A Look Behind the MESSAGE Program

Although MESSAGE appears to be a single integrated program, it is actually the seamless marriage of three separate elements;

  1. 1. The MESSAGE * program -- written specifically for the HP 95LX using the Borland Turbo C++ language.

  2. 2. The COMMO * communications program -- a highly acclaimed shareware communications program that is small, fast, and powerful. COMMO is an ideal companion for the 95LX. (See page 24 in the Jan/Feb 1991 issue of The HP Palmtop Paper for more on COMMO.)

  3. 3. A text editor -- allowing you to reply to messages or create new ones. (The built-in MEMO program will not work with MESSAGE). The text editor I highly recommend for use with MESSAGE is VDE *, another highly regarded shareware product that has been modified for use on the HP 95LX. (See page 41 of the Fall 91 issue and page 27 of the Jan/Feb 92 issue for more on VDE.)

All three programs are available in the 95LX Library of CompuServe's HPSYS forum, or on The HP Palmtop Paper ON DISK. If you don't feel you have enough room on your 95LX for a separate editor, you can save storage by specifying the use of COMMO's built-in editor.

A RAM card or the new 1MB 95LX is the recommended configuration for running MESSAGE.

The fully installed MESSAGE program system, consisting of MESSAGE, COMMO and VDE, takes about 110K of disk storage space. This assumes you reduce the size of the program files by using a compression program such as PKLite or DIET. (For information on DIET, see page 17 in the Fall, 1991 issue of The HP Palmtop Paper.)

Beyond the storage space required for the MESSAGE program files, you will need room for the messages and CMail retrieved from CompuServe. I recommend using file compression software on the 95LX with its limited RAM.

Two installation programs are provided with MESSAGE to ease the start-up process. The first program sets up MESSAGE to run properly on your 95LX. The second program goes on-line and changes CompuServe settings as required. If you already use TAPCIS or AUTOSIG, there is an excellent chance that CompuServe is already configured properly for MESSAGE.