January, 2006
The following changes were made.
· CPU usage of Non-Polling applications may be drastically reduced.
· Application busy text may now be restricted to specific portions of the screen.
· Applications that work with DOS shadow memory now get maximum performance for minimal CPU
· Files created in the application folder or with hard-coded paths may be redirected to more appropriate locations, such as “My Documents” or the temp folder.
· Settings may be different for remote verses local user, or admin verses non-admin user.
· For multiprocessor systems, a subset of CPUs may be assigned for working applications verses idle ones.
· A new file spooling feature allows a file to be post-processed by an external command when it is closed by the application. This may be used for advanced print spooling, as well as other uses.
· The new Tame Console supports full screen text mode for all users, local or remote.
· The console code page can be specified. This provides improved screen image for DOS applications that were developed using a different code page than that of the system.
The new Tame Console allows running DOS applications without the annoyances and limitations of the native console window.
· The console window may be resized the same way native windows application windows are resized
· Full screen mode allows running the DOS application without title bars or other windows elements visible.
· Screen copy can save screen contents as txt, graphics image file, or as HTML text that accurately represents the screen image.
· Use any font for screen display, including proportional fonts
· Multiple fonts may be displayed on the screen. Fonts may be displayed based on the color of screen text. This allows a more WSYWYG look with DOS word processors, and can enhance the look of form entry
· Text spacing may be adjusted to improve readability of crowded screens.
· Use the mouse wheel to scroll text, or use ctrl-wheel to quickly change text size
· Ultra fast key repeat is provides smooth action while repeating keys and instant stop when the key is released.
· Import of text is now easy – Use the ultra fast paste - or drag/drop to paste text of the dropped file
· Optionally hide the mouse curser while typing text
· The text cursor can be set to change its shape based on the status of caps lock and/or insert mode
· Menus are optimized for keyboard as well as mouse access, to accommodate mouse-free operation.
· The console is not limited to 16 colors for text. Custom colors may be applied based on the attribute of screen text
· The cursor shape changes to indicate whether caps lock is active and/or insert/replace mode.
· The system menu provides quick access to Tame features, and may be customized for each application.
· User preferences are now supported. User options in “My Documents\Tame” are merged with system options for each application.
· The system menu now provides quick access to settings, tuning files, diagnostics and other administrative functions.
· System options that apply to multiple applications may now be kept in a single file.
· System options that were previously located in the registry may now be placed in a tame.ini file instead.
· Tame may now be loaded as a device driver in the config.nt file. This further reduces memory usage.
· An application can be restricted to a single instance on the machine
· Tame can disable or remove the close button so that the user may not use it to kill the DOS process.
· The Tame console may be configured to remove options for non-admin users.
· Custom items may be added to the system or context menu in order to customize user options
· Tame can produce an HTML document with detailed screen shots and keystrokes as they occurred in the DOS session.
· An icon may be associated with each application. The icon is extracted from the shortcut and displayed with the console window and task bar.
· Keystrokes may be sent to the input buffer of the application on startup.
· Memory usage by Tame has been reduced.
· Dos time may now be obtained from the OS, even after the DOS app has attempted to change the time.
· Tame allows bypassing the NTVDM popup window that occurs when an application requests direct access to the disk.
· Tame can provide a console image in HTML format.
January, 2005
This update provides additional support and corrects problems.
The following changes were made.
· New option for applications that attempt to perform direct disk I/O
· The process list with TameView now provides tab buttons allowing selection of which process details are to be viewed.
· New option to set the time slice for key spike optimization
· New option to avoid a long time slice in cases Tame would normally yield the remainder of the DOS clock tick.
July, 2004
This update provides additional support and corrects problems.
The following changes were made.
· Tame can now be used with the pre-release version of Longhorn.
· New option added: /Watch_Mem_Alloc to enable/disable consideration of memory allocations as work
· By default, the /FoxVideo option is now off.
· A problem was corrected where the Win32_Time option would sometimes report invalid time around midnight.
· The /KeySpikeOptimize option has been enhanced to allow quicker release of the CPU in non-poll mode. To use this feature, set the value to 7 or higher.
March, 2004
This update provides additional support and corrects problems that were present in release 4.5a.
The following changes were made.
· 16 bit Windows applications may not be tamed. Support for Windows applications is limited, but can be effective in many cases.
· Date and time inquiry by DOS applications are now serviced by obtaining the system time. This ensures that DOS applications experience the same time of day as Windows applications.
· The automatic adapt feature has been improved to work with more applications
· Problems with the /WatchBtrieve option were corrected.
November, 2003
This update provides additional support and corrects problems that were present in release 4.5.
The following enhancements were made.
· Applications that are not compatible with Windows NT based file locking may now be run with file locking disabled.
· The auto-adapt feature has been fine tuned based on user feedback
· Run-on key repeat processing has been improved
· The TameView interface has been improved, and now allows interactive process selection from a list of running processes. Also, the console of the DOS application is shown by default to help with program identification.
The following problems were corrected.
· When non-poll or non-work idle is in effect, Tame would occasionally yield a time slice while DOS was processing.
· The NTVDM would sometimes crash when using DOS shell products to launch DOS applications
· Tame would not block full screen mode for applications making undocumented video requests.
July, 2003
Version 4.5 requires a Windows NT based system, which to date includes Windows NT 4.0, all Windows 2000 versions, all Windows XP versions, and all variations of Windows 2003 server. Tame versions 4.41 and 3.34 will remain available for use with other operating environments.
This release features improved performance, response and configuration. The default settings should work for most applications without the need to specify any special options. For cases where options are needed, the process has been simplified.
The following enhancements were made.
· A new Auto-Adapt feature provides continuous settings adjustment, and keeps Tame tuned for a wide variety of applications
· Key spike optimization reduces CPU overhead while typing, moving the cursor and other common keyboarding situations.
· Key response optimization improves system response by reducing or eliminating keyboarding delays that are frequently experienced with DOS programs.
· Tame can use visual cues to identify a memory-intensive process that may take a long time to execute. If the program displays a message asking the user to wait while it processes, specify the string and Tame will also wait patiently...
· It is now much easier to specify settings that Tame should use. Settings are provided in a .TAM file that may be located in the program folder, or the Tame\CustomSettings folder.
· Tame can now detect a busy application based on screen changes that are done using direct (non-BIOS) methods.
· New options can be used to watch for limited types of polls even while boosted.
· The default status of several options has been changed with this release. Many options that were commonly required in the past are now enabled by default.
November, 2002
1. A compatibility problem using a Btrieve application with version 4.4 has been corrected.
2. Interactive keyboard response has been improved with an updated SmoothType implementation.
3. Registry values that specify log file name will now be ignored if blank.
4. HKCU may now be used to test new registry values on a single user. Registry values in HKCU will override those in HKLM.
October, 2002
This version provides several enhancements that improve performance and responsiveness for the interactive user, while also lowering CPU usage required by each user.
The following enhancements were made.
· Interactive keyboard response has been improved by the addition of the /SmoothType option. With SmoothType, the keyboard response of most DOS apps can rival that of native Windows applications. This option is enabled by default.
· Applications that process a long running request will see improved performance. This is due to new methods to determine whether the application is really idle so that Tame does not yield time slices that are needed by the application. This feature is enabled using the new AppQ_XXX options.
· Applications that process a long running request may now be restricted in order to help the system remain responsive for other applications and users.
· Tame can minimize CPU usage of some DOS applications during periods of rapid keyboard input. New tuning options allow Tame to determine more precisely when the application has completed its task. This allows Tame to yield CPU earlier than was possible with prior versions of Tame. This feature is disabled by default because the parameters are dependent on the application and the system. They may be set using the new “App_Qxxx” options.
· Tame may now yield time slices based on the applications use of the “DOS Idle” signal. Previously, this could only be used as a hint to more quickly end a boost or lower the polling thresholds.
· The TameView utility has been modified to not require the process ID to be specified. This simplifies the common case of monitoring the most recently launched DOS application.
· If the application does not use mouse input, Tame can now inhibit processing of mouse actions, so that they will not interrupt the DOS application.
April, 2002
The following enhancements were made.
· New option to instruct Tame to not ignore minor video activity such as cursor movement (/wxvid)
· A new option will improve performance with applications that may have low CPU usage when accessing the network (specify /CPU_Idle_Percent or /CPU_Idle_TiMe).
· The trace facility was enhanced to track more details, and to allow inserting a comment into the trace (TameView /TC)
· TameView /LO will now show only those options are not at the default value.
The following enhancements are available for all Windows NT based operating systems. This version provides no additional benefits for non Windows NT based environments.
· Tame now allows the administrator to monitor, control and diagnose all DOS sessions using a central console. The new “TameView” command line utility provides this capability.
· Tame has improved keyboard and mouse response in many situations
· New option to avoid yielding time-slices while unprocessed console input events are available
· New options may instruct Tame to watch file locking requests, and force a Windows-friendly delay between retries when a requested section is already locked by another user.
· Improved auto settings detect to more accurately work with applications that are called by other applications
· Added support for applications that do not poll
· Added an option to force printout to be spooled as soon as the app becomes idle
· Improved work detection for apps that use BTRIEVE
· Reduced false idle detection by observing page faults and other system level activity.
· Added option to prevent the application from entering graphics mode
· Added option to single thread application startup
· Added option for Tame to update the console title line
This was a major release.
· Added VDD support and many features for Windows NT based systems.