*** ANSIPLUS VERSION 4.04 RELEASE NOTES ***
Shareware Package
Thank you for evaluating ANSIPLUS. This file briefly describes ANSIPLUS, lists
the files included in the ANSIPLUS Shareware package, gives quick installation
instructions, and describes recent changes made to ANSIPLUS.
What is ANSIPLUS?
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The ANSIPLUS console device driver integrates major console elements missing
from DOS and the personal computer BIOS into a single compact device driver
that can easily be controlled and personalized. With ANSIPLUS installed:
* User interaction with the DOS command shell and many applications will be
significantly improved.
* Screen output should be faster than with DOS's ANSI and non-ANSI drivers.
* The user will have complete control over colors and VGA/EGA capabilities.
* Users of MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, DESQview or Novell DOS will have access to
ANSIPLUS features in all windowed and full screen DOS sessions.
* The user will also benefit from all the other display and keyboard features
provided by ANSIPLUS.
The ANSIPLUS enhanced DOS console device driver is tailored to take advantage
of Super VGA, VGA and EGA display capabilities:
* It automatically adapts to SVGA, VGA or EGA screen modes, both text and
graphics, including extended modes with large numbers of lines and/or
columns. The driver also automatically compensates for older video
controllers with very limited numbers of colors or shades (eg., CGA or
monochrome boards).
* In text and in 16-color VGA/EGA graphics display modes, the driver bypasses
the BIOS and writes directly to the video RAM, so it can operate much faster
than either the original DOS console driver or the DOS ANSI driver.
* ANSIPLUS gives the user control over VGA/EGA palette registers and VGA DAC
registers to select and maintain colors using the video controller's full
capabilities.
* Text character height can be selected in any VGA/EGA display mode, extending
user control to the number of lines per display page.
* Smooth scrolling is provided as an option.
The ANSIPLUS driver efficiently integrates several useful console functions
that in the past had to be provided by separate TSR programs or device drivers:
* A screen saver monitors display, keyboard and mouse activity.
* Scroll-back lets the user examine lines that have scrolled off the top of
the screen.
* The mouse can be used to select text from the screen or from scroll-back and
then paste it to keyboard input or copy it to the Windows clipboard.
* Fast screen output can be frozen and released with the Scroll Lock key.
* Keyboard buffer size is increased and configurable.
* Undesired repeat keys are suppressed and several other key processing
options are provided.
* Keys can be added to the keyboard buffer under program control for later
consumption by programs.
* A timer-controlled beep tone generator allows user customizable tones.
Other ANSIPLUS features include:
* Menu driven, mouse controllable utilities that give the user full control
over selected colors, color palettes, border colors, video modes, text
height, key reassignment, beep tone definition, driver table sizes, and all
other configurable features.
* Special loading options for XMS upper memory blocks, high memory area and
expanded memory that reduce low memory requirements to 7K or less.
* Automatic recognition of and special support for Windows, OS/2, DESQview and
other task switchers.
* Highlighting of user-typed keys when they are displayed by DOS on the screen
to give a clear visual separation of typed entries from computer output.
* Support for all DOS ANSI.sys escape sequences, plus additional ANSI/VT-100
escape sequences for clearing the screen, erasing lines, inserting and
deleting lines, inserting and deleting characters, screen scrolling and
tab control.
* Free BBS updates. Registered ANSIPLUS users can obtain free updates by
installing future Shareware versions of ANSIPLUS over their registered
copies. The ANSIPLUS installation program will automatically register a
Shareware copy when it is installed on a disk that boots a registered copy.
* And much, much more.
See "Features Summary" in the ANSIPLUS documentation for more information about
ANSIPLUS features. See "Registration" in the ANSIPLUS.doc file to find out how
to register ANSIPLUS, or "Technical Support" in the same file for ways to
contact ANSIPLUS Technical Support.
ANSIPLUS Packing List
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File Description
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ANSIPLUS.sys ANSIPLUS console device driver
ANSIPLSR.sys ANSIPLUS reduced size device driver
ANSIPLUS.doc ANSIPLUS Shareware documentation
SETCOLOR.exe Color control utility program
SETAPLUS.exe Driver features control utility program
ANSICOM.exe ANSI escape sequence editor
NEWAPLUS.exe ANSIPLUS startup configuration program
APLUSLIB.exe Execution library for the utility programs
SETCOLOR.sch Color schemes file for SETCOLOR.exe
CONSETUP.com Sample escape sequence program
PUSHVID.com Save current video mode, video page and colors
POPVID.com Restore saved video mode, page and colors
PUSHKEYS.com Save current key reassignments
POPKEYS.com Restore saved key reassignments
LOCKPAL.com Lock the 16-color palette
UNLOKPAL.com Unlock the 16-color palette
WINVGA16.com MS Windows 16-color VGA driver palette change
VWFD.386 Windowed vs. full screen test Windows VxD
APLUS.pif Sample Windows PIF file
CPCH.bat Change code page
INSTALL.exe Installation program
INSTALL.inf Installation control file
INSTALL.cve Installation data file
REGISTER.pls ANSIPLUS registration form
README.pls Release notes, this file
The documentation file, ANSIPLUS.doc, is a complete and up to date copy of the
ANSIPLUS Shareware manual, except for the section on ANSIPLUS Escape Sequences,
which are covered in detail only in the printed version. The file is formatted
for 80 characters per line and 60 lines per page, and uses no special
characters or other printer control other than form feeds.
Quick Installation Instructions
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Before installing ANSIPLUS, or any other new device driver, be sure you have a
bootable floppy disk as insurance against trouble getting your system to run
after the device driver is installed.
The ANSIPLUS package includes an installation and configuration program called
INSTALL.exe, which should properly handle most installations. Context
sensitive help (via the F1 key) is provided for all entries. The following
three examples illustrate using INSTALL to install ANSIPLUS:
* If you received ANSIPLUS on a floppy disk and want to install it on your
hard disk, use the following installation procedure:
(1) Set the default directory to the hard disk (ie., get a C> prompt).
(2) Insert the ANSIPLUS diskette in drive A: (or other floppy drive).
(3) Enter the following command:
A:INSTALL
* If you received ANSIPLUS as a ZIP file, use the following procedure:
(1) Create a temporary sub-directory on the hard disk to contain the
unzipped ANSIPLUS files. Move ANSIPLUS.zip to this directory and make
it be the default directory. This directory must be different from the
directory that will receive the installed ANSIPLUS files.
(2) Unzip the files into the directory with the command:
PKUNZIP ANSIPLUS
(3) Then enter the command:
INSTALL
* To install ANSIPLUS on bootable disk B:, from hard disk directory C:\APLUS,
enter the command:
C:\APLUS\INSTALL B:
International users should be aware of the following:
* If you are using the KEYB program to set up your keyboard, the following
command MUST be executed after you load KEYB, otherwise most ANSIPLUS
keyboard related features will not work:
SETAPLUS LINK KEYEVENT
The INSTALL program will automatically add this command to your AUTOEXEC.bat
file if it finds a reference in it to KEYB.
* If you are using the DISPLAY.sys device driver for code page switching, the
ANSIPLUS device driver must be installed before DISPLAY.sys in your
CONFIG.sys file. The INSTALL program will also automatically handle this
in most cases.
See "Installing ANSIPLUS" in the documentation for more information about
ANSIPLUS installation and configuration.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes
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11/21/95 Version 4.04 released.
11/21/95 Bug fix: ANSIPLUS INSTALL failed to copy all ANSIPLUS files if Windows
was not previously installed on the system, or if the windows
directory had a name other than C:\WINDOWS and it was not on the
system PATH defined in CONFIG.sys or AUTOEXEC.bat.
11/02/95 Version 4.03 released.
10/24/95 The INSTALL program can now modify the Windows startup file SYSTEM.ini
to load the VWFD.386 VxD, which is used by ANSIPLUS to detect full
screen vs. windowed operation.
10/15/95 When both scroll-back and scroll freeze are disabled, the driver no
longer beeps each time the Scroll Lock key is struck.
10/03/95 ANSIPLUS now supports sticky shift keys for one handed or mouth stick
typists. When this feature is enabled, if the user strikes a Shift,
Ctrl or Alt key once, it will remain "on" until the next normal key is
struck, and then will be reset. If one of these shift keys is pressed
twice, it will be locked on for all subsequent keystrokes until hit a
third time to turn it off.
9/14/95 Bug fix: Copy to and paste from the Windows clipboard failed under
networked copies of Windows 95, apparently because that system does
not allow hooking of the Int 28h DOS Idle interrupt inside a DOS
session, and it no longer provides a TimerCriticalSection line in
SYSTEM.ini (see 3/03/95 bug fix). ANSIPLUS now also hooks Int 21h DOS
calls to perform clipboard transfers under Windows 95.
6/12/95 Bug fix: Repeated keys did not work for pop-up TSR programs that
depend entirely on Int 09h for key input if ANSIPLUS was controlling
the key repeat rate.
5/19/95 Like the MS-DOS ANSI.sys driver, ANSIPLUS now supports the "/K"
command tail switch when the driver is installed. This option
disables the driver's recognition of enhanced (101-key) keyboards, and
forces it to assume that an 84-key keyboard is in use.
5/11/95 Bug fix: When running some debuggers (eg., Borland TD), ANSIPLUS could
fail to detect that the debugger was using the mouse. To correct
this, now Scroll Lock must be on before ANSIPLUS will take over the
mouse when a debugger is running.
4/10/95 Bug fix: Smooth scrolling in 132 column text modes destroyed the beep
tone and color palette tables stored in the driver.
3/17/95 Bug fix: Esc [!d with a zero or no parameters got stuck in its loop to
install the default feature settings, crashing the driver.
3/15/95 Version 4.02 released.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
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3/03/95 Bug fix: Copy to and paste from the Windows clipboard, which depend on
ANSIPLUS's Int 28h DOS Idle and Int 1Ch User Timer Tick code for
clipboard transfers, would fail for a couple of complicated reasons:
(1) Under some network systems (eg., Netware), the ANSIPLUS Int 1Ch
code in each DOS session is not executed correctly because a
"TimerCriticalSection=" line is in SYSTEM.ini. This completely
disables key paste to DOS applications that use Int 16h instead of
standard DOS key input, since such applications never call Int 28h
and therefore rely entirely on the Int 1Ch hook for copy/paste.
Removing the TimerCriticalSection line from SYSTEM.ini may fix the
problem, but this should be carefully tested to be sure that
network problems are not introduced.
(2) Windows appears to switch to the system virtual machine when
executing the Int 28h chain installed before Windows started, so
the Int 28h copy/paste code was not being executed for the
requesting DOS session. The driver now adds special Int 28h and
Int 1Ch hooks in each virtual DOS machine for clipboard transfers.
3/02/95 Bug workaround: Programs based on Microsoft QBASIC, such as the MS-DOS
EDIT.com editor, take over the keyboard interrupts in a manner that is
incompatible with previously installed TSRs and drivers like ANSIPLUS
that trap or generate keystrokes. ANSIPLUS now detects when QBASIC
programs are running, and automatically disables its Scroll Lock and
scroll-back functions, fast key repeat rates, and mouse copy/paste.
2/24/95 Apparently, some video controllers cannot properly handle 32-bit
block moves for text scrolling. Therefore, a new configurable feature
has been added (disabled by default) to allow the faster 32-bit block
moves for text scrolling when the user determines they can be used.
2/16/95 Bug fix: 286 systems using ANSIPLUS 4.01 would lock up when trying to
scroll the screen because the test for a 286 vs. 386 CPU was failing,
and the driver tried to use 32-bit block moves for screen scrolling.
2/15/95 The smooth scrolling rate can now be configured by SETAPLUS or
NEWAPLUS to any rate from 1 to 8 scan lines per vertical retrace.
2/14/95 The Esc [!t escape sequence now supports selecting any text height
from 8 to 16 scan lines in VGA/EGA text and 16 color graphics modes.
On a standard VGA, for example, this allows 80 column text with 25,
26, 28, 30, 33, 36, 40, 44 or 50 lines.
1/29/95 Video controller bug workaround: During the Int 10h/AH=11h Load
Character Generator BIOS function, the Diamond Stealth 64 sets the
BIOS Regen Buffer Size variable at 40h:4Ch to a value that is about
256 bytes too large, reducing the number of display pages available.
Other video controllers may have similar problems. As a workaround,
the ANSIPLUS driver will now correct the word at 40h:4Ch if it is
incorrect for the number of characters on the screen.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
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1/24/95 Bug fix: The ANSIPLUS driver now monitors Int 33h/AX=0004h, Set Mouse
Cursor Position, to prevent a conflict between ANSIPLUS's Scroll Lock
functions and programs that set the mouse cursor location repeatedly
while testing for mouse movement (eg., LIST.com).
1/04/95 Version 4.01 released.
1/04/95 Key repeat rates faster than 32 characters per second are now allowed
for DOS sessions under Windows.
12/22/94 The screen saver will now issue VESA power management BIOS extension
calls to reduce monitor power consumption. The monitor is placed in
standby mode after the screen has been blank for 5 minutes, suspend
mode after 10 minutes, and turned off after 15 minutes. This feature
is disabled by default, but can be enabled by NEWAPLUS or SETAPLUS.
12/11/94 Three mouse related bug fixes/improvements:
* Whenever Scroll Lock is on, Int 33h mouse queries made by
applications now all report no mouse movement or button clicks.
This keeps the application from taking any mouse-based actions
until Scroll Lock has been released. (However, applications that
use a mouse exit routine to detect mouse clicks will still try to
respond to the first click when Scroll Lock is on. Thereafter,
ANSIPLUS will control the mouse.)
* When the screen is first scrolled back, if the application's mouse
cursor was visible, it will now be hidden until Scroll Lock is
released. This prevents a "mouse dropping" from being left if the
mouse is then used for copy/paste by ANSIPLUS while the screen is
scrolled back.
* When ANSIPLUS has been using the mouse, all button press and
movement data are now cleared before the mouse is released back to
the application. This keeps the application from responding to
clicks or motion that occurred while ANSIPLUS controlled the mouse.
12/06/94 Dragging the right mouse button can now be used to select text bounded
by a rectangular area (for example, in a column) for copying to the
clipboard. The Tab key will also now toggle text selections between
line and rectangular area views.
12/03/94 Bug fix: Because of an incorrectly assembled instruction, the ANSIPLUS
test for A20 enabled was not working. This caused the driver to crash
if ANSIPLUS code was loaded to the HMA on a system without DOS=HIGH.
12/03/94 Bug fix: When using a monochrome, CGA or Hercules video controller
with less than 32K of directly addressable RAM, ANSIPLUS was assuming
that 32K of video RAM could be used for scroll-back storage if no EMS
memory was available. The driver now determines the actual amount of
video memory available.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
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10/20/94 4DOS 5.5 now supports color numbers on its internal COLOR command for
selecting colors. The ANSIPLUS SETCOLOR.exe utility program has also
supported color selection by number for over two years, but in a
different numerical order. The new SETCOLOR "/4DOS" command tail
option should be added for compatibility to use 4DOS's color ordering
when SETCOLOR is defined as an alias for the 4DOS COLOR command.
10/20/94 Bug fix: With Scroll Lock on and ANSIPLUS controlling the mouse, the
ANSIPLUS Int 33h routine was returning the incorrect button status
information to the running program in register AL for Int 33h
functions 0005h and 0006h (get button press/release information).
This could cause some programs to incorrectly conclude that a mouse
button was being pressed when ANSIPLUS took over the mouse.
10/08/94 Video controller bug workaround: It has been reported that the ATI VGA
Wonder fails to set the BIOS Regen Buffer Size variable at 40h:4Ch
correctly in at least one extended text mode (5Bh), causing problems
when ANSIPLUS clears the screen or addresses video pages. Other video
controllers may have similar problems. As a workaround, when a text
mode is selected, the ANSIPLUS driver will now correct the word at
40h:4Ch if it is too small for all the rows and columns on the screen.
10/07/94 Bug fix: Esc [u would not restore the cursor position repeatedly once
the ANSIPLUS 4.00 video context stack was empty. This caused an
incompatibility between ANSIPLUS and ANSI.sys Esc [s and Esc [u.
9/29/94 Bug fix: SETAPLUS could not disable the "Prevent ANSI key reassignment
redefinition" feature from the command line.
9/28/94 Some "point-of-sale" keyboards include special "00" or "000" keys for
entry of multiple zeros, but generate the zeros without simulating the
lifting of the key between the characters. Because ANSIPLUS will
normally suppress repeated digits, the multiple-zero keys on these
keyboards will enter only a single zero. A configurable feature is
now provided to allow repeated zeros when using such keyboards.
9/28/94 Bug fix: The Russian keyboard uses character 0E0h for the lower case
"er" character. ANSIPLUS's DOS key input was incorrectly interpreting
this key code as an Enhanced Keyboard key leadin, and suppressing it.
9/08/94 Bug fix: As a result of changes for Release 4.00, the driver assumed
that the VGA/EGA BIOS variable at 40h:84h always contained the number
of screen lines. This caused all output to be confined to the top
screen line for the older MDA, CGA and Hercules video controllers.
9/07/94 Bug fix: A Windows General Protection fault could occur when starting
to scroll backwards if EMM386 was used with the NOEMS option, and if
video RAM storage of scroll-back under Windows was also disabled.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
9/07/94 Bug fix: Keystack "/W" commands to insert time delays did not work
correctly because key scan codes were being added to short delay times
(up to 127 timer ticks), greatly increasing the delay.
9/05/94 Bug fix: Mouse middle button functions in the 4DOS popup history
window did not work as documented.
9/05/94 The scroll-back bookmark at the current scrolled-back location can now
be removed by hitting the Gray Minus key.
9/03/94 Bug fix: In 132 column text modes only, lines with runs of more than
127 identical (eg., blank) characters were compressed to scroll-back
incorrectly, causing garbage to appear in the rightmost 5 columns of
those lines when the screen was scrolled back.
8/29/94 Version 4.00 released.
8/24/94 The feature to preserve scroll-back data in XMS or HMA memory is now
rarely needed because scroll-back generally resides in EMS memory.
Because of this, if this feature is disabled at system bootup, the
code to perform its function will now be deleted from the driver
(saving 650 bytes), and the feature will be non-operational.
8/20/94 The ANSIPLUS screen saver can now blank the screen under Windows when
running in a full screen 386 Enhanced Mode DOS session. This feature
requires installation of the VWFD.386 Windows VxD, which is supplied
with ANSIPLUS. If VWFD.386 is not installed, the screen saver will be
disabled under Windows.
8/19/94 The ANSIPLUS driver now detects when VESA standard display modes are
active and uses the VESA mode number in its analysis of text and
graphic modes.
8/16/94 When viewing scroll-back, the user can now set up to 6 "bookmarks" by
using the Gray Plus key. The marked page(s) can later be displayed
instantly by hitting Gray Enter when Scroll Lock is on.
8/16/94 The driver can now emulate the VT100 graphics character set, which is
selected by the VT100 Esc (0 and Esc )0 escape sequences and is used
by the VT100 to draw boxes around text on the screen.
8/03/94 The INSTALL/NEWAPLUS program can now convert a Shareware ANSIPLUS.sys
driver into a Registered ANSIPLUS.exe driver when installing to a disk
that already contains a registered copy of ANSIPLUS.
7/30/94 A second hot key combination now can be used to blank the screen
immediately: Alt+Shift+Num Lock.
7/28/94 A reduced-size version of the ANSIPLUS driver is now available. This
driver deletes five features, saving about 35 percent of the installed
driver's size: scroll-back, copy/paste, direct video RAM output in
graphics modes, graphics mode text treatments, and emulation of
monochrome VGA on a color VGA.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
7/20/94 ANSIPLUS is now compatible with OS/2 2.x. The driver can be loaded
either by the DEVICE= command in CONFIG.sys or (for ANSIPLUS.exe) as a
DOS TSR. If loaded by the OS/2 CONFIG.sys file, the registered driver
signon message will be suppressed when each new virtual DOS machine is
started. The unregistered Shareware driver will display the ANSIPLUS
signon (with the 9 second delay) about one percent of the time.
7/18/94 Bug fix: INSTALL/NEWAPLUS would search the current directory for
ANSIPLUS files if the PATH in AUTOEXEC.bat ended with a semi-colon or
contained consecutive semi-colons. The installation would then fail
because the target and source directories for files were the same.
7/12/94 The mouse can now be used for text selection and keyboard paste
operations. These functions are available whenever Scroll Lock is on
or when the currently running program or command shell does not use
the mouse. See "Special Keyboard and Mouse Functions" in Chapter 4 of
the documentation for more information about this feature.
7/09/94 When loading ANSIPLUS into UMBs ("/U") or HMA ("/H"), the shared code
can now be split from the rest of the driver in two different places,
depending on the amount of high memory available. Either 6K or 11K
will be left in low memory, and 28K or 23K will be in UMBs or HMA.
6/29/94 Bug fix: If Scroll-Lock was activated while Int 16h function 00h or
10h was waiting to read a character, the Scroll-Lock condition would
not be enforced until after the next character was typed.
6/22/94 The ANSIPLUS driver can now supply instance data to, and monitor the
activities of, task switchers that use the Int 2Fh, AH=4Bh task
switching interface functions.
6/19/94 The Esc [s and Esc [u save and restore escape sequences now allow tags
to identify items for later restoration. Also added the capability to
save and restore the current scrolling region boundaries, key
reassignments, or scroll-back addition pointer.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
6/14/94 Added over two dozen new ANSI and ANSIPLUS escape sequences for
scrolling, tab control, cursor positioning, and other functions:
* Scrolling: scroll up (Esc [S), scroll up and add to scroll-back
(Esc [!S), scroll down (Esc [T), scroll down from scroll-back (Esc
[!T), scroll right (Esc [ A), scroll left (Esc [ @), insert lines
from scroll-back (Esc [!L), delete lines and add to scroll-back
(Esc [!M), set scrolling region (Esc [r).
* Tab control: reset tabs (Esc [g), tab control (Esc [W), horizontal
tab (Esc [I), vertical tab (Esc [Y), backward tab (Esc [Z), set
horizontal tab (Esc H), set vertical tab (Esc J).
* Cursor positioning: next line (Esc [E), preceding line (Esc [F),
cursor horizontal absolute (Esc [G), cursor vertical absolute (Esc
[d), cursor horizontal relative (Esc [a), cursor vertical relative
(Esc [e), next line (Esc E).
* Other functions: next page (Esc [U), preceding page (Esc [V),
repeat character (Esc [b), erase character (Esc [X), time delay
(Esc [!w).
6/03/94 Added several enhancements to ANSIPLUS driver initialization and to
TSR installation to support loading ANSIPLUS when another copy of the
driver has previously been loaded. Also added special handling for
initialization and execution under DESQview, and improved the TSR
procedure to take over the system console.
5/28/94 Bug fix: SETCOLOR SCHEME XXX got stuck in an error message loop if no
scheme XXX existed. The available color schemes are now listed when
an unknown scheme name is supplied.
5/24/94 Bug fix: The ANSIPLUS VGA screen blanking technique is apparently
incompatible with a few VGA controllers (eg., Cirrus Logic GD610/20).
For such controllers, a configurable feature has been added to use
ANSIPLUS's EGA screen blanking method instead.
5/24/94 Bug fix: The Novell DOS 7 version of KEYB.com does not steal key event
interrupts (Int 09h) from drivers installed before it, while the
MS-DOS KEYB program does. The SETAPLUS LINK KEYEVENT command is
therefore not needed for international users of Novell DOS, and the
utility programs and documentation have been changed to handle this.
5/18/94 Bug fix: In ANSIPLUS 3.10 only, the test for Windows running failed
for Standard Mode, causing the screen saver to blank the Windows
screen and other potential problems when Standard Mode was in use.
Scroll-back is also now completely disabled for Windows Standard Mode.
5/17/94 The driver now requires the VWFD.386 Windows VxD to be installed in
order to use smooth scrolling under Windows. VWFD.386 lets ANSIPLUS
test whether the DOS virtual machine is running full screen or in a
window. Smooth scrolling is now used only for full screen DOS
sessions.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
4/21/94 Bug fix: INSTALL.exe now tests for enough memory available to load
(about 450K), and will exit with a message if there is not enough.
The installation file copying process also will not abort if there is
not enough memory to shell out and make 4DOS/NDOS file descriptions.
4/20/94 Bug fix: When Norton Anti-Virus 3.03 is installed, the ANSIPLUS driver
test for Windows running, which depended on the Windows Int 2Fh
AX=1605h initialization broadcast, doesn't seem to work. The driver
now makes periodic Int 2Fh AX=1600h calls to test for Windows running.
4/12/94 Bug fix: When the INSTALL/NEWAPLUS program analyzed the CONFIG.sys
file, if an INSTALL= or INSTALLHIGH= command for loading a TSR was
encountered which did not have any command tail parameters, all
following lines in CONFIG.sys would be ignored.
4/06/94 Version 3.10 released.
3/08/94 The NEWAPLUS installation and configuration utility should now be able
to locate CONFIG.sys and the ANSIPLUS driver file on systems using
Stacker or similar disk compression utilities that can have their hard
disk drive letters changed around. NEWAPLUS will now search other
drives for CONFIG.sys when it is not found on the original boot drive,
and it will also search other drives when the ANSIPLUS driver is not
found where CONFIG.sys says it will be. A system environment variable
(SET ANSIPLUS=d:) may also be used to identify the drive containing
CONFIG.sys and the ANSIPLUS driver, and this will override any search.
3/06/94 The NEWAPLUS and SETAPLUS utilities now use second-level menus to
directly select features for explanation or revision, rather than
forcing the user to go through all the features in a group one at a
time. Features now can also be enabled or disabled easily with
special keys or the mouse directly from the menu.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
2/28/94 The ANSIPLUS scroll-back functions have been extensively rewritten.
Major improvements include:
(1) The driver can now use expanded memory (LIM EMS 4.0) to hold up to
64k of scroll-back data (about 1,000 lines), roughly doubling
scroll-back capacity. Use of EMS for scroll-back instead of video
RAM also eliminates compatibility problems with Windows video
drivers caused by memory accesses to video RAM locations not
visible on the virtual screen, or to RAM not retained by Windows.
(2) When scrolling back, the Home/End, Page Up/Down and Tab/Shift-Tab
keys now move instantly through the data, rather than a line at a
time.
(3) Under Windows, scroll-back lines now are captured as they are
completed, rather than as they scroll off the top of the screen.
This change was made because some Windows video drivers (eg.,
Microsoft VGA) trap BIOS scrolling requests completely when
running a DOS session in a window, making it impossible for
ANSIPLUS to know when the screen has scrolled if a BIOS call was
used to do it. Some important DOS programs now mix DOS output
with BIOS calls for scrolling (eg., 4DOS 5.0 (and NDOS 8.0) when
displaying multi-colored directories).
2/26/94 Under Windows, when running a DOS session in a window using
Microsoft's 16-color VGA video driver, only 13 distinct colors were
available on the ANSIPLUS 16 color palette (ie., 3 colors were
duplicated: brown was the same as dark red, light blue was the same as
light cyan, and pink was white.) Other video drivers do not seem to
have this problem because they do not try to adapt to color palette
settings made by programs running in a window. The standard ANSIPLUS
palette has been adjusted slightly to allow brown to show as dark
yellow and light blue as light blue under the Microsoft VGA driver.
Pink can be converted to light magenta by running the WINVGA16.com
program now provided with ANSIPLUS. See "ANSIPLUS and Windows 3" in
the documentation for more information.
2/12/94 Two new scroll-back control keys have been added for deleting lines
from scroll-back storage: Control-Home will delete all scroll-back
lines that are before the lines currently on the screen, and
Control-End will delete all lines currently on the screen and later.
1/31/94 The ANSIPLUS Int 2Fh installation check now returns the ANSIPLUS
version number in CX: CH = major version, CL = minor version.
1/05/94 After the screen saver has blanked the screen, if the screen is then
unblanked by a keystroke, the key will now be ignored as input.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
1/04/94 The text currently available for scrollback can now be saved to a file
or sent to the printer (ie., to file PRN). The function is performed
by two new SETAPLUS command options:
SETAPLUS SAVESCROLLTEXT <file> saves all scrollback text to a file
SETAPLUS SAVESCROLLANSI <file> saves the scrollback text with ANSI
escape sequences for color control
1/04/94 Bug fix: Under the 4DOS and NDOS command shells, when bright key
echoing is enabled, ANSIPLUS will highlight the entire DOS command
line during entry, not just keys echoed on the screen. Unfortunately,
the Int 2Fh calls issued before and after command entries by older
versions of 4DOS (before 4.0) and NDOS (before 7.0) are not the same
as those used currently, and this caused output highlighting to remain
in effect after a command is entered. The special command line
highlighting feature is now disabled for the older 4DOS/NDOS command
shells.
12/29/93 Bug fix: INSTALL/NEWAPLUS could hang while analyzing the system
configuration if the system PATH referred to a non-existent drive.
12/17/93 Version 3.02 released.
12/17/93 Bug fix: The key input buffers are now cleared whenever the screen is
frozen by the Scroll-Lock key, so type-ahead now will not be processed
as Scroll-Back control.
12/04/93 Bug fix: Programs that mix DOS character output and Int 10h BIOS
scrolling, such as 4DOS 5.0 when it is using multiple directory
colors, would sometimes have the entire screen added to scroll-back
storage by the BIOS scrolling call instead of just the lines scrolled
off the top.
12/03/93 For systems with limited available XMS upper memory, ANSIPLUS can now
load its shared code to expanded memory (EMS), leaving only about 5K
of the driver that must be loaded into either low memory or XMS upper
memory. See the loading option discussion under "Changing the
ANSIPLUS Startup Configuration" in the documentation for cautions on
using this feature. Configuration is handled by selecting the loading
option in NEWAPLUS, or by the following CONFIG.sys command:
DEVICE = ANSIPLUS.sys /E
9/30/93 To simplify setting up key reassignments when the system is booted,
the new SETAPLUS SAVEKEYS <filename> command can now save all current
key reassignments to a file which can later be loaded in AUTOEXEC.bat.
If <filename> ends in ".com", the keys are saved as an executable
program. Otherwise, they are saved as an ASCII file that is loadable
by the SETAPLUS LOADKEYS <filename> command.
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
9/29/93 Bug fix: When the keyboard break interrupt was taken over by a TSR,
ANSIPLUS would lose its ability to translate Control-Break into
Control-C at the DOS prompt. And when some applications bypassed DOS
keyboard input (used Int 16h instead), but did not take over keyboard
break, ANSIPLUS could defer action on a Control-Break entered to the
application until after it terminated and normal DOS prompting and
keyboard input was resumed.
9/22/93 Version 3.01 released.
9/11/93 Independent key reassignment has been extended to the gray keys on
enhanced keyboards. Gray keys that are also on the numeric keypad
(for example, Home or PageUp) may optionally share reassignment with
or be independent of the numeric keypad key. Gray key reassignments
may be defined either in SETAPLUS or by ANSI escape sequence.
9/07/93 The screen saver blanking time can now be changed while the system is
running, either with the new SETAPLUS BLANKTIME <minutes> command or
from the SETAPLUS menu.
9/06/93 The "typematic" key delay can now be controlled by ANSIPLUS. Bootup
configuration is set with NEWAPLUS, and runtime changes are made using
the SETAPLUS menu or the new SETAPLUS DELAY <quartersecs> command.
9/03/93 The SETAPLUS "Set Video Display Mode" menu now captures and displays
VESA mode numbers instead of OEM mode numbers for VESA-defined modes.
8/29/93 SETAPLUS INTERRUPT reports should now handle more driver and TSR
combinations correctly.
8/28/93 The screen saver now delays hooking Int 74h (PS/2 mouse events) or
testing the MS-Mouse on Int 33h until after one minute of idle time
passes (or half the screen saver blanking time, whichever is less).
8/25/93 Key reassignment can now be applied either to keys entered through DOS
or to all keys entered through both DOS and BIOS Interrupt 16h. This
new configurable feature now makes it possible to reassign keys for
applications that bypass DOS and use Int 16h for keyboard input.
8/21/93 Bug fix: As a "last resort" test for system activity, the screen saver
was reading scan codes from the keyboard controller at port 60h.
Unfortunately, on some computers, reading this port during timer ticks
can interfere with processing of the arrow and page up/down keys on an
enhanced keyboard and with a PS/2-type mouse. Two changes were made
to eliminate the problem: reading of port 60h by the screen saver is
now a configurable feature (disabled by default); and when this
feature is enabled, one minute of complete inactivity must elapse
before the saver will read port 60h.
8/03/93 Bug fix: To be consistent with the MS-DOS 4.0-6.0 ANSI.sys drivers,
the escape sequence parser now generates a zero parameter when an
omitted parameter is implied by the presence of a separator (so, for
example, "Esc [;20H" is now equivalent to "Esc [0;20H").
Recent ANSIPLUS Changes (continued)
------ -------- ------- -----------
7/19/93 Bug fix: SETCOLOR SCHEME HELP got stuck in an error message loop.
Now, the current color schemes in file SETCOLOR.sch are listed, or, if
the file cannot be found, a single error message is displayed.
7/14/93 The driver now saves and restores the VGA graphics controller index
(port 3CEh) when analyzing video modes.
6/22/93 Bug fixes: In CGA modes 4 or 5, the ANSIPLUS color palette was being
loaded into the PAL/DAC registers, which changed the colors from the
CGA 4-color scheme (black, magenta, cyan and white) to something else.
The driver also now reduces the foreground and background colors from
16 to 4 properly, assuring visibility of the foreground over the
background for DOS output in the 4-color CGA modes.
6/09/93 Bug fixes: INSTALL/NEWAPLUS refused to register drivers with serial
numbers that start with zero. Also, when the registered ANSIPLUS.exe
driver was installed over the ANSIPLUS.sys Shareware driver, an
incorrect DEVICE= line would be left in CONFIG.sys if the user had
edited it to contain "ansiplus.sys" in lower case.
5/29/93 Bug fix: If the "Prevent ANSI Key Reassignment Redefinition" feature
was enabled in NEWAPLUS, subsequent executions of NEWAPLUS would
terminate with a numeric overflow error. This feature happens to use
the 32nd feature bit, and operations to get/set this bit had a bug.
5/25/93 Bug fix: SETCOLOR BORDER <colorname> was not setting the border to the
correct named color.
5/23/93 The INSTALL/NEWAPLUS program now will not copy ANSIPLUS files unless
it was invoked by the INSTALL commmand. If ANSIPLUS is already
installed, running NEWAPLUS, even from a directory that contains
INSTALL.inf, will only allow changes to the boot configuration for a
currently installed driver. In the installation copying process,
NEWAPLUS will now check to be sure that the ANSIPLUS driver is not
being installed in the same directory as it is being copied from.
5/23/93 Bug fix: In ANSICOM, when a file was inserted via the Insert key, the
screen was not updated properly after the insertion, and an execution
error would sometimes be reported by the program.
5/17/93 Version 3.00 released.
