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1987-01-18
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Welcome to a new year and to this
issue of Beta Bits. This month, I
will be focusing in on the many good
Public Domain Software programs that
are now on many Bulletin Boards across
this country. Also, Thing will be
here with the results of our Reader's
Poll.
Let's take a look at some of these
programs. I will try to review as many
as I can and identify each of these
programs into separate categories.
Authors, please note that I may not
mention your names here. But, I want
to let you know that I support your
hard work and dedication in providing
other users with the many helpful
routines and files.
Utilities:
----------
List60J - by Vernon D. Buerg - is one
of the premiere Public Domain programs
ever written. This program allows the
user to look at any ASCII or text file
utilizing colors and a variety of
other goodies.
ARCE / ARCV - by Vernon D. Buerg -
these two programs will either un-
archive or view a .ARC file. Very
handy to have when un-archiving a copy
of PC Gazette!
QDR26 - by Vernon D. Buerg - This
program will reformat a variety of
diskette formats in an average of 3-5
seconds! There is an option of
formatting a new disk. However, the
author recommends that you should use
your DOS version of format as a safety
factor.
DCWHERE - by David A. Craig - is a
newcomer to the world of Public Domain
software. This program will provide
the user with a list of where his/her
program is. This version is much
better than WHEREIS (a two year old
program), as it will accept both '*'
and `?` as wildcards.
ARC512 - by System Enhancement
Associates - is another program that
has been in the Public Domain for a
long time. This program was the
premiere program to either Archiving a
series of programs together or un-
archiving another series of programs.
This program is still being used today
by many Bulletin Boards Sysops.
dBASE Utilities:
----------------
The set of utilities that will be
mentioned here was provided by Dr.
Pedro "Dr. DBASE" Olympia. Dr.
Olympia is an accomplished author in
his own right about the use of Ashton-
Tate's dBase programs. He has written
numerous utilities for use with dBase
and I like to take this opportunity to
salute him for his dedication of
working with this part of the software
industry.
DBSTRUPO - is a utility program that
will display the structure of any
dBase .DBF file.
DBNDXPO - is another utility program
that will display the index of any
dBase, Clipper, or Fox's database
file. Thus, if you don't know what
the index of a specific file, just run
this program and it will display the
index and what type of database file
it is.
LISTFPO - is a new utility that Dr.
Olympia has released to the Public
Domain. This utility will provide the
user with a list of dBase databases,
the number of records, and the last
date that the file has been updated.
Below is a list of other dBase related
Public Domain software written by
other users that I consider worth
mentioning.
MAKEMEM (Ver. 4.0) - by Andrew
Schulman - is another program that
dBase users should not be without
with. This program will create dBase
III .mem files.
DB-EDIT - by Wes Davis - is a program
that will allow the user more
flexibility to edit a dBase program
than dBase's own line editor. This
program will provide the user the
additions of functions using the
numeric keypad and function keys. Much
more useful than dBase's editor.
DB3UTIL - by John Clavin Thames - is a
program that will help users in
compiling dBase III programs into
WordTech's QUICKSILVER compiler (see
12/86 issue for a review of
Quicksilver). It's primary functions
are 1) to list all non-duplicating
programs, formats, procedures,
databases, indexes, memory and report
files; 2) to provide a detailed
analysis for each program; 3) create a
list file that will be used with the
Quicksilver compiler; 4) it will allow
global finds and replaces.
DB-DEBUG - by Curtis H. Hoffman -
contains a set of three debugging
programs to use with dBase III's .PRG
files. DB-STRCT will display the tree
structure of your dBase files. DB-
VARIBS will show the variables as they
are declared or first invoked by your
program. DB-COMP will strip out all
leading spaces, blank lines and
comments from your dBase program. The
purpose of DB-COMP, according to the
author, is to make the program run
faster.
Graphics:
---------
In this area of Public Domain
software, there are three good
packages that I will mention. The
reason is that there have not been too
many graphic packages out in the
public domain.
GRASP (Ver. 1.10c) - by Doug Wolfgram
and John Bridges - is a set of graphic
pseudo-language programs which can be
used to create and run animated
graphics on an IBM PC or a IBM clone.
We have used this package to develop
several graphic presentations within
our own PC Gazette and Gallery
electronic magazine.
ANSPAINT (Ver. 2.2) - by Drew Olbrich
- is one of the best screen graphics
utilities I have ever used. Many of
the features include saving of your
screen with a determined width and the
use of 17 different graphic sets. The
capability of creating plain ASCII
screen as well as BSave screens and
color screen has made this program
universally accepted as the standard
for use by bulletin board operators.
Below is one program that is worth
mentioning even though it doesn't do
much for creating graphics screens.
It does show some screens created by
Dion Kraft. The actual program that
show these screens was written in
Turbo Pascal. Another program, called
TP12, will print these graphics
screens to one of the following types
of printers:IBM, Epson or OKIDATA.
TURBODGI (Ver 1.0) - by Basi Angulo
and Dion Kraft - this program will
display graphics screens in a variety
of ways. The program will allow the
user to go from one corner to another
corner using either 1,2,3,4 keys, the
Home, End, Pg Up, Pg Dn keys, or the
arrow keys. It also let the user to
press a key and then the return key.
Thus, letting the program do the
moving of the picture around the
screen. If you have not seen one of
these programs and its related files.
Then, I urge you strongly to obtain a
copy from your local bulletin board.
Hard Disk Menus/Managers:
-------------------------
Now, I know that some of you are now
groaning that I am going to talk about
Menu Drivers. Yes, there are a few of
those going around the bulletin boards
these days. However, there are two
that deserves some recognition of
being good. I, for one, hate hard
disk menu programs. But, I want to
let you know of these two.
AUTOMAXX (Ver. 2.33) - by William P.
Smith - this version of Automaxx is
the refined enhancements of an older
program called Automenu. This version
contains many features that make it
more of a combination of a hard-disk
menu driver as well as a hard-disk
manager. Some of the features
include:Desk Top design (a la Ashton-
Tate's Framework, displays and rename
files, create subdirectories, ability
to link with any editor to view or
edit files, and sorts files by name,
extension, date&time, or size in
either ascending or descending order.
HDM II - by Jim Hass - is another
hard-disk menu system with a twist.
The "twist" is that this program was
written in Turbo Pascal and once it is
installed on your machine, you will
have some trouble of getting out of
the menu system. Although this
program is excellent for the novice
user, it will become irritating to the
professional user who wants to exit
from the menu system.
Language Utilities:
-------------------
In this part, I will provide you with
some helpers that are useful in
conjunction with programming. This
includes on-line (sometime memory-
resident) help, cross-reference
listing programs and debugging tools.
QBX206 - by Vernon D. Buerg - this
program is a cross-reference program
for any programs written in
Microsoft's Quick Basic 2.0.
DBG - by Jeffery A. Durham - This is a
set of programs that will help the
user in debugging his/her Turbo Pascal
programs. The reason for the word
'set' is that there are three versions
of the debugger to compensate the
three versions of Turbo Pascal. The
DBG program is for the standard
version, the DBG87 is for the Turbo
Pascal 8087 version, and DBGBCD is for
Turbo Pascal BCD version. You must
first load one of these programs and
in turn the program will load in the
correct version of Turbo Pascal. When
the program detects an error, the
debugger automatically goes into the
split screen mode to walk you thru the
code. Very useful to have around.
There are many useful memory resident
programs that you can use with coding
a program. However, I will name a few
and give you a short description here.
LW86 - to help Assembly programmers
with syntax.
CLANG - created to help users in
programming in C language. This
version was developed by a group of
students in Washington, D.C.
TurboRef - another mem-resident
program that helps users in coding
their Turbo Pascal programs. This
file includes references to Turbo
Pascal 2.0 as well as 3.0!
Word Processing Utilities:
--------------------------
TEXTCON (ver. 1.3) - by Jeff Wolf - is
an ASCII text converter. What it does
is to take an ASCII text file and
converts it into any of the following
word processors: Microsoft's Word,
Word Perfect, and WordStar. Some word
processors requires the hard carriage
returns but may need some other
changes in which TEXTCON can provide.
These word processors are:
Volkswriter, Multi-Mate, and PC-Write
(another Public Domain software
package).
Telecommunications:
-------------------
PROCOMM (Ver. 2.42) - by Datastorm
Technologies, Inc. - a good program
that has a telephone list limited to
100 names. Some of the protocols
include Kermit and Ymodem Batch.
Also, this program contains an
internal HOST program. Both TELEVIDEO
and DEC VT-100 function keys are
supported.
QMODEM (Ver. 2.3) - by John Friel III
- is another good program which has a
telephone list limited to 200 names.
Some of the protocols include Imodem
and Ymodem-G. Unfortunately, Qmodem
does not support the Kermit protocol
nor does it support the DEC VT-100 at
this time. However, according to it's
author, it will be included in a
future release.
BOYAN (Ver. C1) - by Justin Boyan -
is a relative new communication
program. It does support a telephone
list of 200 names and most of the
protocols. This program written in
Turbo Pascal, does have one
requirement and that is Boyan will
support only those modems that can
handle the Hayes commands totally.
Other Public Domain Programs:
-----------------------------
PCSTAT - this will provide you with a
status of what your system is doing.
POPEDIT2 - will create screens.
However, it is limited in what it can
do.
QWIK20 - utility for fast screen
writes.
SORTS14 - utility that utilizes
multiple keys to sort any kind of
files.
New Tax form utilities for 1986 taxes:
--------------------------------------
While I am on the Public Domain
software programs subject, I thought
that you might want to know about the
few tax form/helpers that are out on
the bulletin boards.
Remember - these files can help you.
However, according to the IRS rules,
the user of these files is the
ultimate person responsible for their
taxes. Also note that the IRS is
requiring that those creating new tax
forms and puts it out for Public
Domain usage will also be responsible
for any errors occurring on the user's
tax forms. Thus, be forewarned!
So far, ONE new file is available for
users who need help. It is called:
FEDTAX86 - authored this time by
Leslie A. Wheeler - has been around
for the past three years on bulletin
boards. This program requires that you
have Lotus 1-2-3 (Ver. 2.0). This
program's accuracy has been within
$1.00 ever since 1984.
(Continued in Part 2 on page A.3)