TREK GURU A Computerized "Star Trek" Guide By: Robert Seace ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System requirements: IBM compatible machine, running MS-DOS. (I know of no version restrictions, or specific machine restrictions. It SHOULD work with just about any machine, and any fairly recent version of DOS. It has been tested to work on the oldest hunk of junk I could find: my old Tandy 1000HX, an 8088, 7.16 MHz machine, running DOS 2.11, with 640K RAM, 1 720K disk drive (no hard drive), and a CGA monitor. The only thing I had to do was load it with the "NOMOUSE" command line argument, as apparently that old version of DOS doesn't support the interrupt call used to find out if a mouse exists (int 33h). However, it was unbearably slow on this machine, so I'd certainly recommend a bit faster machine, and certainly a more recent version of DOS. But, it DOES work, even on that old beast... ;-)) I'm not sure how the colors will show up on a monocrome screen, so a color monitor of some sort would probably be your best bet, though it may very well work on a mono screen. About 250K free RAM is needed to load the combined series databases of the program. (That's total free RAM, BEFORE entering the program, NOT the amount of free memory shown on the bottom line of the initial Main Menu screen. It'll only take about 100K or so more of RAM to load the combined series databases, based on THAT figure, as the program itself sucks up about 125 - 150K.) Supported: Keyboard and/or mouse input. Printer and/or file and/or screen output. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trek Guru allows you to look up information about various "Star Trek" episodes/movies, and/or actors/characters... It currently covers TOS (The Original Series), TAS (The Animated Series), and TMS (The Movie Series)... I eventually plan to someday expand it to include information on TNG (The Next Generation) and DS9 (Deep Space Nine), and whatever other new series or movies Paramount decides to release... The main reason I didn't include TNG and DS9 in this version is because of lack of time to input all the data; plus, both are still in production, so I'd just have to constantly update the databases... I'll likely wait until they are out of production before adding them... Also, I'd like to someday have a similar program which stores information on the various "Star Trek" novels... (Actually, I already have the program for this written... I merely need to find the time and energy to input all the data... But, don't hold your breath waiting for me to do it any time soon... ;-)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USAGE: guru [?] [speed] [NOMOUSE] The optional '?' argument prints a little help/usage summary. The optional 'speed' argument controls the speed of the opening screen's scrolling "TREK GURU" graphics... It is a number greater than or equal to 0... The smaller the number, the faster the scrolling, and of course, the larger the number, the slower the scrolling... It defaults to 50, which seems like a nice default speed to me (a bit fast on my 33MHz 486SX)... But, if it is unbearably slow on your machine, you can use a smaller number... It only affects the opening screen, and is meaningless other than that... The optional 'NOMOUSE' argument specifies that the mouse is NOT to be used, even if one is installed... Normally, the program detects and uses the mouse by default if one is installed, but you can override this if you do not wish to use the mouse for some reason... There should (theoretically) be no problems where the program thinks you have a mouse installed when you don't... However, throwing in this extra command line option doesn't hurt, and would take care of any such problems if they ever arose... (Such problems can arise if you are using a REAL old version of DOS, as I found out when testing on DOS v2.11... ;-)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You'll also see another program distributed with Trek Guru, called Quotes... This is a program to produce random Trek quotes (from TOS, TMS, and TNG)... You can run it without any parameters (type "quotes") to get one random quote, or with a single integer parameter (eg: "quotes 4") to get that many random quotes... I just threw this in with the distribution for the hell of it... I figured it might be of interest... But, if you don't want/need it for anything, yet wish to keep Trek Guru, then just remove the following 2 files: "QUOTES.EXE" and "TREKQUOT.DAT"... Trek Guru will still work fine, as these are not part of it, in any way... Of course, I guess the reverse applies as well: if you want only the quotes, and not Trek Guru, then remove everything EXCEPT the above two files... ;-) (No, I did not type in all those quotes, myself... I found the quotes laying around on an anonymous FTP site on the Internet, and just wrote a little program to convert them to a usuable format (add the "%"s in, and such), then wrote the program to print out a random one... So, much thanks to whatever poor soul DID type in all those quotes... ;-)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trek Guru is a ShareWare-like program... Feel free to distribute copies of it anywhere you like, as long as no fee is charged (other than a reasonable charge for the disk and shipping costs and such), and all of the files are distributed unmodified... If you like the program and feel that it is worth using, I ask that you please send me a mere $10.00 (US) to register the program... All registered users will be sent info on any new versions which I release (whenever I get around to releasing them), as well as feeling good inside that you helped out a poor, recently-graduated college student and fellow "Star Trek" fan... ;-) Seriously, a lot of my time has gone into this program (there is TONS of data to input), and while I don't expect to really make anything off of it, I would at least like some sort of acknowledgement that all my hard work was appreciated by someone... Hell, even if you can't afford to spend $10.00 to register it (I know that such could very well be the case), just send whatever you can, or even just a letter saying that you enjoy the program; just something to let me know that someone is using the thing... Well, enough begging... ;-) Here's my home address: Robert Seace RFD 2 Box 229 Littleton, NH 03561 USA Or, my current address (the best/fastest way to reach me): Robert Seace 120 Brainerd Road, Apt. 2 Allston, MA 02134 USA Phone: (617) 277-8835 E-mail: ras@shore.net Enjoy the program... And, let me know of anything you'd like changed/added/whatever... (I'm not saying that I'll DO anything about it, but I'll at least listen to what you've got to say... ;-)) Oh yeah, and if you DO decide to register the program, make sure to let me know whether you want any future updates sent on 3.5" or 5.25" disks, because I'll send you at least one new version completely free (whenever I release it), for registering (any other updates, I'd just charge you for the disk it is on, plus shipping)... Plus, I've been toying with the idea of maybe finishing that "Trek Novel Guru" program I mentioned (basically just like this program, but for the Pocket Book's Trek novels), and offering it just as a bonus program to registered users of "Trek Guru"... I may or may not actually do this... But, if you don't specify which size disk you need, I'll probably just close my eyes and randomly choose one for you... ;-) And, of course let me know if you can handle High Density disks (1.44M, 1.2M), or need just Double Density disks (720k, 360k)... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And, of course, to avoid lawsuits and such, I'd better mention that "Star Trek" is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures Corporation, as probably is "U.S.S. Enterprise", and a number of other Trek-related words used in this program...