home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
ftp.whtech.com
/
ftp.whtech.com.tar
/
ftp.whtech.com
/
Geneve
/
9640news
/
CAT05
/
TIXBQB.ARK
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
2006-10-19
|
8KB
|
131 lines
?
LIMITED OFFER! If you have a TI and a PC, and if you program in TI Extended
BASIC and QuickBASIC, here's a special offer for the first dozen or so people
to respond. Here are TWO extensions to QuickBASIC: (1) version 1.0 of my
TIXBQB.INC collection of QuickBASIC procedures that emulate various TI Extended
BASIC statements (ACCEPT AT, CALL GCHAR, CALL HCHAR, CALL VCHAR, DISPLAY AT,
LINPUT, MAX, MIN, POS, RPT$, SEG$, etc.), and (2) Steven Holzner's BASIC POWER
TOOLS: A Professional Library for the BASIC Programmer ((New York: Brady,
1990), including a disk of 120 helpful procedures involving system resources,
keyboard input, windows, the mouse, pull-down menus, graphics, sorting, files,
business, fast math, and assembly language interface.
The regular price for TIXBQB.INC is $15.00. The regular price for BASIC
POWER TOOLS is $44.95. The total for the two would ordinarily be approximately
$60, but if you're among the first to respond to this offer, you can get both
for only $30! Do NOT send any money until you have confirmed with me that I
still have copies of both available. (Recommended: phone me at 215/483-1379,
or leave me a message on the TI RoundTable on GEnie or TI FORUM on CompuServe.
Wait for my response before you send any money.) As usual, satisfaction is
guaranteed, or you get your money back.
Following are some brief comments on the two components of this offer:
(1) TIXBQB.INC contains full source code for the procedures included, so
that you can modify the routines if you so desire. In certain cases (such as
ACCEPT AT and CALL HCHAR), more than one QuickBASIC counterpart is provided to
give you more choice as to alternatives to use.
My QuickBASIC counterpart to ACCEPT AT contains most of the features of
the original TI XB version. You can indicate the maximum SIZE of the string
you are accepting, and a negative SIZE will accept a default string from the
screen. The computer will BEEP if you wish, and you can set a VALIDATE string
(including DIGIT, UALPHA, and/or a specified literal string of characters, such
as 'YyNn' or 'ABCDE' or '12345').
In addition, there are some nice features not found in the TI Extended
BASIC version of ACCEPT. In my QuickBASIC counterpart, input is not limited
to one line on the screen, and the editing capabilities are rather extensive:
Move Cursor One Character Left: Left arrow or Ctrl-S
Move Cursor One Character Right: Right arrow or Ctrl-D
Move Cursor One Word Left: Ctrl-Left arrow or Ctrl-A
Move Cursor One Word Right: Ctrl-Right arrow or Ctrl-F
Move Cursor One Line Up: Up arrow or Ctrl-E
Move Cursor One Line Down: Down arrow or Ctrl-X
Move Cursor to Top of Field: Ctrl-Up arrow
Move Cursor to Bottom of Field: Ctrl-Down arrow
Move Cursor to Beginning of Text: Home or Ctrl-Q,S
Move Cursor to End of Text: End or Ctrl-Q,D
Move Cursor to Beginning of Field: Ctrl-Home or Ctrl-Q,R
Move Cursor to End of Field: Ctrl-End or Ctrl-Q,C
Toggle Typeover Mode: Insert or Ctrl-V
Delete Leading Blank Spaces: Shift-Tab
Delete Character to Left of Cursor: Backspace or Ctrl-H
Delete Character at the Cursor: Delete or Ctrl-G
Delete from Cursor to End of Word: Ctrl-T
Delete from Cursor to End of Field: Ctrl-Q,Y
Delete Entire Field: Ctrl-Y
Restore original string: Escape or Alt-Backspace
(Note, however, that the multi-line version of ACCEPT AT does not at this time
include word wrap. I decided against it, since automatic word wrap ordinarily
means that the computer makes decisions for you as to how many spaces to put
after a period, colon, exclamation point, etc., and that is one of the things
I dislike about TI-Writer. If other people like automatic word wrap, however,
I may add such a routine to a future version of TIXBQB.INC.)
Some TI XB statements do not have counterparts in QuickBASIC (e.g., CALL
SPRITE and CALL SAY). There is no CALL SPRITE or CALL SAY in QuickBASIC, but
there is a CALL SOUND (although it is limited to one voice rather than the
three allowed on a TI). These deficiencies or limitations relate ultimately
to hardware deficiencies or limitations of most PC systems.
I have made no attempt to provide QuickBASIC versions for CALL CHAR or
CALL COLOR. Theoretically I could write a PRINT routine that would take into
account a partial emulation of CALL COLOR for various character ranges or
"sets," but that is not included in version 1.0. Likewise in certain screen
modes I could emulate CALL CHAR (at least for certain character ranges), but
I have not done that for this version.
TIXBQB.INC is designed to facilitate the porting over to QuickBASIC of
programs that do not involve fancy animated graphics, complex music, or speech.
TIXBQB.INC can also make it easier to write new programs in QuickBASIC, since
it allows you to make use of syntax you may already be familiar with from TI
XB. It does not claim to be a "complete" package, but it does claim to be
worth the $15 at which it is being sold. (In your case, of course, you are not
really even paying that!)
(2) BASIC POWER TOOLS. There are various QuickBASIC toolkits available,
but I believe this is one of the best (unless you want to spend over $100 for
a package from Crescent Software or MicroHelp, Inc.). Steven Holzner, the
author of this book, is also the author of an Advanced BASIC book for Peter
Norton, and I actually prefer the BASIC POWER TOOLS book to the other.
Each procedure is written in QuickBASIC, and a sample program is provided
for each procedure. The book is over 475 pages long, and the routines that it
includes are - in my opinion - important, practical extensions of QuickBASIC,
helpful for many programming tasks. Again, the routines include support for
pull-down menus, the mouse, fast sorting, low-level DOS and BIOS access, hard
disk file searching, business functions, windows, graphics "sprites", file
encryption, statistical functions, keyboard input, assembly language interface,
and more. In short, the routines are valuable, and their being included on the
accompanying disk means that you don't even have to type any of them in by
hand: all the hard work has been done for you!
If you think the preceding sounds like it would be worth $30 to you, then
check with me to see that this special offer is still valid (that is, that I
still have copies of BASIC POWER TOOLS that I can send at this price). If you
want just TIXBQB.INC for $15, that's no problem: just send a check for that
amount. TIXBQB.INC will be sent on a standard ("double-density") 5 1/4" floppy
disk unless you inform me that your PC system cannot handle that format.
Incidentally, watch MICROpendium for a series of three articles by me on
"The TI and the IBM: Some BASIC Comparisons," in which I discuss some of what
is involved in converting programs from TI Extended BASIC to QuickBASIC and
vice versa. I think you will find the articles interesting, although the
content will of course necessarily at times be much less "sophisticated" than
that included in TIXBQB.INC (example: the TIXBQB.INC version of ACCEPT AT).
Barry Traver
835 Green Valley Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19128
(phone: 215/483-1379)
Download complete. Turn off Capture File.