
                         *****  I M P O R T A N T  *****
              * * *  READ THIS FILE BEFORE RUN THE MAGAZINE  * * *
                             FOR THE FIRST TIME


 Official Release (04/23/97)


    This is the first release of the *NEW* WarmNews Magazine interface
engine (special Zakk Wylde Tribute). Every effort was made to free this
version of bugs, anyway, if something isn't working right for you,
drop us a e-mail note !


 What you need to run this program...


    Minimum Equipment :

          - AT 386 or better
          - SVGA monitor
          - SVGA 1MB card (must be VESA extensions enabled)
          - You *MUST* have a Mouse
          - 3.0 MB space in HD
          - Sound Blaster Card (Pro, 16, AWE) (optional)

    * The magazine was tested in 486, 586 and Pentiums but should work ok in
      386 too, no 286 alowed...


 VESA needed...


    If you have an old VGA card that doesn't has built-in VESA graphics
support you must use a device driver to emulate the VESA extensions in your
machine. A well known program is UNIVBE (http://www.scitechsoft.com/)
that supports a lot of VGA cards and do a great work with VESA emulation.

   Ŀ
    Due to some bugs in the vesa extensions in some SVGA cards, extrange 
    things can happen when the magazine scrolls. If you are having this  
    problem or any other kind of Video problem, use UNIVBE to emulate    
    VESA and the magazine will run OK !                                  
   
    


 Sound


    WarmNews uses Charles Attard's module player routines, so you can hear
your preferred tracked music while reading WarmNews. It plays the following
formats : 669/MOD/MTM/NST/S3M/WAV/XI/XM. The player support any Sound Blaster
card. It was not tested with SB *compatible* cards but it should work too.

    To play music you need to specify the directory containing your music
files to WarmNews in the command line. To do this type :

  Ŀ
   WNEWS C:\MODS   <- In this example, the magazine will search for   
                      available music files in the directory C:\MODS. 
  
    If you have some music files in the same directory as WNEWS, type :
  Ŀ
   WNEWS .  <- DOS understand the "." as the actual directory         
  
 Ŀ
   * The player automatic detects your SB configuration.                    
                                                                            
   ** Note that if you are having problems with music in the magazine you   
      can run it WITHOUT music, just don't especify any directory in the    
      command line.                                                         
                                                                            
   *** The default Player Frequency is 32,000. You can change this value    
       passing the new frequency as a command line parameter using /FREQ:X  
       where X is the new frequency, so WNEWS /FREQ:22050 will set the      
       Player Frequency to 22,050 ! Set lower frequencies to slow machines. 
 
   ͻ
   NOTE Some instability was reported in some systems when running the
   ͼ magazine with Sound ON. We are trying to fix it now and a fixed
     version will be available in a near future. If you are getting
           problems like System lockups, Run-Time Errors, try to run the
           mag WITHOUT SOUND.
               


 Navigating in the magazine


    WarmNews has a very easy navigation system consisting in a MAIN MENU and
the article pages. Click with the LEFT button of the mouse in the option you
want to choose.

    Common KEYS :
Ŀ
 ESC    When in the MAIN MENU page, exit to DOS. When reading an article, 
        go back to the MAIN MENU page (you can do this also clicking in   
        the "Hell Main" words on the screen).                             
Ĵ
 SPACE  Stop/Resume music playing (when available).                       
Ĵ
 ">"    Go to the next music in the sequence                              
Ĵ
 "<"    Go back to the previous music that was played.                    
Ĵ
"+"/"-" Increase or decrease the music volume.                            
Ĵ
 "F"    Toogle Filter OverSampling ON/OFF.                                


                 When reading...
                 Ŀ
                   RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON  Go to the NEXT page  
                   OR <DOWN ARROW>                          
                 Ĵ
                   LEFT MOUSE BUTTON   Go to PREVIOUS page  
                   OR <UP ARROW>                            
                 

  Ŀ
   HyperLinks  When reading an article you can see "highlighted" words.  
   ----------  Click with the left button on these words to see its      
               HyperLink.                                                
  


 Performance and memory considerations... READ THIS !!!!


    Free as much as possible CONVENTIONAL MEMORY.

    If you ARE planning to play music, there are some considerations to do:

<*> - First, it is highly recomended that you use just HIMEM.SYS as your
<*>   memory manager (no QEMM, EMM or any other EMS manager). This will
<*>   allow the player to use XMS FLAT memory and will speed up the music
<*>   routines a lot (and decrease CPU LOAD giving more time to the magazine
<*>   routines) !

    - If you are running the mag under OS/2 or Windows (DOS BOX), or with
      EMM,QEMM, etc... the player can't use the FLAT memory and the speed
      will decrease a lot (CPU LOAD will increase and you will notice a
      slow down in the scroll and some other magazine routines !). Very
      bad for slow and low memory machines.

    Here is some info about memory utilization by the player taken from the
    MMP's (Multi Module Player, a nice player from Charles that uses the
    same routines as the e-mag) docs :

    About memory, MMP uses 3 modes to avoid a 'not enough memory' message
    (very annoying when you have a 4, 8, 16 or more Megabytes of memory
    in your system and you only need some hundreds of kilobytes).
     It uses DOS, EMS and XMS types of memory.
    The possible modes are:
   
     Mode:    Why MMP uses this mode:
   
     DOS
   
              The module loaded is small enough to hold in conventional
              memory. But if an instrument has a size over 64 KB (the
              module loaded is a 669, MTM or XM), MMP will use the
              DOS/XMS 32 bits linear mode instead to avoid truncature.
              This is the fastest mode.
   
     DOS/EMS
   
              The instruments can't hold in DOS memory, but the patterns can
              (it is assumed that it will always be the case).
              The instruments are loaded in EMS but are truncated to
              64 KB (you will be warned), as MTMs, 669s and XMs can have
              instruments 1 MB long or more for XMs.
              To avoid this, you must allow MMP to enter XMS 32 bits linear
              mode by disabling any expanded memory manager as EMM386,
              QEMM386 ... and enabling HIMEM.SYS.
              Note that the DOS/EMS mode is slow, so, if you have less than a
              486DX-120 MHz you should really do it !
   
     DOS/XMS 32 bits linear
   
              As in DOS/EMS mode, the total size of instruments is too big
              to fit in DOS memory.
              This is the best mode (fast, all free memory is available,
              and samples are not truncated to 64 KB).
              See above to enable it.
              In this mode the processor does linear addressing in real mode !
              The Global Descriptor Table is modified, that's why it's
              totally incompatible with other applications running in
              protected mode or V86 mode.
   
     MMP tries first to enter XMS-32bit linear mode so it can free the
     conventional memory for DOS shell. If this mode isn't enabled
     (see the config window in MMP) then your processor is in protected mode
     (EMM386, QEMM386 or Windows DOS box are enabled) or there isn't enough
     free XMS memory.


    The magazine will run more smoothly if you use a DISK CACHE too (like
SmartDrive, etc...).


 Last...


    We want to hear your comments. Drop us a note by e-mail, or visit us
    in our WEB SITE.

             Ŀ
             WarmBooter
             
              e-mail : warmbooter@geocities.com
                       warmbooter@achei.net
              WEB : http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/8706



* WarmNews magazine is copyrighted by WarmBooter (Carlos Henrique Cantu)


 Beta Test Team


    I would like to thanks this guys for help me testing the beta versions
of the magazine :

    - Dart Vader
    - Mingo
    - WarmDraw
    - Randy Canis
    - Charles Attard



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