JCSM Shareware Collection 1993 November/JCSM Shareware Collection - 1993-11.iso/cl580/perinv2j.lzh/I.HLP

Text File | 1991-09-16 | 22KB | 756 lines

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PERSONAL INVENTORY is an interactive filing system
that keeps track of your personal inventory.

A sort/selection criteria in the ITEM REPORTS is
provided so that you can select specific items within
a room. Items can also be split up by cost or purchase
date.

To use the inventory system successfully you will want
to first delete the sample items present in the
database by pressing "d" followed by ENTER at the
INVENTORY MENU. Start off by entering the name and
room of each item. Do not worry about serial numbers,
model numbers, purchase prices, etc.

After entering the items, print out a worksheet that
you can now carry around to record the serial numbers
and other information. Now enter the extra information
and reprint an item list.

If you wish to see the depreciation listing you must
have filled in the life time (in years) and a cost
of the item.  Four different depreciation tables
will then be available.

A contextual help system is available throughout the
program to aid you in using the system. Press the F1
key (FUNCTION 1 KEY) and a help window will appear
upon the screen similar to the one you are viewing
now. It will give you brief and informative messages
about the screen currently being viewed.

The "ESC" key can be used to exit menus and stop
reports at any time. This indicates that you are
finished looking at the display on the screen. This
key is used GLOBALLY through the system as an escape
hatch. It is ALWAYS available. The TAB key behaves
like the "ESC" key.

The LEFT ARROW Key will move left one field while you
are updating a record.

The RIGHT ARROW Key will move right one field while
you are updating a record.

The "UP" ARROW Key is used to move up one field if you
are in an update mode or the menu options are showing.

If you are in the INVENTORY MENU it will move to the
prior record.

The "F9" Key (FUNCTION 9) will bring up a view
window where you can browse through your items one
by one.  If you have the 43 line mode set AND you
have an EGA or VGA monitor, you can view up to 35
items on the screen at one time.

The "F10" Key (FUNCTION 10) will summon a popup menu
when you are on the ROOM menu.  The popup menu will
allow you to quickly enter where the item is located
quickly and with less input errors.

The "DOWN" ARROW Key is used to move down one field if
you are in an update mode or the menu options are
showing. If you are in the inventory main menu it will
move to the next record.

The "F2" Key (FUNCTION 2) is used to make a copy of the
screen. Each time "F2" is pressed, the current screen is
appended to the file "screen.sav" in the current
directory. This has the advantage over pressing SHIFT
PRTSCRN in that screens are paginated correctly.

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It is from this page that you can add, delete, change,
or search for items.

Enter:
    "a" - add a new item
    "d" - delete an old item
    "i" - change the index
    "ENTER" - change/modify the item

Press the "UP" or "DOWN" arrow to view the previous or
next item. Enter the first few characters of the item
name you are searching for if the INDEX is set to
"item name". Enter the first few characters off the
room if the index is set to "room name".

For example:  to find the camera item enter "ca".

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Use the "UP/DOWN" arrow keys to move from item to
item. The "PGUP/PGDN" keys will move from screen
to screen. Use the "ENTER" key to select a particular
contact.

Use the "LEFT" and "RIGHT" arrow keys to change the
"view". You will see different fields appear at the
right column of the screen as you press the left and
right arrow keys.

To search for a particular item, press the "S" key
and you will be prompted to enter the first few
letters of the current index.

Press "ESC" to exit this screen. The view screen is
only available when the "ITEM HEADER SCREEN" is
displayed. If you are updating the item or have
any popup on the header screen, the "VIEW" screen
will not appear.

The items are sorted according to the current
index. To change the index, simply press "i". You
will be prompted for a new index.  The items
will be resorted as you watch.

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Enter the first few characters of the item name,
room name, or item cost.

The actual choice will depend on the index
currently set.

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If you have an "EGA" or "VGA" card and monitor and wish
to display "43" lines of text during the report
browse and through the VIEW screen, select "yes" at
the prompt.

This option only works for computers with EGA/VGA
monitors.

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If you have a Microsoft mouse installed in your system
answer "yes" here.  Personal Inventory will then enable
you to use the mouse in addition to the cursor keys.

The "LEFT" mouse button will act as the "ENTER" key
and the "RIGHT" mouse button as the "ESC" key.

If the mouse movement is too fast, set the SPEED
parameters to large numbers (1 .. 99).

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Enter a number from "1 ... 99" as a measure of how
mouse sensitivity.  Higher numbers will slow the
mouse down.

This "X-SPEED" parameter will adjust the
sensitivity of moving the mouse from "right to left".

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Enter a number from "1 ... 99" as a measure of the
mouse sensitivity.  Higher numbers will slow the
mouse down.

The "Y-SPEED" parameter will adjust the
sensitivity of moving the mouse on "up and down"
movements.

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This page displays a depreciation table of the
item.  The depreciation method used is called
"DECLINING BALANCE".

This page is for display only.  The values cannot
be changed from here.

Press the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow keys to
move from item to item.

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This page displays a depreciation table of the
item.  The depreciation method used is called
"DOUBLE DECLINING BALANCE".

This page is for display only.  The values cannot
be changed from here.

Press the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow keys to move from
item to item.

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This page displays a depreciation table of the
item.  The depreciation method used is called
"STRAIGHT LINE".  The value of the item is
divided by the number of years in its lifetime
by the purchase price less the salvage value.

This page is for display only.  The values cannot
be changed from here.

Press the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow keys to move from
item to item.

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This page displays a depreciation table of the
item.  The depreciation method used is called
"SUM-OF-YEARS DEPRECIATION METHOD".

This page is for display only.  The values cannot
be changed from here.

Press the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow keys to move from
item to item.

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Enter "Y" to save the changed information on this
page. Enter "N" to discard changes.

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Press "y" if you wish to add this item permanently to
the database. Otherwise press "n" - the item will not
be added to the database.

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Press "y" if you wish to permanently DELETE this item
from the database. Otherwise press "n" - the item will
remain in the database.

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Enter the full name of the item. If there is a
quantity of items enter :

    shirts - 20

Enter "ESC", to get out of the update mode.

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Enter the serial number.

Law enforcement officers will often not release
recovered items unless the owner can identify them by
a serial number.

Enter "ESC", to get out of the update mode.

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Enter the model number.

Enter "ESC", to get out of the update mode.

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Enter the purchase date.  The date can be
entered using formatted date entry, date
arithmetic or by pressing the "F10" key.

Formatted date examples:

   To select a date of Nov 23, 1987
   simply enter:  "23Nov87", or "112387".
   other examples:
      "23JAN87"
      "23 Jan 87"
      "23 jan 87"
      "012387"
      "01 23 87"

SHORTCUT FORMAT EXAMPLES
    "." - today
    "+1" - tomorrow
    "-1" - yesterday
    "+1w" - one week from today
    "-1w" - today last week
    "+1m" - this day next month
    "1+1m" - first day of next month
    "+thu" - next thursday from today
    "-wed" - last wednesday
    "+1w" - next week
    "-1w" - last week
    "+2m" - 2 months from today
    "1+1m+fri" - 1st friday of next month
    "+wed" - next wednesday
    "-tue" - last tuesday
    "-1y" - last year

All date arithmetic expressions are relative to today,
unless the date expression starts with a number (i.e.
5) which stands for the fifth of this month. So 5+2w
is equivalent to 2 weeks from the 5th day of the
current month.

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Enter the room where the item is currently stored.

This is an index field - meaning that the items
can be printed in sorted order by room.

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Enter the price of the item. Do not enter dollar signs
or commas. For example: to enter a price of twenty
five dollars and 18 cents - enter 25.18

To input $1,232.33 - enter 1232.33

To input $100.00 - enter 100

This is also an index field.  The reports will allow
you to print a report in ascending order by price.

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Enter a short comment, perhaps a description of the
item.

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Enter the salvage value of the item after it has been
fully depreciated. This value will be used when
calculating the depreciation tables.

Do not enter dollar signs or commas.

    To input $1,232.33 - enter 1232.33

    To input $100.00 - enter 100

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Enter the number of years of service that the item
will give you for depreciation purposes. The salvage
value is the value of the item at the end of the
item's useful life.

The life should be an integer between 1 and 10.

Most household items will have a depreciation
lifetime of 5 years.  A lifetime of 7 years is
also not uncommon.

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Inventory Menu - Add, delete, update and search for
items from this menu. Use the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow keys
to change the selection bar or enter an option number.

Also, you can change the index from this menu. The
default index is the item name, you can change it to
room name, which effectively sorts the entries by room
name.

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Inventory Reports - Print listings of items from this
menu.

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Edit the 24 different categories from this menu.
Each item can be in multiple categories.

The items will be sorted by the current index set from
the Inventory Menu.

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Press "Y" to finish this session. All files will be
flushed and closed.

Press "ESC" or "N" to continue working.

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Print screens that have been saved using the "F2" save
screen function. The screens have been saved in a file
called "screen.sav". Each time "F2" is pressed, the
current screen is appended to this file.

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Discard screens that have been saved using the "F2" save
screen function. The file "screen.sav" in the current
directory will be cleared.

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Change the printer setup string, printer codes for use
with the custom forms, printer port and margin
settings.

Use your printer manual to change some of these
settings.

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Change system parameters - error bells on or off, file
system SYNC frequency, defaults for room name when
adding new items

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Select an option:

 monochrome screen (white on black)
 color on black background
 color on blue background
 white on blue background

Only the monochrome screen will work for non-color
monitors.

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Type "y" to turn on the error bell - it will beep at
you if you make an input error.

Type "n" to turn off this bell.

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This field allows you to specify how often you desire
to "sync" the file system. The internal file structure
needs to be physically updated occasionally. The
smaller this number is, the more often the file system
will be SYNCED. Of course, small values for the sync
will slow the program down when adding many entries to
the system. This may be intolerable on a floppy based
system.

When entering many items into the database, you may
wish to set it to 10. After entering the items, for
maximum file integrity, set it to 1. Personal
Inventory automatically sync's its files on exit.

Be sure to exit the program by pressing the "ESC" key
and answering "y" to the exit prompts.

DO NOT exit the program by turning off the computer or
pressing CTRL-ALT-DELETE. This may destroy the index
files in which case you would have to reload all your
data from scratch.

It is advisable to make backups of the system after
making significant changes.

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If you experience a snow effect on the screen. Enter
"y" to this question. The screen will be drawn to
minimize this effect.

This may occur on some CGA monitors.

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The "printer end-of-line" is used to control the
printer output at the end of the printed line. There
are 4 options to set depending upon your printer. You
may have to do a little bit of experimentation with
this to get it right. Once it is set correctly, it
will not have to be changed (as long as the switch
settings on the printer do not change).

Option 1 newline character
       2 carriage return character
       3 newline then carriage-return character
       4 carriage-return  then  newline  character

1) Output is double spaced - try setting option to
"cr".

2) Output is overprinting or printing on one line -
try setting the option first to "nl" and if that
doesn't work, try out the options "nl/cr" or "cr/nl".

3) Output is jagged like:
  This is
       an example of
                     a jagged   line.

Try changing option to "nl/cr" or "cr/nl".

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Press any key to continue to the next page of the re-
port, press "ESC" to stop the listing.

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Press ENTER to see all reports on the screen.

Select the "printer" to send the reports to a printer
- directly.

Select "capturefile" to send the output to an ASCII
file. The output will be appended to an existing file.

While the report/form is printing you may press SPACE
which will pause the printer, or "ESC" which will abort
the printout.

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Type "y" and the changes made to the parameter page
will be saved into the data files.

Type "n" and the changes will be discarded and the old
values will be retained.

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Enter the full name of the file you want to save the
output of the report to.

Examples:  report1.out
           a:reportsmar.87

If the file exists and is ASCII, Personal Inventory
will APPEND to it. If it isn't ASCII, you must make
another selection.

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Personal Inventory cannot make contact with your
printer.

Make sure that the printer is online and has paper.

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The output file "screen.sav" has been printed. Press
any key to continue.

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The output file "screen.sav" has been cleared. Press
any key to continue.

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Enter "y" to delete the screens previously saved in
the file "screen.sav". Otherwise, enter "n".

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Enter "1" - for LPT1:, "2" for LPT2: or "3" for LPT3
as a printer port.

Personal Inventory doesn't currently support a serial
printer port, however, you can direct the output of
the report using the "capturefile" option and print
the report from DOS upon exiting.

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Enter the number of columns that you want the printer
to start printing. I.e. if you enter 5, Personal
Inventory will advance 5 spaces on each printed line.

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The end of the report/form has been reached.

Press any key to continue.

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Set this field if you want to speed up the process of
adding new entries. When you type in "a" at the
Inventory Menu, the ROOM field will automatically be
set to the default.

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This report lists all items present in the database
allowing different selection criteria.

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The attributes that aren't present in the database for
each item: cost date purchased model serial number
will be printed using underlines. Print a worksheet
off and use it to update items.

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Enter "i" for item name and "r" for room name and
"c" for cost of the item.

The index will be changed so that you will be able to
recall the items by name, room name, or cost.

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Enter the sequence of decimal codes that will place
the printer into the mode desired (e.g. 16 pitch or
"NLQ" - Near Letter Quality) See your printer manual
for ASCII control codes.

For example: sending 'ESC F' to the IBM Proprinter
will turn EMPHASIZED PRINT ON. This would correspond
to entering decimal 27 then 70 into the printer setup
string.

  printer setup :  [ 27] [ 70] [ ] [ ]

What follows is a short, incomplete list of common
ASCII decimal codes.

COMMON DECIMAL ASCII CODES:
   27 - ESC      32 - SPACE    8 - BACKSPACE
    9 - HORZ TAB 10 - LN FEED 12 - FORMFEED
   13 - CAR RET  14 - SO      15 - SI
   33 - '!'      34 - '"'     35 - '#'
   36 - '$'      37 - '%'     38 - '&'
   40 - '('      41 - ')'     42 - '*'
   43 - '+'      44 - ','     45 - '-'
   46 - '.'      47 - '/'     60 - '<'
   61 - '='      62 - '>'     63 - '?'

  1 - 'CTRL-A' 65 - 'A' 97 - 'a' 48 - '0'
  2 - 'CTRL-B' 66 - 'B' 98 - 'b' 49 - '1'
  3 - 'CTRL-C' 67 - 'C' 99 - 'c' 50 - '2'
  4 - 'CTRL-D' 68 - 'D' 100 - 'd' 51 - '3'
     ...  ...  ...  ...
 25 - 'CTRL-Y' 89 - 'Y' 121 - 'y' 56 - '8'
 26 - 'CTRL-Z' 90 - 'Z' 122 - 'z' 57 - '9'

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If you wish to send an initialization string to the
printer every time a report is printed answer "y" to
the question.

If you answer "n", Personal Inventory will not send a
printer string.

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To print out the report now, enter "y". Otherwise,
press "ESC" or "n" to quit.

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This page allows the selection of items based upon
your personal criteria. For example, we may wish to
select all items purchased with a value of at least
$1000 stored in the garage.

Enter "i" to sort by item name, "r" to sort by room
name, or "c" to sort by cost (ascending order).

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If you wish to print out the items in a single room or
a group of rooms enter "y" at the prompt.

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Enter the first few characters of the name of the room
you want to select. For example, if we wish to view
all items stored in the garage enter -

   From:  gar Thru:  gar

The room can be truncated to the first few characters
of the name.

Press "F10" to summon the popup menu for a list of
rooms.

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Enter the first few characters of the room to be
selected. For example, if we wanted to view the
contents of the bedrooms we would enter:

    From:  bedroom Thru:  bedroom

Press "F10" to summon the popup menu for a list of
rooms.

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To select those items purchased between two different
dates, enter "y" at the prompt.

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Enter the first date range in which to select items.
Items purchased on or after this date will be printed.

Enter dates in the following format (excluding the
quotes):

      "23JAN87"
      "23 Jan 87"
      "23 jan 87"
      "012387"
      "01 23 87"

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Enter the last date range in which to select items.
Items purchased on or before this date will be
printed.

Enter dates in the following format (excluding the
quotes):
 "23JAN87"
 "23 Jan 87"
 "23 jan 87"
 "012387"
 "01 23 87"

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Enter a price in which to select items. For example if
you wish to view those items purchased for over $500,
enter 500 at the prompt and enter "g" at the relation
prompt. To view those items with a value of less than
$1,000 enter 1000 here and "l" at the relation prompt.

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Enter "l" for "less than" or "g" for "greater than".
This field is tied to the Purchase Price field.

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Each prompt ending with "..." means that the "F10"
key is available for use in that field.

Enter "ESC" to discard the popup and enter the
information manually.

Enter an option letter or use the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow
keys to position to the option desired the press
ENTER to select that option.

Press the LEFT or RIGHT arrow key to ignore the
popup and move on to the next field on the screen.

To modify an option on the POPUP MENU, position the
highlight bar over the field to modify then press the
"F10" key. Make your change then press ENTER for the
change to take effect. The changes to the popups will
automatically be saved in the parameter file
"inv.hdr" when you exit the expense program.

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Use the "UP" and "DOWN" arrow keys to move from one
category to another.

Enter the name of the category.  You may wish to use
the category field to encode the type of the item.
Each item can be in multiple categories.

To delete an entry:

  1) move the highlight bar to the field
     to delete

  2) Press CTRL-Y (press the CTRL and Y key
     simultaneously)

  3) Press the SPACE bar then the ENTER key.

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Enter one or more category letters pertaining to the
item.  Each item can be in up to 15 different
categories.

The categories are useful for classifying each
item.   The categories are edited from the
CATEGORY MENU accessible from the MAIN MENU.

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Enter a code letter or a boolean logic expression
here. For example, if category A is the Appliance
category, category B is the Warranty category
and you wish to select all items in both categories
A and B, type "A and B".

To select only those in category A enter "A".

To select those items in category A or B enter
"A or B".

You can also select contacts NOT in a category. To
select all items NOT under warranty enter
"not B" at the prompt.

Enter ".", to select ALL items in ALL categories.

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Enter "Y" to make a backup of the datafiles now.  The
batch file IBACKUP.BAT will be run which will first
compress your datafiles using the PKZIP command from
PKWARE then it will copy the compressed file to
drive A.  You have the option to modify the backup
batch file.

Enter "N" or press "ESC" and you will return to DOS.

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