Children's Coloring World - Coloring Book/Children's Coloring World.iso/graphics/disk202/bch32.doc

Text File | 1993-09-08 | 16KB | 344 lines

                            Bert's Christmas
              (Including All the Bert's Coloring Programs)
                   A Coloring Program For Introducing
                     Young Children to the Computer

                  Unregistered Version 3.2 User's Guide

                              Introduction


    This instruction manual was produced for use with the Bert's
Christmas program. Several other Bert's coloring programs are also
available and these instructions are for use with these programs as
well.

    Bert's Christmas is an enjoyable coloring program for children of
all ages, but is especially useful for introducing young children to the
computer. Bert's Christmas was designed by educators to be used by young
children with a minimum of assistance by adults. As a coloring program
Bert's Christmas is superior to many other children's coloring programs
in that it allows the user to place the various images, all in four
different sizes, on a variety of backgrounds. This allows children to
easily create their own picture before coloring. The opportunity to
create their own picture will allow children to take pride in their
unique creation. Bert's Christmas also has a voice feature, which can be
turned on or off, allowing the images to speak their names, much to
the delight of children.

    When first started Bert's Christmas displays a title screen and then
the drawing surface with eight buttons on the left. Children can operate
the program with the mouse alone. A window is provided which allows
children to write a short story about their picture using the keyboard.
The fact that they created the picture will help provide the motivation
to write about it. One of the best ways for children to learn to read is
to write, even if their initial attempts include phonetic spelling which
is not always correct. If your child is not ready to attempt writing
his/her story, then another good strategy is for you to type in your
child's story as he/she dictates it to you. Then have your child read
back the story he/she created. This is another very effective beginning
reading strategy. They will love creating a setting, writing or
dictating their own story and printing out a copy.

                              Installation

    Bert's Christmas requires an IBM compatible computer with at least
512K of memory, a VGA display and a Microsoft compatible mouse. A Sound
Blaster card will improve the voice quality considerably. The computer's
speaker will be used if a Sound Blaster card and driver are not found.
The program installation process is quite easy.

    First, make a backup copy of your Bert's Christmas program disk. If
necessary consult your PC-DOS/MS-DOS manual for a description of the
DISKCOPY command. Save the original program disk in a safe place and use
the copy as the working program disk.


Bert's Christmas Version 3.2                                Page 1 of 6
    Second, while it is possible to use Bert's Christmas on a floppy
disk system, a hard disk system is a necessity for reasonable speed and
storing a number of pictures your child has created. To install Bert's
Christmas on a hard disk use the following steps:

    1. Insert the floppy disk in your computer in drive A. (or B if
necessary)
    2. Type A: (or B:)
    3. Type INSTALL A C

    Any hard drive letters can be used, for example INSTALL B D will
install the program from floppy drive B to hard drive D. The
installation will create a directory called BERT3 on your hard drive and
you will need to enter a CD\BERT3 to change to the Bert's Christmas
directory before running the program. Once installed just type BERT to
start the program. If your computer gives a series of beeps when you run
Bert's Christmas it is probably because it cannot find the image files
it needs to run, and other problems are showing up as well. All the
files for Bert's Christmas need to be in the same directory for the
program to operate successfully. You should not mix the .DOT image files
from Bert's Christmas with those of versions previous to 3.0 as they are
in a different format.

    If you are installing more than one copy of the Bert's coloring
programs, ie. - Bert's Christmas, Bert's African Animals, Bert's
Prehistoric Animals, Bert's Whales and Dolphins - you will get warning
messages during installation such as the following:

PKSFX: (W18) Warning! c:/bert3/BERT.EXE already exists. Overwrite (y/n)?

    You should type a letter N in response to this message, which will
speed up installation. Actually, typing a Y will not hurt anything, it
simply writes over the file with an identical copy.

    Users with a Sound Blaster card must copy the driver file CT-
VOICE.DRV, which comes with your Sound Blaster card, into the BERT3
directory. This file is usually found in the DRV subdirectory which is
in the Sound Blaster directory. The Sound Blaster directory has
different names depending on the model you have, for example SB16 for
the Sound Blaster 16 ASP. To copy the driver file you would type:

                  COPY  \SB16\DRV\CT-VOICE.DRV  \BERT3

    You should change the directory name SB16 in the example above to
whatever is appropriate for your Sound Blaster software. If the CT-
DRIVE.DRV file is not found in the BERT3 directory the program will use
the computer's speaker for voice output. For computers with normal
speakers the voice is quite recognizable. However, many of the new PC
computers are using cheap piezoelectric devices which makes the voice
sound like a duck. Users with piezoelectric devices or parents tired of
listening to image names may wish to turn the voice off.

    Operation of Bert's Christmas is quite easy. The eight buttons are
configured to do the following when the left mouse button is clicked on
them:

Bert's Christmas Version 3.2                                Page 2 of 6
                           The Command Buttons

    SELECT AN IMAGE

    When beginning a new picture six small backgrounds are displayed.
The user clicks with the mouse on the selected scene to have it drawn on
the screen full size.
    Next, a group of six images are displayed. Clicking the mouse on
any one of the images will select it. If the stop sign is clicked on,
no image will be selected and you are returned to the drawing
surface.
    Clicking the mouse on the box between the stop sign and the green
arrows sets the voice status. Voice can be set to on, off or voice
only - meaning the images only say their name through the computer's
internal speaker. The sound quality is somewhat limited due to PC
speaker quality, but the advantage is that no additional hardware is
needed.
    If the down green arrow is selected the next group of images will
be displayed for possible selection. The up arrow returns to the
previous group of images.
    The selected image appears in four different sizes. After the
image of the desired size is chosen, a rectangle outlining its size
will appear in the upper left. When the left mouse button is held down
on the rectangle it can be dragged into its desired position. When the
left mouse button is released, the image will be drawn and any
previously drawn lines under it will be erased. This allows you to place
one image in front of the next. It is best to first place all the
desired images on the drawing surface before filling with color, as
some colors cannot be drawn over with a image outline. An additional
feature is that the image figures can also be drawn in reverse. To
reverse a figure simply hold down the right mouse button as you release
the left one when you position the image on the drawing surface.

    SELECT A COLOR

    When this button is clicked a group of thirty colors is displayed.
When a color is chosen it fills the crayon in the button. This color
will fill the portion of the picture clicked on. Clicking outside the
color box restores the screen with no action.

    WRITI