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Zippy Instructions
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1988-11-14
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Zippy, the Talking Pinhead, version 1.0 by Chuck Shotton. 6-16-88
=================================================================
Zippy is a program, similar to the infamous Talking Moose DA. Zippy hangs
out in the background of your Mac, waiting to enlighten you with his random
words of wisdom. Zippy is currently in his first incarnation, and any
suggestions for his enhancement are greatly appreciated. Zippy is free to
the Mac community, but his program (not his likeness) is Copyright, 1988 by
Chuck Shotton and BIAP Systems.
Running Zippy
=============
Using this program is EXTREMELY simple. Just double-click the file and
sit back. Zippy is designed to run in the background with Multifinder,
you MUST be running Multifinder to use Zippy (you can run Zippy without
Multifinder, but it's pretty boring). In addition, Zippy speaks using the
Macintalk speech synthesis driver. This file MUST be in your System Folder.
Once he is running, just click the Multifinder icon in the upper right corner
of the screen, or select another program's window to move him out of the way.
To stop Zippy, make it the active application and then select "Quit" from the
File menu.
Modifying Zippy
===============
Zippy is designed to be totally user-configurable. If you are creative with
ResEdit, you can make Zippy look like a moose (or anything else), say whatever
you want, and wake up whenever you say. There are 3 resource types that can
be modified to change how Zippy acts. The PICT resources numbered 200-208
define Zippy's face (you can have fewer or more faces...more later). The STR#
resources define what Zippy says. And, the INTG resources define several
integer constants that affect how Zippy operates.
INTG Resources
==============
These resources are hexadecimal representations of 2 byte integers. They define
constants that change the operation of Zippy as follows:
#128 "Num of PICTs"
-------------------
This number represents the number of PICTs used for Zippy's random faces.
This number must be 1 less than the actual count. So, if you have 10 pictures
for Zippy's faces, set this INTG resource to 9.
#129 "Num of Strs"
------------------
This INTG resource defines the number of phrases available for Zippy to
speak. It is the count of individual strings in the STR# 128 resource. If you
add phrases to the STR# 128 resource, remember to increase this number.
#130 "PICT Height" and #131 "PICT Width"
----------------------------------------
These INTGs define the height and width of Zippy's face pictures in pixels.
#132 "Left Offset" and #133 "Top Offset"
----------------------------------------
These two INTGs define where Zippy will show up on the screen. They define
the top-left corner of where his face pictures will be drawn.
#134 "Seconds to Delay"
-----------------------
This INTG defines how many seconds Zippy will sleep before waking up with a
new message.
STR# Resources
==============
You can modify what Zippy says by editing the STR# resource #128 ("Phrases").
Simply click on one of the rows of asterisks ("*******"), select "New" from the
menu in ResEdit, and enter your new text as plain English. Don't forget to
modify the INTG resource #129 to reflect the total number of phrases.
PICT Resources
==============
You can change Zippy's appearances completely by altering the PICT resources
that are displayed for his face. You can have as few or as many faces as you
want. Create new faces using a tool such as MacPaint (color bitmaps should work
too), copy them to the Scrapbook, and paste them into Zippy using ResEdit.
There are a few IMPORTANT things that must be done after the pictures are
pasted into the PICT resources in Zippy. The resource IDs of the PICTs that
make up Zippy's faces must be numbered sequentially, starting at 200. So if you
have 6 pictures, the PICT IDs must be 200-205.
Zippy works best if all of his face pictures are identical in size. It is
important for performance reasons that INTG resources #130 and #131 be set to
the exact width and height of the PICTs. If the sizes are off, you may hear
clicks and pops while Zippy is speaking.
More Info
=========
Zippy was written using MPW Pascal, but should port easily to other versions of
Pascal. Source code is available for $8. Please send any comments or requests
to:
Chuck Shotton
c/o BIAP Systems
P.O. Box 580622
Houston, TX 77258-0622
GEnie ID : c.shotton12
BIX ID : cshotton
CIS : 72460,764
AppleLink: D1683
-or-
Call BIAP's BBS at:
(713) 480-7422, FidoNet node 1:106/260