                      A brief introduction
                      --------------------

 Welcome  to "Hiscore Terminal Utility" (HTU).  With the  aid  of 
this  program you can conveniently organize and manage  all  your 
game hiscores,  most specifically for those games that don't take 
the trouble to save them for you.
 Along  with the actual hiscore,  the game name and  the  gamer's 
name,  you  can also keep track of miscellaneous topics  such  as 
"hiscore  date",   "event  name"  (in  case  of  sports   games), 
"console/system type" and some other fields.

                            Shareware
                            ---------

 The  "Hiscore Terminal Utility" is shareware,  which means  that 
you  can  spread  it as much as you want,  copy it  to  all  your 
friends,  sell  it in Public Domain libraries,  and generally  do 
with it whatever you want.  You can use it or trash it,  I  don't 
mind.
 However,  if you find it useful (or if you don't find it  useful 
but  use it anyway) you are requested to pay a  modest  so-called 
shareware registration fee.  This amount can be anything you want 
but  should  not be less than the equivalent of about  20  German 
marks if you would like to receive back a disk containing various 
Public Domain and shareware utilities written by me.  Anything in 
any  currency is welcome at the address mentioned at the  end  of 
this text file.

 Why shareware?

 I  believe  that  people should be allowed to test  a  piece  of 
software  before they commit themselves to buying it.  Using  the 
shareware  principle  this  is as easy as can  be.  You  use  the 
software to see if it's any good; if it isn't you leave it be and 
never  pay  anything for it.  If you start  using  it  regularly, 
however, you should pay the shareware fee.
 Using the shareware principle,  everybody benefits.  If you  are 
honest, that is.

 Shareware  works.   And  I  will  release  many  more  shareware 
utilities  depending  on the success of a program  like  "Hiscore 
Terminal Utility".
 I hope you'll register.

                           The Manual
                           ----------

 It  must have been over five years ago when I got the idea to do 
this  program.  I guess it was back in the time of "Synth  Sample 
IV"  and "Scroll Message Editor",  programs that you've  probably 
never  heard of and that I believe were done in 1987.  The  thing 
that  made sure I lost interest in coding the thing was the  user 
interface. I was lousy at user interfaces, and before you knew it 
a custom-written user interface wouldn't work on all machines.
 With  my  registering the shareware GEM dialog  routine  library 
"FlyDials" (written by a German by the name of Gregor  Duchalski) 
all  of that changed.  Apart from the commercial "Ultimate  Virus 
Killer",  the "Hiscore Terminal Utility" is the first thing  I've 
written using this library.  As you will see (or have seen), it's 
comfortable,  quite fast, and certainly highly reliable and about 
as compatible as is possible.

 So what can the "Hiscore Terminal Utility" actually do?

 It  can  keep  track  of  all  your  hiscores,   with   optional 
specification  of  your  name,  the date on  which  you  got  the 
hiscore,  the level you reached (where applicable),  the name  of 
the  event  (for example "Ice Skating" in  "Winter  Games"),  the 
console/system  type (ST/Falcon/Gameboy/Game  Gear/Lynx/whatever) 
and   miscellaneous   remarks.    Individual   records   can   be 
deleted/added/edited, you can output any important information to 
a printer, you can merge together several different hiscore lists 
(creating  one  list of the absolute best) and  you  can  quickly 
display whatever game title you wish to know the details of.
 The  whole  thing is wrapped in a userfriendly  GEM  dialog  box 
interface,  allowing  for  compatibility with any  machine  you'd 
care  to throw it at.  The only requirement is that you start  it 
with a screen resolution of 640x200 pixels of higher.

 GENERAL CONVENTIONS

 You're  probably  familiar  with  GEM  to  a  reasonable  extent 
already.  You already know that texts displayed in a 'light' text 
style  cannot be selected,  and that buttons with a thick  border 
are  'default',  i.e.  that they can be additionally selected  by 
pressing the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key on your keyboard.
 Because of the use of the "Flydials" library, however, there are 
some interesting extra bits.  For example you can select  buttons 
not  only  just  by  clicking on them but  also  by  keeping  the 
[ALTERNATE]  key  pressed and then pressing the letter  which  is 
underlined in the button text.  You will also find the [HELP] and 
[UNDO]  keys  supporting  extra  buttons - in  the  case  of  the 
"Hiscore  Terminal  Utility"  these will  be  "Info"  and  "Exit" 
respectively).
 Last but not least,  you may discover a so-called flydial corner 
at the top right of a dialog. You can use this to drag the dialog 
box  to  any place you want on the screen,  which  is  useful  if 
you're  using  the  program in TT high resolution  or  a  similar 
Falcon resolution.

 GETTING STARTED

 To  run  properly,  the  "Hiscore Terminal  Utility"  needs  the 
"HTU_x_x.PRG" and its resource files "HTU_M.RSC" and "HTU_H.RSC". 
It also needs a data file (which has a file extension of  ".HTU") 
to load, as the program will not work without a data file loaded. 
An empty "DEFAULT.HTU" data file is supplied on  the  disk.  This 
file contains only one dummy entry,  which you can "edit" to your 
own wishes. After that you can add any other entries you want. An 
example of a complete datafile is "CRONOS.HTU".

 EDITING

 As  soon  as  you  press the "Edit" or  "Add"  buttons  (or  the 
appropriate  keyboard  shortcuts),  you  will  notice  all  other 
buttons  being greyed out,  i.e.  becoming unselectable.  In  the 
topmost  edit field you will see a small vertical line - this  is 
the  cursor.  You may now enter the appropriate information  into 
the appropriate field boxes, pressing the cursor up and down keys 
to  go  from one field to another and the cursor left  and  right 
keys to 'walk' within one field entry.
 Pressing [RETURN] (or clicking on the button or using its  other 
shortcut)  will  cause  the "Edit" or "Add" mode  to  be  exited. 
Should  you have pressed [RETURN] with the false assumption  that 
it would take you to the next field,  nothing is wrong yet -  you 
can simply enter "Edit" mode and change whatever you want to.
 Additional  keys  supported  within "Edit" and  "Add"  mode  are 
[BACKSPACE]  (delete  character  to  the  left  of  the  cursor), 
[DELETE]  (delete character to the right of  the  cursor),  [ESC] 
(delete whole current field),  [TAB] (go to next field,  i.e. the 
equivalent  of  'cursor down') and [CLR HOME]  (which  moves  the 
cursor to the topmost field, in this case "Game Title").
 You  can  also use the mouse to position the cursor  on  another 
field or at a specific position within a field text.  Simply move 
the mouse pointer and click where needed.

 Notes:

* In  all  fields  any alphanumeral may be  entered  -  with  the 
  exception of the hiscore date and hiscore fields, where you are 
  only allowed to enter numerals.
* Entering  no  specific date in the 'hiscore  date'  field  will 
  cause  the current date to be inserted upon exiting edit  mode. 
  It  is up to you to make sure your system date  is  valid.  The 
  date format inserted, by the way, is "MMDDYY".
* You  can  enter the hiscore started at the left of  the  entry, 
  without taking into consideration where the "," should  be.  It 
  will be automatically formatted and rightbound upon you exiting 
  edit mode.
* In case your hiscore happens to be a particular TIME, e.g. with 
  a  sports game,  you should enter the score  as  'hhhmmmsssttt' 
  (where 'ttt' are thousands of a second).

 A SHORT OVERVIEW OF ALL OPTIONS

 LOAD

 Displays an item selector box where you can load any "HTU"  type 
hiscore  data file from disk into memory.  All  previous  records 
contained in memory will be lost.  Upon return to the program the 
first record will be displayed.

 SAVE

 Saves the current hiscore data file in memory to disk.  You will 
not be requested to specify a file name and the old file on  disk 
will be overwritten.
 Before saving, the whole database will be sorted, too (identical 
to the SORT option mentioned below).

 MERGE

 With this option it is possible to have several different "HTU"-
type  hiscore  databases compared and the currently  loaded  list 
updated to your personal wishes.
 First you will get a dialog requesting you to specify whether or 
not game titles found in the supplement hiscore database that are 
not  yet present in your own should be added by default  (without 
your  interaction)  or  not.   Simpy  select  the  proper  answer 
([RETURN]  will  also support "Yes",  [UNDO]  will  also  support 
"No").
 Next,  an item select will be displayed where you can select the 
supplemental "HTU" type hiscore data file,  for example that of a 
friend's.  After  that,  this  new file will be  read  record  by 
record,  where  each  record will be compared with  the  database 
currently in memory.
 If any of the newly read records are found to have a game  title 
identical to one in the database already in memory,  you will  be 
confronted  with another major dialog box.  The top half of  this 
dialog  box will display some vital information on  the  original 
record (i.e.  the old one that is part of your own database), the 
bottom  half will display the same information of the new  record 
(i.e. the one loaded from the supplemental file).
 You can now opt to "Add",  "Replace" (this option is disabled  - 
greyed  out - in the case of a new title when you  have  switched 
the first option off by selecting "No"),  "Skip" or "Quit". These 
buttons can be selected by the mouse or the appropriate  keyboard 
shortcut.  Additionally,  "Add"  can be selected by means of  the 
[RETURN] key and "Quit" can be selected by pressing [UNDO].
 When you're not certain,  just select "Add" here. You can always 
delete  the record at a later point in time when you can  examine 
the  full  hiscore database and delete any records  that  may  be 
superfluous.
 Once the current database has been completely updated,  you  can 
have a look at it within the program.  You can,  of course,  also 
save it to disk.

* Where 'identical' is meant above,  it is not important  whether 
  any  of  the  entries  are written in  upper/lower  case  or  a 
  combination.  Before  comparisons are made,  both  entries  are 
  converted to upper case internally.
* When the game title is identical but the hiscore is lower, this 
  will  by  default not even be offered to you  for  addition  or 
  replacement. Exceptions are the following:

  -  When  the 'event' field is not empty - this means we may  be 
     dealing  with  a multiple-event  sports  game,  where  there 
     hiscore may not refer to points gained but some kind of time 
     record.
  -  When  the 'remark' field is not empty - this may indicate  a 
     special game mode,  for example 'hard' as opposed to 'easy', 
     or 'Without drone' as opposed to 'With drone'.

 ADD

 Enters  'edit'  mode,  but starts off with an empty  record  and 
increases  the total amount of records by one.   It is exited  by 
pressing  [RETURN] or [ALT]-A,  or clicking the mouse pointer  on 
the "Add" button once more.

 DELETE

 After  asking  once for comfirmation,  this deletes  the  record 
currently on the screen, displaying the next one (or the previous 
one if the current record happened to be the last).

 SORT

 This  does a quicksort,  sorting the whole database from A to  Z 
based  on  the game title.  When you SAVE a  database,  the  sort 
option is automatically executed first.

 EDIT

 This enters edit mode,  allowing you to change any of the  field 
contents belonging to the record currently being displayed. It is 
exited  by pressing [RETURN] or [ALT]-E,  or clicking  the  mouse 
pointer on the "Edit" button once more.

 FIND

 Selecting  this option causes another dialog to be displayed  on 
the  screen,  requesting  you to enter the game title  you  want. 
Pressing [RETURN] or [ALT]-O or clicking the mouse pointer on the 
"OK" button will cause your specification to be accepted. After a 
brief while the first record with that game specification will be 
displayed.  If  there  are multiple entries with  the  same  game 
title,  you  can  go to the next one by pressing the  "ONE  ARROW 
DOWN" button at the right of the record screen.
 It  is  not  important whether the game title you  enter  is  in 
upper/lower  case or a combination.  Before searching it will  be 
converted to upper case internally.
 If you enter only part of the game title, for example "Llama" it 
will  find  the first entry starting with  "Llama"  ("Llamatron", 
"Llamazap", whatever).

 PRINT

 With  this  option you can print out your  database  using  just 
about any printer. First you are requested to specify the printer 
codes your printer needs to enter and leave expanded (i.e. double 
width) text style printing,  as the program will attempt to print 
each  game title using this style.  The default values given  are 
those  required for Epson emulation,  which is supported by  most 
printers  today.  Your printer's manual will specify these  codes 
if  they are any different and if expanded style is supported  at 
all.   Alternatively  you  can  also  disable  expanded  printing 
altogether using the disable/enable radio buttons.
 After this, another dialog is put on the screen. This allows you 
to specify which fields you want to have printed. Only the fields 
you specify will be printed,  the others won't.  For each  record 
the  program  will  check whether the  actual  individual  fields 
contain any text. If they're empty they will not be printed.
 Printing  will be assumed in draft mode,  unless you  can  force 
your  printer  into  another mode  yourself.  When  printing  has 
finished,  a form feed will be sent (causing the current page  to 
be ejected).
 During printing,  you can press [ESCAPE] or [UNDO] to  interrupt 
printing.  Do mind that the program is usually a lot quicker than 
the  printer,  so the printer's own RAM buffer may contain a  lot 
more  still  to  be  printed  after  you've  officially   aborted 
printing.

* Game  title,  gamer's name and hiscore are always  printed  and 
  cannot be disabled.
* After printing has ceased (whether cancelled or not) the amount 
  of pages and entries printed will be displayed.
* The  printing option has been tested using a sheet  feeder  and 
  pages of 64 lines and 80 columns.  It should work at all times, 
  but you're welcome to contact me if you experience problems (of 
  course this only works for registered users).

 INFO

 Yet   another  dialog,   this  time  specifying  some   internal 
statistics:  The  amount  of free memory,  the amount  of  memory 
currently  used  by  the database in memory  and  the  amount  of 
records currently in use.

 ABOUT

 Displays  a dialog box containing my  snailmail/email  addresses 
and the name, version number and finishing date of the program.

 EXIT

 Selecting  this  button  will cause the  program  to  relinquish 
control back to the GEM desktop. If you have made any alterations 
to the datafile currently in memory it will first ask you whether 
or not to save it to disk. If you don't save it, all changes made 
will be lost.

 THE ARROW DEPARTMENT

 To the left of the currently displayed record you will find  six 
buttons.  These can be used the 'walk' through the  records.  "S" 
moves you to the "START" of all records, i.e. to the beginning of 
the  alphabet.  "E"  moves  you  to the  "END"  of  all  records, 
somewhere close to something starting with "Z".  The single arrow 
buttons move closer to the end or the beginning by one record  at 
a  time,  the  double arrow buttons do the same in steps  of  ten 
records.
 There are no keyboard shortcuts to any of these buttons.

 LIMITS

* The lengths of the field texts are limited to the size of their 
  fields.
* Up to 1000 records can be managed.

 COMPATIBILITY

 The  "Hiscore Terminal Utility" works on any  ST/TT/Falcon  with 
any  amount of memory and any TOS version,  including  "MultiTOS" 
and  "Geneva".  "MultiGEM" and "Mag!X" should work  too,  but  no 
certainty can be given there.  The program needs less than 300 Kb 
of free memory, so it should even work on half megabyte machines.

 CREDITS

 As usual,  this program wasn't done all on my own. First of all, 
of course, there's thanks that need to go to Gregor Duchalski who 
did  the  "Flydials"  library  (Baueracker  15a,   44627   Herne, 
Germany). Way to go Gregor!

                           The Address
                           -----------

 I can be reached at the following address.  There,  I would like 
to receive suggestions,  interesting letters, bug reports and, of 
course, your shareware registration fees.

 Richard Karsmakers
 P.O. Box 67
 NL-3500 AB  Utrecht
 The Netherlands
 Email: cronos@worldaccess.nl

 PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ADDRESS IN THE PROGRAM IS NO LONGER VALID!

 If you send any money, please restrict it to cash (absolutely no 
cheques,  because they cost about as much to cash in as the total 
amount  of  money  needed to register!)  and  don't  include  any 
coins!
 The  program(s) on this disk and its manual are copyright   1993  
by Richard  Karsmakers.   However,   you may copy them as much as  
you  want   as   long  as the  package  remains  complete   (i.e.  
program  + document file + possible other associated files).
 Like Jeff Minter already proclaimed long ago:  "Death to The Men 
With Suits!"

 Utrecht, the Netherlands, August 23rd 1993

