Make Mine MAPPER #14 --------------------- by Rob Haeuser PC MAPPER: Not Just Another Windows Icon ---------------------------------------------------------------- A few years ago, a rumor began circulating: Unisys was developing a version of MAPPER to run on a PC. The initial reaction was one of extreme enthusiasm. When the reality became apparent that OS/2 would be the required operating system, the enthusiasm noticeably diminished. After all, how many of you have OS/2 - even today? Converting MAPPER to run on a PC must have been a monumental effort. But, needless to say, the general public was unhappy, expressing displeasure at subsequent USE, Inc. conferences. "We want a MAPPER that runs under DOS!!!" was pretty much the consensus. Well, here it is 1991. It's time to get extremely enthusiastic again! PC MAPPER 4R1A is out, and it really, really works! And yes, it runs under DOS. But that's not all. It uses Microsoft Windows 3.0, the industry standard Graphical User Interface. Figure 1 gives a list of the required hardware/software. ---------------------------------------------------------------- FIGURE 1 -------- Hardware/Software Description ----------------------------------------------------------- PC PW2-500 or PW2-800. Operating System MS-DOS level 3.1 or later and Windows level 3.0 or later. Hard Disk Capacity Minimum of 40 MB with 32MB available for MAPPER. Diskette Capacity 1.2 MB 5.25 inch or 1.4 MB 3.5 inch diskette drive. Memory Minimum of 2 MB of memory, with 4 MB recommended. Mouse Any type supported by Windows. Display Unisys PW2 with EGA or VGA monitor. Printer or Plotter Any type supported by Windows. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Take note of the hard disk capacity requirements, especially the part about 32 MB available for MAPPER. They aren't kidding. I moved everything I had (including Windows) to my D partition, leaving the bare bones required on C to be able to boot. After installing MAPPER, I had a little over 4 MB of the C partition left. MAPPER took about 28 MB total. So, get rid of all those games, eh? As far as the PC and Monitor go, apparently it's ok to use PW2 compatibles. My system consists of a Grid 386iSX with 5 MB of memory, a Quantum 52 MB IDE hard drive, who knows what kind of 5.25 inch diskette drive, a NEC MultiSync 2A VGA color monitor, a Panasonic KX-P1180 printer, and a Radio Shack mouse. Sort of a mixed bag, with nothing fancy (like a math co-processor), but it works. There are actually two sets of "style" numbers for PC MAPPER, used when ordering, one for the PW2 and one for PW2 compatibles. Figure 2 shows the different style ordering numbers. The first 2 are for Unisys PCs and the last 2 are for Unisys compatible PCs. ---------------------------------------------------------------- FIGURE 2 -------- Style number Description ----------------------------------------------------------- MS 386-MAD PC MAPPER System Development MS 386-MAR PC MAPPER System Runtime MSX 386-MAD PC MAPPER System Development MSX 386-MAR PC MAPPER System Runtime ---------------------------------------------------------------- Notice that a development and a runtime version are available. For us old-time run designers that dream of developing systems at home, the possibility of bundling a system with a runtime version as a package deal, and having our code protected, is very attractive. Because this MAPPER requires Windows, it is hard to discuss the former without mentioning the latter. Being new to the world of Windows, I have had a lot of fun figuring out all of the little ins and outs (nuances?) of this environment. It comes with a killer game of Solitaire, though, which really helps you to master the mouse (snicker, snicker). My system, which admittedly is not the world's fastest, was taking about 20 seconds to load Windows. That's not bad, but in my never ending quest to shave nanoseconds (hey, a billion of 'em add up to a whole second!), I read the notes on fine-tuning Windows. In particular, they mention a "swap file", a work file Windows requires. By default, this file is temporary, created when Windows is loaded, and deleted upon departure. The documentation mentions that this file can be made permanent, which, of course, will eat up more precious disk space. But it shaves my load time for Windows to 15 seconds, a 25% reduction (5 billion nanos!). Don't laugh, those 5 second chunks can add up over the years. Want to save a couple of seconds more? Blow off the really fancy wallpaper, like that 300+KB view of the galaxy, or, heaven forbid, that 150+KB Simpsons stuff. You'll save that much in memory, too. With or without a permanent Windows swap file, MAPPER takes about 50 seconds to initialize. There may be a way to reduce this, so I'll keep looking. Setting up a "virtual disk", where some memory is used to simulate a hard drive, may be a possibility. Even still, considering MAPPER is building all kinds of tables, and checking out at least 33 form types with well over 700 rids in them, that's not bad. To install MAPPER, you must first be in Windows. The installation process took about 30 minutes. When all is done, you get a MAPPER icon under the program manager. Click on this, and the MAPPER window opens. In it, there are seven icons. Six of them use the littlest image I have ever seen of the familiar CHART run example for the MAPPER logo: the red Unisys logo that fans out to the rainbow colored word "MAPPER". The six are: "Startup MAPPER", "Terminate MAPPER", "Admin Menus", "MAPPER Session", "Purge Index", and "Backup Database". The seventh icon is the worlds smallest bar chart, representing "MAPPER Graphics". It is important to remember that, unlike MASM MAPPER, each of these icons represents a separate program, and each associated icon can be minimized independently of the other. For example, when executing Graphics, you do not use F1 to return to your alpha character display. You can minimize the window it is running in or close it, which leaves the graphics icon active and returns you to your session. However, if you minimize, the graphics icon is still visible in your MAPPER session. For this reason, I recommend closing the window, which at least eliminates the icon from the current display. To get MAPPER going, click on the "Startup MAPPER" icon. This invokes a program called MAPSTART.EXE. Don't bother to try to "maximize" this window, which typically starts out somewhere in- between minimum and maximum. The program MAPPER.EXE actually displays the sign-on logo, so wait until you see it begin execution before maximizing the window. As you may already know, MAPPER level 4R1 is the equivalent of MASM MAPPER level 35, so you have the new "look and feel" in front of you when you get the sign-on screen. And, yes, you can toggle back to the "classic" look with the familiar LOOKSW (look switch) command. I recommend that the very first action you take after signing on is to press F11 to display the keyboard map. It really helps to know what keys to hit to do something. For instance, the transmit key is the enter key on the number key area, or "NmEnter" as they call it. The main enter key does a cursor return. Believe me, it is refreshing to no longer need to hunt down and peck at the scroll lock key for a transmit. It reminds me of the old days, when the transmit key was this big blue blob on the upper right hand corner of the keyboard that you couldn't hardly miss. When you finally get around to actually displaying a rid, you will immediately notice something somewhat strange. The screen looks a bit squished. This is because instead of the standard 24 by 80 screen you are so used to, this guy is displaying 35 by 80! The "options" selection on the Windows menu bar includes "24 by 80" screen, but all this does is lop off the bottom 11 lines, reducing the size of the window. The character font stays the same: squished. This does expose the lower part of the Windows environment, which means that you can click on other icons and pop out of MAPPER without signing off. If you do this, you will see that MAPPER has two icons going: one that says "MAPPER.EXE" (more on this in a minute), and one reading "WinShrd". I guess "WinShrd" stands for Windows Shroud. This icon indicates that some program related to MAPPER is running, whether it is MAPSTART.EXE, MAPPER.EXE, or something else, like MAPGRAPH.EXE. The other icon(s) indicate which specific programs are currently open. The icon reading "MAPPER.EXE" could read differently. Let me explain. You will notice soon enough that the familiar "Row/Column" cursor indicator numbers are missing from the screen bottom. There is an option to display these numbers. If selected, they will appear at the top of the screen, in place of the executing program name, MAPPER.EXE. Apparently Windows uses this area of the screen (usually a program name) to identify the icon. So, when you reduce to a icon, you see the rainbow MAPPER with the current row/column position of the cursor as the icon name. "Working as intended", as they say, but it smells like a little Windows bug to me. Another selection under options is "select font". Currently the only 2 choices are "terminal" and "courier". Terminal is the default, with a character pitch of either 8 or 12 (the default is 12). If you select terminal with a pitch of 8, you get a 35 by 80 screen shrunk even further. This also will expose other Windows icons on the bottom, which can be clicked on. You may not want to bother with the courier font. Since it gives a wider selection of character pitches (13, 16, or 20), I figured that I could somehow get my familiar 24 by 80 screen back by using it. Not true. Courier 13 displays a 33 by 80 screen, the 16 pitch gives a 27.5 by 71.1 screen (it's getting weird), and the 20 pitch gives a 22 by 53.5 screen. The other problem is that bizarre characters show up where tabs and other special characters should be. So, again, forget it for now. Maybe that's why terminal is the default... So, anyway, once you've been in MAPPER for awhile, and it's time to sign off, I recommend that if you have switched to the classic look, switch back to the new look. The reason: F10 on the function key bar takes you through the steps required for an "elegant" termination of the MAPPER program. Do not try to terminate MAPPER by closing it's window. When you have an active logo on display, F10 will read "SgnOff". After you sign off, the idle logo screen appears with F10 reading "Exit". When you hit F10 at this point, the MAPPER window is closed, but the MAPPER "WinShrd" logo is still displayed. Never attempt to close this icon. You must re-display the MAPPER window under the program manager (remember, the one with seven icons in it?) and click on the "Terminate MAPPER" icon. This will elegantly bring down the MAPPER system via the II.EXE program, and the "WinShrd" icon will disappear. This may seem like a lot to do, but remember that it is not necessary to terminate MAPPER every time you get in and out of an active session. This only needs to be done before terminating Windows. By the way, if you accidently closed MAPPER or WinShrd somehow, and then try to terminate Windows, you will get the error message "Unrecoverable Application Error. Terminating current application." Windows says that this is a no-no, and may cause memory corruption, which could affect other applications. They go on to recommend that you boot the PC to boot! This did occur to me a few times at first, with no apparent ill effects, but it is probably best to avoid this situation. I must say that I am absolutely amazed at what Unisys has accomplished in such a short time frame. The vast majority of a MASM MAPPER's capabilities are now sitting there in front of you at home, ready for your personal use. I finally feel like the term "personal computer" has some real meaning.