JCSM Shareware Collection 1996 September

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-------------------------------------- SPORTCHECK SHAREWARE VERSIONS INSTRUCTION MANUAL -------------------------------------- Software Creations, Inc. P.O. Box 395 Big Bend, Wisconsin 53103 COPYRIGHT (C) 1989-94 by Software Creations, Inc., Big Bend, WI. All rights reserved. Portions (C) Copyright 1984 Philip A. Mongelluzzo, Waterbury, CT. All rights reserved. TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGMENT IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines, Inc. SOFTWARE CREATIONS, INC. SHAREWARE PROGRAM LICENSE AGREEMENT You may freely copy and distribute this Sportcheck Shareware Version as long as the following files are kept intact and unaltered: Baseball Football Hockey Basketball Edition: Edition: Edition: Edition: ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ SPORTC.EXE SPORTC.EXE SPORTC.EXE SPORTC.EXE SPORTC.CFG SPORTC.CFG SPORTC.CFG SPORTC.CFG SPORTCB.EXE SPORTCF.EXE SPORTCH.EXE SPORTCK.EXE SPORTCB.CFG SPORTCF.CFG SPORTCH.CFG SPORTCK.CFG SPORTCB.TOT SPORTCF.TOT SPORTCH.TOT SPORTCK.TOT SPORTCB1.NDX SPORTCF1.NDX SPORTCH1.NDX SPORTCK1.NDX SPORTCB2.NDX SPORTCF2.NDX SPORTCH2.NDX SPORTCK2.NDX SPORTCB3.NDX SPORTCF3.NDX SPORTCH3.NDX SPORTCK3.NDX BBCARDS.DBF FBCARDS.DBF HKCARDS.DBF BKCARDS.DBF BBCARDC.DBF FBCARDC.DBF HKCARDC.DBF BKCARDC.DBF BPERSON.DBF FPERSON.DBF HPERSON.DBF KPERSON.DBF BPERSON.TOT FPERSON.TOT HPERSON.TOT KPERSON.TOT BBSTARS.DBF FBSTARS.DBF HKSTARS.DBF BKSTARS.DBF BBVAL1.DBF FBVAL1.DBF HKVAL1.DBF BKVAL1.DBF BBVAL2.DBF FBVAL2.DBF HKVALC.DBF BKVALC.DBF BBVAL3.DBF FBVALC.DBF HKPLAYER.DBF BKPLAYER.DBF BBVALC.DBF FBPLAYER.DBF HKSETS.DBF BKSETS.DBF BBPLAYER.DBF FBSETS.DBF MANUAL.DOC MANUAL.DOC BBSETS.DBF MANUAL.DOC ORDER.DOC ORDER.DOC MANUAL.DOC ORDER.DOC ORDER.DOC This program is being marketed using the shareware method of distribution. If you find this program useful and continue to use it for any extended period of time, you are required to register your copy with the program's authors. Software Creations, Inc. offers the following benefits to registered users of the Sportcheck programs: 1. You will receive the latest version of the Sportcheck program including the most recent card values and a printed manual. 2. You will be shipped three future card value updates which are published on a quarterly basis. 3. You will have the option of extending your update subscription after your first three updates have been delivered. 4. You will receive free technical support from Software Creations, Inc. regarding program installation and operation. Please view or print the file ORDER.DOC for current pricing information. INTRODUCTION The Sportcheck series consists of IBM compatible computer software programs designed to enrich the hobby of sports card collecting. Each of the Sportcheck programs provide the card collector with the ability to maintain an up-to-date inventory of the cards in his or her collection. This is accomplished through the use of colorful, menu-driven display screens. Current values for every card in all of the major card sets are stored in data files on disks included with the Sportcheck programs. Traded and update sets are included. There is also a special file containing values for complete sets and a personal file which is used to catalog any cards which are not included in any of the other sets. Values are stored for five different conditions for each card. THE BASEBALL CARD EDITION Sportcheck - Baseball Edition contains data files for every major set by each of the eight prominent baseball card manufacturers - Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Leaf, Bowman, Score, Sportflics and Upper Deck. This is a total of more than 77,300 different cards. THE FOOTBALL CARD EDITION Sportcheck - Football Edition contains data files for every major set by each of the following football card companies: Topps, Bowman, Fleer, Philadelphia Gum, Score, Upper Deck, Action Packed, Pacific, Proline, GameDay, Collector's Edge, Wild Card NFL, SkyBox and Pro Set. This is a total of more than 43,600 different cards. THE HOCKEY CARD EDITION Sportcheck - Hockey Edition contains data files for every major set by each of the following hockey card manufacturers: Topps, O-Pee-Chee, Bowman, Parkhurst, Score, Upper Deck and Pro Set. This is a total of more than 31,000 different cards. THE BASKETBALL CARD EDITION Sportcheck - Basketball Edition contains data files for every major set by each of these basketball card manufacturers - Topps, SkyBox, Fleer, Bowman, Star NBA, Upper Deck and Hoops. This is a total of more than 13,200 different cards. INSTALLATION The following installation instructions only apply to Shareware Versions of the Sportcheck programs which are shipped directly by Software Creations, Inc. If you have acquired the program from another source, the installation procedure will vary. The files on the distribution diskette(s) are in a compressed format. Therefore, you must install Sportcheck to a hard disk before you can run the program. To start the installation procedure, insert the Installation Disk 1 into drive A: and type the following command at the DOS prompt: A:INSTALL The INSTALL program will then begin by displaying some general information about the installation procedure. After reading this information, press any key to continue. You will then be prompted for the disk drive letter that you would like to install Sportcheck onto. Highlight the appropriate drive and press ENTER. If the drive selected for installation is a hard disk, that disk will be checked to ensure that it has enough space available to hold all of the Sportcheck files. If it does not have enough space, a message will be displayed and the program will be terminated. If the hard disk has enough space available, the INSTALL program will continue by asking for a disk subdirectory name to install the files to. You may either accept the default subdirectory name of \SPORTC, or BACKSPACE over that name, type in a different name, and press ENTER. If the subdirectory does not currently exist, it will be created for you. The files will then be written to the hard disk, decompressed, and verified. Note: If you are going to be installing multiple Sportcheck programs to the same hard disk, we suggest that you install them to the same subdirectory. This will take up less disk space and will allow the Sportcheck Control Program to start any of the available programs. STARTING THE PROGRAM To start Sportcheck, use the DOS change directory command to change to the Sportcheck subdirectory, then type in "SPORTC" at the DOS prompt. For example: CD \SPORTC SPORTC This will start the Sportcheck Control Program. This program will search the current directory for Sportcheck programs and then display them in a pop-up menu for you to choose from. Highlight the program of your choice and press ENTER. CHANGE CONFIGURATION The first time you use Sportcheck, you will need to customize a few options to work with your computer system. These options can be set through the "Change Configuration" choice from the main menu screen. To set the options for your system, use the cursor keys to highlight "Change Configuration" and press ENTER. Then highlight the selection that you wish to change and press ENTER. Printer Port - In order to print reports, Sportcheck needs to know the location of your printer port. Highlight the appropriate name that corresponds to your system configuration, and press ENTER. Valid printer port names include: LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, COM1, COM2, and COM3. Otherwise, you may view reports on your computer screen by selecting the choice SCREEN or print them to a disk file by selecting FILE. When printing a report to a disk file, you will be prompted to enter a file name. You must enter a valid DOS file name with a maximum of eight letters or numbers. A file extension of .TXT will be automatically added to the end of the file name. The report file will be saved in the Sportcheck program subdirectory. If a file by that name already exists, you will be given the choice to overwrite the file, append to the end of the file or cancel the report request. Data Drive - This represents the disk drive where Sportcheck will look to find the data files. In most cases this will hold the letter of the drive to which you had installed Sportcheck. However, if you wish to track multiple card collections without reinstalling the entire Sportcheck program into another hard disk subdirectory you may find it useful to keep your data files on a diskette instead of the hard disk drive. To do this, copy the files SPORTCB.TOT, BBCARDS.DBF, and BBCARDC.DBF for the Baseball Edition, or SPORTCF.TOT, FBCARDS.DBF and FBCARDC.DBF for the Football Edition, etc. to a diskette. Then change this data drive letter to match the diskette drive that you wish to use -- either A or B. Formfeed Setting - When this choice is selected, the user is asked if the program should process formfeeds at the end reports. Select "Yes" to print each report on separate pages or "No" to print reports continuously without ejecting a page in between each report. CHANGE CURRENT WORK FILE If you wish to view, edit, or print the contents of a particular sports card file, you must first follow the steps below to choose the file that you wish to use. The current work file is displayed in the upper right part of the main Sportcheck screen. To select a work file, use the cursor keys to highlight "Change Current Work File" from the main menu screen and press ENTER. This will display a listing of all of the card sets which are included in the program. You can then scroll through these set names using the UP/DOWN ARROW and PAGE UP/DOWN keys. Press ENTER on the desired set to select it. You can also change the order in which the sets are displayed. The three available sort orders and the keys used to activate them are shown on the bottom of the screen. These are: F2 - Set Year (Descending) F3 - Set Year (Ascending) F4 - Card Type You do not need to choose a work file to print the Summary Report, Personal File Report, Player Reports or the Multiple Detail Reports as described below. FULL SCREEN DATA ENTRY Selecting "Full Screen Data Entry" from the main Sportcheck menu will put you into edit mode. The contents of the current work file are first loaded into memory and then displayed on the screen. In edit mode you may add cards, change card conditions, delete cards, and view your totals for the set. The following keys are used to navigate through the data file: UP ARROW / DOWN ARROW - Moves the cursor either up or down within the current screen. PAGE UP / PAGE DOWN - Pages one screen forward or backward in the data file. F2 - Prompts for a card number or player name to search for, then displays the correct screen for the information entered. When searching by player name, you may enter any part of the player's first or last name and the program will search forward from the current card until it finds a match to what you have entered. For quick reference, this information is also available on- screen by pressing F1 while in edit mode. To add a new card you must position the cursor in the condition field corresponding to the number of the particular card you wish to add, and enter a valid condition code. Valid condition codes are G, V, E, N, M, and * as explained below. G - Good (Card showing signs of excessive wear - heavily rounded corners, multiple creases, minor writing, tape residue) V - Very Good (Obviously handled card - slightly rounded corners, minor creases, loss of surface luster) E - Excellent (Moderately worn card - rather sharp corners, no creases, no writing, slight loss of luster on surface) N - Near Mint (A nearly perfect card - sharp corners, barely worn edges, slight loss of surface gloss or slightly off-center) M - Mint (Card in perfect condition - sharp corners and edges, no creases, no signs of wear, even borders, sharp focus) * - Entering an asterisk allows you to enter or edit multiple quantities of the above conditions for each card. A window will pop up with each of the five conditions displayed followed by the current quantities for each. You may enter up to nine cards for each of the five conditions. When you have finished entering, press ESCAPE to return to full screen edit mode. This card condition information is also available on-screen by pressing F1 while in edit mode. After a valid condition code is entered, the value for that card and condition will be displayed in the value column. If you need to change the condition of a card in your collection, simply move the cursor to the condition of the card that you wish to change and type in the new condition. The value will automatically be updated to reflect the change. To change cards with an asterisk condition, you must type an asterisk and then you may change the quantity for any particular condition. To delete a card that is no longer in your collection, highlight the condition code of that card and hit the space bar or DELETE key to remove the code. The value for that card will be returned to zero. To delete cards with an asterisk condition, you must first type an asterisk and then change the quantities to zero for all conditions. To view your current totals for the work file set, press F3. This will show you the number of cards that you have in the set, and their accumulated value. QUICK DATA ENTRY If you have only a few cards to enter or edit in the current work file, it is sometimes easiest to use the "Quick Data Entry" feature. This feature does not load all of the card values for the entire set into memory. Instead, it works on a card by card basis. Selecting "Quick Data Entry" from the main Sportcheck menu will bring up a window in which you will be asked to enter a card number. You should then type in the number of the card that you wish to change, and press ENTER. Sportcheck will then display the card number, condition code, player name, and value currently set for this card. You may change the condition code by typing in one of the six condition codes described in the previous section of this manual. After entering a card condition, the new condition and value will be displayed, and you may press any key to continue. You may then enter in the next card number to change, or press ESCAPE to return to the main Sportcheck menu screen. PRINT REPORTS To print reports, select "Print Reports" from the main Sportcheck menu screen. This will bring up the Select Type of Report screen. From this screen you can print either a detail report, summary report or player report. There are four different detail reports - Checklist, Inventory, Missing Cards, and Cards For Sale. Checklist - The Checklist report prints a detail line for every card number in the current work file. Each line consists of card number, player name, quantities for each of the five card conditions, and total value for that card. Inventory - The Inventory report only prints a detail line for the cards that are in your collection. Cards that do not contain a condition code are not included in this report. Each line consists of card number, player name, quantities for each of the five card conditions, and total value for that card. Missing Cards - The Missing Cards report is intended to help the collector acquire the cards that he or she needs for the collection. It prints a detail line for each of the cards that is missing from the collection. As a guide, three values are printed for each of these cards - mint, excellent, and good conditions. Cards For Sale - When the Cards For Sale report is requested, the user will be prompted to enter a percentage to use for the report. This percentage of the actual value of each of the cards will print on the report to determine the selling price. The user will also be prompted to enter a minimum value for cards which should be included in the report. Leave the value at 0.00 to print all cards or enter in whatever value you would like to set as a minimum for the report. This feature is useful for collectors who do not wish to offer the lower priced common cards for sale. After selecting the type of detail report that you wish to print, you will be prompted to print the report for either the current work file or for selected card sets. You can print multiple detail reports if you choose to print the report for selected card sets. This will display a list of all of the available sets which can be scrolled through by using the UP/DOWN ARROW and Page UP/DOWN keys. You can select sets by highlighting them and pressing the SPACE BAR. Sets which contain cards in your collection are shown in yellow text. You can quickly select all sets which contain cards by pressing F4. Pressing F3 will then print reports for the selected sets or ESCAPE will abandon the process. Printing multiple reports to a file will print all of the selected reports to the same disk filename. The Summary Report lists each of the sets that are included with the Sportcheck program. For each of these sets, the total number of cards collected and the total value of the cards are printed. You are given the choice to print the Summary Report in any of the following sort orders -- Set Year (Ascending), Set Year (Descending) or Card Type (Ascending). There are three different player reports - Checklist, Inventory, and Missing Cards. These are similar to the detail reports of the same name, but print for an individual player instead of the current work file. After selecting the type of player report to print, the file containing player names will be reset and then displayed on the screen. You must then mark each player that you would like to print a report for with an "X". To do this, highlight the player name and press the SPACEBAR. Use the UP/DOWN ARROW and PAGE UP/DOWN keys to move through the file. You may also jump to a particular player name by pressing F2 and entering the beginning of that player's last name. When you have finished selecting players, press F3 to print the reports or else press ESCAPE to abandon the report request. All marked names can be reset by pressing F4. Thousands of records need to be read in order to print these reports so they will take longer than the other reports to print. Pressing ESCAPE will stop the reporting process. The Personal File Report will list all of the cards which have been entered into the Personal File sorted by year, card type and card number. EDIT PERSONAL FILE The purpose of the Personal File is to give the user the ability to catalog cards that are not included in any of the other major sets. The records in this file consist of card year, card type, card number, player first name, player last name, card quantity, card condition, and card value. The following keys are used in the Edit Personal File screen: UP/DOWN ARROW - move up/down one line PAGE UP/DOWN - move up/down one screen F2 - search for a card (this will prompt for either the player's last name or the year to search for depending on the currently selected sort order) F3 - add a new record (this will prompt for all of the card information and will give the choice to save after exiting from the last field) F4 - modify current record (allows you to change any information for this card and will give the choice to save after exiting from the last field) F5 - delete current record (it will be marked by changing to red text and will actually be removed from the file after exiting from the screen) F6 - toggle sort order between year and last name ESCAPE - returns to the main Sportcheck menu VIEW RISING/FALLING STARS This choice from the main menu will list the players whose overall card value has increased or decreased the greatest amounts since the previous Sportcheck quarterly update. Pressing any key while viewing this screen will exit back to the main menu. UPDATE ALL DATA FILES This option on the main Sportcheck menu is used to update your card values when you receive a card value update disk from Software Creations, Inc. Since these update disks are sent only to registered users, this update function is not included in the shareware version of the Sportcheck programs. SPECIAL FILES There are two other special files included with the Sportcheck program. These are the Complete Sets file and the Totals file. Complete Sets File - The Complete Sets file contains values for complete card sets. This file can be chosen from the "Change Current Work File" menu and edited. For each complete set you own, simply enter the appropriate condition code (G, V, E, N, M, or *) and the correct value will be totalled into your collection. If you enter a complete set, you should be careful not to record the same cards again in the individual card files, or the values will be counted twice - once as the total of the individual cards and once as the complete set value. Totals File - The total values of each of the various card types and years are stored in a file called SPORTCB.TOT. This file is updated every time one of the other card files is edited. To view the Totals file, simply print the Summary Report. NOTICE TO CARD DEALERS The card values used in Sportcheck are obtained from actual selling prices from card dealers throughout the United States. In order to present values that are as accurate as possible, we would like to get more and more card dealers involved. If you publish selling prices for common cards, stars, or complete sets of baseball or football cards, please include Software Creations, Inc. on your mailing list. Our address is shown at the beginning of this manual. Your participation will be greatly appreciated by Software Creations, Inc. and the users of the Sportcheck programs.