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Software Vault: The Gold Collection
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Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO
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1993-06-17
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5KB
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104 lines
"How did I get into this?" - Joe Palooka
(the trials and tribulations of developing
an electronic magazine utility)
========================================================================
For years I've been accumulating C compilers and books about
the C language, and nodding wisely over them as I consumed my
breakfast cereal each morning. But there was no time to read them
at any other part of the day - I live a very hectic and stressful
existence.
The few times I did reach the stage of actually trying to write
and run a programme, the compiler either would not come onscreen
at all (that was Borland Turbo C ++, which had an instant antipathy
to the EGA card on my old 286) or I would lock up the machine so
severely that I had to take a hike around the block before it
would relax. When, finally, I got a programme to access the disc,
in one foray into Assembler, the resultant 15-minute spin-up
trashed half the directories.
So I stuck to GW-Basic and wrote a number of little games for
my daughter with good success. Rinky dink GW-Basic, upon which the
"pros" sneer with sublime condescension.
And then Ian wrote his magazine menu system.
Wow! I was impressed! In one afternoon he had a working colour
menu system! And, after final polishing-up, it made the old
magazine menu look bad in comparison. It showed up the flaws in
the file reader, too. What was Ian's excuse for this work of
magic?
"I didn't like the looks of the old menu," said Ian, off-hand.
Shee! It just so happened that I'd been doing experiments with
text conversion here and there, and playing at making them go on
screen. None really worked the way I wanted them to. I was
starting to have successes at last, but was still feeling burned
by my failures. One memorable programme, for instance, had been
intended to translate my database files into something else.
Translate them it did. I was really glad I'd made a backup.
"Well, I don't like the looks of that reader," I said boldly,
stepping in where angels fear to tread. "I'll make one to match
your menu and fix some of those quirks I don't like."
And thus I embarked on the Great Utility.
I'd spent some thousand bucks, so far, on books and
compilers, all with the intent of writing up a game idea I'd had.
Now was the chance to recoup my investment and make something that
actually worked... at least that was the excuse I gave my wife
when she shuffled to the basement nightly, squinting, hair
tousled, to ask why I was still on the computer at 4 a.m.
"And I can sell it as shareware," I added, in inspiration.
"You can dream about it... in bed," she would answer, tugging
on my arm.
"In a second! Just let me try this..."
The things I wanted to incorporate were: a scroll bar that
showed where you were in the file; page numbering; a clock
readout; a cleaner look (to match the menu); the ability to change
the colours (I don't know about your machine, but on MY machine
the old display software turns the screen to basic black and it
STAYS black, if you try to change the colours...) and - most
important of all, to me - some overlap between pages so you don't
have to flip back if you missed the last line, nor search for the
continuity when you reach the very end...
As the days went on, I added a screen saver (which became a
point of contention between myself and a buddy I recruited to
check it out) and some command line options. And this is just half
of the story...
To make the reader really useful, I worked out an encryption
and compression system (not finished yet for this issue) and am
doing a user interface, a customisable menu, and a file processor.
The reason? To make a complete magazine-production package to sell
as shareware. To reduce the size of the ASCII files, and make them
secure against tampering. And to form an integral magazine
package. I hope to have the preprocessor and encrypt/compress
system working for our next issue, and the customisable menu
builder ready for the next. (June 1993) We are only using it for
the Introduction in this issue, but it can be used to read any
ASCII file up to 10 pages long, formatted to a maximum of 72
character line lengths.
So, if you are thinking of doing a magazine, and you like the
looks of this reader, wait 'til I announce the package...
More information in June's issue!
And, in the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading the Powderkeg
Magazine, and I hope the reader I developed will, when finished,
help remove some of the obstacles between you and the written
creations.
========================================================================