution of a selection by using just one keystroke! A small help window is located just below the window, and continually offers one line of instruction on the highlighted selection. For those who like bells and whistles, unique transparent shadowing is used in the menus which give a true 3-D effect. Windows which pop up over other boxes cast a longer shadow than the boxes underneath. 4.15 THE PROGRAM CAN BE COMPLETELY CONFIGURED TO EACH USER! All of the colors, sound effects, and options such as word length, flash rate, use of animated graphics, source file, number of word sets, etc. are completely user configurable. Each student may adjust all of the colors used in the program. Alternatively, he may opt for the default configuration or one which the teacher has set up for him. His personal configuration will be saved in a file in the data directory called STUDENT.CFG where STUDENT is the first eight letters of his name. When the program starts, the student is asked to type in the first eight letters of his name. The program will then load his configuration, his performance records (if any) and the colors, etc. will be those he saved in the previous session. 4.16 EASY TO USE MAINTENANCE FUNCTIONS! By selecting "Maintenance" from the Records Menu, all the students in the class may be displayed at one time. All the Teacher need do to examine the student records is highlight the name with the cursor (arrow) keys and press ENTER and the student's records are loaded and ready to view or print reports. Alternatively, the Teacher may highlight the name, press the SPACEBAR to mark one or any number of names, and then press F6 to delete all the marked names. Additionally, you may reverse the marks with the F7 key. That way you may mark only the students you do not wish to delete. 4.17 INFORMATIVE REPORTS Two types of reports are printed. There is an individual student report, which lists each record of each session and averages his grades for you. There is also a report for the entire class. This report gives the number of sessions each student performed, the score for the most recent session, the average for all of his sessions, and a class average. Print it with "Disp/View/Ren/Print Files" on the Main Main. 4.18 DISPLAY, VIEW, RENAME, OR PRINT FILES WITH INTERNAL FILE VIEWER You may display the contents of any directory by using this option from the Main Menu and entering a file specification such as C:\SPELL\*.*, SPELL*.*, ??.*, etc. The default entry will always be the last file created or accessed by the program which will probably be right 90% of the time. This will save you a lot of typing as all you will have to do is press ENTER to accept it. When a file specification is entered, all of the files in the specified directory which meet that specification will be displayed in a file selection box. While the files are displayed, you may view the contents of any file by highlighting and pressing ENTER. You may rename a file by highlighting it and pressing F5 or send to your printer connected to LPTn by pressing F9. You may rapidly view or print the contents of multiple files from the file selection box by successively highlighting each file and pressing ENTER to view it or F9 to print it. To immediately view the contents of any file without displaying the directory, just enter the file name instead of a file specification after selecting "Disp/..." from the Main Menu. It will be immediately displayed. 5.0 INSTALLATION The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor is distributed in one of two ways. Via diskette, and via a single compressed file using one of the shareware ZIP or ARC utilities. To install from the diskette, just type: Drive:\INSTALL, where "Drive:" is the drive containing the distribution diskette. Just answer the questions as they are presented to complete the installation process. When distributed as a single compressed ZIP, ARC, LZH, or PAK file, it must first be uncompressed using the proper utility. This single file may only contain the 4 files mentioned above in the license information. 5.1 IMPORTANT! You MUST install using the INSTALL program as the files are compressed and cannot be run until they have been uncompressed. To install to two floppies, put the distribution diskette into drive A: and the destination diskette into drive B:. The program will create a Program diskette and a Data diskette. On hard drives, you will create a Program directory and a Data directory. (These may both be the same if you wish.) For classrooms, you will probably want each class to have its own directory. The Program Directory must be included in the PATH statement so that DOS will know where to find the Spelling Tutor program files when it is run from other directories. The install program will update your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to include these changes if you allow it to. If you don't allow it to make these changes, you must make them manually or the Spelling Tutor will not run properly. 5.2 PREPARATION The entire installation procedure is given in the file, README.1ST and in the INSTALL program itself. For successful installation it will be necessary for you to add the following line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file on your boot drive, or to enter it at the DOS prompt before running The Spelling Tutor. Alternatively, the installation program will make these changes for you if you allow it to. SET PATH=drive:\ProgramDirectory; OR PATH drive:\ProgramDirectory; If you already have a path command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, it will be necessary to append the new path to the old. If for example, your PATH were: SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\UTIL;C:\WP You may append the new path by appending a semicolon and then the new path thus: SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\UTIL;C:\WP;C:\SPELL When the Spelling Tutor starts up, it will check the program directory to make sure that all of the files it needs are in the program directory. If it finds any missing, it will alert you as to the name of the missing files and immediately shut down. Copy the necessary files to the program directory and try again. 5.3 FILES WHICH SHOULD BE ON THE DISKS AFTER INSTALLATION ================================================================= PROGRAM Directory ================================================================= DRIVE A: for floppies. C:\SPELL for Hard drive. ================================================================= BRUN45.EXE -- Run time module. SPELL.DTA -- Contains screen, help, various messages etc. SPELL.EXE -- Menu, Configuration, Editor, Records module. SPELL000.EXE -- The Spelling Tutor module. SPELL001.EXE -- The Word List Processor module. SPELL002.EXE -- Termination Module DEFAULT.CFG -- Default configuration for use with the program SPELL.CFG -- Retains name of last person to log in. (Created) ================================================================ DATA Directory ================================================================ DRIVE B: for floppies. C:\DATA for Hard drive. ================================================================ GOSPEL.TXT -- Example text file for word list creation SPELL.DOC -- Documentation. Press F1 twice to read online SPELL.WDS -- Word list (other files with ".WDS" extension) PASSWORD.LST -- Student password file (Created) CLASS.RPT -- Report on entire class performance (Created) SPELLSEC.LOG -- Logs incorrect password attempts (Created) STUDENT.CFG -- Student's personal configuration (Created) STUDENT.DAT -- Student's personal records (Created) STUDENT.REP -- Contains Student Progress Report (Created) STUDENT.ERR -- Personal Difficult Word List (Created) ================================================================ The DATA data directory must be the current directory. Change to the drive which will contain your data files (in this case, B:,) e.g. B: <Enter>. For this configuration, you must include drive A: in your PATH command. 5.4 PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION You may print the documentation contained in SPELL.DOC by pressing F1 twice to display the documentation and then pressing F9. Make sure you have plenty of paper (about 35 sheets) and the printhead positioned to the very top line of the page. To print any of the other text files, select "Disp/..." from the Main Menu and enter "*.*" for the file specification. Place the selection bar on the text file you wish to print and press F9. Select the parallel printer port to which your printer is connected (almost always 1) and press ENTER. 6.0 STARTING AND RUNNING THE SPELLING TUTOR The easiest way to run the Spelling Tutor directly is to type SPELL and then your name (the first eight letters of it) and then press ENTER! This will take you directly to the Tutor. When you are finished in the Tutor, you will be taken to the Menu Program, from which you may view your records or press F10 to quit (if "Dangerous" functions are enabled). You may also simply type SPELL and the menu module will be loaded from which you may start the Spelling Tutor from the Main Menu. 6.0.1 SETTING THE DATE AND TIME The system date will be checked and if found to be less than the distribution date of the program, you will be asked to enter the proper system date. If you have an onboard clock, you will not need to worry about this, but if you don't, and you do not set the date when your computer boots, the date will be incorrect. The date and time are used in the records, so enter the correct date if prompted to do so. 6.1 WHAT IT DOES This program may be entirely customized to each user no matter the age. All the colors may be customized and are saved to each user's personal file. The length of the words, animated graphics and music, whether to test or tutor, word lists, all are personally configurable. You may specify any file which is known to contain properly spelled words. Punctuation, non-letter characters, and numbers are ignored. This allows the conscientious parent to type the text of the child's reading assignment into a text file and then use that text as the file with which to use the SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor. The Spelling Tutor cleans out punctuation, non-letter characters, and numbers while culling the words into discrete units which are then arranged into sets of 5, 10 or 20 in the order in which they appear in the text. For example, you could use the example text file, "GOSPEL.TXT" as a source for words. The first set of 20 words would be: The <-- 1 following is certainly the <-- 2 most important message you will ever hear in your life The <-- 3 Gospel of Jesus Christ Each word would be presented one at a time to the student. If you wish to display a two word construction, such as "all together", just separate the words with the "^" (caret) character ie. "all^together". This tells the spelling tutor to display both words together and not to treat them as two words. When they are displayed in the Spelling Tutor, the caret will be replaced by a space. You can see here one problem which can result from using regular text files. The word "THE" appears three times is the same set. The "Word List Processor" solves this problem... 6.2 WORD LIST PROCESSOR THE SPELLBOUND! Word List Processor has been provided with the program to help create lists of unique words from any text files you specify. This option, available from the Main Menu, will take any file containing text, sort the words, delete redundant words, optionally resort the file into original order, shuffle them, or leave them alphabetically sorted. It then groups the words, 5, 10, or 20 on a line, (this is determined by your current setting for number of words per set) numbered by set, and paginated, so that one may see the words in sets of 5, 10, or 20 with the file viewer, or send it to the printer. All of the letters are converted to lower case because, as in the case of text files, words which otherwise would not be capitalized would be so when found at the beginning of a sentence. It is recommended that you run your word processor's spell checker on any files you create to insure that the words contained therein are correctly spelled. The text file "GOSPEL.TXT" has been provided so that you can try the Word List Processor yourself. (We suggest that you might take a few moments to read it too!) 6.3 STARTING AND CONFIGURING THE SPELLING TUTOR You start the program by typing "SPELL" (without the quotes) or "SPELL STUDENT" (STUDENT is your name), and pressing "ENTER". If this is your first time on, you will be prompted to answer some questions concerning global defaults for the program. These defaults are: (1.) Allow students (other than "TEACHER") access to "Dangerous" functions? (2.) Enable password protection for entry to records? In future sessions, "TEACHER" may change these answers by logging in as "DEFAULT" and answering the questions again. Only "TEACHER" may log in as "DEFAULT". This of course means you must log in as "TEACHER" before you log in as "DEFAULT". After this you will be prompted to enter your name. Log in as "TEACHER" (case not important), and select a password. "TEACHER" will be given access to all of the reports and be able to make a file containing all the student passwords. In addition, only the teacher may create a default configuration for the program. There is only one Teacher allowed on the system. The teacher menus contain extra functions available only to the teacher. These are not displayed or available when students are logged in. If you just press ENTER, the name will default to "TEACHER". It is important that you select a name which is unique, because selection of the same name as another in the same directory will result in your records being added to the same files, making it impossible to distinguish between the two. If two people share the same name, one must use a nickname or substitute. The first eight letters are used because that is the limit which DOS imposes upon the prefix portion of a file's name. The "extension" (a period and up to three letters) is reserved to distinguish between the various data types. These extensions are: REP, for reports printed to disk, CFG, which contains information relating to your configuration, DAT, which contains your performance records from which the report is generated, and ERR, to which misspelled words are written. Once you have entered your name, you will be presented with the main menu. From this menu you may select two other menus. These are listed on the "Main Menu" as "View Records/Print Reports" and "Configure The Spelling Tutor". From this menu you may also run the Word List Processor, specify the colors, and sounds of the Menu Program, and select your own editor for use in creating and editing word lists. To select from the menu, just press the up or down cursor keys corresponding to the direction in which you wish the selection bar to travel, and when it is upon the desired selection, press "ENTER". A quicker method which bypasses the pressing of the "ENTER" key is to simply press the number to the left of the selection. This will execute your selection immediately. You may configure several parameters from the Configuration Menu. The first four menu options are toggles, that is, when you select them by pressing the corresponding number or pressing <CR> when highlighted, they will toggle back and forth among 2 or 3 alternating values. You have control over the following aspects of the program: 6.4 SETTING UP SYSTEM DEFAULTS A default configuration file called DEFAULT.CFG is supplied with the program. This file contains the startup settings for the first log in of each person using the Spelling Tutor. It also has all the settings for the information stored in STUDENT.CFG, which contains configuration options set in the Configuration Menu, such as the colors, etc. The distributed form of DEFAULT.CFG is configured for Tutor mode, Smileys on, etc. The Teacher (and ONLY the Teacher) may reconfigure this file. By logging in as "DEFAULT", you can control the initial settings given to each student the first time he logs in. To do so, you must be logged in as "TEACHER". As "TEACHER" press ESC to return to the Log In screen. Enter "DEFAULT" into the name box and when prompted, give your "TEACHER" password (the password with which you log in as TEACHER). At this time, you will be presented with the startup screen you see when you start the program for the first time. This allows you to respecify whether password protection should be used and whether "Dangerous" functions should be enabled for the students. Answer the questions again, and you will be taken into the menu program. Now set up the program with the settings with which you wish each student to start out. Just about everything, colors, the word list, default edit window entries, Smileys, etcetera will be saved to DEFAULT.CFG. In addition, you may run the spelling tutor while logged in as "DEFAULT" and change the colors by pressing F1 (while in the Spelling Tutor Module) and using the left and right arrow keys to cycle the colors. These also will be saved to the default configuration contained in DEFAULT.CFG. When you have finished making your changes, press ESC while at the Main Menu again to return to the Log In screen to log in again as "TEACHER". From now on, whenever a student logs in for the very first time, he will receive this "DEFAULT" configuration you have created, until the next time you reconfigure the "DEFAULT" settings. . Because the name "DEFAULT" is reserved for this purpose, any student whose real name is "Default", (in the event you have any of Frank Zappa's children in your class) will have to use a nickname to log in! 6.5 CONFIGURATION MENU The Configuration Menu is used to configure the Spelling Tutor to each student. The following options are available. ----------------------------------------------------------- These first three options toggle among 2 or 3 values. Just press the enter key to switch between them. ----------------------------------------------------------- (1.) Whether or not to show smileys, and play music. This may be set to off for adults who might quickly tire of the smiley screens. (2.) Number of words per word set. Pressing ENTER toggles among the three values, 5, 10 and 20. (3.) Whether to run the Spelling Tutor in Test Mode or in Tutor Mode. Tutor mode validates each letter as it is typed. If the letter is incorrect, the correct word is flashed to hint as to the true spelling and the letter is replaced by the dot character. The user never sees the misspelled word and consequently no memory image is formed of the wrong spelling. In this mode, the only spelling the user will see is the correct one. This results in teaching to remember words as memory images, or photographically learning to spell. In Test Mode, the entire word is typed in, right or wrong, and no validation is performed until the Enter key is pressed. This allows for correction by using the edit keys. Records are kept for sessions completed in test mode but not for tutor mode. --------------------------------------------------------------- These next three options cycle through a number of values. Just press the left or right arrow keys to cycle in either direction. Don't press ENTER on this selection except to cause it to cycle upward. When the selection has reached the value you desire, just use the up and down arrow keys to move the selection bar off this selection. --------------------------------------------------------------- (4.) Flash Rate may be set here in 18ths of a second. (5. and 6.) The minimum and maximum length of words may be configured so as to target a given age group. For example, one might configure a minimum length of 2 and a maximum length of 4 for a child of between 4 and 7. Use the left and right arrow keys to cycle through the values between 2 and 15. You will not be allowed to select a maximum length which is less than the minimum length and vice versa. --------------------------------------------------------------- The next two selections pop up an edit window or selection box when you press enter so that you can edit the listed selection directly or move the selection bar to select your choice. When you have edited the selection or made the selection via the selection bar, pressing enter again closes the window. --------------------------------------------------------------- (7.) You may also specify the file of your choice. If none is specified, the default will be SPELL.WDS. This can be a file of your own creation, or it can be the file supplied with the program. To select a word list file, press ENTER while this seletion is highlighted. All of the word lists having a "WDS" extension in the current directory will be displayed in a scrolling box. Use the highlight bar to select the word list for use with the spelling tutor and press ENTER to select it. (8.) You may specify the number of words you wish to select from the file. The words are selected in groups according to the number per set specified, so numbers divisible by that number are the best choice here. If you specify a number which is not divisible by the number per set, the program will decrement to the next number which is. Many times, especially when you have specified a narrow word length range, there will not be as many words meeting the criteria you specified. In that case, again the number is decremented to the next lowest number divisible by the specified number per set, so that if 49 words meet the criteria, and ten words per set is specified, a message will be displayed to that effect, and they will be grouped in 4 groups of 10, or 40 words in all. The remaining 9 will be ignored. (9.) When you have made all your selections and you are pleased with the settings, just tap the "9" key or place the menu bar over selection 9 and press Enter. Your selections will be saved in a file which is created from the first eight letters of your name and ".CFG". The next time you run the program, your configuration will have been saved, so that there is no need to re-enter the information unless a change is desired. 6.5.1 IMPORTANT! None of the changes you have made will be saved unless you invoke selection 9. If you wish to abort the changes you have made, just press ESC. You will be returned to the Main Menu without saving the changes 6.6 CHANGING COLORS, CONFIGURING MENU PROGRAM The Menu program's colors may be customized to each user's individual tastes. Just select "Change Colors, Editor, etc." from the MAIN MENU by pressing ENTER while the selection bar is upon it or by pressing the number which corresponds to it. Then use the arrow keys to cycle through configurable options. When the desired option appears, press ENTER again. 6.6.1 TURN SOUND ON OR OFF You may turn the sound on or off. As you are cycling through the configurable options, you will see the words "Toggle Sound On" or "Toggle Sound Off" depending on the state of the toggle. Just press ENTER to toggle the sound on or off. COLORS 6.6.2 You may change the colors of any areas of the screen. These areas are: Menu Colors, (the menu, and Title boxes), Help Colors (the key list, settings box, and one line help box), Popup Help Colors, and Background Colors. When you press ENTER while one of these are highlighted, a box will appear at a random position on the screen. Its colors will correspond to the colors of the area of the screen you chose to configure. Use the arrows now to cycle the colors; the up and down arrows cycle foreground colors and the left and right arrows cycle through the available background colors. When the desired color combination has been reached, press ENTER again to save the configuration, or ESC to abort and retain original colors. When you configure the colors for the menu background, (behind the menus), you will be given the opportunity after choosing the colors, to select a background character with which to fill the background. These will be of the ASCII character set, from 0-255, excepting the characters 32 to 126. 6.6.2.1 IMPORTANT! You will never be allowed to select the same foreground and background colors! In other words, if you have a black background while you cycle the foreground color, the color black will not be displayed. This prevents the user from making any part of the screen invisible. 6.6.3 EDITOR You may also indicate your favorite word processor or editor to use in lieu of the internal mini-editor supplied with the Spelling Tutor. Just press ENTER when Editor is displayed while configuring and type the full pathname to your editor into the box which is displayed. Then press ENTER to save the information and from then on, when you run the editor, your own editor will be used. If you wish to use the internal editor at some later point, just reconfigure again, but delete the previous path name and leave it blank. 6.7 SPELLING TUTOR COLOR SETTINGS When in the Spelling Tutor program help window (not the Menu Program), you may change the color palette with the left arrow key, or the attribute color with the right arrow key. To bring down the help window, just press F1. When you have finished, press any other key to exit the help screen. The color changes are saved to your personal configuration file and the program will use those colors in all future sessions until you change them. 6.8 TEACHER MAINTENANCE The MAINTENANCE selection on the Records Menu takes you to a display which contains all the student names in the current directory. This selection is only displayed when the Teacher is logged in. There is a limit of 136 names which you may view, so it would be wise to keep class size under that number. You may highlight (reverse video) any of the names and do one of two things. You may mark the name for future deletion, or you may view that student's records. To mark for deletion, just place the highlight bar over the name you wish to mark and press the SPACEBAR. After marking all of the names you wish to delete, just press F6 (the keys and their functions are listed at the bottom of the display screen). A window will then pop onto the screen and ask you to confirm your decision. If you press "N" at this time, or "ESC" at any time, none of the names which were marked will be deleted. If you are going to delete all but a few names, you may alternatively mark only those names which you do not want to delete. After marking the names to save, just press F7, the Reverse Marks key. All the names which were unmarked become marked, and all the names which were marked become unmarked. Press F8 to clear all marks from the display. To view student records, just press "ENTER" while highlighting the name and you will be taken directly into the student's records menu. From here you may print class reports, individual reports, etc. Password protection is disabled for your convenience in this mode. To reenable password protection, you must enter the program by returning to the log in screen or quit the program completely. While in the student's records you may go to the Main Menu and then to the Configuration Menu. You have complete control over the student's configuration and you may change any of his settings. These changes will be saved in his personal configuration and will be loaded into his next session. 6.9 EDIT WINDOWS Many of the edit windows will contain default entries when they start up. This is to save you typing time. If the default entry is not the one you wanted, just type in the new entry. The old one will disappear and be replaced by the new one you are typing. If you wish to retain the old entry for editing, just type the right arrow key and then the left arrow key. The old entry will then be retained. 7.0 REGISTRATION, INVOICE There are 3 options under which the program may be registered. 7.1 REGISTRATION OPTION 1: $15.00 YOU RECEIVE: 1. Remote Removal of Shareware Screens. BY MAIL -- We call you COLLECT to convert your copy. BY PHONE -- You call us with MasterCard or Visa and we give you a special conversion number to type into the program. You may have Version 2.00 remotely converted to the registered version for $15.00 using your MasterCard or Visa. Your present copy will be converted by telephone. Alternatively, you may mail to us the invoice, and we will call you COLLECT and give you the special code to remove the shareware screens and convert it to the non-shareware version. This entitles you to telephone and written support. You will not receive additional word lists or most recent version of the program by return mail using this option as this is not enough to cover the added costs of shipping and labor. 7.2 REGISTRATION OPTION 2: $25.00 YOU RECEIVE: 1. Remote Removal of Shareware Screens. 2. Latest Version of the SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor by Mail. 3. 3,803 New Words in 5 New and 2 Greatly Expanded Word Lists. For $25.00 you may register and receive the latest commercial version which has all shareware notices removed and the following additional word lists: COMMON.WDS -- 1510 of the most commonly used words. MISSPELL.WDS -- 690 of the most commonly misspelled words. DIFFCULT.WDS -- 266 Words of various areas of difficulty. GRADE1.WDS -- 214 words for Grade 1 GRADE2.WDS -- 659 words for Grade 2 (cf S/W ver: 375 words) GRADE3.WDS -- 793 words for Grade 3 (cf S/W ver: 440 words) GRADE4.WDS -- 486 words for Grade 4 That's a total of 3,803 new words! (While the files GRADE2.WDS and GRADE3.WDS are included in this shareware package, the files listed above are greatly expanded versions, and only the additional words were counted in the total.) If you have MasterCard or Visa, you may also have your current copy converted by phone while you wait for your new copy and word lists to arrive by mail. Just have the program up and running when you call and we'll give you the special conversion code. 7.3 REGISTRATION OPTION 3: $35.00 YOU RECEIVE: 1. Remote Removal of Shareware Screens. 2. Latest Version of the SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor by Mail. 3. 3,803 New Words in 5 New and 2 Greatly Expanded Word Lists. 4. Single Copy of The SPELLBOUND! Director, (the Best Menu, DOS Shell, and HD Management System Around!) 5. Free Copy of The BothSides Text Formatter Utility for Printing All of Your Documentation to Both Sides of Your Paper! SPELLBOUND! Software markets a very popular Menu, Dos Shell, and File Management program called the SPELLBOUND! Director. This is a Hard Disk Management program which does everything DOS does, only better, and with a simple menu interface which can be run from the keyboard or the mouse! (See information on its features at the end of this documentation.) This program is normally sold over the counter for 34.95. For $35.00, you may purchase The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor AND a copy of The SPELLBOUND! Director. You basically get the Spelling Tutor program for free! In addition, we'll send you a registered copy of our most popular program, "The BothSides Text Formatter", for free. (The shareware version will be included so that your friends may try it out too). We have sold many copies of this program at $10.00 per copy. The current price is $15.00 per copy. See the information at the end of this documentation for a list of features and some testimonials from registered users. Again, if you wish, you can get your present shareware copy converted by phone while you wait to receive your package. You will also receive the additional word lists mentioned above. You may also be notified of future releases if the program is supported by its users and possibly other related products from SPELLBOUND! Software. 7.4 INVOICE The following form may be easily printed by starting up the shareware version of the Spelling Tutor and exiting from the program. Several information screens inform you about how shareware works. From the second screen you may send a completed invoice and pre-addressed mailer to your printer. You will be prompted for all of the information necessary to complete the invoice. All of the calculations (including 4% sales tax for Michigan residents) will be done for you! The completed form will then be sent to your printer. An mailer containing your return address and the address of SPELLBOUND! Software will also be printed. Just place your invoice and check into the mailer, staple or tape, and mail! If you prefer, send the following form to your printer or create a facsimile. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | INVOICE FOR THE SPELLBOUND! SPELLING TUTOR 2.00 | +--------------------------------+------------------------------+ | | RECEIVED FROM:| | NAME: ___________________ PH: (___) ___-____ | | | | | | STREET: _____________________________________ | | | +---------------+ | CITY: ____________________ ST: ___ ZIP: _____ | SORRY, NO | | | C.O.D.s! | +======+========================================+=======+=======+ | QUAN | DESCRIPTION | EACH | TOTAL | +======+========================================+=======+=======+ | | OPTION 1 - See Description above | $15.00| | | | OPTION 2 - See Description above | $25.00| | | | OPTION 3 - See Description above | $35.00| | +======+========================================+=======+=======+ | (MICHIGAN RESIDENTS: 4% SALES TAX) TAX:| | | TOTAL:| | | PAYMENT METHOD (Check One): +-------+ | | | Check/Money Order: [ ] MasterCard: [ ] Visa: [ ] | | | | Card No: _______________ Exp Date: __/__ Ph: (___) ___-____ | | | | Cardholder's Signature (Required): __________________________ | | | | DISKETTE TYPE (Check One): 5.25: [ ] 3.5: [ ] | | | | (If using Mastercard or Visa | | SEND TO: SPELLBOUND! Software you may call us and have | | P.O. Box 158 your copy converted right | | Shepherd, MI 48883 now over the phone!) | | | +===============================================================+ | C O M M E N T S | +===============================================================+ | _____________________________________________________________ | | _____________________________________________________________ | | _____________________________________________________________ | | _____________________________________________________________ | +================================================+==============+ | SHIP TO: | | +================================================+ | | | | | NAME: ________________________________________ | | | STREET: ______________________________________ | | | CITY: ___________________ ST: ___ ZIP: _______ | | | | | +================================================+==============+ | Note that The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor has been delivered | | and accepted by the customer. Upon receipt of this paid | | invoice, the terms specified in the selected option(s) above | | will be met by SPELLBOUND! Software ie. word lists, latest | | version and copy of The Director will be sent when applicable.| +---------------------------------------------------------------+ 7.5 TELEPHONE SUPPORT Those who register may receive telephone support. If you discover any undocumented "features" (bugs), please let us know immediately. If you encounter any problems running the program or need help, feel free to call us. Please check the "PROBLEMS" section of this documentation to see if your problem can be resolved by questions answered there. We may be contacted at: (517) 828-6520 between the hours of 9:00 am and 5:00 pm EST. When you call, have the contents of AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, the names of any TSRs (memory-resident programs) you may have in memory while running The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor. It would help greatly if you had the program running and the phone near the computer so that we could talk through the problem. 7.6 THE SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE SUPER DUPER NEW AND IMPROVED ALL PURPOSE SHAREWARE CURSE OR -- "WHO IS WELDON?" If you use the program and enjoy it, send at least the $15.00 to register the shareware version. If you continue to make use of it while failing to purchase, you will fall into the snare of the "SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE SUPER DUPER NEW AND IMPROVED, ALL PURPOSE SHAREWARE CURSE". When we at SPELLBOUND! decided to try the "Curse" method of coercing registrations, we combed the yellow pages for a "medium" and although it may seem like a contradiction in terms, we found them to be very "rare". We settled instead for a "Weldon". Weldon is not a medium -- but his rates were reasonable -- he agreed to come up with a suitable curse in return for merely mentioning his name in this documentation! (His mind IS a little "Well done" due to his forgetting to close the microwave door one too many times.) The following is the result of Weldon's work (suitable for framing!)... ================================================================= SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE'S SUPER DUPER, NEW AND IMPROVED, ALL PURPOSE SHAREWARE CURSE! -- by Weldon (He never said we had to mention his last name!) MAY... ...your pickup blow a head gasket, ...your toilet back up, ...your shrubbery turn brown, ...your boomerang not return ...your spouse become a Hare Krishna ...your dog mistake your leg for a hydrant ...your mother in law move in, permanently ...you develop the following maladies: - prickly heat - gingivitus - the heartbreak of psoriasis - halitosis - irregularity - painful warts AND WORST OF ALL... May the most annoying man in America do the following show from your livingroom: "Users who secretly refuse to register shareware and the mothers who raised them. One person reveals the whole sordid story 'I refused to register The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor'" -- NEXT GERALDO ================================================================= Can you imagine how cheaply we're letting you off? You could run up thousands of dollars in medical, psychiatric, plumbing, auto repair, dry cleaning, dental costs, the legal costs of deprogramming your spouse --and BOOMERANG REPAIR! (Do you know how hard it is to find an HONEST and AVAILABLE boomerang repairman? They get too much return business! I got so frustrated with our repairman, I tried to just throw our boomerang away. I finally gave up after 3 hours!) $15.00 can save you all this heartache! $25.00 will save you all this heartache and get you the latest version and word lists as well! $35.00 will save you all this heartache, get you the latest version, the additional word lists, and a copy of both The SPELLBOUND! Director and BothSides Text Formatter. CALL US NOW! (Wait a minute, are your gums beginning to feel painful? -- and just who was that on the phone -- YOUR MOTHER IN LAW???!!!!!! Better Hurry...) 8.0 PROBLEMS 8.1 "INPUT RUN-TIME MODULE PATH:" MESSAGE PROBLEM: When I try to start The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor, I get the message: Input run-time module Path: _ SOLUTION: The run-time module, BRUN45.EXE cannot be found. This module contains code which the other files SPELL.EXE, SPELL000.EXE, SPELL001.EXE, and SPELL002.EXE need in order to run. Just make certain that the file BRUN45.EXE is in a directory which is in your PATH. Your PROGRAM directory should be listed in your PATH if you correctly installed the program, so move BRUN45.EXE to that directory for best results. Any time your DATA directory is other than the PROGRAM directory which includes the file BRUN45.EXE, you MUST have the PROGRAM directory listed in your PATH. See your DOS manual for further information about "PATH". 8.2 STRANGE WORDS OR CHARACTERS APPEARING IN WORD LISTS PROBLEM: I get strange characters or words in my word lists after I've created word lists using my own editor. SOLUTION: Your editor or word processor is saving its files in a format which includes formatting codes etc. To correct this, see your word processor manual for instructions on saving your files as "Dos Text Files" or Ascii files. For example, in WordPerfect 5.0, press CTRL-F5 to save it as a "Dos Text File". In WordStar, save the file in "Nondocument mode". 8.3 WHEN YOU FORGET YOUR TEACHER PASSWORD PROBLEM: I've forgotten the "Teacher" password and can no longer gain access to the Spelling Tutor as Teacher. SOLUTION: Delete the file TEACHER.CFG from your DATA disk(s) / directory(s). If your DATA directory were C:\SPELL\DATA, you would issue the following command: DEL C:\SPELL\DATA\TEACHER.CFG <Press ENTER> This command will delete the configuration information belonging to the Teacher, including the password. The next time you try to log in as "Teacher", the program will search for TEACHER.CFG. When it is not found, the program will assume you are logging in for the first time and ask you for a new password. Any configuration you previously had as "TEACHER" will have been lost, so you will have to reconfigure your settings. 8.4 WORD SETS IN SPELLING TUTOR DON'T CORRESPOND TO PRINTED LIST PROBLEM: Word list sets in the Spelling Tutor do not correspond to the sets I've printed out in spite of the fact that they use the same number of words per set. SOLUTION: You have set the Minimum and Maximum word length to filter out some of the shorter or longer words. When this is done, fewer words are used from the file, so the word sets no longer correspond. 8.5 DIFFERENT "SPELL.EXE" BEING RUN INSTEAD OF SPELLING TUTOR PROBLEM: When I try to run The Spelling Tutor by typing "SPELL", the WordPerfect program SPELL.EXE comes up. This is in spite of the fact that the Spelling Tutor's PROGRAM directory containing SPELL.EXE is in my PATH. SOLUTION: This is happening because the directory containing WordPerfect's SPELL.EXE is in a directory which appears before the Spelling Tutor PROGRAM directory in your PATH statement. When the Spelling Tutor INSTALL program modified your PATH, it appended the PROGRAM directory to the end of your PATH statement. This means if you have a directory called C:\WP containing WordPerfect's SPELL.EXE and a directory C:\SPELL containing SPELL.EXE in your PATH and C:\WP appears first, the copy of SPELL.EXE in C:\WP will be run, and not the copy residing in C:\SPELL. The following PATH statement is an example of this. PATH C:\DOS;C:\UTIL;C:\WP;C:\BIN;C:\SPELL; ^ ^ To remedy this problem, you can move all of the files from your DATA directory into the PROGRAM directory, change to the PROGRAM directory and run the program from there. If, on the other hand, you have multiple DATA directories corresponding to several classrooms, you may simply edit your PATH statement so that the PROGRAM directory appears before the directory containing the other SPELL.EXE. To use the example PATH statement given above, we would change it to: PATH C:\DOS;C:\UTIL;C:\SPELL;C:\WP;C:\BIN; ^ ^ HOW THE PATH STATEMENT WORKS When you execute a command for which DOS is unable to find the specified command internally or externally in the current directory, it will search all of the directories in the PATH starting from the beginning and moving through each directory to the end. Once the executable file has been found, no further directories will be searched. 8.6 "OUT OF STRING SPACE IN MODULE..." MESSAGE AND CRASH PROBLEM: Sometimes I get the message "Out of String Space in Module (Module Name) and I'm dropped back to Dos. Why is this happening. SOLUTION: There are a couple of possibilities. First, you may not have enough memory available for the program to run properly. As is clearly stated in this documentation, the INSTALL program and in README.1ST, the Spelling Tutor requires at least 384k of "free" memory to run. This is the amount of memory available after the operating system, configuration and TSRs (not "installed memory"). It requires this memory to load a full directory of files into memory in the file viewer and to perform some of the Maintenance functions. Make sure you have at least this amount of memory available when you run the program. Another way this can happen even when you have enough memory, is when you run a program which loads as "Terminate and Stay Ready" (TSR or Memory Resident) from the Dos Command or Shell options. When the Spelling Tutor performs a Dos Command or allows you to Shell to the Operating System, it does so by releasing a portion of its memory and then loading a secondary copy of your command processor (usually COMMAND.COM). If a Dos Command is being performed, the command is run and the secondary command processor exits back to the calling program, in this case, the Spelling Tutor Menu Module. If you are in a Shell, you must type "EXIT" to return to the calling program. If while this second copy of the command processor is running, you load a TSR, the TSR is loaded into the memory area which was released temporarily by the Spelling Tutor. When you then try to run a function in the Spelling Tutor which requires the allocation of more memory, the program finds no memory available due to the TSR being loaded just beneath it, causing a fatal crash. To remedy this problem, do not load TSRs from within the Spelling Tutor. Some older programs are ill behaved and fail to clean up after themselves when they terminate. Programs such as PC-Paintbrush are run from a batch file which first loads a graphics/screen capture/printer utility then the program. PC-Paintbrush first loads FRIEZE.COM memory resident, and then the PC-Paintbrush program. When the Paint program is exited, the FRIEZE program stays in memory. If a program such as this were run as a Dos Command or from the Shell, the Spelling Tutor would certainly crash. To remove FRIEZE.COM, in particular, edit the batch file PBRUSH.BAT and add the line FRIEZE as the last line of the file. This will cause FRIEZE.COM to dislodge itself from memory, allowing a safe return to the calling program. If you are in doubt about whether a program you are running leaves a portion of itself in memory, get yourself a utility such as PC Magazine's PCMAP.COM (available from most BBSes and shareware distributors as freeware) or use one of the commercial memory peekers such as PC-Tools' MI.COM. These will reveal to you all of the programs currently occupying memory. 9.0 KNOWN BUGS FIXED IN THIS VERSION Please don't be alarmed by the possibility of bugs in software. Virtually all software of any complexity will have bugs in it. The best we can hope for is that these bugs will occur only under the rarest of unanticipated circumstances, and that they will turn out to be benign. We are pleased to report that we have received no complaints of any bugs in the previous versions of the program and it seems to be accomplishing the promised task for which it was designed. There were however, several problems in previous versions which we at SPELLBOUND! Software found that went completely undetected by users. One of these was the background shadowing of boxes getting messed up when certain ASCII characters were selected for the background character in the Menu Module. This happened because the same character used for the background character would be used in the box. The shadowing algorithm depends upon there being a unique character used in the background so that it can determine whether to cast a longer shadow over the background, or a shorter one over a box. This has been corrected by dissallowing ASCII characters 24-27 and 32 - 126 for use as background characters. Another more serious bug was found in a small assembler routine we purchased from a third party which proved difficult to trace. This routine had the particularly undesirable effect of making one's system clock run backwards while the opening screen was being displayed losing about 20 seconds each time the program was run! We are VERY sorry to anyone who was confused as to why their clock was losing time as a result of this anomaly. 10.0 FREE UPGRADE OF VERSION 2.00 TO ALL PREVIOUSLY REGISTERED USERS We consider the second problem to be of sufficient seriousness to warrant the free distribution of Registered Version 2.00 to all previous registered users. All registered users of The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor have received a free upgrade of this version by mail so that they will have the version in which this bug has been corrected! If by some chance you are a registered user whom we missed in our mailing, please call us at (517) 828-6520 to receive your validation sequence by which this copy may be converted to the registered version. There is NO charge, of course! 11.0 SPELLBOUND! DIRECTOR HARD DISK MANAGER, MENU SYSTEM & DOS SHELL +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | The SPELLBOUND! DIRECTOR, Version 2.11 | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ FEATURES OF THE SPELLBOUND! Director... ...Very Affordable -- ONLY $34.94! Documentation on disk -- can be read from within program! ...Completely mouse driven. (Of course you can use the keyboard in the event that you are afraid of mice!) ...Complete file management system including directory management, handling of ZIP format files, copying, deleting, moving multiple files, change date & time of files, create @response lists etc. ...Intuitive, Menus are extremely simple to setup and use. ...Easy setup via data entry screen. Just answer the questions, the program handles the rest! ...Create your own user defined help for each item in your menu which will pop up at the press of the F1 key! ...You can have up to 255 menus of 18 selections per menu! ...All selections may be invoked via a single key press! Three methods of invocation available: Single keypress, light bar selection, or mouse! ...Define your own prompt for additional parameters! ...Saves all information entered into prompt windows by the user for next time. ...Usage log tracks the starting time, ending time, and time elapsed of all programs run from the Menu System. ...Prompted parameters may be inserted any where in the command line arguments rather than just being appended to the tail. ...Calendar, ASCII and attribute charts, and a four function calculator with tape available at the press of a key. ...Leaves only 11k kernel in memory; as small as your mouse driver. ...Runs by itself; no kludgy batch files to run through. ...Configure your own colors throughout the program. Color code your menus! ...Send a sequence of up to 15 keystrokes to be run with your application! 11.1 SPECIAL OFFER FOR RESELLERS, CONSULTANTS, ETC. When at least 10 copies of The SPELLBOUND! Director are purchased, the name "The SPELLBOUND! Director may be customized to any name you wish (limited to 22 characters). If you are a reseller or consultant, you could benefit from customers and clients having your name advertised every time your customer boots his computer. We have available a date-limited but fully functional test drive of the program available for $5.00 (applicable toward purchase of the program.) Just send to address given in the invoice above. Rates: 1 copy -- $34.95 2-9 copies $25.00 10-19 copies $20.00 20-50 copies $15.00 50 and up $10.00 Lifetime license for resellers and consultants to install on machines they sell under their own name -- $1200.00 12.0 SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE'S "BOTHSIDES" TEXT FORMATTER +----------------------------------+ | THE BOTHSIDES TEXT FORMATTER 3.4 | +----------------------------------+ This program prints ANY text file to both sides of paper when sending to your printer, no matter how the text file is paginated. It saves you half the paper you would normally use and half the binder space when storing documentation. It has the added ability of formatting unpaginated text with a footer containing a title and page number. It's output can go to disk files or directly to the printer. This utility has become our greatest seller. Many have found it to be one of their most useful utilities. If you purchase a lot of shareware packages, this program is INDISPENSIBLE! BothSides Text Formatter -- Only $15.00 for the first copy, $10.00 for any additional copies from SPELLBOUND! Software, and FREE when you purchase The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor using the $35.00 Option. SOME COMMENTS FROM BOTHSIDES USERS... BothSides is the first software I have evaluated in a long time which is useful to me. It's easy to learn and easy to use! -- Paul Lowe, Chattanooga, TN Simplicity, functionality, ease of use, all keywords from a user's viewpoint of a well designed program. All can be used when referring to the BothSides Text Formatter! -- Charles M. Smith, Jackson, MI I think your program is spellbinding! ...and I really admire your skill! -- John A. Holmes, Bangor, ME Great program! I use this all the time. It's saving me a lot of paper! -- Jerry Breazeale, Demorest, GA Great! Sensible thinking! Saves me paper AND binders!! Thanks! -- Kevin Holihan, Neptune, NJ 13.0 BABYDRAW -- DRAWING GAME FOR CHILDREN 2 TO 102! This is a great drawing program designed for use by small children beginning at about 2 years of age, it is a program which will bring hours of fun to any child 2 to 102. It works with any CGA adapter or better and uses the number pad keys to draw up, down, and diagonally. It makes drawing INCREDIBLY EASY! When a small child presses any non-drawing key, the program generates random drawing. The child is GREATLY EXCITED by his "creation". The program can also RECORD and PLAY BACK drawings just as they were originally drawn with complete control over speed etc. It comes with a program which can PLAY BACK A WHOLE SCRIPT of playback drawings so that you can make "SLIDESHOW" type presentations. You may FREELY DISTRIBUTE the special PLAYBACK PROGRAM to friends so that you can create VIDEO GREETING CARDS which draw themselves! 13.1 UP TO FOUR PERSONALIZED COPIES FOR ONLY $19.95!!! ($5.00 FOR ADDITIONAL) The program is CUSTOMIZED WITH THE CHILD'S NAME throughout, and displays a 49 character MESSAGE FROM THE GIVER to the child every time the program starts. If the child's name were "Susan", the program would be called "Susan's Drawing Game", the program file would be called SUSAN.EXE and would be started by typing "SUSAN". It would then display a 49 character message your specify in its own box on the opening screen, such as "Susie is the Apple of Mommy and Daddy's Eye". When the program terminates, it restores the DOS screen and poses the question, "Have you hugged Susan today?" The Public Brand Software Library gave it 4 STARS (out of 4) and called it "Literally hours of fun!" BabyDraw ....................$19.95 (for up to 4 customizations, $5.00 for each additional) Site Licenses are available and negotiable. Call for information 13.2 INVOICE/ORDER FORM FOR BABYDRAW +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | SPELLBOUND! Software Product Order Form | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Name: _________________________________________________ | | | | Street: _________________________________________________ | | | | City: _________________________ St: ______ Zip: ______ | | | | Phone: (___) ___-____ (for questions about your order) | | | +----------+-----------------------------+------------+---------+ | QUANTITY | DESCRIPTION | PRICE EACH | TOTAL | +----------+-----------------------------+------------+---------+ | | First 4 Copies of BabyDraw | 19.95 | 19.95 | +----------+-----------------------------+------------+---------+ | | BabyDraw Additional Copies | 5.00 | | +----------+-----------------------------+------------+---------+ | Michigan Residents add 4% sales tax:| | + +---------+ | Total:| | +-----------------------------------------------------+---------+ | CHECK ONE: | | | | Check/Money Order: [ ] MasterCard: [ ] Visa: [ ] | | | | Card No: ___________ Expiration: __/__ Ph: (___) ___-____ | | | | Cardholder Signature: _____________________________________ | | | | Send U.S. Funds only to: | | SPELLBOUND! Software | | P.O. Box 158 | | Shepherd, MI 48883 | | | | Or if you have MasterCard or Visa, call: | | (517) 828-6520 | | | | | | Specify name and message for each child for which a | | customized copy is desired. Limit name to nine characters | | and message to 49 characters. Messages longer than 49 | | characters will be modified or truncated! | | | | Name: ___________________________ | | | | Message: ___________________________________________________ | | | | Name: ___________________________ | | | | Message: ___________________________________________________ | | | | (Print additional names on reverse side) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ 14.0 ADDITIONAL WORD LISTS AVAILABLE FROM SPELLBOUND! SOFTWARE SPELLBOUND! Software is in the process of adding to its library of word lists. These lists will fall into a number of differing categories. We hope to offer word lists of Medical, Legal, Scientific, and other professional terms. We are making these wordlists available to anyone, regardless of whether you're registered or not, since they are essentially unformatted ASCII lists of individual words which may have usefulness in applications other than the SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor. These wordlists will be available for $7.95 per diskette. If you would like to receive a list of titles and descriptions of word lists we have currently available, send a self-addressed, stamped, business size envelope to: SPELLBOUND! Software P.O. Box 158 Shepherd, MI 48883 If you would like to purchase the present registration wordlist package available with options 2 and 3, it is available for $7.95. You do not have to be a registered user to purchase this package as it may be useful for other applications besides the Spelling Tutor. Just send your request to the address above, or if you have MasterCard or Visa, call: (517) 828-6520 and ask for the registration wordlist package. Please specify diskette type, 3.5 or 5.25". 15.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the following for their contributions, suggestions, ideas, assistance, and support in the development of The SPELLBOUND! Spelling Tutor. Patti J. Casey -- Came up with name, "SPELLBOUND!", Did author's laundry, maintained computer room, compiled word lists, bore his children, loved him selflessly. Shannon and Sean Casey -- Alpha testers, first to benefit from the Spelling Tutor. Haruyasu Yoshizaki -- A.K.A. "Yoshi", author of the excellent LHARC file compression utility, for his generosity in allowing the free use of LHARC, which has been used to distribute the Spelling Tutor. Ilmars Dobulis -- Contributed lots of sound advice and encouragement. Kathleen Corder -- Contributed some excellent ideas now found in the Spelling Tutor. Jim Olson, Wayne Wyszinski of Mainstream Computers-- First to sell it in their store. Tracy Sumner -- Purchased the first copy! Dr. Albert Amman M.D. -- First multiple copy purchaser! Contributed some great ideas for shareware distribution. David E. Tew -- Super helpful and thorough during beta test phase of this version!