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This program just won't leave me alone.
Leonard told me that if I'd done it right in the first place, I never
would have had these problems. Maybe Leonard was right. Now it's a few
days past the anniversary of the last version's release, and there are
Stacys out there, and TTs have more colors than STs. I suppose it's
time for me to kick this little program out into the street again and
let it fend for itself.
MACCEL3 (release version 3.3, since, as I said, it just wouldn't leave
me alone!) is quite improved over MACCEL2, the previous version of
the Atari mouse accelerator. The most important improvements for you to
know about are that it does neat stuff on Stacy, and it knows about the
extra colors it has to black out on a TT. For those who know about
such things, I'll also say the magic word XBRA.
Using the program is really simple. Just copy it in your AUTO folder
and you never need bother with it again. If you're worried about it
taking up 11k all the while you're running your ST, don't. The part of
the program that stays resident and actually does the mouse acceleration
and screen saving is only about 1k big. The rest of it is the
configuration part of the program.
If you don't like the default acceleration speed, or you want to turn
off the screen saver or make its time delay longer, or even if you
forgot to put it in your AUTO folder, just run MACCEL3.PRG from the
desktop. What you see then depends on what kind of computer you have
and what hard disk driver you're using. I'll describe everything, but
don't be alarmed if you don't see some of the parts. MACCEL3 is smart;
it knows what parts you need and only shows you those parts.
At the top of the dialog that appears when you run MACCEL3 from the
desktop is the program name and copyright notice, and a mouse with a
rocket strapped to its back (see the original Mouse Accelerator
documentation if you want to know more about mice and rockets). Below
that are control groups, and below the control groups are three buttons.
The control groups control the three functions of MACCEL3. The leftmost
group of 3 buttons each has an arrow. The bottom arrow is standing
still, the middle one is moving a bit, and the top one is moving real
fast. These buttons control the amount of acceleration MACCEL3 will
give you. The bottom one gives you no acceleration at all; if it is
selected your mouse will behave just as it would if MACCEL3 were not
running. The top one makes your mouse zoom across the screen when you
move it fast (that's the speed I use--I like to go real fast). Most
people are comfortable with the middle (default) acceleration speed.
On the right, the topmost box controls the screen saver. The shadowed
button with the picture of a monitor on it turns the screen saver on and
off. If it isn't selected, the rest of the screen saver control group
will be greyed out. Next to the on/off button is a slider which
controls how many minutes MACCEL3 will wait before it blacks out your
screen (if you're using a color resolution, or duochrome mode on the TT)
or starts flipping your screen (if you're using a monochrome
resolution). This slider works like any other slider you're used to,
except that the left and right arrows look like little clocks, left for
a shorter amount of time, right for a longer amount of time.
Also in the screen saver control group is a button with a picture of a
phone in it. This determines whether the screen saver will watch
characters coming in the modem port as well as watching the keyboard.
If this button is selected, the screen saver will not flip the screen
if it sees characters coming in the modem. If it isn't selected, the
screen saver will only notice keystrokes, mouse movement, and (for
technical reasons beyond my control) MIDI characters. This "watch
modem" feature is useful when you're watching an online conference, for
example, and you don't want your screen to black out if you don't type
anything for a while.
The last part of the screen saver control group only shows up if you're
using a Stacy. It appears in the lower right hand corner of the box,
and consists of 2 icons with the title "Stacy" over them. The
leftmost icon is a lightbulb, and the right one is a screen, just like
the on/off button. These two control the screen saver's behavior on a
Stacy. If you select the lightbulb, the screen saver will turn off the
Stacy screen's backlight after the number of minutes of inactivity you
selected with the slider. If you select the screen icon, the screen
saver will turn OFF the Stacy screen completely. Note that you can
elect to turn off the backlight, OR turn off both the backlight and the
screen. MACCEL3 won't let you tell the screen saver to turn off the
screen and leave the backlight on. In any case, the screen saver still
flips the screen in the same way it would on a monochrome ST screen.
Below the screen saver control group is the auto-park time delay
control group. This group will only show up if you're using the Stacy
hard disk driver that supports auto-parking the Stacy hard disk. The
button with the car parked at a parking meter controls whether or not
the hard disk driver will park your hard disk after a period of
inactivity. If the park button is not selected, the slider to its
right will be greyed out. The slider, like the screen saver slider,
determines how many minutes of inactivity the hard disk driver will
wait before it parks your Stacy's hard disk. After the Stacy hard disk
driver has parked your Stacy's hard disk, it will automatically un-park
it the next time you try to access data on the disk. This provides an
extra safety margin for a Stacy.
Finally, we get to the three buttons across the bottom of the dialog.
OK (or Install), Save and Cancel. The OK button will accept any
changes you've made in the control group settings, and will quit the
program. The OK button reads "Install" if you have not yet run the
mouse accelerator. Selecting Install will install the mouse accelerator
with the settings you have chosen in the control groups.
The Save button will save all the current settings to the program
file on disk. If you don't save the settings, any changes you make
will only be in effect until you turn off your computer. When you
select Save, the Mouse Accelerator asks you if you want to save settings
to the default program (C:\AUTO\MACCEL3.PRG or A:\AUTO\MACCEL3.PRG,
depending on whether you booted from a hard disk or not), or whether you
want to Locate the Mouse Accelerator program with a GEM file selector.
You would need to use use Locate if you had renamed MACCEL3.PRG to
something else, or if it was located somewhere other than your auto
folder.
The Cancel button cancels any changes you made to the Mouse Accelerator
settings and quits the program.
That's all there is to it... if you have any questions or problems with
Mouse Accelerator 3, please contact Atari Technical Support at
408/745-2004.
Ken Badertscher
24 August 1990
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