Create a small DOS program to exit AppMgr

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Create a small DOS program to exit AppMgr

Many of us start our favorite DOS applications from Application Manager. The (&...) Letter sequence soon becomes second nature and comes close to being a hotkey for your DOS application. While APPMGR allows you to suppress the Press a key to continue message, you are still left in Application Manager when the DOS application terminates. (A real hotkey would return you to the built-in application you were in prior to hitting the hotkey.)

Here is a way to have Application Manager automatically terminate in such a situation by leaving an ESC character in the keyboard input buffer for Application Manager to process.

1. Create ESC.COM <ON DISK ICON> (an 11 byte size program). To do this, in Memo create a new file (press (MENU) File New). Type in the following information exactly as it is shown below.

N esc.com
E 0100 B4 05 B9 1B 01 CD 16 B4 4C CD 21 RCX 000B
W
Q

The second line and the last line of the file must be empty as shown in the screen dump below.

2. Save the file. To save the file, press (MENU) File Save As, then name the file C:\ESC.DMP. Make sure the ASCII box is checked so the file will be saved as plain ASCII text, then press (ENTER).

3. Quit Memo and terminate System Manager. To do this, press (&...) (MENU) Applications Terminate all (ENTER).

4. Have DEBUG create ESC.COM for you by entering the following line at the DOS prompt.

5. Create a batch file that launches your DOS program and calls up ESC.COM.

To start a DOS application that will close Application Manager on termination, you must create a batch file that launches your DOS program, then calls up ESC.COM.

For example, suppose I want to run ZIP.COM = (a file transfer utility), and when it is done, have the Palmtop return to the last opened application instead of leaving me in Application Manager. Let's also say that ESC.COM and ZIP.COM are both stored in C:\UTIL. The batch file might look like this:

C\UTIL\ZIP /s

C:\UTIL\ESC

6. Load the batch file to Application Manager. (For information on how to add an application to Application Manager see Application Manager, Applications, Adding in your HP 100/200LX User's Guide.

Don't forget to include an upside-down question mark (press (Fn)(3)) in the comments field to disable the Press a key to continue message. For other undocumented features of Application Manager like the upside-down question mark, see APPMGR.100 in CompuServe's HPHAND forum, library 11.

Gilles Kohl [TeamHP] CompuServe ID: [100114,3146]

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