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THE TALKING CHECKBOOK By Charles Crawford and Donald Barrett. Documentation for Version 6.9 THE TALKING CHECKBOOK VERSION 6.9. What's new? we've made the withdrawal program better for macro users! Now you don't have to continue to input the personal comments line over and over when using a macro in your withdrawals. Also those folks who do not need speech synthesis to access the computer will be glad to know that if you type "checks quiet" on the command line, then the program will do direct screen writes rather than BIOS calls. This makes the output faster. It might also be an interesting option for folks who know the program so well that they would rather run it in quiet mode and simply check out the screen with a screen review function rather than hearing all the chatter. *** Documentation. If you rely upon synthetic speech output to access and use a personal computer, then you've come to the right place for a checkbook management program. Everything about this program relates to speech output while still usable by folks who do not need speech. The Talking checkbook was created originally by Charlie Crawford as a means to have a speech friendly checkbook program. Don Barrett got hooked on the program and wrote printer routines and since then has been a co-author of the program. the program is released to the public domain and nobody takes any responsibility for anything. How's that for a quick disclaimer rather than all that stuff you usually read? FEATURES: o Pre-authorized payments and transfers. This option allows you to have amounts deducted or entered automatically when a given date is detected as being today or having passed by the checkbook program. This is great for credit union deductions or whatever. Also if you are paid electronically with a given amount each time, then this function will make your life easy! o Turn on or off hot key prompts. Ever get tired of having to press the enter key every time you enter a response to a prompt? Well, the Talking Checkbook now Page 1 features an optional single keystroke response when the information is being requested is a single letter or number. Say you get a prompt called " So do you want a million bucks? Y/N: " and you immediately want to say "N" for no since you like being poor. Well in the past you would have to press the "N" key an press enter, but now you just hit the "N" key and the program moves on. Of course if you enter something other then a "Y" or a "N" the program will prompt you for the right answer and wait for a "Y" or an "N". the few times when the hot key is not set (even when you have them turned on) happens when the information you are to enter either potentially requires more than a single letter or number answer or is information you might want to correct before going on. You will be asked at the start of the program if you want hot keys. The program will record your answer in a memory file called "Keys.mem" and write that memory file to disk. The program will then always default to your answer and not ask again until you erase the "Keys.mem" file where the program will interpret the lack of a file as a need to check and see if you want hot keys or not. o Data entry Macros. So you might be like Charlie Crawford and sometimes not get around to entering data for a couple of weeks. Well, often you will pay the same place a number of checks like the grocery store and what if the name is "Joe, Frank, George, Jim, Judy, Ellen, Mary and all their cats and dogs groceries". Arrrg, that would kill your typing hands in no time! So a macro database has been created that allows you to enter an abbreviation for a particular name and then when you go to enter the check, all you do is type the abbreviation and the macro program searches for it. If the abbreviation is found in the macro database, then your "pay to the order of" field is automatically filled out with the name match for the abbreviation and your comment field is also filled out. Say, lazy but great! Try it with any input equal to or less than 8 characters. o Automatic Backup of your databases. If you ever have experienced loss of data on a hard disk that crashed or whatever, you'll fall in love the with the automatic backing up feature of the Talking Checkbook. This simply allows you to set a path to where you would like an additional copy of your data sent in order to have it in case of a problem. o Security Packing. No, this is not a mission that you get sent away by the Central Intelligence Agency to do, but rather a nifty feature that allows you to have the program check and secure your data each time you return to the main menu of the program. o Credit Card and Savings Account tracking. The checkbook program tracks your savings account and does Page 2 some credit card tracking as well. This helps with tax reporting and keeps you mindful of these accounts. o Browse editing. If you like to browse through the checks, deposits and withdrawals using the arrow keys or page up and page down keys, then you'll love the browse features for checks, savings, macros and more! o Tempo the talking cat. Yeah, one of the nice features of the Talking Checkbook is meeting Tempo the talking cat in our own adventure game. Here you get to play as opposed to having to be so serious all the time. The game even has a casino where you an win or lose, but have a great time. o Hot function keys! Try F4 to always get back to the main Talking Checkbook main menu, F8 to exit and have your databases backed up to where you have designated them to go or F10 to blast back to DOS. Getting Started. The Talking Checkbook usually comes in a zip format where the files are compressed into a single package. Use the PKUNZIP.exe program to unzip the files to a subdirectory on your hard disk or use a floppy. If you use a floppy, then be sure to check on one of our utilities discussed later on that allows you to store older checkbook records into separate files to save space and make the program run faster. Once the files are located on your hard drive in a subdirectory of your choice, simply type "Checks" (the quotes are only to highlight what you type and so don't use them when typing) and you are on your way! Simple as that. The Talking Checkbook will automatically check your computer memory, see if the databases it needs to use are there and create them if this is the first use of the program. The Talking Checkbook currently is compiled in Clipper version 5.2B. this means that folks who had problems in the past with insufficient memory should be able to run the program with no problems. This is because the program takes advantage of memory above the 640 thousand bytes which DOS has traditionally used. If you get a "not enough memory" message and returned to the DOS level, then you probably are using a "terminate and stay Resident" program or programs. These are like communications packages that allow you to shell to DOS while keeping them in memory or other types of applications. Be sure that you are only using DOS, your speech or large print program, and the Talking Checkbook. Loading on networks is also a problem if the network takes a bunch of memory. You might consider loading a number of programs high in DOS which can be done with newer versions of DOS if you are having a memory use problem. Currently the Talking Checkbook runs using about 342 K of memory. This is well within the range of availability for most DOS machines having 640 K of base memory to start. Page 3 Running the Talking Checkbook. Now we get to the good stuff. what happens and what do you do. Let's do it. The first thing that happens when you load the Talking Checkbook is a memory report. Nice for nerds lie Charlie Crawford who like to hear how much memory they have when they start, but has little to do with reality. If you get the message, then you have enough memory. Next, the program looks to see if it can find the files it will use to store data. If it finds them, then it will simply go on to the next step rather than overwriting the current files of folks who are upgrading rather than running for the first time. If it does not find the files it needs, then it will create them from failsafe files that come with the program. If the failsafe databases are not found in the subdirectory where the program is running, it figures it is not a miracle worker and simply crashes to a lonely death on your hard disk. The moral is to be sure you copy all the files that come with your talking checkbook to the same subdirectory. WARNING: Some folks are real nice and like the checkbook so much that they want to share it with friends. We suggest sending it to Congress and maybe solve the national debt, but on the serious side, be sure to erase any files with the extension ".mem" before sharing the program with friends. this is because the ".mem" files are information files for the checkbook program to read an act upon. they include balance information, where to backup databases and color settings and more. If you give your friend a copy of the program with the failsafe databases but have not removed the ".mem" files, then your friend might start sending you hate letters when they load the program and get colors they don't like, keep getting an incorrect balance report or colors that they can't stand. this actually happened to a guy out west and so the best advice is to get a fresh copy of the Talking Checkbook from a BBS or calling Charlie Crawford to have one mailed. Now you get asked two questions before entering the main menu. First, you are asked if you want to see your balance? If so, then you get an instant balance report and you can either move on or go back to DOS. This is for those folks who simply want a balance without the time it would take to enter the checkbook main menu and get it and then exit. OK, so we've got some busy folks out there. The second question asked is whether you want to see your balance each time you go to the main menu. Well, some people like that although I (Charlie Crawford) never use it. It slows down the program especially when lots of data is being accessed. Up to you, hey we are easy with it. Next you enter the main menu of the Talking Checkbook. Yay! Finally there. You get greeting with a message as to what version you are in and of course a little credit to yours truly and Don Barrett for having written the thing. MAIN MENU OPTIONS. Page 4 * Please note that the menu options on the main menu of the actual program are presented in alphabetical order in Version 6.02 and above. A. The Talking Checkbook Adventure game. Yeah, here's the main menu option to blast you away from all that boring checkbook stuff and take you to the land of adventure where you have to get your money back that has been stolen by X. The reason we say "X" is because the culprit changes as your checkbook records grow. The game looks at your data and goes to the middle of the database and runs a villain from there. Hence the more records you add, the further down the database it goes to find the enemy. You'll love this game if you are into adventure. B. Edit and browse option. Your second main menu option is to edit, delete or browse records within the Talking Checkbook database. This is real important since sometimes we make mistakes in entering a check or whatever and want to fix or delete it. No problem, this is the purpose of the menu option or you can simply use it to browse through your records. C. Set up your print coordinate Definitions. Main menu option C gives you the ability to enter printing coordinates for your printer to use when writing checks. Computers are really pretty stupid and need to know exactly where to print information like the date and who to pay and so forth. Here's where you do it and the program gives you a step by step guide on what to do. E. Entry data menu. This old first main menu option takes you to the data entry menu. This is the critical part of any checkbook program. Once you access the data entry menu, then you can enter checks, deposits, withdrawals, credit card information, savings account information, automatic payment and macro data. Arrg, say that's a lot of stuff. We will discuss the options later. F. Check out your fixed bills. This main menu option takes you right to the world of those bills you pay every so often for a fixed amount. A mortgage is an example of this. It helps speed the process of payments and keeps track of those fixed bills. G. Generate a text file or print statement of records Page 5 between certain dates. Well, this main menu option is real useful when someone says they never got paid by you or whenever you need a print or text file report of your checkbook records between certain dates. Don Barrett did a real nice job of redesigning this module to make the output more pretty! M. Make changes in Screen Colors. Main menu option M is great for folks who have partial or full sight. The color contrasts of text to background can be critical in some cases and so the Talking Checkbook offers a way to set the colors the way the user wants and to always use them until a change is requested. P. Print checks. Say, this could not be more self explaining huh? Sometimes you will want to print a check after you have entered it and done some other things. No problem, here's your menu option to do just that. R. Get a balance report. Well this main menu option is pretty straightforward. Yup, just calculates your balance an reports it. In addition, you can run a reconciliation with your bank statement balance from this option. S. Sum and display records by category. Here's a great main menu option to give you information you can think about. It gets the amounts you have paid or deposited or whatever by category and tells you the number of times you have done it, and the total amount involved. Check out how much you spent at the grocery store and then the bowling alley. Interesting information can be found. T. Test your Checkbook knowledge! Well, there are some folks out there who are fanatics about knowing every little thing about their checkbook and amounts of money. So main menu option T gives them a place to test their knowledge. It's fun but the score is likely to be low for most folks including myself who got a 20 out of 100. U. Talking Checkbook Utilities Pack. This main menu option is a good friend to have. It gives you an array of choices to do important things like get a report of your last two weeks of deposits and withdrawals, do math Page 6 calculations, see a summary listing of your records and more. Check it out. V. Verify Transactions. Well you get your bank statement and cancelled checks and verify them against your Talking Checkbook data. This is an option that is real important to keep up. If you do, then you can always rest assured that a check actually was cashed. Real helpful when someone thinks that they never got paid or whatever. Please be advised that some folks have put in start-up deposits and then not verified them since they figure that this is just a start up thing and not a real cash deposit. Those folks later were surprised to see their reconciliation figure twice as high as the actual amount of money they have. The reason for this is that folks needs to verify any originating deposits (which is really the balance they had when starting the Checkbook) and so the program counts the money twice. If you start up the Talking Checkbook for the first time and put $X amount in the database as a starting deposit to get your balance, then please verify it as a deposit. You dan now also use the verification option to do global verifications. This will help those of us like me who hardly ever verify but really should. Y. Your Security Packer. This main menu option Y simply allows the user to have the database checked and secured as often as they wish while the program is running. It's a good idea to keep the database constantly monitored to protect against any errors. F4 Return to the main menu. This function is useful throughout the program when you just want to get back to the starting point without going through lots of menus. F8 Going to DOS and backing up databases. OK, so you are in a hurry and want to get out of the program back to DOS and save your databases as well. In the past, you would have had to go to the main menu and use the back up selection, but now you simply hit F8 and away you go. F10. Bail out of program. The F10 function key #10 is a way to get back to DOS in a hurry. It will work from anywhere in the Talking Checkbook and will secure the databases and exit quickly to DOS. Don Barrett is responsible for this nifty feature. Maybe he did not like my pretty or witty prose. Page 7 X. Exit to DOS. Main menu option X is to tell the Talking Checkbook that you want to leave the program. Once pressed, it will take you to some choices where you can either leave right away, go back to the main menu or backup your databases to wherever you would like additional copies sent. We strongly recommend using the backup feature to avoid lots of tears if one day your data gets blown away or corrupted by something. Not likely since I've not had that problem with the checkbook in six years, but better safe than sorry.RUNNING YOUR MAIN MENU OPTIONS. Remember a few years ago when you read about main menu option E? Well, now let's take a look at what happens when you run the option. You press "E" at the main menu and get the main data entry menu. Here you have 8 options from which to choose. 1. Enter a deposit. Entering a deposit is our favorite activity. Yup, you get to put money into the thing rather than taking it out. Your initial balance is a deposit because when you first run the Talking Checkbook, we hope you had some money with which to start. You make that a deposit. Then if you ever get any more money like bank interest, pay checks, dividends or whatever, then you also use this option to enter those amounts. 2. Enter a check. Not much use for a Talking Checkbook if you don't have any checks. Well, here's the place to enter them. You'll be given two options when you select this function. You can either get your balance displayed each time you enter a check or not. Some folks like to see what there balance is before entering checks and so we put the two options in. Once you've selected the balance reporting option for the checks entry menu option, then you will see an automatic display of what your last check number was. You then be able to select if you want the program to use the next highest number for the check you will be entering. If yes, then the program does it, if no then you have to enter the number yourself. In any event, the program checks to see if the number has already been used and if so, warns you. Next you are given a date option. If you are really on top of your game then the "T" for today's date is made just for you! It automatically adds the current date to the date field of the check, but if you are like me and don't keep up with entries everyday, then you can either use the "L" for last date of last check feature or add the actual date of the check yourself. Warning: be sure to use slashes whenever entering a date into the Talking Checkbook. An example of this is "12/25/99" for December 25, 1999 and hope you get good gifts. Page 8 Next you will be asked for the name of to whoever you are writing the check. Here you can either type in an abbreviation macro or the full name of who you are paying. If you have defined "Joe's Grocery" as "JG" in a macro then typing "JG" here would later render "Joe's Grocery" in the pay to field. If you have not done a macro then typing the full name of whoever is being paid is necessary, or you can enter up to an 8 character name that you will later define as a macro when the macro search fails to find it and asks if you want to create a macro. This new function in version 6.02 will operate on any 8 character or less entry into the "Pay To" field. Of course if you regularly pay someone with a less than 9 character name, then don't worry since you'll be given the option to create a macro or just go on. Once you type the info in and press enter, the macro database will be searched for a match and the program will move on after evaluating the results of the macro search. Next you need to let the program know how much money the check is for. If you are paying ten dollars and 5 cents, you would enter "10.05" and press enter. Warning: this is a numeric entry. Only numbers and decimal points will be accepted. Writing in a dollar sign would crash the program. Yeah, we could write computer code to screen out that error, but we have not gotten to that yet. Next there is what we call the personal comment line. This is important since it provides you with the ability to categorize your checks, withdraws, deposits, credit cards, savings, fixed bills and whatever else in meaningful ways. Not to cosmic proportions, but say you might want to have a personal comment of "Utility:Gas" which later can be summed and displayed at main menu option 8 where you can search by personal comment. If for example, you have a personal comment line of "Utility:Electric" then you could use the main menu option S to display your total utility spending and then do it again with the gas utility and the electric utility and so forth. Nifty way to get good comparative information. You can also use the personal comment line for tax related information by establishing personal comments that could be searched for particular information. If you plan to use a macro or are going to create one with this check, then just hit the enter key since the macros fill the personal comments out automatically or if you are creating a macro, then you will be asked later for what contents you want in the personal comment field. The macro option discussed later can really help here. At this point in the progress of the Talking Checkbook checks entry program, you will see the program searching the macros database if one exists to see if you have used one. If yes, then it will fill out the fields automatically that you wanted. If it does not find a macro match, but notices that your "Pay to" field has a string of characters of 8 or less, then it assumes you might want to create a macro, and it will ask if you do. If you do not, then it will simply go on and process the information you have already given it. If you do, then it will ask a couple of questions, update the macro database and fill out your check automatically for the "Pay to" and "Personal Comments" fields. Nifty, huh? Page 9 Next you will be presented with a Save or Reddo prompt. This option will give you the opportunity to save the check entry you have made or do it over if you made a mistake. Next you will be given the option to print the check if you selected to be asked and have defined printer coordinates and have a check ready for printing. If you have not done the initial printer setup coordinates, then the Talking checkbook will let you know that you have to do that first and return you to the place you were. Next you are asked with a prompt if you want to do another check. Answer "Y" for yes or "N" for no. Any other answer will bring up the same question. Don't you wish some people were that direct? 3. Enter a withdrawal. One thing we all do is take money out of the bank. Yeah, we can't live on bread alone, since we need to spend it from time to time. This menu option is pretty simple. Like the entering of a check, you will be asked a series of questions like the date what you want the comments field to be. If you answer "N" for "no, I'll write my own" then you'll be asked for what contents you want in the comment field. Otherwise, a predefined comment line will be entered. Again, entering the amount of money in your withdrawal is always just numbers and decimals. You can use the macro processing in this module to create or use macros that will speed up the process. 4. through 7. More record entries. These entries have to do with credit card, savings,fixed bill and auto pay information. Check them out on your own, but they are important if you are tracking credit cards, savings, paying fixed bills and or doing pre-authorized payments. They have explanations within them to help you. 8. Macro creation. The macro functions of the Talking Checkbook are critical for lazy folks like me. If you have not used the "create one" option in the checks or withdrawals entry operation then entering this option will allow you to define abbreviations of longer names that you use as a "pay to" or "withdrawal" field and to define what the comments are. If you pay "Save the Children" for example every month, you could use the fixed bill option or write a macro abbreviation of "STC" and your checks would automatically have the name and personal comment fields fully filled out by the macro when doing a check for them. Just follow the instructions and you'll have macros in no time. Don't worry about upper and lower case stuff with the macros since the program converts it all to upper case and even if you Page 10 enter mixed or lower case input when writing a check, the program will figure that out and deal with it. Also, the macro manager will check for duplicate macros, list your macros on screen or in a text file and even do global replacements of records within your checkbook database if you want. Warning: When you use the global macro program, be sure that you want the same name in the "Pay to" field with the same comment line in every record. If you pay Sam Jones often for differing things, then global replacement could screw up different comment lines. On the other hand, if you pay Sam Jones for only two or three different reasons, then write different abbreviations like "SJ1" and "SJ2" and "SJ3" where the "pay to" field will always be "Sam Jones" but the comment field will be different corresponding to the macro name. 0. Back to main menu. Well can't get more definitive than 0 gets you back to the main menu. RUNNING OTHER MAIN MENU OPTIONS. While all the other main menu options are pretty clear, there is a need to do a bit of digging into the Utilities option. They are designed to be of both informational and program operation assistance. Once you type "U" at the main menu then you will get the following utilities options: 1. If you want to know the number of your last check written without having to go an pretend you want to write a check, then here's the option you need. 2. The second utilities option let's you check out your last two weeks of entries into the checkbook. Very good to see if you've already entered something and forgot that you had. 3. Your personal comments line is very important if you want to track certain kinds of spending. If you are like me, then you've entered different personal comments for the same folks you've paid. Bummer, yeah; but there is a way to check on your personal comments to see if you've done it. Use menu option 3 for this task. A future version of the checkbook will include global replacements for personal comment lines to help get them straight without taking all day. 4. If you want info on how much you have paid to who, then here's the place to find it out. It's surprising how much you have paid some folks. Take a peek. 5. Here's a listing of all your checkbook transactions in alphabetical order. 6. The talking checkbook calculator can be real useful if you need to do some calculations before doing other business. In fact the results of your calculations are saved so you can use the results elsewhere in the program. Pretty nice. Much credit is due Eric Bohlman for helping me to figure out how to keep the Page 11 calculator working if someone made an error and enter a letter instead of a number. 7. This option of archiving older records is a great way to store information for specific time periods. In fact, this option can significantly speed up the operation of your Talking Checkbook simply by reducing the amount of records with which it has to cope. If you archive your checkbook once a year like yours truly, then you can expect reasonably fast operation. If you just let all your records from time and memorial stay in the active database, then you will notice slower operations due to the analysis the checkbook has to do on all those records. The archival utility option will basically split off your selected records between the dates you have given the program and put them in a database that you name. If you want them back, then you'll need to use this program to recombine them. See how easy it is! 8. Don Barrett added this option to help folks who were interested in tracking spending by personal comment line. It actually takes your personal comment lines and arranges them to be either printed on paper or to a text file. In any event, if you want to use the information for tax purposes, then here's a great way to keep track. 9. Here's the auto backup function. It's a powerful way to take your databases when you exit the program and store an extra copy of them to a floppy or somewhere else on your hard disk other than the same place as the Talking Checkbook. This is to prevent los of data in the event of a hard disk crash or whatever. You simply set a path to where you want the databases sent and when you exit the Talking Checkbook, the files will be copied there automatically. Once having set this option, it will remain in place any time you use the checkbook. To get rid of it, erase the file "autoback.mem" from your directory where you run the Talking Checkbook. The only time this option is not executed is when you exit the program using the "F10" blast back to DOS key. This is because that feature only secures the databases in your normal Talking Checkbook directory. There really is not much reason to go through the other options at the main menu except to ask you to test them out. combined with the information above, they are pretty self explanatory and you should not have a problem with them. Future versions of this documentation may include more on them, but for now the best way to understand them is to run them. Questions and Answers. Q: How much does this program cost to register? A. Thanks for asking, but it's free! Yup, Don and I wrote it for our own use and if it works for you then great! If not, then perhaps other programs will. Of course, we nor anyone nor anything else takes any responsibility for the consequences of it's use. If you really feel compelled to pay something then send a check to your favorite charity. Page 12 Q: I like the program, but it takes forever to get information from it. Why an can anything be done? A. If you are not a psychic; Yeah, slower machines like the old XT's can take a long time, but I have no problem with the faster 386 and 486 class machines. Also you might consider how many records you have in the checkbook? If you have not used the archiving option in the utility pack (main menu "U") then you probably have many records in your database and could easily increase your speed by storing older entries to an archived database and keeping only current ones active. This has an enormous impact upon speed. Q: I keep getting a "Not enough memory" message when I try to run the program and go back to DOS. What can I do? A. See if you have any other programs running at the same time. Also load programs into upper memory if you can. Normally, the Talking Checkbook should work unless a lot of stuff is also taking up memory. Q: Will the documentation ever cover all commands etc? A. Someday. Right now the issue is my hands hurt from all this programming and writing. If anyone who uses the checkbook would like to write docs, then that would be wonderful. Also the program was written to be pretty much self documenting. Q: What is the ultimate meaning of life? A. 42. Q: What about multiple accounts? A. Good question. I've looked at how to make the program work with a number of checking accounts along with others, and it would take a good deal of programming to make it work. Hope to do it at some point, but adding the hot keys took 12 hours. Q: Eh! I don't like those hot keys. I keep on pressing enter or typing the wrong thing and have to trace back through the menus. Can I do anything other than shoot the stupid keyboard? A. Yeah, Don Barrett has added the ability to enable or disable hot keys and the only thing you will need to remember is to erase the "Keys.mem" file associated with the prompt at the start of the checkbook if you want to change to or from hot keys. While I can certainly appreciate the initial frustration from going to hot keys after always being able to confirm your choice with the enter key, I think folks will find the hot key option much more speedy and easy with a bit of practice. Of course, it's your money and so do it the way that works for you! Q: Sometimes when I've run the Talking Checkbook in the past, I've gotten a "proc" something or another error and the program crashed. Is there anything I can do to avoid this? Page 13 a. Sometimes folks will enter a letter when the program is looking for a number like at the "enter a check" screen asking for how much you are paying? The computer code cannot handle this and drops dead. The same sort of thing can happen if you not enter dates correctly. Entering December 5, 1995 as "120595" without slashes would crash the program. Hence always enter numbers for numbers using the decimal point if you need to and always enter the date with the so called "MM/DD/YY" format as in "12/05/95". Other times, it's all our fault! Yeah, bugs crop up especially when the programming happens late at night and the initial checks of the code show no errors. We've taken care with version 6.1 to run as many options as we think should keep the thing bug free. If you find one, then let us know, but we think we've gotten all clear now. Q: I heard that some other checkbook programs will allow the user to do electronic banking with a modem. Does the Talking Checkbook do that? A. Not yet, but that is something that is being looked into. It will depend upon memory constraints and any standards for transfer scripts or protocols. One thing that might work is to create a separate program that would take the checkbook data and ask a bunch of questions and write a script that could be run with an on-line service. Q: Who is "Tempo" the talking cat? A. A happy little Kitty that exists in the mind of Charlie Crawford and jumped out into the code of the adventure game. Has a nice ring to the name, huh? Q: Eh! I run the program on the most advanced computer with lots of disk space, expanded memory and more! It still either freezes during operation or I get strange things happening. What can I do? A: You may have an expanded memory conflict. Try adding (without the quotes) "clipper=E0000" to your autoexec.bat file. This tells Clipper not to use expanded memory and while you might lose a few bytes of memory; you'll gain more sleep and a sense of security. Q: I got the checkbook from a friend and while the balance option gives me the right balance; it always reports wrong when first entering the checkbook? A. Your friend may have erased all the checkbook databases that relate to his or her checkbook, but forgot to erase all the files with the extension of ".mem" to them. Simply erase those files and you'll be all set. Type "del *.mem" at the DOS command line while in the checks subdirectory and they will be gone. Of course if you have set options like where to backup your files and so forth, then you would have to reset the option from the checkbook program since those ".mem" files would be also deleted. Q: Where did you get all the ideas for these constant Page 14 improvements? A: We got friends. Donna Veno, Scott Marshall, Don Breda, Eric Bohlman and others have given us some great suggestions along with a headache or two. Other users have left word on Blink Link or called to suggest various options and we appreciate the feedback. Q: Will you ever be doing DOS environment variables? A. Yes, I've been looking at them for version 7. Q: Where can I get upgrades to the Talking Checkbook or have questions answered? A. Normally the Checkbook upgrades appear on various bulletin boards like Blink Link, The NFB BBS and the MCB BBS always has them first. To reach the MCB BBS current number, call area (617)-451-5327 dialing at up to 14.4 BPS using 8,N,1 parameters. If you don't have a modem, then send a diskette to: The Massachusetts Commission for the Blind 88 Kingston Street Boston, Ma 02111 Attention: Charles Crawford. Include your return address and we will just copy it off to you. Of course the Commission for the Blind nor the Commonwealth of Massachusetts take no responsibility either for the program or anything that happens as a result of it's use or non-use. You can call me at area (617)-727-5550 Extension 4503 with any questions you may have. I may have to call you back since writing the Talking Checkbook or the calendar or the address book or the other programs I have written is not my job. Just for personal use or fun. A FEW FINAL WORDS FOR NOW. Writing the code for the Talking Checkbook has been fun and a challenge for Don Barrett and I. We have poured many hours, days and weeks of time into developing it and it works well for us. We sincerely hope that you can get as much out of it as we have. Please contact me with any suggestions you might have or questions and we'll do our best to help out. Charles Crawford: August 7, 1993 Page 15