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.op .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 page # .po 13 ..adj margin ..----!----!-------!----------------!----------------!----------------------- DIMS INSTALLATION NOTES AND OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Dan Dugan Release 1.0 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: FEATURES AND LIMITATIONS INSTALLATION -- before you can use it BASIC VERSION DIFFERENCES MEMORY REQUIREMENTS MODIFYING THE PROGRAMS FOR YOUR TERMINAL AND PRINTER PLACING THE FILES ON THE APPROPRIATE DRIVES OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS NO-FILE MENU DEDIT COMMANDS TRANSIENT COMMAND PROGRAMS FILE STYLES DESIGNING AND CREATING SCREEN/PRINTER FORMATS CRASH RECOVERY INTERFACE AND MODIFICATION FILE COMPATIBILITY WRITING YOUR OWN 'TRANSIENT' PROGRAMS MODIFICATION GUIDELINES KNOWN BUGS AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS APPENDIX HISTORY OF DIMS .HE DIMS - Release 1.0 - INTRODUCTION PAGE # INTRODUCTION - FEATURES AND LIMITATIONS DIMS is a set of Basic programs that chain together automatically to create a versatile list-managing system. It has been proven under pressure to be suitable for serious medium-scale (hundreds to thousands of names) mailing-list operations, inventories, indexes, ledgers, etc. It must be installed by a Basic-80 programmer and can be used successfully by almost anybody. File records can be either 128 bytes long with up to 15 fields or 256 bytes long with up to 30 fields. Within each record the fields are of random length. An indicator appears to show how much space is left when length limits are being approached. New records are added to the end of the file. Records may be deleted, but record numbers stay the same until the "renumber" command is used. When updating records the old data is shown field by field and may be kept or replaced. All data files are automatically kept in duplicate on two different disks. When a record is updated it is automatically updated on both disks. It is difficult to lose a DIMS file. The files can be scanned with the CP/M "type" command. Except for temporary files kept during operations like sorting, there are no index files. I recommend that besides the distribution master, you keep a set of disks called "Dims Development" which consists of all the release files, the demonstration files, and small samples of the data files you create. Then use this set of disks to create and test formats and your own transient utilities on. Then have sets of working disks, which will be changed in pairs, with just the dims components you need and plenty of space for data files. With three disks I use A for everyday program library and B and C for data, B & C getting changed for different sets of files. The files can be searched rapidly for a literal substring anywhere in the record, or more slowly for up to 10 selection keys in specific fields and up to 10 rejection keys in fields. A subset of records so selected may be written out to another DIMS file, or to a standard Basic sequential data file for use by other programs. A standard Basic sequential data file from any source may be added onto a DIMS file. A quite flexible multi-key sorting command is included which can sort a whole file or a range of records within it. The sort output may be overlaid on the original file or sent to a new file. File size is limited only by disk space. The DIMS "sort" command is limited by the memory space used by its key array, which depends on the size of the desired keys and the number of records. Where there are thousands of records or long keys an external sorting utility may be needed. Complete screen and printer form design is provided for. Scrolling or stationary (one record per screen) forms may displayed. More than one form may be designed for a file and you can switch between them with a two-word command. At any time any fields may be hidden. .pa Most operations include self-explanatory dialogue. In the file editor DEDIT.BAS several screens of help text may be displayed with the command "help." At the pause prompt "Ready>" a list of the options there is shown in response to "h". .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 - INSTALLATION page # INSTALLATION BASIC VERSION DIFFERENCES There are two critical differences between Microsoft Basic-80 version 4.5 and 5.x. One is that the CLEAR statement has changed syntax. This statement is used once, in the main menu program DIMS. If you are instal ling with 4.5 use "CLEAR 1000" which sets string space. If you are using version 5.x, use "CLEAR,,1000" which sets stack space. In 5.x string space is used dynamically, but the stack space is determined from an algorithm which will result in DIMS crashing with an "Out of Memory" error which will be puzzling because fre(x) will still show plenty of memory. The second difference is that Basic-80 version 5 has the command "INKEY$" which allows checking the keyboard without stopping. If you need to install DIMS on version 4.5, you will have to either give up the "z" scrolling control command, or write code that looks at your hardware ports. Instead of X$=INKEY$ use X=INP(KEYBD.DATA.PORT). .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 - MEMORY REQUIREMENT PAGE # MEMORY REQUIREMENT DIMS is currently being developed on a 59K-size CP/M system, actually a 62K Morrow hard disk system. A smaller system may not have room for all of the file editor DEDIT, which is big. The program STRIP.BAS is provided and may be used to remove comments from DEDIT. It will then fit on a 54K system. If your system is smaller and you're adept at Basic, you could shrink DEDIT by taking out all the code relating to the format command and replacing all the complicated positioning code with simple listing in the default format. If you strip the comments keep your development version with the comments in, and then strip it for running, so you'll have the comments to guide you in making modifications. .cp 4 .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 - TERMINAL AND PRINTER PAGE # MODIFYING THE PROGRAMS FOR YOUR TERMINAL AND PRINTER DIMS uses the clear-screen and cursor positioning functions of your terminal. Since all terminals are different, ALL the DIMS programs must be modified to suit yours. In the code (TERM DEP) will appear in comments at each place where customization is necessary, so you can use your text editor to search for these spots. DEDIT uses the most functions and there fore requires the most work. The supplied transient programs don't use cursor positioning but do use screen clear and keyboard testing. Special problems can arise in the case of an upper-case only terminal. Copy all the program AND DATA files with PIP using the [u] option. Then use a text editor to find all CHR$( occurrences and change those numbers which represent lower-case characters (97 to 122) to upper-case codes (subtract 32). PRINTER The DIMS system as delivered is written for a Diablo 1610 or 1620 printer, and uses many of its special control sequences, like setting vertical and horizontal pitch for listing in a pre-recorded form, and high speed absolute tabbing. Use with other printers will require re-writing this code. Diablo control sequences start with ESCAPE, which is CHR$(27). DIMS will allow you to create a format specification which uses reverse scrolling on the printer; don't do it unless you have a bidirectional forms tractor. .cp 5 .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 - PLACING THE FILES PAGE # PLACING THE FILES ON THE APPROPRIATE DRIVES After each program segment is checked over and modified for your termi nal, save it in the standard compressed format. Then the .ASC file may be erased. Depending on how many drives you have, you must copy the 24 "working" files provided on the distribution disk to disks on the appro priate drives of your system. Then change the initial value of the vari able NDRIVES near the beginning of DIMS.BAS to the number of drives you are using. If you are using a hard disk, comment out the two RESET statements near the top of DIMS.BAS. They are necessary for changing floppies, which is only allowed at the no-file menu. DIMS runs much faster on a hard disk. .cp 21 IN A TWO DRIVE SYSTEM ... programs are split between A: and B:, attempting to make balanced space for data (.D) and backup (.DD) files. Drive A: Drive B: DIMS .BAS DCREATE .BAS DEDIT .BAS DDOC .BAS SHORT .DFO DSORT .BAS SHORT1 .DFO DLABELS .BAS LONGADDR.D DLETTERS.BAS STANDADD.D DSTAT .BAS SHORTADD.D DCFORM .BAS ARTICLES.D DHELP .BAS DPUT .BAS DGET .BAS DHELP .DOC ARTICLES.DOC LONGADDR.DD STANDADD.DD SHORTADD.DD ARTICLES.DD .cp 22 IN A THREE DRIVE SYSTEM ... the program library is kept together on A: and B: and C: are saved for large data files. A data file can be as big as the whole user disk space, and still have 100% backup on the other disk. Drive A: Drive B: Drive C: DIMS .BAS LONGADDR.D LONGADDR.DD DEDIT .BAS STANDADD.D STANDADD.DD DCREATE .BAS SHORTADD.D SHORTADD.DD DDOC .BAS ARTICLES.D ARTICLES.DD DSORT .BAS DLABELS .BAS DLETTERS.BAS DSTAT .BAS DCFORM .BAS DHELP .BAS DPUT .BAS DGET .BAS DHELP .DOC ARTICLES.DOC SHORT .DFO SHORT1 .DFO .cp 17 IN A FOUR DRIVE SYSTEM ... auxiliary files (.DOC, .DFO and temporary .$$$) are kept on the fourth drive. Drive A: Drive B: Drive C: Drive D: DIMS .BAS LONGADDR.D LONGADDR.DD DHELP .DOC DEDIT .BAS STANDADD.D STANDADD.DD SHORT .DFO DCREATE .BAS SHORTADD.D SHORTADD.DD SHORT1 .DFO DDOC .BAS ARTICLES.D ARTICLES.DD ARTICLES.DOC DSORT .BAS DLABELS .BAS DLETTERS.BAS DSTAT .BAS DCFORM .BAS DHELP .BAS DPUT .BAS DGET .BAS .pa .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 - OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS PAGE # OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS: MAIN MENU After the files have been put on the appropriate drives, modified for your terminal and drive configuration, and saved in standard compressed format (ASCII files won't CHAIN), the system is started by running DIMS. You should get the no-file menu with a directory of the provided test data files displayed. If you then hit return, you will get menu choice no. 1, open a file. Enter the name of one of the existing files, just the main part of the name, skipping the extension. It may be in either lower or upper case. DEDIT should load and display the last record in the file. Type "help" for a series of screens explaining the available commands. At the "pause prompt" "Ready>" if you type "h" a menu of pause options will appear. When you are editing a file the only safe exit is to type the command "done" (don). This will return you to the main menu. Other choices available from the no-file menu include a reset which is intended to show the new directory when data disks have been changed. If DIMS has been properly installed (two RESET statements enabled), no harm will come if you skip this step and open a file. There is also a command for changing the number of disks in the system for the current session. This is for emer gency use. It is necessary to first use PIP to move the files around to the appropriate drives if you intend to do this. The no-file menu includes DCREATE, the sub-program that sets up a new file from scratch. It asks for the name, and choice of size. 128-byte records are just right for mailing lists and most things; the 256-byte record size is available for records that need more space. You are asked to give the default 4-character name for each field, and whether it is an alphabetic or numeric field. You can just hit RETURN for alphabetic. Everywhere in DIMS dialogues just hitting RETURN gives you the first choice in the menu or options. Enter "stop" when all fields have been defined, and after approval the new file will be opened. If you want to make a new file with the same field scheme as an existing one, there's an easier way. Just open the file and copy one record ("copy 1"), giving the new file name. Then "done" the old file, open the new file and use "change" to put in the new data. Then you can start adding. .he DIMS Operating manual - Release 1.0 - DEDIT commands PAGE # FILE EDITING COMMANDS DEDIT has two prompts, "Edit FILENAME:" and "Ready>". "Edit FILENAME" is the command level, and accepts a command line. "Ready>" is the "pause prompt" between records in a sequence being run thru in response to a command line. The pause prompt "Ready>" takes single-letter instant com mands SPACE, z or ESC. Hitting the space bar will show the next record. Hitting z will set continuous display until space is hit to stop. The ESCAPE key will always quit the sequence and give you "Edit FILENAME". "Edit FILENAME" takes a somewhat free-form command line. This line is made up of only valid command words. The sequence can be pretty loose, but after a "final" command everything else will be ignored except for range- of-records words and numbers, like "from 10 to 20." If there's a record number or a pair of record numbers anywhere in the command line, the command will be done on the specified range of records. The words "from" "to" "all" "end" "next" or "last" may be used when talking about record numbers. "." instead of a number means use the most recently displayed record. All the built-in commands may be shortened to three letters. For example, all the following are valid commands: add delete from 10 to 20 delete 10 20 print to 75 print select labels change 57 cha . (means change last record shown) 10 20 list from 10 to 20 (same result as "10 20" select copy delete (moves records to another file) "FINAL" COMMANDS These commands are normally the last word in the command sentence, any following words except record numbers will be ignored. add Appends records to the end of the file, prompting field by field. In this mode the following commands take effect: "stop" alone in any field quits adding. "\" (backslash) at end of any field skips back 1 field. ";" alone in the field copies data from last record shown. done Closes the file and returns to the no-file menu. goto <filename> Closes the file and opens any named file on the same disk. fields Allows "hiding" fields you don't want to show. You may un-hide them with the same command. Controls output of 'put.' format 0 Installs default display and print formats. formats Shows available format definition files. format <name> Installs named format definition for screen and printer. backup Makes complete new backup file from main file. Rarely used since backup file is maintained automatically. renumber Renumbers all records sequentially from the top in both main and backup files, closing up holes from deleted records. MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS The following commands may be given freely anywhere in the command line: change <#> Shows record or records field by field, new data may be entered for each field or the old data may be kept by just hitting RETURN. To erase a field enter just one space then RETURN. Backslash '\' backs up to previous field. If a change command includes more than one record, you will be given the option to select fields to change, which speeds up the process of doing something like just adding zipcodes to an existing file. delete <#> Shows record or records and asks approval to erase. list Shows records. Assumed if no other final command is given. find <word> Finds records containing the exact word string. A phrase can be found if underlines_are_used_instead_of_spaces. select Finds records containing up to 10 different words or phrases. Spaces are OK, but no upper/lower case conversion is done. If you hit return when asked what field to look in the word will be searched for in all fields. You also can specify up to 10 words or phrases that will cause the record to be skipped. Design your coding system to work with this. print Prints on list device rather than screen in the current format. copy Copies data records and adds them on to the end of another DIMS file. You will be asked for the name. You may create a new file this way or add to an existing one, but the field definitions must be the same. New records have no auto backup. and Permitted for clarity, ignored. page Sets the page number to start the printout with. margin Sets the printer margin if you don't want the margin that comes with the form you're using. flag Combined with "add" or "change" to a range of records, asks you for a string to be added automatically to any (one) field in the record. programs Shows a directory of available "transient commands," i.e. various batch processes than can work on the file. .cp 4 TRANSIENT COMMANDS Transient commands are sub-programs which do a batch of work and then return you to DEDIT. Where appropriate, they will take a range of records and selection criteria from the command line. Example: "print select labels 100 to 150" cform Process for creating format definition files. Complicated. doc A "notepad" where you can read or write notes associated with the data file. The doc file can be edited later with a text editor. Useful for documenting on the spot codes you invent for your file. labels Prints a batch of mailing labels (use "print labels") with blank fields closed up. Works only with three standard address file formats. It's not hard to modify if neces sary. After the labels are aligned, hit space for each one to check. Then hit z to cause continuous printing. Hit space again to pause, ESC to abort. letters Prints a text file with data from a DIMS file inserted. A personal salutation line or other data lines may be included if desired. DLETTERS.BAS must be modified for each job. If you have MailMerge it's easier to use "put" to make a sequential data file which is a subset of the DIMS data file and use MailMerge with that. sort Sorts the records into a new sequence in the whole file or just a range of the file. Asks questions for set-up. Alphabetic keys may be truncated and/or blank-filled to a specified length. Sorts alphabetically unless all fields specified for keys are numeric. May overlay or make a new file. stat Computes descriptive statistics for a selected field. put Makes an output file in standard Basic sequential form for further processing with other programs. You may select a range of records in the invoking command line, and selection specifications. Hidden fields (see "fields") will be skipped get Stuffs a conventional Basic sequential data file into the DIMS file from which it is called, adding records to the end. Allows skipping and re-ordering of fields. .HE DIMS Operating Manual -- Release 1.0 -- FILE STYLES FILE STYLES It's convenient to use one of three established sets of field names when opening up a new mailing list file. Look at the example files provided, LONGADDR, STANDADD, and SHORTADD. The transient command "labels" has code built-in to deal with any of these three forms. The long form is used for government or academic work where titles and organizations abound. The standard form is for general purposes. The short form is friendly for short files that won't need to be sorted into last name order. To make a special-purpose mailing list such as an organization which would want membership status or other special fields, use the one of the three standard field layouts for everything up to the zip code, then design the layout beyond that point to suit the application. This way the labels program will work with the file. The ZIP field is of the numeric type so it will reject un-sortable mistakes like using "l" for "1". Put European and Canadian postal codes after the province in the C-ST field, and leave the ZIP field blank. If code fields are compatibly designed, the limited selection/rejection logic in DIMS can do quite a good job of pulling out a subset. The technique that I've developed that works real well is to use codes made up of one lower-case letter and one digit, such as a0, a1, b0, c8, etc. Any number of codes can be jumbled in any order in a single code field. This makes it easy to add codes to the scheme as it develops - you can use the "doc" command to note their meaning when you think them up. If this form of coding is strictly adhered to a subset of a single code may be pulled very rapidly using "find," since this combination of letter and digit doesn't occur anywhere else in the fields. .he DIMS Operating Instructions - Release 1.0 - SCREEN & PRINTER FORMATS PAGE # DESIGNING AND CREATING SCREEN/PRINTER FORMATS You can create formats, that is, totally designed ways of naming and displaying the data on the screen and on the printer. Open the example file SHORTADD and try the sample formats out on it. You can see the formats (.DFO files) provided by typing the command "formats" to see a list of what's available, and then typing "format <name>" to load the desired one. A format is usually designed for use with a particular file, though if the fields are compatible there's no reason why a whole family of files couldn't use the same one. A format specification includes both the screen and the printer images. You can design either scrolling or screen-oriented forms. The designers of commercial data-entry programs (DataStar, The Last One) seem to be preferring screen-oriented displays these days, where the screen shows you just one file record at a time displayed in a designed form. You can design fixed-position formats for DIMS. I prefer scrolling data entry because you can orient yourself to what you just did. I haven't used fixed-position format designs and consequently I must warn you that though provided for in DIMS this mode hasn't been fully tested and there are may be bugs. There are two ways of creating the format specification file, <name>.DFO. The first is to give the command "cform" in DEDIT. The cform transient allows you to print out a long paper form on which you fill out your design for the screen and printer form. Screen and/or page headings may be made up to three lines long. These lines will only be printed if non-blank. Field names (prompts) may be omitted, the default 4-character field name may be used, or a custom name may be printed anywhere. In positioning names and data fields, if the line is specified the item will always be printed at that line; if the line is 0 it will be printed wher ever the cursor or printhead was left by the last operation. Similarly, if a column is specified the data will be printed there, and if column 0 is given it will follow the previous operation. This allows, for example, printing Firstname Lastname by defining the field name prompt for Lastname as a single space, at line 0 and column 0. Take care when entering the data from the filled-out form, because cform doesn't back up. If you make an error start over. Enter all the specifications and test it on your data file. When you're debugging a format design, you can take a short cut by using a text editor program on the .DFO file that cform created from the specification entry dialogue. Compare the numbers on the paper form with the file image to figure out where in the format control file you are. The file is read as a sequential file when it is used by DIMS, so take great care to preserve the exact number of lines and items per line. Trying to make the form creation process easier, I have developed an alternate way to create .DFO files. A WordStar file is edited to fill in all the desired specifications, then printed to disk to create the control file. See FORMFORM.DWS for full instructions on this method. .he DIMS Operating Instructions - Release 1.0 - CRASH RECOVERY PAGE # CRASH RECOVERY DIMS records every record that you enter or update immediately in two places, the main and backup data files. Hopefully your system will be set up so that these are on different disks, giving protection against even a crashed file directory on one disk. When a disk is bad and you crash to one of CP/M's cryptic "BDOS ERROR" messages, all your data except the last record you were entering is still good. If you were in the process of adding records all the newly-added records will be in the file but the number of records hasn't been updated in the file header. If you remember what the highest record number was, skip the next paragraph. Use CP/M's stat utility to look at the data file. Note the number of records shown in the left-hand column. If your file is 128-byte records, the number of data records (the number you want) is that number minus one. If the file is double-size records, the number of data records is the number of CP/M records divided by two, then minus one. Re-start DIMS. Open the file. Note that DIMS still thinks that the file has the number of records that it had when you did the last "done." Hit control-C. Enter "N=986" (use your own number). Enter "C=1". Enter "cont" then RETURN and see if the file appears to be normal now. Do "done." If a crash occurs while the sort command is writing its output over the backup file, the backup file is invalid. Use "backup" to restore it. Should the main or backup file be lost, PIP can be used to copy one or the other, and then the CP/M "ren" command to rename the file. The main and backup data files are identical. .he DIMS Interface and Modification - Release 1.0 - FILE COMPATIBILITY PAGE # INTERFACE AND MODIFICATION FILE COMPATIBILITY DIMS files are ASCII data in fixed-length random access blocks, and all records are either standard 128 byte length or 256 byte length depending on which was chosen when the file was created. This has nothing to do with your disks being double or single density. MBASIC and CP/M pack the re cords on the disk with no carriage returns between them and no control-Z at the end. Within each record the fields are jammed sequentially with the delimiter character "~" (chr$(126)) between the fields and the left-over space filled with blanks. This character may not be used in data, but commas and quotes may be entered freely. Here is an example of what a file record looks like on the disk: (header record - the last item is the number of records in the file.) LNAM,a~FNAM,a~N2 ,a~ADDR,a~C-ST,a~ZIP ,n~PHON,a~CODE,a~NOTE,a~stop0~ 1~ (data record 1) Dugan~Dan~Dan Dugan Sound Design~833 14th Street~San Francisco, CA~94114~ (415) 621-0781~~DIMS~ The file may be dumped with the CP/M "type" command, or examined and repaired with WordStar version 1 (version 3 will crash) in the non-document mode. Christensens's DU.COM utility may be used to repair a crashed file with ease. At the time of this writing SuperSort would not accept DIMS files directly because it insists on comma-delimited or fixed-length field files. The DIMS transient programs "DPUT" and "DGET" provide a convenient means for interfacing to other programs. DPUT outputs a standard Basic sequential file of comma-delimited records. It can be invoked in a command line with range and selection commands to output a subset file, like "select put." DGET does the exact reverse, loading a standard sequential file into a DIMS file, and allows stuffing the fields in any combination or order. Quotes and commas may be used freely in DIMS files. To make files compatible with other programs, DPUT automatically puts quotes around fields containing commas. It encodes existing quotes in the file into the character "~", CHR$(126). DGET drops the surrounding quotes and converts ~ back to ". A DIMS file may be re-designed by using the 'put' command to output the data to a temporary file, using DCREATE (main menu) to create a new DIMS file with the desired field names, and using the 'get' command to stuff the data back in in the desired order. .cp 4 WRITING YOUR OWN 'TRANSIENT' PROGRAMS What I usually do when I want to write a new transient function is load "DLABELS.BAS" and then replace the working section (usually, just the inside of the "I" loop) with new code that does what I want. Then I save the file with a new name. Keep the beginning except for the questions and whatever subroutines you need. Remember that you enter a transient program with the range of records, printing and selection criteria already speci fied from the DEDIT command line. Cautions -- Don't change the COMMON statement. All DIMS programs are entered at line 1000 except for the cold-start of DIMS.BAS. DEDIT automatically recognizes transient programs if they're on the right drive and their names start with D and end with .BAS. MODIFICATION GUIDELINES Note that all GOTO's and GOSUB's point to remark lines! This is the opposite of advice commonly heard. The speed penalty for this is infini tesmal. The advantages are first you can see what GOSUB nnnn does by typing "list nnnn," and second it's easier to add a line at the beginning of the subroutine, something I seem to need to do often. Regarding speed, I read somewhere that Basic searches the whole program from the start for the destinations of branching statements, and that it's supposed to be faster if the subroutines are at the beginning of the program. I spent a few hours re-organizing DEDIT to try this, and it wasn't worth it, the time for searching 100 records was the same. I put the subs back where they grew. I've heard that the same goes for variable storage, that those that are defined earlier in the run are quicker to use. For this reason the common loop indexing variables are included in the COMMON statement, though most of them aren't used for parameter passing. Any can be. DEFINITION OF COMMON VARIABLES B$() Array holds field data of current record C Flag: = 1 when the file has been added to C() Controls display and changing of fields, value 0, 1 or 2 DD$() Array holds drive names for five types of files F$ Current file name FT Current file type, 1 or 2 - determines 128 or 256 byte recs. FT$ Added to extension of file name, blank or 2 I,J,K Loop index variables. Be sure they're free before re-using. LOOKFIELD() - Numbers of fields for which select skips are set N The current number of records in the file N$() Default names for fields, comma, and "a" or "n" for type NC The number of fields in the current file P6 Flag, reserved for "write" function not implemented P7 Flag, = 1 when "copy" in effect P8 Flag, reserved P9 Flag, = 1 when "print" in effect PI Flag, = 1 when printer is assumed ready R$ Disk data string read/written in main data file S S$ Disk data string read/written in backup data file SEARCHFIELD () - Numbers of fields for which select keys have been set SEARCHWORD$() - Key words or phrases for record selection SKIPWORD$() - Key words or phrases for record skipping T Set by some DEDIT commands to control branching T$ Data record string going to or from storage T1 Lowest record number in the batch T2 Highest record number in the batch T1$ Temporary data string X,Y Local parameter passing variables KNOWN BUGS AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS Display of non-scrolling forms in DEDIT hasn't been debugged. A harmless slightly garbled display happens if you use backslash to try to back up from the first field of a record. The record selection logic is rudimentary, and could be improved to include AND/OR and greater/less than comparisons. This would require adding some common variables and updating all programs in the system. "Undelete" would be easy to implement by getting data from the backup file. Lots of things could be added to DEDIT if it weren't so fat already. When it's compiled... .he DIMS Installation Notes - Release 1.0 - HISTORY OF DIMS PAGE # HISTORY OF DIMS I started with my S-100 microcomputer at the end of 1977. At that time there was no generalized data-base management program available. I studied a full-fledged system written in Basic called RISS which is published as a book (by Meldman et al, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. '78) It was too complex for me to understand. I spun my wheels for a year until I saw an ad for Scelbi Publications' PIMS -- Personal Information Management System. This is a complete functioning data-base manager for cassette-based computers like TRS-80 or PET. I bought it for $10, typed it in and got it to work. To backstep for a moment, this program was first published as "A People's Data Base System" by Madan Gupta and Brent Lander in 1977. Then Scelbi published PIMS by Gupta in 1979. With PIMS I had a working framework which I converted to disk random- access files. After that the program immediately went to work for me and my clients, and just grew and grew as the pressure of doing real work determined. I rented machine time to the San Francisco Charter Revision Commission for their mailing lists, and made many improvements to the program as that project grew. The system of chaining the transient pro grams developed when the program got too big to be all in memory at the same time. I have never changed the variable names, storage format or default listing format from PIMS. If you're a beginner you could buy PIMS, get that up and then step up to DIMS. I've put my large personal address lists onto DIMS, and a very successful system for indexing technical magazine articles. A book, The Hearts of Space Guide To Cosmic, Transcendent and Innerspace Music started out as a DIMS data file, was transformed (by a purpose-built transient) to WordStar when the data was complete, then sent to the typesetter on a CP/M disk. I also have parts lists for my products, the membership list and financial records for my neighborhood association, and my financial trans action records. All this activity made me want more real-time availability of my data bases, and in '81 I used all my available credit to install a Morrow M26 hard disk. DIMS runs with a satisfying speed increase on the hard disk. In '81-82 pre-release versions were up on two systems in my lab and five other CP/M systems belonging to friends.