WSLOAD - A WordStar Utility WordStar is a trademark of MicroPro International Lindsay Haisley 14206 Spreading Oaks Leander, TX 78641 >>>>>>>>> C A U T I O N <<<<<<<<<< DO NOT RUN WSLOAD ON YOUR ONLY COPY OF WORDSTAR. BE SURE TO MAKE A CONVENIENT BACKUP OF SAME BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY MODIFICATIONS WITH THIS SOFTWARE. **** DESCRIPTION: ----------------- WordStar, as you are probably aware, may be custom taylored to fit just about any necessary application. Different printers, different terminals and different initial user options are all supported using the WINSTALL program, supplied by MicroPro, to make the necessary changes to WordStar. The "configuration data" which defines thise options to WordStar becomes semi-permanently imbedded in WordStar and can normally only be changed by again using the WINSTALL program. WSLOAD is a patch to WordStar vs. 3.3 (implemented through the standard user patch area INISUB routine) which enables WordStar to accept configuration data from an overlay file thus saving the necessity of having a different complete WordStar copy for each printer or type of work. This is especially useful for folks who keep several different configurations of WordStar on a hard disk system, each version occupying 20K of space. Configuration overlay files occupy only 2K to 4K (depending on your system) of disk space and can be loaded either automatically or by command line option. Once WSLOAD is installed, it has no user interface beyond the CP/M command line and is effectively invisible. **** INSTALLATION: ------------------ To create a version of WordStar which will accept configuration overlays, make your current generic copy of WordStar available in the same user area on your disk system. Enter WLOAD and respond to the following prompts: Enter the filename of your version of WordStar => Give the complete filename of your current version of WordStar along with a disk prefix, if appropriate. Enter the name you want for WordStar with WSLOAD installed => You may give a different name here, or use the same name given in response to the previous question. A Carriage Return with no name entered will reuse the name previously given. Although this will save disk space, no backup will be made and your original version of WordStar will be overwritten. Enter the default configuration filename => This is the name of the overlay file which will be loaded if none is specified on the WordStar command line. This is a useful feature if you do several different kinds of editing in different user areas on a hard disk. Put a configuration overlay in each user area with the settings you need for the kind of work done there and it will be loaded automatically each time WordStar is invoked in that user area. Thus, if you do assembly language in one user area, C programming in another and word processing in yet another, a default config. file could be placed in each user area to optimize WordStar for each kind of work. If you have a floppy disk system and use a single A drive WordStar command file disk to edit different kinds of files on a disk in the B drive, you may specify a disk when giving the default config. filename (e.g. B:WS.DTA) and include an appropriate default config. file on each B drive work disk. If WordStar with WSLOAD installed can't find the default configuration overaly, it will simply run as is with the configuration of your original WordStar intact. If no filename is entered in response to this question, no default config. overlay will be loaded when WordStar is invoked. Enter the character you want to preceed overlay filenames => WordStar with WSLOAD looks at the first character of a filename given on the WordStar command line and determines whether or not the specified file is an overlay. This character is a '+' by default. If you plan to edit files starting with this character, or if your operating system uses this character on a command line for something else, then specify another character. The filename of the default configuration overlay neen not be tagged with this character, although you may want to do so to maintain the consistency of your config. overlay names. **** CREATING OVERLAYS: ----------------------- Configuration overlays are created from configured versions of WordStar which may be erased once the configuration data is extracted. After using WINSTALL and setting all options as desired, load and run WordStar and exit immediately using the 'X' option on the main menu. Then, before running any other program, enter: SAVE 8 +WSFOO.DTA (or whatever you want to call your overlay) The resulting file, +WSFOO.DTA is the configuration overlay for the WordStar just run. **** USAGE: ----------- To use WordStar with WSLOAD installed, simply include the name of the desired overllay on the command line when WordStar is invoked. It may be either the first or second argument following the WordStar command file name, the other argument being the file, if any, which WordStar will attempt to load and present for editing. For example, all four of the following are acceptable: WS +WSFOO.DTA (Enters command mode, +WSFOO.DTA overlay loaded) WS LOVE.LET +WSFOO.DTA (Edits LOVE.LET, +WSFOO.DTA overlay loaded) WS +WSFOO.DTA LOVE.LET (Same as previous) WS LOVE.LET (Edits LOVE.LET, default ovly loaded if found) WS (Enters command mode, default ovly loaded if found) If WordStar can't find the specified overlay, or if no overlay is specified, it will attempt to load the default overlay. If this overlay can't be found, your generic version of WordStar will run with no overlay loaded. **** ERRORS: ------------ WSLOAD will abort if it can't find the WordStar command file. Check your directory to make sure the filename is spelled correctly and that you have specified the proper disk for the file. A full disk or a full directory will also terminate the program. WSLOAD places the code for config. overlay loading immediately following the end of the WordStar code itself. This area is later occupied by the standard WordStar overlays WSMSGS.OVR and WSOLVY1.OVR, and so is available only for initialization routines which can be erased once WordStar is running. WSLOAD checks to see if an initialization routine is already in place in this portion of memory and if so, it will report a "MORPAT error". This will be the case if you try to run WSLOAD on a WordStar copy which has already been WSLOADed. Copies of WordStar which have initialization code in this area of memory already cannot use WSLOAD without reassembling WSLOAD.AZM with the offset variable set to a higher location. The WSLOAD installation envelope checks to see if the INISUB jump in the user patch area is to an address beyond the end of WordStar (or more accurately, beyond the current value of the OFFSET variable in WSLOAD.AZM). It is possible to have an initialization routine that jumps from within the MORPAT patch area itself to an area beyond the end of WordStar. This is kludgey programming, but I am sure it is occasionally done. If this has been done to your WordStar then the WSLOAD envelope will not flag a MORPAT error and will bash your current initialization routine. In layman's terms, this means BE SURE TO MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF WORDSTAR BEFORE RUNNING WSLOAD ON IT! If the resulting WordStar copy works oddly or doesn't configure your keys, or won't use the screen properly, you have probably destroyed an init. routine and you must do some work on your WordStar itself before you can use WSLOAD. The details of this repair work are beyond the scope of this DOC, however the locations of MORPAT and INISUB within WordStar vs. 3.3 are given in equates within WSLOAD.AZM. If you get a MORPAT error and still wish to use WSLOAD, you may reassemble WSLOAD with the OFFSET variable set to an area of available free memory above existing initialization routines. Make sure that at least 200 bytes of free memory are available. Tack on an extra page to WordStar if necessary. WSLOAD will assemble with either Microsoft's M80 or with the public domain assmebler Z80MR. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If you have problems or questions regarding this program, I will be glad to help if I can. Please send a SAS disk and/or envelope with your correspondance. I would like to thank Ted Silveira of Santa Cruz, CA for his documentation of user patch points in WordStar, without which the writing of WSLOAD would have been a pain in the ass. I would also like to thank MicroPro International for WordStar, which may not be the fanciest CP/M word processor around, but it is surely the smoothest and most trouble free of all the word processors and text editors I use.