Do you like to tape a LOT of stuff on TV? Do you wish your VCR had 20
timers in it? Do you have a BUD (Big Ugly dish) or an LSD (Little Silly
dish) or a cable box and wish that you could tape shows at any time and
on any channel? It's as easy as can be, and should cost you less than $20
for parts. Virtually anything that can be run with an infrared remote control
should be able to be operated through your computer. I have it tape all
of the stuff we usually watch automatically. Then we just pop in the tape
and watch them - whenever we want. After you try this for a while, you'll
never be able to sit through those endless commercials again.
The main reason I wanted to put up a page was to have a place that people could get my timer program.
It all started when I ran across Earle Philhower III's page. He designed an interface that runs from a printer port which, along with the software he wrote for it, turns your computer into a big learning remote. As a Dishhead, I'd been looking for such a thing for years. Here's a link to Earle's page.
I built the thing and wrote a VERY crude timer program for it - using batch files. Then Dayman Pang wrote Monster Clicker. It's a Windows 95 program. It takes a lot of pointing and clicking to set up,but anyone can do it. It has macro keys, this program is REALLY nice, very well done.It is much more advanced than mine, but mine is easier to set up and works well in a DOS window in Windows 9x. Hint:When inputting data in Dayman's program, use the tab key instead of the mouse. It really speeds things up! Here's a link to Dayman's page.
This inspired (shamed?) me into writing an easier to set up program that runs under DOS. I also wrote a program to scan through satellites/channels every 1/2 hour. Great for finding new feeds.
EZ timer is a timer program that allows you to change channels, start and stop a vcr and about anything else you can do with an infrared remote at the time you choose.A simple text file sets the events to run. It's easy to temporarily turn off each event individually.
EZ Scan allows you to easily keep track of any satellites/channels you choose on a recurring basis.It checks only for a matching minute value, so whatever you tell it to do, it will do every hour at that minute. I even has a file written to go through EVERY channel on EVERY ku satellite. I didn't run it much though, because of all of the wear and tear on the dish components.
I originally ran my programs on a 486/66 DOS machine,using Earle's program to actually run the interface. It tied up the computer 24/7. It didn't work very well with my Monterey 55 satellite receiver. I discovered that if I created a shortcut on my Pentium/120, I could run it on that and still use the computer. It works quite well under Windows 95.
I wanted to write the code to actually run the interface instead of using Earle's program to do it. I program in assembly, which runs much faster that C++. This allows it to work quite well on a wider variety of computers.
5.6 is not backward compatible past versions with the files that play the actual signals, but it uses the same file event files. If you're upgrading from an older version, you'll need to record your remote keypresses again.
I'd suggest installing it in a new directory.
I've used it on a 486/33 and have been told it works on a Pentium/233. I don't know if it will work on faster or slower computers. A 486 is the minimum.
Important note
On July 10,2000 I found and fixed a bug in EZTimer 59 (ezt59.exe). It related to
the weekday and every day options. It prevented and events listed after an event
set with day 07 or 08 to trigger. If you downloaded these files before July 11,2000
you need to download the fixed version.
