======================================================== FLASHLED.COM - FlashLED v1.01 "Disc Drive Activity at Your Finger Tips" (C)opyright 1991 - Seagate Technology, Inc. The first name in disc drives. written by R. Dimick and B. Rudock Seagate Tech Support BBS (408)438-8771 ======================================================== =====Intro================== FlashLED is a very small TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident in memory) utility that uses the LED's (Light Emitting Diode) found on AT keyboards and, optionally, the system speaker to indicate disc drive activity. Normally, the activity lights found on the front faceplates of the disc drive and/or the system chasis are more than adequate for displaying activity, however, many of today's smaller drives are mounted deep within the systems, obscuring any view of the drive's own LED (if it even has one). Also, many computer systems are of the "tower" type, taking them off the desk, which requires the user to look down at the floor for activity lights. In either case, FlashLED, can help by putting the activity light "at your finger tips." =====Syntax=Summary======== The command line syntax of FlashLED is: FLASHLED [/options] The default behavior, if no command line arguments are specified, is to prompt the user for manual selection of the options. This manual mode, since it requires user input, is not really appropriate for an AUTOEXEC.BAT. Therefore, if you would like the program to load automatically, via the AUTOEXEC.BAT, it is recommeded that you supply the [/options]. | The option switches are: | | Select ONE of the keyboard LED options (or not) : | /N Num Lock | /C Caps Lock | /S Scroll Lock (default) | /K Kill keyboard LED activity (FlashLED will not | indicate activity on the keyboard, so, hopefully, | you will be selecting the speaker option [/P]) | | Additionally, select ONE of the disc drive options: | /F Floppy drives only | /H Hard drives only (default) | /B Both floppy and hard disc drives | | Optionally select one of these, if you like: | /P sPeaker "click" with drive activity (low | frequency is READ, high frequency is WRITE) | /? Display all of these options to the screen, | without loading the program. (overrides any | other command line arguments) Multiple command line argument switches may be specified together or seperately. The following examples are functionally equivalent: FLASHLED /S /H /P flashled /shp (DOS nor FlashLED is case sensitive) (this space ^ must be there) =====Outline================ An brief outline of how FlashLED works is as follows: A. FlashLED Disc Drive Activity from Keyboard LED program 1. Display program instructions and take user input of configuration parameters a) determine the current status of the keyboard LED's and save that status then turn off all the LED's b) wait for the user's selection of which keyboard LED should indicate the activity (Num, Caps or Scroll Lock) c) If it's not an LED that was ALREADY in use before the program was started, then great, otherwise default to the Scroll Lock LED. d) wait for the user's selection of which drive devices (hard, floppy or both) should reflect activity to the LED e) wait for user's selection on activity "clicking" the speaker 2. terminate and stay resident 3. program "watches" for activity on DOS interrupt 13 (disk services) a) if "observed", then LED and/or speaker is turned on b) when INT 13 concludes, LED is turned off after a few DOS INT 1C timer ticks (18.2 ticks per second) 4. program removed from memory by a system reset or TSR management utility =====App=Notes============== Some Application Notes: 1. The effect of the program on the performance of the system is negligible. 2. When the speaker "click" sound option is activated, other programs which beep on errors will usually get their chance but then the beep frequency is lowered again to the level defined by FlashLED. 3. The use of FlashLED on XT's is disallowed, since keyboard LED's are not defined in that host environment. 4. In Windows (tm), the keyboard LED activity is suspended but the speaker click still works. When Windows is exited, the keyboard LED activity returns. 5. Since FlashLED uses INT 1C (timer tick), some TSR screen clocks may not allow FlashLED to work properly. Try reversing the loading order of the TSR's. 6. When disk caching software is in use, FlashLED may indicate activity when data is drawn from the cache (AKA a cache hit). 7. There will be times when the keyboard activity LED doesn't seem to keep on pace with the activity of the drive. This is due to the fact that the bios keyboard services are given LOW priority; since the system figures that the user is probably the slowest component in the system, it doesn't come looking as often. As a result, FlashLED will tend to "even out" the rapid flicker of an busy drive's activity light and show a steady, even glow on the LED. If the speaker option [/p] has been selected, the "click" will easily keep up with the activity. 8. As mentioned earlier, FlashLED is a tiny TSR (less than 700 bytes). When a TSR is kept in memory, the total amount of memory space that it takes is the sum of itself and the DOS environment active at the time of the load. Since many of us use a "PATH=" which is max'd out, a "PROMPT=" which is complex and a "SET=" for everything under the sun, our environment size gets pretty BIG! To minimize the environment "impact" on the TSR, try getting the TSR's loaded and tucked in, first, then build up the environment variables. 9. FlashLED will not see the activity of a network drive since different interrupts are being used. 10. Some SCSI host adapters are bundled with device drivers which do not use INT 13, in which case the FlashLED program will not work. This may also be true for some partitioning software. 11. If the program is started with /shp (scroll lock, hard drives only, speaker on), and then loaded again with /cf (caps lock, floppy only) the LED's will switch between scroll and caps, depending on hard or floppy drive access. =====Rev=Hist=============== Revision History: 10/91 v1.0 In-house release. 12/91 v1.1 Public release. Added speaker click, command line options. =====Legal=Disclaimer======= LICENSE AGREEMENT Seagate provides the accompanying object code software ("Software") and nonexclusively licenses its use on the following terms and conditions. The Software is copyrighted by Seagate. YOU ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SELECTION OF THE SOFTWARE TO ACHIEVE YOUR INTENDED PURPOSES, FOR THE PROPER INSTALLATION AND USE. SEAGATE DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT THE SOFTWARE IS FIT FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE ERROR FREE. SEAGATE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT WILL SEAGATE BE LIABLE TO YOU, YOUR CUSTOMERS OR OTHER USERS FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE. End of License agreement. =====Other================== Available on the Seagate Tech Support BBS (408)438-8771: Specifications and jumper drawings for all Seagate Disc Drives and Controllers. Reprints of Installation Guides. Troubleshooting essays. FINDTYPE - Utility which displays bios drive type table and matches a Seagate model to the best drive type. Also prints complete specifications lists and much more! FINDINIT - Utility for Seagate controllers and host adapters that have onboard bios. Queries the system to determine bios memory address and initiates low-level format. DESK REFERENCE - Hypertext data system for all Seagate products, troubleshooting, other OEM phone numbers and much, much more. A must for dealers who do a fair amount of support for Seagate products. -=EOF: FLASHLED.DOC=-