Scor­pio News

The listing contains a number of conditionals such as ‘IF SSAVE’ and ‘IF CLOCK’, and a number of definitions such as ‘PCTRLB’ and ‘NMRREG’. These are defined in the Equates section of my BIOS. The purpose of each should be fairly obvious, but I would be pleased to help anyone trying to implement these routines who is in difficulty.

More GEMPEN Modifications.

Since I submitted the article describing modifications that I have made to GEMPEN (PEN3.COM) and which was published in Scorpio News, Vol. 2, Issue 1, I have carried out some more useful alterations to GEMPEN. I call the present version PEN4.COM. The related HELP overlay is called HLP4.OVL. The extra features of PEN4.COM over those added to PEN3.COM and described in Vol. 1, Issue 4 are:

1. The top line of the screen now displays the current EDIT file name, and the current Date and time, if a system clock exists.
2. ^QH – The ^QH command updates the screen Date/​Time Display if a system clock is supported and asks whether a Date and Time ‘tag’ should be inserted at the start of file in the format:

   ;> SAVSCRN.DOC 27/02/88 15:09 <
   :>
   

   If a Clock is not supported:by the BIOS, the Date/​Time Tag must be hand-edited. The format of the ‘tag’ is such that it appears as a comment in a source code file. The ^QH routine is ‘called’ by the ^QW and ^QE routines so that the operator is reminded to consider whether he wishes to tag the file being saved.

3. ^QN – Now allows four options. The prompt now displays:

   Remove A)ll, S)tar, B)lock, N)one ?

   a) ‘A’ will delete ALL ‘*’ and ‘\’ markers from the text.
   b) ‘B’ will delete all ‘\’ markers.
   c) ‘S’ will delete all ‘*’ markers.
   d) ‘N’ will not delete either ‘*’ or ‘\’ markers.

   The ^QN routine is called by the ^QW and ^QE commands so that the operator is reminded to remove markers before a file is saved.