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- The Challenge
-
- by
-
- Dennis Fowler (D.FOWLER2)
-
- Working in the backwater that I do presents me with two
- interesting challenges. The first one is producing this monthly
- article, one that will be of interest to non-CP/M users. The second
- is providing computer services to the rest of the world around me.
- So, this time I'll combine them.
-
- I find myself perpetually becoming dragged into little volunteer
- projects, providing computer serviced of a sort to various non-profit
- operations in the area. I've used our Kaypros to "computer publish"
- the program for the Odyssey of the Mind competition, for example.
- That was relatively simple. Then there was a database built up for a
- local parochial school's PTO years ago, and another one for the
- Healthy Hero field-days. All straight Kaypro work.
-
- Where things can get really complicated is when I need to produce
- output that will be used by some other system.
-
- For example, when I was President of the local library we built a
- new facility. I had promised to produce some sort of suitable display
- to recognize the generosity of our donors. A really snappy brass
- plaque would have been nice, but also would have eaten up a great deal
- of our budget.
-
- In the five years since the building was completed my promise
- languished, until computer technology caught up with me. I took all
- the names, fed them into my machine using VDE to produce a nice, clean
- ASCII file. Then I went to the current President of the library, who
- is a Mac user (sorry, Mark). In fact, he publishes a very nice
- magazine for antique MG car collectors. So, I wanted to get from
- Kaypro format disk to Mac disk. Simple enough, with the astute help
- of a fellow LCUC member. I upload to The Linkup my ASCII file, my
- buddy downloads it into his Clone, and uses a whiz-bang option board
- of his to put it on a Mac disk. The president will now use his Mac
- and a lazer printer and some fancy paper to put out a neat looking
- display to hang in the library, all at very little cost.
-
- For some reason, I occasionally get caught up in a project that
- requires a PC type output. When I did a stint for Kelly Services I
- was updating a manual for one of their clients. As is often the case,
- time was short for the project. The client had a mini running some
- strange software called R-Word, which was totally incompatible with
- Wordstar, and which I found very difficult to use. They also had
- Wordstar and an Amstrad PClone. What's more, they had the manual in
- Wordstar on PC Format disks.
-
- Since their Amstrad was tied up, I took the work home with me.
- Thanks to a hasty order to Central Computing Products, I got Media
- Master. That let me transfer from PC format disks to my Kaypro DSDD
- disks so I could work at home. After getting the manual shaped up I
- Media-Mastered it back on to PC disks to be printed off on their
- Amstrad, and they were off and running.
-
- Now I'm in the middle of producing an address and phone database
- for someone. This someone will eventually be getting a Mac. We can't
- wait for that, though, and anyway most of their people are not
- computer fluent, so more time will be wasted if we delay. So, here we
- are, plunging down that unknown path again.
-
- Now I am not any kind of a programmer, and I really dreaded
- wrestling with DBase II again. Fortunately, a gentleman by the name
- of Joseph I. Mortenson has written a very nice mailing list program in
- Modula 2 for the Kaypro. It sorts, prints labels or envelopes
- selected by one of several categories, etc. It is a remarkably simple
- program to use. My wife, Peggy, could jump right in and start
- entering data with a minimum of instruction.
-
- Unfortunately, it is not designed to print out a phone list
- (though it does offer a phones field), and that we need. And, here I
- am with the communication problem again. I want to get it on to a Mac
- sometime in the future.
-
- Fortunately, it will output a mailmerge file in ASCII. So, while
- Peggy enters the data, I've worked out a system to read the Mailmerge
- output into a DBase II file. I'll use DBase II to produce the sorted
- phone lists that they want for their phon-a-thon in August. So, I'm
- wrestling with DBase II again. Oh, well, it's an imperfect world. I
- don't think they made DBase III+ for a CP/M Kaypro, and if they did, I
- don't have it.
-
- The next problem will be getting things into a format for the
- organization's Mac. I know I can get the data on to a Mac disk. I
- can only hope that the Dbase II or the mailmerge file, can be
- transferred over into whatever Mac database program they are using.
-
- Why do I do these things? I guess for the same reason that am I a
- writer. I like the challenge.
-