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TODAY -- Version 3.3
What Happened Today in History?
Copyright (c) 1986,88,90,91 by Patrick Kincaid
All Rights Reserved
Thank you for trying TODAY, a fun and interesting way to see what
what happened each day in history. You can easily add your own
personal dates and reminders so you will never forget anniversaries,
birthdays or other important dates.
TODAY and its documentation are copyrighted. Feel free to use the
program, and if you like it, please see the registration instruc-
tions at the end of the documentation.
Please help support the concept of shareware by registering your
copy of TODAY now while you are thinking of it.
Thanks and enjoy!
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Introduction .......................................... 1
Whats New? ............................................ 1
Where Did You Get TODAY? .............................. 2
TODAY Files ........................................... 2
Installation .......................................... 3
TODAYCFG .............................................. 3
TODAY in Color ........................................ 5
Running TODAY ......................................... 5
TODAY.BAT ............................................. 6
PUSHD.EXE .......................................... 6
POPD.EXE .......................................... 6
How TODAY finds its files ............................. 6
SET TODAY= ............................................ 7
Options ............................................... 7
ADD filename ....................................... 7
ALT filename ....................................... 8
ANSI ............................................... 8
DIR path ........................................... 8
DISK ............................................... 8
HELP or ? .......................................... 9
MMDD ............................................... 9
NOPAUSE ............................................ 9
ONCE ............................................... 9
TODAY.BAT ............................................. 10
Adding Data (TODAY's format) .......................... 10
Special Reminder Format ............................... 12
TODAY's History ....................................... 13
User Support .......................................... 14
Where to get TODAY Updates ............................ 15
Legal Stuff ........................................... 15
TODAY 3.3 Page 1
Introduction
TODAY is a program that shows you what historical events have
happened on this date in history. TODAY will provide you with
little gems of information that will help brighten up your day.
You can also create a file of your own personal dates and TODAY
will remind you of birthdays, anniversaries or mortgage payments.
What's New?
This is version 3.3 of TODAY. It is a major new release of the
program. Here are the new goodies:
1. Many new dates have been added to the default TODAY
database. Most file sizes have tripled. Particular
attention was payed to those days that had very little
data to display.
2. A very handy option has been added to support multiple
databases. It is called the ADD option and works like
this: TODAY {other options} ADD other-dbname. For
example, if you have both the TODAY.mon files and
MUSIC.mon files, TODAY will read both the base file for
this date and then read the added database file. If
today is June 28 and you enter TODAY ADD MUSIC you will
see the date information for June 28th from TODAY.JUN
and MUSIC.JUN. Music is another TODAY database that
can be found on the GGCS BBS listed at the end of this
document.
3. After the TODAY data has displayed, you will now be
asked to press ENTER to quit back to DOS, or you can
now enter another date as MMDD. This will be particu-
larly handy where TODAY is run as part of a closed
system.
4. TODAY has another new companion program WHEN. Where
TODAY tells you what happened on this date in history,
WHEN lets you scan the TODAY database (all files) to
find a keyword you enter. For example: WHEN MOZART
will search all the monthly files for Mozart and dis-
play what it finds. It's amazing how helpful I've
already found WHEN for locating duplicates and the
like. See WHEN.DOC for more details.
TODAY 3.3 Page 2
5. The short lived ASK option has been removed. The
automatic prompt at the end of the program makes it
unneccessary.
Where Did You Get TODAY?
I put TODAY on the Golden Gate Computer Society Bulletin Board as
a ZIP file. It must be un-zipped using the PKUNZIP program
written by Phil Katz. My installation process is described
below. Apparently, a number of businesses that sell shareware
distribute TODAY in a different form than I do. I have no con-
trol over what is done to my program after I put it on the bulle-
tin board. If you are reading this file, it has already been
removed from the ZIP archive file. Shareware resellers: do not
change the TODAY archive. It causes endless headaches.
TODAY Files
I distribute this version of TODAY as TODAY30.ZIP which contains
all the files listed below and TODAY30P.ZIP which contains only
the programs and DOC file, no data files. If you're reading this
DOC file, you probably do not need to unZIP anything. The files
(in alphabetical order) that comprise TODAY are:
POPD.EXE....... see below
PUSHDIR.DOC.... documentation on PUSHD and POPD
PUSHD.EXE...... see below
README.1ST..... please do
TODAYCFG.EXE... the configuration program
TODAY.BAT...... a sample BAT file to run TODAY
TODAY.DOC...... this documentation file
TODAY.EXE...... the main program
TODAY.mon...... where mon is JAN through DEC: the data files
TODAY.OWN...... a sample file for your own reminders
TODAY.WIT...... contains the thought for the day
WHEN.DOC....... how to use WHEN.EXE
WHEN.EXE....... searches the database based on a keyword
TODAY 3.3 Page 3
Installation
First, I am assuming you got TODAY from a bulletin board. I
distribute it as a ZIP file which contains all the TODAY files
listed above. You must use PKUNZIP.EXE, also found on many
bulletin boards, to extract the TODAY files from the ZIP archive.
To install the program, do this:
1. Make a \TODAY directory (MD \TODAY), then CD \TODAY
2. Copy TODAY.ZIP to this directory.
3. Type: PKUNZIP TODAY
4. At this point, you can run the program by typing TODAY
from within this directory. However...
5. You should copy TODAY.BAT, PUSHD.EXE and POPD.EXE to a
directory that is in your path. This way you can run
TODAY from anywhere in your system. Note the TODAY
directory must be named \TODAY.
6. You may want to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT to add these
statements:
CD \TODAY
TODAY ONCE
CD \
and TODAY will run each time you turn on your computer.
This is the simplest way to use TODAY. If you are familiar with
MS-DOS, you may install the program many different ways. If you
did not get the program as TODAY.ZIP, contact whoever gave you
the program to find out what changes they have made.
TODAYCFG
This is the TODAY Configuration Program. It lets you easily
specify which options you want to use with TODAY and creates a
file named TODAY.CFG to contain them. The options you can change
are described later in this document under the heading Options.
The TODAY.CFG file is a plain ASCII file which you can also
change with your text editor providing it can edit in a plain
ASCII mode.
The most important feature of TODAYCFG is that it lets you set
colors by seeing the effect on a tiny version of the TODAY
screen. You don't have to type in color commands and you immedi-
ately see the effect of your color choice.
TODAY 3.3 Page 4
The TODAY program looks for TODAY.CFG whenever it runs. The
current directory is examined first, then it looks for the TODAY
environment variable to tell where the data files are and looks
there. There is no problem if it finds no CFG file.
To run the configuration program simply enter TODAYCFG and the
configuration screen will appear. The main part of the screen
displays context sensitive help on using the program.
The lower left portion of the screen contains the options you may
set and the lower right a small simulcrum of the TODAY screen.
You simply press TAB to go from one option to the next and ENTER
to change any option that does not require text input (such as a
directory or alternate filename).
When done, press ESC and the program will ask whether or not to
save the changes and end. The TODAY.CFG file will be written to
the current directory, replacing any existing one.
Note that if there is a TODAY.CFG present when you run TODAYCFG,
it will use the options in that file as the initial ones dis-
played in the configuration screen. This way you don't have to
re-enter everything each time when you are trying out different
options.
TODAY 3.3 Page 5
TODAY in Color
You will probably only set TODAY's colors with TODAYCFG, but if
you really want to do it manually, you can use your editor to put
the commands into TODAY.CFG. The command to set the screen (and
ANSI) colors is three words: COLOR WHAT COLORNAME. The values
for the commands are as follows:
COLOR WHAT COLORNAME
----- ---------- ---------
COLOR BACKGROUND BLACK .........
GREETINGS BLUE .
HEADINGS GREEN .
YEAR CYAN . BACKGROUND can use
TEXT RED . only these colors.
MAGENTA .
AMBER .
WHITE .........
GRAY
BRIGHTBLUE
BRIGHTGREEN
BRIGHTCYAN
BRIGHTRED
BRIGHTMAGENTA
YELLOW
BRIGHTWHITE
A complete command might be: COLOR TEXT YELLOW. Notice there
are two groups of colors. Only the first group can be used for
background color. The other text types can use any color.
Running TODAY
To run the program, simply enter TODAY. If the data files are
present or you have set the TODAY= environment variable, the
program will display what happened on this date in history. If
you get the TODAY07 error message, you are not in the directory
where the TODAY data files are or you are not telling the program
where to find the data files with the SET TODAY command or the
DIR option on the TODAY command line.
TODAY 3.3 Page 6
You can follow the command (TODAY) with a date in the form of
MMDD where MM is the month as two digits and the DD is the day as
two digits. For example, June 1st would be 0601. Note that you
must use a leading zero if the month or day is only one digit.
There are more options that you can put on the command line.
They are described in the section titled "Options".
TODAY.BAT
This is a BAT file that will let you run TODAY from anywhere in
your system without the \TODAY directory having to be in your
path. It does this by means of two nice little public domain
programs called PUSHD.EXE and POPD.EXE. The former saves your
current directory before changing to the new one and the latter
takes you back to where you started. The BAT file and the two
EXE files must be in a directory in your path but the rest of the
TODAY files do not. You may want to use these little programs
with other applications on your system.
How TODAY finds its files
When you run TODAY, it first looks to see if you have used the
DIR option on the command line. If so, it looks in that directo-
ry for the TODAY data files. If not, it looks for the TODAY
environment variable and looks there for the data files. If
neither of these methods was used, TODAY looks in the current
directory for the data files. If none of these conditions are
true, the TODAY07 error message appears telling you that
TODAY.mon could not be found. Use one of the methods above to
correct the situation.
TODAY 3.3 Page 7
SET TODAY=
You can create an MSDOS environment variable that tells TODAY
where to find the data files that contain the date information
displayed by the program. If the data files are in a directory
C:\TODAY, the command looks like this:
SET TODAY=C:\TODAY
This example says the directory is on the C: drive (or any other
you wish) and looks to that disk no matter which disk you are
logged onto. This is handy for systems with multiple hard
drives. You should put this command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. That
way whenever you run TODAY, the location of the data files will
always be known. You can override this directory specification
by using the DIR option on the TODAY command line.
Options
TODAY has a number of options that control how the program works.
The program runs just fine without any options at all, but people
like to change things to suit themselves and the options provide
a way to do that. These options can be entered on the command
line (eg TODAY 0628) or they can be put into TODAY.CFG either
with your text editor or with the TODAYCFG program. Each option
must be separated with blanks.
ADD filename
You can now have additional date databases that ADD TO the base
TODAY.mon files. That is, you can have multiple sets of date
files with different filenames and search another set in addition
to the TODAY files. For instance, let's say you also have a
database of historical information on the world of music that is
named MUSIC.JAN thru MUSIC.DEC (available on the GGCS Bulletin
Board). You can now add the option ADD MUSIC to the command line
and the items found for this date on the MUSIC database will be
added to those found in the main database. Some examples of how
this option might look on the command line are:
TODAY ADD MUSIC
TODAY 0628 ADD MUSIC
TODAY ANSI DISK ADD MUSIC
You should also read the next section on the ALT filename option
which is a complement to the ADD option.
TODAY 3.3 Page 8
ALT filename
The default filename that TODAY looks for is TODAY. The filetype
must be JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, MAY, JUN, JUL, AUG, SEP, OCT, NOV,
DEC or OWN. As you can see, there is one file for each month
plus a file for personal dates (OWN). You can create special
databases and store them separately from the general purpose
files. You do this by specifying an alternate filename. If you
have a special database of important dates in the history of
music you might want to have MUSIC.JAN through MUSIC.DEC. You
would then use the command: TODAY ALT MUSIC to have TODAY read
the music database instead of the general database. These files
must be in the same format as the standard TODAY files as de-
scribed later in this document.
ANSI
This option only works when used with the DISK option. When
TODAY displays its historical facts, the colors used are set
using the computer's display hardware. This type of color set-
ting cannot be saved to disk along with the text. ANSI commands
to do something similar can be put into the file along with the
text. That is what this option does. Why?
Primarily this is for computer bulletin board operators who want
to be able to display TODAY's little gems on their systems. If
they support ANSI color and graphics, this TODAY option lets the
TODAY data appear in color too.
If you have DEVICE=ANSI.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file, you can use
the DISK and ANSI options to save the program output. Then TYPE
the file and it will appear in color. Save it without the ANSI
option and it will display in your default CRT color.
DIR path
If you run TODAY from outside the directory where the data files
reside, you must somehow tell the program where to find the data
files. One method is the TODAY environment variable mentioned
earlier. Here is another. Simply specify DIR followed by the
complete path of the directory where the data files reside. For
example: TODAY DIR C:\TODAY If you use this option, TODAY will
use it instead of the TODAY environment variable.
DISK
This option tells TODAY to write the information it displays on
your screen to a disk file named TODAY.PRN. This file can then
be manipulated just as any other text file.
TODAY 3.3 Page 9
HELP or ?
This option will display a help screen showing the TODAY options
and gives an example of how to use the program.
MMDD
This stands for a two digit month and a two digit day such as
0628 for June 28th. It allows you to display the historical data
for a date other than the current one. If the month or day is
only a single digit you must use a leading zero as in the example
above. There must be a total of four digits. Try the date used
in the example above, you will see why I used it.
NOPAUSE
I'm not sure anyone wants this option, but if you are only writ-
ing the TODAY information to disk this will cause the program to
create the disk file and terminate without any pause for you to
read the screen. Better be a fast reader...
ONCE
If you run TODAY from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and you re-boot many
times during the day, you may not want to see TODAY each time.
If you use this option, the program will only run once on any
given date.
If you want to use this option, you must CD to the \TODAY direc-
tory where the program and data files exist. To make ONCE work,
TODAY alters the DOS Last Access Date of TODAY.EXE to the current
date and time. If it is run again on the same date, it will
terminate without displaying anything. If TODAY.EXE is not in
the current directory, the program will run again.
TODAY 3.3 Page 10
TODAY.BAT
TODAY.BAT is a handy utility to let you move to the directory
where all your TODAY files reside, run the program, and then
return to whatever directory you started from. This is done with
two small public domain programs PUSHD and POPD. If you used the
DOS CD command, you would have to hardcode which directory to
return to after running TODAY. This way you don't have to worry
about it. It's all automatic. You can also use command line
options when running from the BAT file.
NOTE: As written, TODAY.BAT expects the TODAY files to be in a
directory named \TODAY. If you used another name, you must
change the BAT file.
Adding Data (TODAY'S format)
The data that TODAY reads each day is stored in plain ASCII files
but in a specific fixed format. You can easily create new date
files or add data to the TODAY files with your text editor.
However, it must work with plain ASCII files. Most word proces-
sors create very funny files indeed but they usually also have a
plain ASCII mode.
When you edit the file to add data, just enter your text so that
it lines up with the data already there. If you get the date in
the wrong column or if the date is nonsensical you will either
get an error message or strange things may happen.
It is no longer necessary to have column headings or to have the
data in any particular order. I feel this will make it easer to
intermix the various record types in order to keep all the mes-
sages for a particular date together whether they be Special
Days, Birthdays, Thought For Today or whatever. Even if the
dates are not kept in order they will appear on the proper date
and in the order in which they are found in the data file.
I have added more detail to the description so that those of you
creating your own data files can have a fuller understanding of
the TODAY format.
For those who have created files not strictly in the TODAY format
as regards record types, flags and text length, I have tried to
make TODAY handle them as forgivingly as possible. This means
that unrecognized record types are treated as comments and text
is truncated to fit properly on the screen.
NOTE: If you get error TODAY06 when adding data of your own, you
have put a date in the wrong column or entered an invalid date.
Read the next section very carefully.
TODAY 3.3 Page 11
======================
TODAY DATA FILE FORMAT
======================
Column 1: This is a record type which tells TODAY what
type of message follows. Valid types are:
B - a Birthday
C - a Countdown. (not implemented)
F - a Fortune Cookie or Thought For The Day
R - a Reminder.
S - a date of Special historical interest
* - a comment.
Any other character in column 1 is ignored.
Cols 2-5: Month and day as MMDD with leading zeros.
Zeros for either month or day cause ALL months
or days to match when being scanned. For
example, 0001 would match the first of every
month while 0400 would match every day of
April.
Cols 6-9: The full year of the event as four digits.
Blanks are always okay or, for Reminders only,
you may enter another MMDD for a range of dates
to be reminded. See the Section Special Re-
minder Format below for details. A year in this
part of a Reminder record will cause an invalid
date error message. The Thought For The Day
does not require, and will ignore anything in
this field.
Column 10: An indicator telling how to process this line.
Acceptable values are the following:
BLANK for no special processing.
C to continue a message from the previous line.
Note, that you MUST REPEAT the date fields.
DAY-OF-WEEK DIGIT where 1=Sunday ... 7=Satur-
day. This will cause the message to display
only if the date falls on this day of the week.
See the example for Labor Day below.
Cols 11-75: The message to display for this date. Anything
after column 75 will not display. Nor will it
hurt anything, it is just ignored.
TODAY 3.3 Page 12
--EXAMPLES--
*MMDDYYYY*Message
*--------------------------------------------------------
B09011875 Edgar Rice Burroughs, novelist, Ah-ee-ah-ee-ah!
B09021838 Queen Liliuokalani (last queen of Hawaii).
B09021952 Jimmy Connors, tennis brat
S09011939 Germany invades Poland, starts World War II.
S09011952 Sutro Baths purchased by George Whitney.
S0901 2Labor Day, a legal holiday
S09021620 The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth with
S09021620C102 Pilgrims.
R0001 Pay the mortgage!
R0401 Taxes due in two weeks.
R0415 Last day to pay taxes!
F0130 Early to bed and early to rise
F0130 CMake a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
The headings are no longer mandatory. Note that Labor day must
be on a Monday and the Mayflower gets two lines of coverage
befitting that momentous event.
This format applies to TODAY.OWN also. You can put in birthdays,
anniversaries, holidays etc. Messages in your personal file will
tend to be Birthdays and Reminders. Also, try putting in remind-
ers using the new range of dates format. This way if you miss
the reminder one day, you will hopefully see it again the next
day.
Special Reminder Format
Reminders used to be a one shot deal. You could have them appear
on any one date or on any one day every month. But reminders are
most useful when you can get jogged for several days. After all,
you might not even get on the computer every day. Here's the
answer: the four columns immediately following the month and day
are normally blank for reminders, but you can put another MMDDin
columns 2-9 and the two dates will be taken as a range of dates
during which you want to be reminded of something.This way you
don't have to put in a separate reminder for every day. It saves
a lot of typing! For example:
R05010508 Daryl's Birthday on the NINTH...
R0509 Daryl's Birthday TODAY
reminds me not to forget Daryl's birthday each day from May 1 to
May 8. Then on the 9th, there is the usual one shot reminder.
TODAY 3.3 Page 13
Another nice feature is the monthly reminder. Just set the month
portion of the date to zero and the reminder will appear every
month on the days you specify. For example:
R00050014 First mortgage due on the 15th.
Every month from the fifth to the fourteenth, this reminder
appears. But it gets even better! What if the date you need to
be reminded of falls on the 5th of the month and you want to be
reminded from the 27th of one month to the 4th of the following
month? No problem! If TODAY sees that the day of the month for
the second date is less than the day in the first date, it as-
sumes that the second date is in the following month. Not bad
eh? Here's how:
R00270004 Second mortgage due on the 5th.
From the 27th of one month thru the 4th of the following month, a
daily reminder is displayed. I think this new reminder system is
a vast improvement over the old one and will prove much more
useful. If only it would pay mortgages too...
TODAY's History
This program was written by Patrick Kincaid first in 1986, then
updated in 1988 and again in 1990. It was inspired by a program
written by Michael Butler on an IBM VM/CMS system in the PL/1
language. Credit for the concept and original data should go to
him. While the young TODAY had a very strong San Francisco
flavor to it, time and many people have changed it to a more
cosmopolitan appearance. Thanks to the many people who have
contributed all those dates!
TODAY 3.3 Page 14
User Support
If you like TODAY, please help support it. I won't make a living
this way but it does help offset the expenses of developing,
distributing and supporting the program. There are three ways to
do it:
Amount Will Get You
------ ---------------------------------------------
$10 Registration of the copy you now have
$15 The program and documentation on a 5.25" 360K
diskette.
$16 The program and documentation on a 3.5" 720K
diskette.
$20 The diskette and a printed manual.
Please make your checks payable to Patrick Kincaid and send them
to the address below.
Patrick Kincaid
618 Douglas Drive
Mill Valley, CA 94941 USA
You probably won't have nightmares and sleepless nights if you
don't send anything. Nor will you get any questions answered
about the program. If you register, I promise to respond to your
questions in some reasonably timely manner. I know this will
strike a note with some of you.
I can't return phone calls so just call the bulletin board listed
below and leave me an EMAIL message. This is the best way to
contact me. Otherwise you can write to the address below. When
asking questions, I have to know what version of the program you
are using. It is the top line of the display when you run the
program. For problems, I need a detailed description of what is
or is not happening. "It doesn't work" isn't good enough. Often
the best way to do this is to also include a screen print of the
problem so I can see exactly what you mean.
TODAY 3.3 Page 15
Here is the easiest place to reach me. It is where I (and oth-
ers) leave TODAY related files.
Golden Gate Computer Society Bulletin Board
(415) 927-1216 (at least four phone lines)
300/1200/2400 baud
8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity
Many file transfer protocols
You can usually get the latest version of the program here. If
you leave me a message, wait a week for an answer as I'm travel-
ing a good deal of the time these days.
Please mail inquiries, money, suggestions etc. to this address:
Patrick Kincaid
618 Douglas Drive
Mill Valley, CA 94941 USA
Legal Stuff
This program has been tested and will probably do what I say it
will. Because of the variety of system configurations and hard-
ware out there I can't make any promises of suitability, func-
tionality, direct or consequential damages.
This program may not be sold or marketed as part of a package
without the express written consent of the author.
That, thankfully, ends the legal stuff. I hope you enjoy TODAY
and that it adds a little something to your life. Wait till you
see what's coming in the future!
And Remember...
We call it software because we cannot keep it up.