Larry Pops Up! Users Guide 12 March 1996 Thank you for downloading Larry Pops Up! (LPU) Sierra has spared no expense in creating this amusing software product, using only the finest materials and old-world craftsmanship. Properly maintained, LPU should give you years of trouble-free entertainment. Harsh abrasives will mar its hand-rubbed finish. An occasional swipe with a soft lint-free cloth should be all that is necessary. Installation: We may assume that you have unpacked the LPU compressed archive file into a suitable directory, or you wouldn't be reading this readme file. To start LPU, simply double-click the LARPOPUP.EXE file in the directory you have placed the files in. If you want LPU to start up every time you start your computer, simply create a shortcut to the file in your Startup folder or Program Manager group. Make sure the working directory set for the file is the same as the directory it is in, or it won't be able to find its support files and won't work. (In Win 3.1, just drag the file into the Startup group. In Win 95, just drag the file onto the desktop, then drag the shortcut you just created into the startup folder. Voila!) Settings and Operation: Larry Pops Up! needs to be minimized to operate. Simply click on the Minimize button in the upper right corner of the window, or click the OK button. If you want it to start up minimized, click the checkbox marked "Minimize at startup." You can click "Speak now!" and the Larry window will appear, along with a humorous quote. The Larry window will remain up until you minimize the control window, so you can reposition it on screen. Just click and drag anywhere on the Larry picture window to reposition it so it pops up exactly where you want it. Similarly, move the control window to any location on screen and it will always come up in that location. You can slide the "Pop up how often" scrollbar to any number of minutes from 1 to 30. Larry will pop up at that time +/- 10 seconds or so. If another application is using the soundcard, Larry will not pop up and will NOT put up an error message. If LPU has trouble reading a WAV file or BMP, an error message will pop up. NOTE: Larry is pretty good about letting other programs use the sound card. If the card is in use when Larry is trying to pop up, he'll just wait patiently for the next opportunity. On the other hand, not all programs are quite as open-minded about sharing. Many multimedia products assume they have complete control of the sound card, and aren't happy to see other programs horning in on their action. So when playing with any program that uses a lot of sound, like a game, it would be in your best interests to close LPU. Larry will only pop up when you are not using the computer. If you are typing or moving the mouse, Larry will sit quietly. Once you have not done anything for the required amount of time, Larry will start to pop up. NOTE: In some cases LPU is unable to tell when you are working in a DOS session, so you may want to disable LPU while operating DOS software. Try it and see whether it works for you. Adding more WAVs and BMPs: Every month or so until the new Leisure Suit Larry game (Yank Hers Away!) is released, the Sierra web site (http://www.sierra.com/) and online areas on AOL, CIS and elsewhere should be putting up at least 10 or so new lines for Larry to say. Check regularly for more lines guaranteed to amuse your friends and/or coworkers! After downloading the new WAVs, simply unpack the file in the same directory as LPU. Fun for the whole family! If you want to add lines of your own, simply place WAV format files in the same directory with LPU and they'll be added to the rotation. Similarly, any BMP format files in the directory will be used in place of the normal Larry images. If you want a special message to play on a special day of the year, like your birthday, create an appropriate WAV file, then rename it as follows: Dddmmnn.DWV, where dd is a 2-digit day of the month 01-31, mm is a 2-digit month code 01-12, and nn is any 2-digit number 00-99 (so you can have more than one message for a single day). So a WAV for New Year's might have a name like "D010100.DWV" Note that LPU can only play WAVs that your sound card can handle. Just because some wave editor can play it back doesn't mean your sound card can handle that format directly -- the wave editor may be downsampling or something. We don't know. We tried it with a lot of WAVs, honest! Try playing it with Media Player, and send us the WAV if Media Player will play it, but LPU won't. On second thought, don't. Read the next paragraph instead. If you think LPU isn't playing a WAV you put in its directory, try dragging all the other ones out of the directory for a while. LPU should only play that one. If it won't play anything, chances are it doesn't like your file. Give up. Toss it. It's not worth the effort. Go play some Leisure Suit Larry. Just make sure your parents aren't home. Using the WAV Files for Other Purposes: You can freely use the WAV files for your own non-commercial purposes. For example, you can make Larry speak at startup or as your default system beep. To do this, simply go to the sounds control panel and navigate to the directory where LPU is stored. Click on a system action, click on a WAV file, click "Test" to hear the WAV, and close the control panel when you've found exactly the right WAV. You can use these with any program that can play WAVs -- see your program documentation for more info. Comments and Questions: If you have comments or questions about Larry Pops Up, or notice a bug not mentioned above, please send your comments via email to: don.munsil@sierra.com Do not send email or faxes to Tech support, or call Sierra. This is a free product, and we'd go broke trying to support it. Call your sister's kid, the one who spends all her time surfing the web and hacking into the Pentagon. She'll know how to get LPU running. If you send long rambling emails asking for Roberta Williams's autograph, don't expect a response. Guarantee: We guarantee that LPU is the funniest desk accessory you have ever owned. We can confidently say that no computer program can offer you more laughs per dollar. If you don't agree, your money will be cheerfully refunded. (For the humor impaired: you didn't pay for it, so don't ask for a refund, OK?) Legal stuff: Leisure Suit Larry is a registered trademark and Larry Pops Up! is a trademark of Sierra On-Line, Inc. All rights reserved. You may freely copy this program for non-commercial purposes, and shareware vendors may charge a reasonable fee for disk duplication. Give it away to your friends! We want you to! All artwork, the program code, and this documentation are Copyright 1996, Sierra On-Line, Inc. So there.