MAPPER-3a/GB 3.8 (C) UK 1994,1995 Steve Litchfield ================================================== Released as shareware 1st December 1995 ... NOTE to upgraders from versions prior to v3.0. Because of enhancements to the program for v3.x, you will NEED to *re-install* the MAPPER-3a icon. Remove it with Psion-/ and then re-install with Psion-I etc. NOTE to all upgraders. You can delete the OVL module files in your \APP\MAPPER3A\ directory, because I've now combined the various pieces into the one .OPA module again. Registration address (send cheque for 14 pounds to): Steve Litchfield 22 Grays Crescent Woodley Berks RG5 3EN Requires Psion Series 3a or Acorn PocketBook II, with approximately 100k of free system memory to run in. MAPPER-3a/GB 3.8 is shareware. This does not make it a free program! Yes, you can copy it freely to friends or acquaintances, or even upload the original ZIP file to bulletin boards etc, but if you like it and continue to use it, then you are honour-bound to register the program by sending me a cheque for œ14 (pounds). Existing registered users of Mapper-3a/London can register for half-price, œ7. Registration gets you: a) a clear conscience that you're using paid-for software, and that you're helping support future development of MAPPER-3a/GB and other quality Psion shareware software. b) a special code that will personalise your copy of MAPPER-3a/GB, remove the opening and closing shareware screens and let you access the program more conveniently, including the ability to add your own place names to the MAPPER-3a/GB database and shrink or remove the status window to give more room on-screen. No need to re-install the software, just use the registration menu option and type in the code! c) A direct say in how the program develops. *********************************************************************** ******************** IMPORTANT!! ******************************** *********************************************************************** This text file documents the history of the program, its installation, and some of the more technical aspects to running it. For general help in using and understanding MAPPER-3a/GB, please browse through the *extensive* on-line help. This on-line help is the only documentation of most of MAPPER-3a/GB's features, so work through it properly! 8-) *********************************************************************** NOTE to upgraders in general. Although Mapper-3a/GB gets updated about once a month, these additions tend to be fairly minor. You may wish to check the changes summary below to see whether you need to upgrade your currently installed version or not. Note that if you are only one version behind, special 'upgrade' ZIPs are available for download on CIX and Compuserve, containing just the changed files. RECENT HISTORY: Quick summary of changes for v3.8 (since 3.7) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Added extra GPS settings dialog, with new options, including the ability to show Estimated Time of Arrival or Distance left from current GPS position to your selected destination, which can be an overlay item or place; and a mouse trail to show where you've been; and the ability to change your preferred average speed from the GPS Moving map settings dialog; added a 'bearing' indicator line to show current direction of travel; added another dozen town plans; peaks overlay massively expanded and split to show peaks in each part of the UK (see below); updated the Little Chef overlay to remove disused restaurants and add all the new ones; moved the 'zoom level beneath' options from the Advanced dialog into the respective Item or Vector dialogs; added little advert screen for Mapper-3a/London which pops up if appropriate while scanning London area!; move the 'sticky road overlay' option to the top of its dialog for easier access; integrated all OVL modules into the main OPA; Quick summary of changes for v3.7 (since 3.6) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Added support for the old NMEA 0183 v1.5 standard, for older GPSes; drastically overhauled and updated the Travel Lodge overlay, each Lodge now has its own phone number listed; bug fix in the motorway junctions overlay and reduction in the size of the junction icon; pressing '1' to go to zoom level 1 now shows correctly in the status window; Quick summary of changes for v3.6 (since 3.5) --------------------------------------------------------------------- GPS-support for units which have a NMEA-0183-compatible computer interface, displaying current position in a moving-map configuration; GPS simulator mode so you can see what having a GPS connected would show; latitude and longitude calculations are now much more accurate; you are now asked on exit if you wish to save changes to the settings file; the radius circle function now lets you select the radius at display time; --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is MAPPER-3a/GB, released as shareware for the Psion 3a in August 1995. All rights reserved, and copyrights, including the database files and their format, where appropriate (see listings below). All data sets are original work, collated using information from low resolution free maps, genuine public domain information and data gathered from personally-owned GPS units. Memory requirements ------------------- MAPPER-3a/GB 3.8 needs approximately 100k of system memory while running. If you try to start it with less than this amount available, it will warn you and exit. Components and Installation. ---------------------------- MAPPER-3a/GB v3.8 comprises three separate ZIP files, for convenience in downloading and unzipping; MAPA38.ZIP (containing this file and the main program files), MAPB38.ZIP (containing the MP3 item and MP4 vector overlays and any related information files or databases), and MAPC38.ZIP (containing the town plan schematics). Mapper-3a is almost certainly the largest and most complex program you'll ever have to install on your Psion, so don't get frustrated if you can't seem to work out how to get everything going immediately. Try installing another (simpler) program first, and then try Mapper-3a again when you're more confident with files, directories etc. NOTE: Before installing Mapper-3a, do the following. Go into 'Set Preferences' on your system screen menu and set 'Update lists' to "System Button". If you don't do this, the 3a will try and update all its lists after *every* file is copied, which will take ages .... If you are a MCLINK user: Note that an example MCLINK script file is included, called INSTALL.SCR, which you'll need to customise for yourself by changing the disk names to suit your set-up and then use it to save yourself some typing! To use it, start MCLINK and type @INSTALL.SCR The script assumes that all three MAPPER-3a/GB ZIP files have been unzipped into the current directory. If you use RCOM: The MCLINK script above will still work, but you'll have to manually create the appropriate directories on your Psion's disk etc. You can do this in one step by using the 'Make Directory' menu option to create \APP\MAPPER3A\PLANS\ on your chosen SSD etc. In RCOM, you can then run the script with "CALL INSTALL.SCR" ... If you use PsiWin (or Winlink?): You're definitely going to have to do it all manually, but at least you can do it all with 'drag and drop'! You'll need to create the \APP\, the \APP\MAPPER3A\ and the \APP\MAPPER3A\PLANS\ directories by hand using the 'Create Directory' menu command. A good tip is to sort the unzipped files by extension/type, i.e. all the .PICs together, all the .MP3s together, and so on. You can highlight blocks of files in PsiWin by clicking on the first one and then holding the key down and clicking on the last one. ALl files in between will now be highlighted as well, and you can drag and drop the lot in one go across to your Psion's drives!! If all else fails refer either to the list below, or to the INSTALL.SCR script file, both of which should give you enough clues as to where things go! TIP: - when you drag and drop, remember to hold the key down throughout the operation. This forces PsiWin to just copy the file and not try to do any fancy conversions! {Inside the three ZIPs are the following files, file sizes quoted to help you decide on whether to install certain overlays etc. Contributor information also included where known or appropriate} MAPPER3A.TXT - this file! MAPPER3A.OPA - the main program module. Place this in an \APP\ directory on any Psion drive, and install onto your system screen with Psion-I. Size - 58k (C) Steve Litchfield plus essential support files, to be placed in a \APP\MAPPER3A\ subdirectory on the same disk: MAPHELP.RSC - the comprehensive on-line help file - 19k USEFUL.RSC - a help file of some useful numbers - 2k GB.MP1 - a data-set of approximately 1100 towns and cities - 30k COASTLIN.MP2 - a data-set showing the coastline of GB and a few close islands - 4k ROADS.MP2 - a data-set of the GB motorway and most of the primary route network - 19k MAPPER.PIC - some icons for use with the overlays, including a default one, and the town plan icons etc. - 2k plus loads of extra overlays, which you can install as you wish... note that if you install them *all*, you'd better count the cost of the extra SSD disk space needed! .... they also all go into the aforementioned \APP\MAPPER3A\ directory ... Vector overlays (i.e. lines and labels): COUNTIES.MP4 - a vector format data-set of the GB county boundaries - 10k (contributed by Mark Avey) RAILWAYS.MP4 - a vector format data-set of the GB railway network (excluding some local or irregular services) - 10k FERRIES.MP4 - a vector format data-set of the external GB ferry routes - 2k TUBEZONE.MP4 - a vector format data-set of the Greater London tube zones - 1k (contributed by Tony Crocker) OSGRID.MP4 - a vector format data-set of the National Grid Squares - 1k (contributed by Simon Pooley) LANDRNGR.MP4 - a vector format data-set of the LandRanger map boundaries - 6k (contributed by Simon Pooley) Item overlays (i.e. specific points and labels and reference info): JUNCTION.MP3 - Motorway junctions - 8k SERVICES.MP3 - Motorway service stations - 3k FORTE.MP3 - Forte hotels (all different kinds) - 8k (contributed by Hedley Wright) LITTLECH.MP3 - Little Chef restauarants - 5k (updated December 1995) HAPPYEAT.MP3 - Happy Eater restauarants - 1k NOVOTEL.MP3 - Novotel Hotels - 1k HOLIDAY.MP3 - Holiday Inns - 1k TRAVINN.MP3 - Travel Inns - 3k TRAVELOD.MP3 - Forte Travelodges (updated November 1995) - 4k GRANADA.MP3 - Granada Lodges - 1k PREMIER.MP3 - Premier Lodges - 2k YHA.MP3 - Youth Hostels - 8k (contributed by Darren McMinn) GOODPUBS.MP3 - A personal selection of good pubs - 4k (contributed by Joe Barrett) FOOTBALL.MP3 - football grounds - 3k (contributed by Trevor Ridley) CRICKET.MP3 - county cricket headquarter grounds RUGBY.MP3 - rugby grounds - 1k BEACON.MP3 - aircraft beacons - 8k REPET145.MP3 - Rn 145MHz radio repeaters - 1k (contributed by Carl Littlejohns) REPET433.MP3 - RB 433MHz radio repeaters - 3k (contributed by Carl Littlejohns) RACECRSE.MP3 - race courses - 2k AIRFIELD.MP3 - airfields - 8k AIRMUSM.MP3 - aircraft museums - 3k (contributed by Mark Avey) VULCANS.MP3 - surviving COMPLETE Vulcan bombers - 1k (contributed by Mark Avey) CAMPSITE.MP3 - recommended camp sites - 12k (contributed by Hedley Wright) CARAVANC.MP3 - Caravan Club sites - 8k (contributed by Hedley Wright) TVMAINTX.MP3 - TV transmitters - 2k (contributed by Simon Pooley) BBCRADIO.MP3 - BBC local radio stations - 2k MRACING.MP3 - motor racing circuits - 1k CIS.MP3 - Compuserve nodes - 6k (contrbuted by Francis Creese) CASTLES.MP3 - castles - 5k (contrbuted by Mark Avey) PACKET.MP3 - packet radio stations (partial) - 4k (contributed by Francis Creese) THEMEPKS.MP3 - theme parks - 1k (contributed by Mark Avey) SKI.MP3 - ski slopes - 1k (contributed by Francis Creese) PENWAY.MP3 - Pennine Way walk, with staging posts (contributed by Joe Barrett) COAST2C.MP3 - coast to coast walk, with staging posts (contributed by Joe Barrett) NATTRUST.MP3 - National Trust Properties - 13k (contributed by Pat McMurray) EXHIBIT.MP3 - Exhibition centres - 1k (contributed by Pat McMurray) SCOPEAKS.MP3 - All hill or mountain peaks in Scotland (contributed by Hedley Wright) ENGPEAKS.MP3 - All hill or mountain peaks in England (contributed by Hedley Wright) WELPEAKS.MP3 - All hill or mountain peaks in Wales (contributed by Hedley Wright) WOODLAND.MP3 - Woodland Trust sites - 7k (submitted by Tim Alton) ENGHER.MP3 - English Heritage sites - 4k (submitted by Tim Alton) PORTS.MP3 - Ports for yachts (see PORTS.TXT) - 4k (submitted by Graeme Smith) HMCG.MP3 - HM Coastguard stations (see HMCG.TXT) - 2k (submitted by Graeme Smith) BTICOAST.MP3 - British Telecom International shipping radio transmitters - 2k (submitted by Graeme Smith) STEAM.MP3 - Steam railways - 4k (submitted by Chris Partis) COMRADIO.MP3 - Commercial radio stations - 2k (submitted by Chris Partis) Each of the .MP3 overlays listed above has an associated .PIC file of the same name. These are the on-screen icons for overlays, and will be used if present in the main \APP\MAPPER3A\ directory. If they are not present, a default 'star' icon will be used .... Some of the overlays may also have information files (*.WRD) and/or database files (*.DBF), depending on whether the original compiler of the overlay supplied one. The WRD files can read as usual in WORD, and describe the overlay in more detail. The database files are for opening in DATA and then linking into via Mapper-3a's menu options. Each of the overlays includes reference information for each item (for example, telephone contact numbers), and this can be displayed by turning 'Overlay Reference Fields' On. As I say, all the above support files live in the \APP\MAPPER3A\ directory. MAPTUTOR.WRD is a short tutorial WRD file, which you're best advised to copy to a \WRD\ directory on your internal disk for working through and then deleting. (Town/Item plans) =============== VECTDRAW.OPO - the town plan drawing utility, v1.6 TPLIST.OPO - the town plan listing utility v1.4 (Put these in \OPO\ on any drive) VECTDRAW.TXT - documentation for VECTDRAW 1.6 (text file, doesn't need to be installed!) TPnnnnnn.MT1 - Lots and lots and lots of small files, each one a town plan schematic, you can use TPLIST to tell you which is which, if you really want to know! Install these files if you want to use the town plan facility and have the necessary Psion disk space available, putting them in \APP\MAPPER3A\PLANS\ on any drive. As at v3.8 of Mapper-3a/GB there are about 160 plans compiled. Note that 4 or 5 of the plans are for things like airports and so will show up as 'invalid' under TPLIST. Mapper-3a/GB supports a feature to show plans/schematics of selected towns or items, albeit to fairly basic resolution (again, space reasons prohibit a full street plan). At this version of the program only a limited number of town plans (about 16% of the total number of possible plans) have been completed, and it is hoped that if *your* home town has not been done yet, you can compile a similar plan for it and send that it to me, and thereby contribute to the whole Mapper-3a/GB project. Town plans should be constructed with the special VECTDRAW utility and should be **kept to under 1000 bytes or so** if possible. To get an idea of the sort of thing needed, check out some of the sample town plan files included with the Mapper-3a/GB program. Town plans have the file extension .MT1 and are typically 500 to 1500 bytes long. The recommended place for these is \APP\MAPPER3A\PLANS\ on any drive ... Read the VECTDRAW.TXT file if you want to do any plans yourself. Note that you can get a 'directory' of all town plans you've got loaded on your Psion with the small TPLIST utility ... As an incentive to get involved in doing your own town plans and sending them in, I will consider letting users have a registration at a reduced cost or even free, depending on the number and quality of the plans submitted. GPS owners ---------- If you own a GPS unit (Global Positioning Service), you can hook it up to your Psion running Mapper-3a to provide a moving-map display. See the file GPSNOTES.TXT for more details! .MP3 Overlays and their format etc. ----------------------------------- There are three ways to create your own .MP3 overlays, you can choose the method that works best for you: (i) Use the overlay creation menu options to create an overlay and then use the point and shoot method to identify where you want each item icon to appear, together with information for the reference field. This method can obviously be time-consuming if you have a lot of items to enter, but is friendly and easy to use! (ii) If you have a lot of items in your overlay and you know their OS northings and eastings (as numbers from 0 to 1000, so you may have to divide your figures by 10, 100 or 1000...), you can make the MP3 file yourself by preparing (for example) a CSV text file and then importing into DATA. The format is: Standard DATA file, named xxxxxxxx.MP3 in \APP\MAPPER3A\ 4 text fields: Name, Eastings, Northings, Reference Info The first record is a header record and should contain (What the reference fields represent) (What the name fields represent) (Blank) (Blank) The second record and following records contain (Name) (Eastings) (northings) (Reference info) If this is not clear to you, then please get in touch and I can arrange to help you construct your overlay. (iii) The third option is if you only have information in National Grid or Latitude and Longitude format or in paper map form and require extra help to construct an overlay. Please get in touch and I'll see what I can do! Please note that although these user-made .MP3 files are editable under DATA, you will run into a few problems if you update the records in the file on a *flash disk*, as the file *must be compressed* for Mapper-3a/GB to use it, and the 3a won't let you compress a file on a flash disk! Thus you'll have to copy the file onto your internal or RAM disk, make the changes, compress the file and then copy it back over into the \APP\MAPPER3A\ directory on your flash. Mapper-3a/GB *should* default to creating new .MP3 files on your *internal* disk, which is where you'll have less problems updating your overlay. Note that the built-in/supplied overlays have been compressed slightly to save space and so are not editable under DATA. If you're desperate to see what's in them, the freeware program JBDATA will let you do this. You will probably want to create a custom icon as well. In this case, Mapper-3a/GB needs a 17 by 17 single-plane PIC file of the same filename as the .MP3 overlay, but with a .PIC extension. I normally create these icons by starting with a 48x48 blank icon using DRAW 2.8 (see appendix notes), drawing my icon in the top-left corner, and then using 'Draw/Dimensions' to create a 17x17 PIC. Save and exit. .MP4 overlays and their format ------------------------------- These vector overlays are non-trivial to create, and are best only tackled if you know what you're doing. For the record, here is a quick summary: The MP4 format is simply groups of 5 eastings/northings pairs per record. The 1st/last duplicate/line-up. All ferries/railways etc thus are fitted into block of 5 coordinate pairs. The vector *name* is printed if required to the top right of the third coordinate pair, normally, or to the bottom left if you flag this to Mapper-3a/GB by setting the eastings coordinate of the *first* point in a record to be negative. Usual Psion OPL database format. First field is $ format, the numbers are all % format. All numbers in 1000s of eastings (i.e. 1km resolution). e.g. Record 1: Basingstoke E1:110 N1:234 E2:114 N2:227 E3:118 N3:220 E4:125 N4:210 E5:132 N5:200 Record 2: Basingstoke E1:132 N1:200 etc etc Deleting info from the custom town database, \OPD\MAPPER.DBF ------------------------------------------------------------ The \OPD\MAPPER.DBF file is editable under DATA, so you can delete individual towns etc and modify them in this way. Please remember to compress the file before exiting DATA ! Keeping a standard/default settings file ---------------------------------------- Note that because Mapper-3a/GB can cope with read-only settings files, you can set everything up how *you* like it (i.e. your own private default for all settings) and then save it under a chosen name and make it read-only. You can then start Mapper-3a/GB with your preferred settings and it will be prevented from overwriting them when you exit the program. Grabbing the current map screen as a PIC file --------------------------------------------- You may well want to grab a map screen as a standard Psion .PIC file, for printing or editing using DRAW (see small print at end) or PAINT or any other 3a bit-map editor. Grabbing the 3a screen is done with pressing 'Control', 'Shift', 'Psion' and 'S' simultaneously (it's easier to do than it sounds) and lo and behold a file called SCREEN.PIC will have appeared in the root directory (\) of your internal disk ... _+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Thanks for trying Mapper-3a/GB! If you decide to remove Mapper-3a/GB from your Psion, please note that it creates several small files in \OPD\ on your default disk. MAPPER.DBF (custom place database), MAPPER.REG (your registration key, once I've given it to you) and assorted .MSF files (used to store your preferences and position etc from session to session). If you've created any custom overlays or their icons, there may also be a few files in an \APP\MAPPER3A\ directory on your internal disk, and if you've created some town/item plans, then there may be files in \APP\MAPPER3A\PLANS\ as well .... Small print: ------------ 1) Reverse engineering of the program or data modules is strictly forbidden. If you would like to create a complementary program and use my data-sets, then please get in touch with me. 2) Please note that I also run 3-Lib, *the* clearing-house for Psion public domain and shareware software. Send me a stamped self-addressed envelope to the above address, and I'll return the latest catalogue. All programs mentioned in Mapper-3a/GB or its documentation are available from 3-Lib for a nominal copying charge. 3) A useful related program to have available for editing and cropping any screen-grabs you do in Mapper-3a/GB is DRAW 2.8, by Rick Andrews. This is a S3a-only full bitmap editor and manipulator and is also shareware, available wherever you got Mapper-3a/GB from. 4) You can contact me via email at slitchfield@cix.compulink.co.uk or on Compuserve as 100640,107, if you'd like. To speed up registrations, you can quote your email address for quick return of your registration code, or use the Compuserve SWREG scheme. 5) On-line support for Mapper-3a/GB, including test versions and extra utilities are provided in the 'mapper' conference on CIX and the 'Palmtop' forum on Compuserve. Updates and news can be found on the World-Wide-Web in http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/slitchfield 6) If you give MAPPER to a friend (as is encouraged with shareware!), then it's always best to give him/her the original ZIP files. If the transfer takes place by SSD, then remember to include both the main MAPPER3A.OPA program and the \APP\MAPPER3A\ subdirectory (and its \APP\MAPPER3A\PLANS\ subdirectory, if present) full of data files. Do *not* give your friend your MAPPER.REG registration file, as this is unique to you and contains *your* name, and subsequent piracy will tell the world who started the outbreak! 7) Thanks to all the testers and contributors out there, who have supplied ideas, support, bug-reports, data, code fragments etc. You are too numerous to mention! If *you* find a bug or spot an error etc in any of the overlays, then please get in touch! 8) Note that the Northings/Eastings and National Grid coordinate systems are used with the kind written permission of Ordnance Survey. 9) Concerning sorting of entries in GB.MP1, I've had so many requests for different sort methods to suit different people that I now just ship *my* standard set, which is to have the MAJOR towns last, so that their names overwrite the smaller towns in cluttered areas. That's how *I* like it, anyway. There's nothing to stop you re-sorting your own GB.MP1 file in JBDATA, to do things the way *you* want them .... 10) Note on copyrights etc.: be careful to only make use of publicly available and public domain data sources when compiling any overlays or town/item plans, unless of course you sourced the information (from memory?) in the first place! If you submit an overlay to myself for inclusion in future versions of Mapper-3a/GB, please state your source(s) of information and their copyright status. 11) Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for anything happening to you as a result of inaccurate information within Mapper-3a! I try to keep the overlays up-to-date as possible, but that is as far as my liability goes! Note that much of the area within Greater London is not covered properly. Use the separate program Mapper-3a/London instead, for much more detail on this particular area. 12) Do not use this application while on the move! If you crash your car while looking at your Psion, don't blame me!! 13) Thanks to Andy Clarkson for OPP, which enabled me to put all my OVL modules back into the main OPA, which simplifies installation slightly. Steve Litchfield ============================================================================