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1992-04-16
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9KB
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Telephone Exchange Finder
Written By Jeff Sumberg
March 1, 1986
Introduction
Bulletin Boards are everywhere, a day doesn't go by when you don't see
a telephone number for one in the message section of the boards you
use. However, most of the time, all that is left in the message is the
number to call and the name of the board. Rarely is the boards
location known. If you are concerned with your phone bills (and who
isn't!) you could look the number up in the phone book first in order
to find the approximate location of the board and thereby decide
whether or not to give it a call.
This program will aid you in finding what city these boards are
located. This program contains a list of all valid exchanges contained
within an Area Code, and you can search by Exchange or city name. Each
program covers a specific Area Code, the reason for this is twofold.
Firstly, it is assumed that if a number carries an Area Code that is
not yours, it is definitely a toll call. And secondly to conserve
memory the user need only load the areas he/she wishes to cover.
Additionally, this program can be specified to go 'Resident' so that
it may be Popped-Up at any time during any program. More than one Area
Code can also be resident at a time as will be explained later.
Loading
As mentioned before this program can be used either resident or
nonresident. The procedure is as follows:
For nonresident use:
At the prompt, just type the program name:
A>PHONEnnn (nnn = Area Code)
To make resident:
Add the following switch to the program name:
A>PHONEnnn/Rx (/R is the stay resident switch)
(x is the Pop-up trigger)
Where x is:
1 - ALT and NUM LOCK
2 - Both SHIFT keys
3 - ALT and LEFT SHIFT
4 - ALT and RIGHT SHIFT
5 - CTRL and LEFT SHIFT
6 - CTRL and RIGHT SHIFT
NOTE: For compatibility with version 1.00, /R will still work and
will select the ALT/NUM LOCK keys as the Pop-up Trigger.
Use
If this program has been made resident, Depress the Pop-Up key
combination and the Phone Finder program will appear in a Pop-Up
window. Your current program will be 'frozen' until you return. If
more than one area has be made resident, repeated depressions of the
ALT and NUM LOCK keys will cause the windows to 'stack' up on top of
each other until you reach the window you want.
At this time you have the choice of entering either an Exchange or the
name of a city.
To search for an Exchange, enter the first 3 digits of the phone
number and press Return. If the exchange was found you will be
presented with the following information:
1) The name of the city that the central office is designated
as. This is usually the name that appears on your phone
bill.
2) If known, the town that is directly served by this Exchange.
This will be in parentheses (). Remember, that the telephone
office for a particular city or town usually services an
area of several towns around it. If this information is not
shown,it does not mean that the city given is the only one
served by this Exchange.
3) A list of all other exchanges that are designated to this
central office.
To search for a city, enter the name of the city or town at the
prompt. This name MUST be one of the designated central office names
in the programs list or you will be informed that this name was not
found. The name given earlier in parenthesis cannot be searched for as
this is not the name of the office designation. If the full name of
the city is not known, a partial name may be typed in. Example:
To search for 'Paterson'
The following will all give the same result:
Paters
Pat
Pate
Paterson
Searches can be done with 1 or 2 characters, but the search will end
when the first match occurs, so in the above example, just typing a
'P' may not return 'Paterson', but the first occurrence of a city/town
name starting with a 'P'. When a match is found, you will get a list
of all Exchanges served by this central office, and probably a good
number of the surrounding towns. You should note however that you
cannot search for the names that occur in parenthesis as this is not
the designation for the central office, just the minor area served.
Compatibility with other resident programs
As with all memory resident Pop-Up programs, sometimes an
incompatibility may arise such as when two different programs are
trying to use the same keys for the Pop-Up function. Once this program
has come on the screen, it will pass the second Pop-Up key sequence to
any other program that might need it. If this doesn't help the
problem, you might have try using a different Pop-Up trigger key
combination or loading the programs in a different order.
Technical
The following paragraph was written in 1986, when I wrote this
program. It seems a bit outdated now since the assembler is Version 6,
and my machine is now a 836DX! In fact, I don't know how I wrote this
entirely in assembler! I look at it now and wonder...
This program is written entirely in Assembly Language, using
Microsoft's new version 4.00 Macro Assembler Package. The system used
was a Leading Edge Model D. The actual program code is approximately 5
Kbytes. The remainder being the data for all of the Exchanges and
city/town names.
Disclaimer
In no event will the author be liable to you for any damages,
including any lost profits, lost savings or any other incidental or
consequential damages arising out of the use of or inability to use
this program, even if the author has been advised of the possibility
of such damages, or for any other claim by any other party.
Modification History
Version 1.00 - March 1, 1986
Initial release of program to area BBS's
Version 1.01 - March 20, 1986
Added user choice of Pop-Up key combination after receiving some
feedback that the ALT/NUM LOCK key combination did not work on all
compatibles.
Version 1.20 - March 30, 1987
Copyright notice added
The telephone number database is updated from time to time as needed.
Most recent update was April 1992 using data from the March 1992
telephone directory (Passaic County)
Support Shareware
This is a User Supported Program, you are encouraged to copy and share
this program with others. If after evaluating this program you find it
to be useful, a small payment of $10.00 would be GREATLY appreciated,
and will encourage me to write more programs.
If you would like to see a specific area covered please write to me at
the address below. All I will require are the pages from your
telephone directory (or a VERY GOOD Xerox copy of them). A scanner and
OCR software are used to create the database.
If you have any comments, suggestions for this program, questions, or
find any hidden bugs or 'features' in this program please feel free to
write me at the following address:
Jeff Sumberg
Box 212
Ringwood, N.J.
07456-0212
Thank you for using my program.