MIND-SHAPES ORIGIN ORIGIN Imagine the very early years of recorded history, when only a few people knew how to read and write. The monks of the Order of Klementis were isolated from the rest of the world by an Klementis avalanche across the one pass that led to their secluded valley monastery. Though they had plenty of food, and the monastery provided shelter, there was no opportunity for contact with the outside world. When prayer would no longer sustain them (about a week into their isolation: they weren't a very dedicated order) they began to develop the mental discipline of fooby letting fooby their minds wander into other planes of existence. The monks with the greatest skills could even learn to control the nature of their mental travels, they developed a special type of mental travel based on the circle. The rest of the monks were limited to freeform travels. However, all the Klementites had difficulty interpreting the nature of their visions. Imagine now the dark corner of a cave in Finland, where we come upon a long lost description of Fooby. After years of effort and the recent development of artificial intelligence programing techniques we succeed in making this ancient meditation available to the public. Let all who have an IBM compatible computer can experience the inspirations of other plains of existence! SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS To run this program you need the following: o IBM-PC or Compatible o One floopy disk drive o 194k of memory o A color graphics card o A graphics monitor STARTING STARTING Back up your disk before using or transfer program (MS) to your hard disk. To start program either put floopy disk in drive A or transfer to the subdirectory on your hard disk where the program resides. Then enter MS. MS You will be asked your name. This is so you can label your mind- shapes. Then you will be asked if you have a color monitor. After these two questions you are in the main menu of the program. MIND-SHAPES Page 2 OPTIONS OPTIONS You have four main choices for actions within Mind-Shapes. The first two involve creation of a new mind-shape (circular or freeform). Third is to display a previously saved mind-shape. Next is to plot a previously saved mind-shape. Last you can exit to the operating system. CREATE CREATE If you choose to create a vision (1 or 2), you will be presented with a screen relating to the nature of your vision. The first question on this screen asks if you want to let your mind wander. If you answer yes (Y or y), the computer will fill in the values to describe your vision for you. However, if you answer no (N or n), you need to put in the values for the following components of your vision: - Feeling of Vision: - Strength of Vision: - Empathy with Vision: These three components can be positive or negative and can contain decimals. One last component on the freeform screen is: - Distance from vision: This controls how much of the vision is visible on your screen, this number can only be whole and positive. If you have filled . in your own number and after starting to draw your vision the screen is blank, you may have specified a distance that is too close. Change the distance from your vision with function key F6. See directions below. DISPLAY DISPLAY If you want to display one of your previously saved visions, you would select option two from the main menu. This would give you the menu titled "SHOW VISION". At this point you will be asked several questions. First will be for the name of the picture file you want to display. Enter the name you used when you saved the file. You will then be asked for a palette number. Your choices are either 0 or 1. You need not use the same palette as was used when the vision was created, however, if a different palette is used your vision will appear different. Your saved vision will be displayed on the screen until you hit any key. PLOT PLOT If you have access to a HP-7475A pen plotter, you can create MIND-SHAPES Page 3 hardcopy color pen plots of your saved visions, by selecting option three on the main menu. When you select this option, the secondary menu "PLOT VISION" will appear. You will then be asked a series of questions. The first is the name of the saved file that you want to plot. Next is the relative size of the plot. A size of 1 fills the paper. The sizes should vary from 1 through 2.5. As sizes approach 2.5 the margin around the plot will increase. The third question is the palette number. This is only for your own viewing the plotter does not use this information. The last question before plotting refers to the number of the serial port to which your plotter is connected. The plotter will use the pens in the first three positions. It is recommended that you use pens of size .7 unless your plot size is small (i.e.,close to 2). When plotting a vision one should have use of the plotter for an extended period of time as each point is plotted separately. This can take as long as several hours in the case of a circular vision. The time is dependent on the density (i.e. number) of points displayed on the screen. FUNCTION KEYS FUNCTION KEYS During the creation of a vision some of the function keys on your keyboard have special uses as listed below: - F1 Allows you to exit to the operating system run any other programs and then return to further creation of your vision. When finished with the operating system, type EXIT ____ to return to mind shapes. (active in circular and freeform visions) - F2 This is the key that you hit when you want to save a vision or return to the main menu. When you hit this key a window appears at the bottom of the screen to ask if you want to save the screen. If you answer no (N or n), you are returned to the main menu. However, if you answer yes (Y or y), this line is replaced with a screen asking the name of the file you want to use. After you have entered a file name the program will continue to create your vision. (active in circular and freeform visions) - F5 When this key is hit your name will appear in the lower right corner of the vision. (active in circular and freeform visions) - F6 If after starting to create a vision, you realize that you would prefer a different distance, hit - this key You will be able to change the distance and restart the vision. (active in only freeform visions) - F7 This key turns on the sound so that a variable tone is produced when each dot is drawn on the screen. The duration of this tone can be increased by using the up- arrow key on the keypad or decreased by using the down arrow. A relative indication of the length of the duration MIND-SHAPES Page 4 will flash in the upper left corner of the screen whenever one of the arrow keys is used. (active in only freeform visions) - F8 This function key allows you to toggle back and forth between the two palettes, while creating a vision. This will only work if you answered yes (Y or y) to the question of whether you have a color monitor. (active in circular and freeform visions) - F9 When you don't remember the numbers for the feeling, strength, empathy, or distance of the vision, hit this key. The values will be printed for you. (active in circular and freeform visions) - F10 In order to change the colors while a vision is being created hit this key. Of course this will only work if you have a color monitor. The colors start with green, then red and finally brown, before repeating. (active in only freeform visions) ADVANCED USES ADVANCED USES When a vision is saved, it is saved as a BLOAD file. This means _____ that these files can be displayed from within a basic program or loaded and modified from a drawing program such as "PC Paint". For those who would like to add a bit more variation to their freeform visions a command line decimal number between .2 and .5 can be entered. SAMPLE SHAPES SAMPLE SHAPES While some of our staff have experimenting with visions they have come across some very interesting visions, a few samples of which are listed below: Vision Number 1 Vision Type is Freeform Feeling of Vision: 10 Strength of Vision: 1.001 Empathy with vision: 32 Distance from vision: 1000 I hope you will enjoy this program. William A. Rush 74017,506