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1990-10-14
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The Presidents
by
Hubbard C. Goodrich
RFD #1 Box 880
South Harpswell, ME
04079
Copyright (c) 1987 Hubbard C. Goodrich
All Rights Reserved
The PRESIDENTS is a computer assisted learning program. It
was written to provide students with an opportunity to learn,
review, and test their historical knowledge of the Presidents
of the United States in the independent, non-threatening
environment of the computer. It is meant to give students a
suplemental activity for the aquisition of knowledge.
The program is made up of two parts: the Biographies the
and the Quiz-review.
BIOGRAPHIES
The Biographies are 7 .COM files marked PR#-#.COM where `#'
represents a number. [I am indebted to Mr. Keith P. Graham for
his TXT2COM program for this display.] They may be studied by
typing
PRES or PR#-# directly.
Each PR*.COM file contains 5 to 6 Presidential biographies. You
may use the Function keys to page directly to the beginning of
each "chapter", the Page up/down keys, Home, End, or the arrow
keys. You may use the search function (F) to find material of
direct interest or print (T) the entire document (see the bottom
of the screen for a list of commands).
QUIZPRES
The Quiz-Review is a program designed to ask you a series of
questions on the CRT (50 maximum) on our forty Presidents. From
the QUIZPRES menu you will have a choice of subject area: you may
choose to be quizzed on just names of Presidents, sequence in
office, year inaugurated, time in office, dates of birth/death,
age, party affiliation, state, or eventful historical
associations which are unique to the President's administration -
seven subject areas in all. You might also choose an eighth
which has been called POT LUCK - it will select each of the other
questions at random.
Subject areas 1-6 each have three possible question types
chosen at random. Subject #7 (historical associations) has only
one type. So if you choose POT LUCK, a total of nineteen
different questions may challenge you in seven different
Presidential areas.
While you are in a subject review area, you will be provided
with a brief instruction before starting the questions. As an
aid to memory, you will be provided with a prompt - the number of
characters required for the correct answer. Normally, no
initials would be needed but when duplicate names are used (eg.
Adams, Johnson) initials are required and cued appropriately).
DO NO USE PUNCTUATION. Other answers for dates, ages, and states
are also prompted graphically with a space if necessary.
When you answer a question, do not use commas or periods or
any other punctuation marks. The program will recover but they
will not be part of an acceptable answer. Be very careful with
spelling. The program will not accept `variations'. If you make
a wrong answer you will be given the option to review.
You may wish to review all the data base by typing #9 at the
Menu in which case you will have displayed a synopsis of each
Presidential Biography in turn. You may study each set for as
long as you wish. Use the up and down arrow keys to move back
and forth; use shift arrow to go to the first or last of the
list.
Included in the ten choices from the Menu (0 to quit the
program), you also have [D]irections, [S]earch and [T]est. The
directions, in addition to the obvious, provides you with an
opportunity to limit the number of Presidents you wish to study.
that is you can limit your study to the first 10 or 20 Presidents
and need not review all 40.
The Search option allows you to look through the data for
pieces of information. You may wish to look for all names
beginning with ADAMS or Presidents who had less than 4 years in
office. You may want to know which Presidents were involved with
CHINA or PANAMA. This section will find the President and the
number with that association. You need not type in the full
name. For example, if you choose the name category you may not
remember how to spell Eisenhower's name so type `E' or `Eisen'
and it will find all names that begin with that letter or group
of letters.
The Tests are 40 ASCii files with a .TST extension. This
section will allow you to selected a test (based on the
biographies) for a specific President. The test can be written
to paper, a disk or to the screen. If to the screen each
question will be presented in turn to await an answer. The
correct answer will be given after the student's response.
The test may also be sent to a printer for use in a normal
paper and pencil test environment. The answer key may also be
printed.
All of these tests will be randomized. That is the order of
the questions as well as the order of distractors will be juggled
up so that it is unlikely that one presentation of a test will be
identical to another. It is possible that a teacher may wish to
have (eg.) five forms of the same test. This program will print
the five separate forms. It will not, however, select questions
from different Presidents (yet).
When sent to the printer, the program will stop after each
`page' to be sure you adjust your top-of-line. The procedure can
also create a disk file which can then be modified and printed
with your favorite word processor.]
HISTORY of program development.
The TEST program was originally written on a mainframe by
the author [1979] and then modified to BASIC for a TRS80 Model
III [1982]. The remainder of QUIZPRES was written in 1982-3 for
the Model III. The biographies were added in 1984-5. All the
programs were then modified for the MSDOS system [1986] and Turbo
Basic(c) [1987 - for speed and convenience. Quick Basic(c) was
tried but, in this case, found wanting.] It was first offered to
the public as SHAREWARE in January 1988.
Bibliography:
Primary source:
Ferris, R.g. Ed., THE PRESIDENTS, U.S. Department of Interior,
Washington, D.C., 1977.
Secondary sources:
Durant, J. & A. THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES, 2 vol, A.A.
Gache & Son, Miami, FL, 1980.
Freeman-Grenville, CHRONOLOGY OF WORLD HISTORY, Rex Collins,
London, 1975.
Freidel, Frank. THE PRESIDENTS, National Geographic Society,
Washington, D.C., 1981.
Kane, J.N. FACTS ABOUT THE PRESIDENTS: From G. Washington to R.
Reagan, H.W. Wilson Co., NY 1981.
DISCLAIMER. The PRESIDENTS programs and manual are provided "as
is", without any warranty of any kind, either expressed or
implied.
DISTRIBUTION: The PRESIDENTS is NOT public domain software, it
is a copyrighted program distributed by the author. It is
offered as "SHAREWARE". You may use, copy, and share it, and
place on BBS as long as no fee or other exchange takes place.
The author would greatly appreciate a contribution of $10 from
those individuals or institutions who find the program of use.
Those who make the contribution will be notified of any later
revisions when they occur, an update will be offered at cost, and
additional topics.
Programs of a similar nature will be available. At the
moment the following subjects are being developed or in the
planning (wish) stage:
The American States
Early American Explorers
The War Between the States
The American Minorities
The author would be glad to hear from coorespondents who
wish to respond to this offering with suggestions, constructive
criticisms, and the fellowship of a common interest. For example,
if the reader has material that would lend itself to this
approach, I would be happy to investigate the possibility of
modifying this driver to that use. I am having difficulty
finding source material that is not copyrighted that can be used.
I am not on any BBS so the post office will have to suffice.Revisions:
February: *Changed drive limit (A,B,C) to open ended.
*Corrected Spelling error of Adams (from Adsam).
*Included the TEST portion in QUIZPRES to reduce
duplication, save space and for user convenience.
*And some general housekeeping and tinkering.