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1993-02-14
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AskSAM Defies Comparison
By: Steven Friedman, Sacremento Users Group
AskSAM is an information management environment that stores and
retrieves free-form or structured information. It is designed to
handle text, numbers, and some graphics. Text can be typed from the
keyboard, imported from ASCII files, or entered as structured data
into pre-defined formatted fields. AskSAM can handle simple or complex
queries, based on a field or word. It allows users to import or enter
free-form text, or create structured indexed data fields. It can
handle hypertext, and can perform complex Boolean searches. Having
said all this, several metaphors come to mind to describe my
impressions of the program and how it works, and most are not very
flattering.
Duckbilled Platypus?
Like the duckbilled platypus, AskSAM is neither bird nor mammal. In
database terms, it is not a relational database, nor a flat-file
database, nor a PIM (Personal Information Manager). Unfortunately,
like the duckbilled Platypus, it neither swims like a duck or walks
like a mammal. It does many functions in a ponderous and very awkward
way. This brings me to my second metaphor.
Brazil Nut?
Like the Brazil nut, there is rich meat inside, but the shell is very
hard to crack. AskSAM's biggest limitation is its awkward and
cumbersome user interface, with a learning curve that is awesome. The
package comes with three large manuals, but even the learning guide is
bewildering; the tutorial is very spartan in its examples.
The screens offer no context-sensitive help, but throw you into a
master help section that is more convoluted than IBM's automated
help-line phone system. Unlike the SAA menu system, which gives you
nested levels of menus, AskSAM moves you from screen to screen without
letting you see where you've been or where you are going. If you want
to import or export a file, it demands that you enter the name and
path of the file without so much as a directory list to guide you.
Another serious limitation is the lack of true mouse support, which
would go a long way toward improving its useability. It skirts this
problem by offering some token mouse support via the long-obsolete
MSMENU.COM, which comes on your original Mouse diskettes. This permits
you to add a mouse interface where none is built into the program. It
is a throwback to another era, and can hardly be justified in today's
GUI-oriented marketplace.
Dinosaur?
I use this metaphor not only in the in the sense of its size and
awkwardness, but also because the dinosaur it is a creature of another
environment that is rapidly changing. Living as it does in the DOS
environment, AskSAM carries all the worst limitations with it. For
this reason, it is facing extinction from the GUI and other types of
programs that can run circles around it. Compared to Windows-based
programs, AskSAM appears grotesquely clumsy and limited in its
capabilities. It can use and index on structured fields, but it has no
built-in import capabilities for dBASE, Paradox, or other database
formats. (The manual states that a supplementary program can convert
dBASE files into comma-delimited files. This does not even ship with
the product, but must be downloaded from a BBS!)
AskSAM's report writing capabilities could be vastly improved by
moving from a command-line interface to a more graphical one. Its
text-handling capabilities can handle only one flavor, ASCII, and it
must import this into its own format before using even that! Many
Windows-based file managers such as Norton Desktop for Windows and
Attitash's Dragnet handle a host of document formats, and even
spreadsheets and graphics formats, too.
While AskSAM claims to handle graphics, it essentially
"cheats" by calling up a GIF file viewer externally, and
linking the GIF filename to it. Being in the DOS environment, it is
chained to a single-screen for text display. A multi-windowed
environment would permit tiling or cascading windows to display data,
and DLLs to link it to other programs.
Phoenix!
By the end of the summer, a full Windows version of AskSAM will be
available. After viewing an early beta, I find that many of my initial
objections about the user interface have been addressed. Windows
provides a kinder and gentler user interface to an otherwise daunting
program. The Windows version also can incorporate some of Windows'
valuable features such as fonts, graphics, and MDA (multiple document
architecture). Unfortunately, the first release will not incorporate
OLE or the ability to directly import WordPerfect, dBASE, or
spreadsheet files. This means that users must first export the data to
an ASCII file and then to an ASKSAM file. These features are, however,
planned for a later release. Summary
Despite its steep learning curve, and awkward user interface, AskSAM
offers users a middle ground when they have large amounts of free-form
data that cannot adequately be handled in a structured database, or
when they want to perform simple text searches from a word processor
or other utility. To use it, though, you must be thoroughly committed
to it, since it insists on its native format to perform all of its
functions. This unfortunately precludes making ASCII text from CD-ROMs
accessible unless it is first imported into AskSAM's native format.
AskSAM ver 5.1
AskSAM Systems
P.O. Box 1428
Perry, FL 32347
800/800-1997
$395 (list); 5-user network edition $1095