..USE WITH LETTRIX 1.FOLIO, 2.ORATOR, 3.BANKER ..14 CPI & 7 LPI AND PCWRITE PR COMMAND .L:67 CLUB INFORMATION The SLO BYTES Newsletter is a monthly publication of SLO BYTES of the Central Coast of California (San Luis Obispo) an IBM/compatible personal computer user's group. Information found in this Newsletter is derived from magazine articles, manuals, books, other PC user group newsletters, and our own members. The purpose of this publication is to inform our members of meetings, their program content, and other information related to the use of IBM-PC's and compatible computers. Dues to SLO BYTES are $18 per year. As a member you will receive a membership card, an updated membership list, SLO BYTES monthly newsletter, and free use of our Public Domain Library. Contributors are asked to submit articles for the next issue by the 15th of each month either in writing or on disk (ASCII format preferred). Address all correspondence to SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP, % Bob Ward, 2100 Andre' Ave., Los Osos, Ca. 93402. Phone 8am-5pm 756-2164, after 5pm - (805)528-0121. Other user's groups have permission to publish any material found in this newsletter. Have a computer related item to sell? Tell the editor and we will put it in our newsletter. For further information call Bob Ward @ (805)528-0121 eves. ****************************************************** Meetings are held the 1st Thursday of every month, unless noted otherwise in the newsletter calendar, at 7:15 pm. New users SIG 6:15 to 7:15 pm. Meeting place: Cal Poly University Biology Department, Science North, Room 215. ****************************************************** DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$ Discounts usually apply only to regularly priced merchandise. Ask a salesman to make sure. You must present your membership card to receive a discount. Paradise Computers 5% - all computers, peripherals, 441 Marsh St. and software. San Luis Obispo 10% - Ribbons, paper, disks & 544-7127 other expendable items. Star Computers 5% - any software in stock. 655 Morro Bay Blvd. Morro Bay 10% - paper, ribbons, cable & 772-7827 other supplies. Computer Logic 10% - off list - all computers, 973 Foothill Blvd. software, computer periphe- Store #4 rals and products. Contact San Luis Obispo Bruce, Paul, or Dave for 544-8347 your discount. WITCO Computers 10% - off already discounted 3563 Sueldo, application software. Building B Special prices on group San Luis Obispo purchases of peripherals. 549-0811 FISBOSA Systems 10% - off packaged systems, soft- 3121 S. Higuera, F ware &/or peripherals when San Luis Obispo purchased with system. Con- 549-9027 tact Lynne Boisen. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ FINANCE MANAGER II - General Ledger Version 1.1d by Betty Martin - Lights Unlimited This newest version of the user-supported Finance Manager program is a simple, powerful mini-bookkeeping system. With its other available integrated modules this program has grown into a complete fully integrated financial business system. Finance Manager is well on the way to a leadership position among dedicated small business programs. Hooper International created the original FM in 1981 and in 1983 it was converted to the IBM PC format and upgraded versions have been released 5 times since; with careful attention to user suggestions and ideas. This complete bookkeeping system which can be used for small business or personal use is specifically designed for ease of use with minimal bookkeeping experience. It is totally menu-driven (you don't have to type in any commands), it will keep track of all your assets, liabilities, net worth, income and expenses. Double entry (debits & credits) are used to ensure you are always in balance. An appendix in the documentation covers the required basic accounting principles. This program is very easy to use and if you have never worked with an accounting system before you can use the provided sample accounts as an example or framework for your own chart of accounts. Entering the chart of my 32 accounts (stores up to 1999 accounts) and their initial balances took about 1 minute per, as did, on the average, putting in the 60 transactions for the first quarter. Transaction input time decreased significantly as I learned to use defaults and multiple debits and/or debits. All Accounts have a code letter when creating your chart of accounts. A=Asset, L=Liability, C=Capital/Equity, R=Retained Earnings, I=Income, E=Expense. Any account number with a 9 or 99 ending is accumulated and printed as a subtotal. The program does not allow you to use any account ending with a 9 or 99 for anything else but subtotal accounts. Other outstanding features of FMII include the ease of finding and changing/correcting previously entered transaction/accounts. Some improved features are capabilities on: sort options (input or date order), memory resident sort, up to 30,000 transactions per year (on hard disk), four digit account numbers, full screen editing, support of 14" wide printers, BCD math, active accounts displayed on transaction input screen, and previous-data defaults that automatically enter repetitive data. The description field is found to be more than adequate for even long descriptions. You also can have multiple debits and credits in one transaction. The real difference I found was the Reports, Budgeting and Graphics features. The FMII reports allow you to generate a full and complete spectrum of financial statements/reports such as: The account history ----------> (FINANCE MANAGER) report, general journal report, income statement, balance sheet statement, chart of accounts report, sources and uses of funds statement, budget variance and budget listing. It also provides a summary of trended reports and 3 subtotal levels. A condensed print option is available which allows printing of 6 months trended reports per page (12 with a wide carriage printer). Standard print only gives you 3 months of trended reports. This trended option provides monthly reports in column format. The account history report lists all transactions for any chosen account. The chart of accounts report lists all accounts and there initial balance. FMII can also track your budget for any given income or expense account. When printing reports the user has a choice of having accounts printed with a zero balance or not. Also, all reports can be sent to the screen, printer, or to a disk file. Another helpful feature of FMII is you don't have to close your books at the end of the month or year; you can maintain multiple years, which gives you on-line historical data. This is a considerable help to all non-accountants because now you can go back and make and adjustment/corrections. For those who want or need audit trail just close your books every month. The manual is written clearly and has an appendix on principles of accounting and some accounting samples are provided. The manual also has sample reports. It is divided into 2 manuals; the first one is "Getting Started", which instructs you how to install the program, describes the use of the unique function key's of FMII and has a flowchart of all the menu's used in the program. The second manual is the "general Ledger". You can either buy the typeset hardcopy manual or you can print the documentation from the disk which is about 105 pages. The evaluation copy diskette of the General Ledger is available from Hooper International for $5.50 (In SLO BYTES LIBRARY ALSO!). A suggested contribution is $40.00 for the current version which includes complete documentation on disk and the graphics print functions. FMII General Ledger is the heart of the package. Options include: 1. printed bound manual, 2. Account Reconciliations module (very efficient checkbook and credit card balancing module - $15.00), 3. Financial Utilities module (will calculate depreciation, loan %, amortization schedules, etc.) which is recommended for utilizing all your investments ($20.00), 4. Accounts Receivable module and Accounts Payable module @ $30.00 each. FMII can be ordered via credit card by calling Hooper International 24 hours at 303-528-8989. The address is P.O. Box 62219, Colorado Springs, CO 80962. ====================================================== RAFFLES - DOOR PRIZES AND OTHER THINGS! The following individuals were winners of door prizes at our December meeting. Andy Proctor - 10 floppy disks Mel Johnson - Popcorn Spelling checker Billy Mounts - DS Backup, a hard disk backup program Ernest Miller - Game Erin Wirtz - Game Steve Turkheimer - one year's membership Mike Marvier - Norton Utilities ver 4 Pat Farley - Norton Advanced edition Rick Lee - Tee shirt AND THE WINNER OF THE COMPUTER............ ***** ANN STUMP ***** Ann and her husband live in Arroyo Grande. Ann is a computer science major at Cal Poly. She did not have a computer but really wanted one. We're happy SLO BYTES could provide her with her dream. CONGRATULATIONS and happy computing! Raffle statistics: total tickets sold = 302 @ $2.00 each = $604 our cost = $556 PROFIT + $48 ====================================================== NEW MEMBERS We welcome with open disk drive doors the following individuals who are now official members of SLO BYTES: F. Zinger 543-2106 Tim Grant 544-2257 Corki Henderson 773-1075 ====================================================== PROFESSOR DOS By Read Gilgen Madison PC User's Group, January 1987 (Reprint from CPC Newsletter, August 1987) Last month I promised you a "wild" column. Actually, we will discuss the use of GLOBAL CHARACTERS (or "wild card" characters) in file management commands. As always, please consult your DOS manual for details on these and other procedures we discuss. GLOBAL CHARACTERS In our discussion of the COPY and DELETE commands, it may have occurred to you that copying or deleting a large number of files could be quite tedious if you had to do it one file at a time. Fortunately, DOS allows you to use "global" characters in your names so that you can delete or copy whole groups of files at one time. In addition, you can also look for a group of files by using global characters and the DIR command. THE "?" CHARACTER There are two global characters: the "?" and the "*". The "?" is used in the place of any character at a specific position in the filename. For example: MYPRO?.TXT would represent files with any character in the sixth position of the filename that also had MYPRO and TXT. Files that would qualify include: MYPROG.TXT MYPROB.TXT MYPROC.TXT and so on. Files that would NOT qualify include: MYPROBL.TXT MYPRO.TXT and so on. If I wanted to delete all three of the above files, I would simply enter: DEL MYPRO?.TXT THE * CHARACTER In actual use, the "?" has somewhat limited use, but the "*" character can be very handy. The "*" will represent a range of characters up to or following the separating period of the filename. For example: MY*.* could represent: ---------> (PROFESSOR) MYPROB.TXT MYGOSH.DOC MY MY.1 and so on. If I wanted to delete all files with the .TXT extension, I would enter: DEL *.TXT If I wanted to copy all SCRATCH files from drive A: to drive B:, I would enter: COPY A:SCRATCH*.* B: And if I wanted to get rid of all files from drive B:, I would enter: DEL B:*.* (DOS would ask me "Are you sure?" and I would answer "Y") Global characters thus add a powerful dimension to your use of many DOS commands. However, with more power there is also potential for more destruction, so make sure you learn the proper way to use global characters. I suggest you practice using the DIR command (since nothing is copied or deleted), and then move on to the COPY and DEL commands. ====================================================== Software Review by Richard Ziburske Space Coast PC User's Group October, 1987 Product: Your Very Own - Home Inventory. (PC-SIG #395) (SLO BYTES #121) Your Very Own will categorize all of your belongings in a personal way. Each item is assigned a room, an owner, a color, a general category (appliances, tools, paintings, etc) and a specific category (washer, dryer, etc). although the program supplies a standard list of choices for each category, choices may be either changed or added. This is where the "Your Very Own" concept comes in. If you don't have a garage but do have an aviary just replace the entry in the list of rooms. If you live with your Aunt Hilda add her to the list of owners. Each choice is numbered. The number of choices in a list seems to be limited only by the amount of available disk space. A record consists of entering the number of one choice from each of the categories. This saves considerable typing time. Also entered into the record is the date purchased, date entered, cost, quantity and a 40 character remark. Space is allocated for new records 100 records at a time. Again, the number of records is limited only by disk space. Once you have entered in your belongings you can search through the records by defining a choice from each of the five categories. All records that meet the definition can be either printed or displayed. Search definitions are limited to the five categories and can not use the date, cost, quantity or remark. Your Very Own performed as stated and I encountered no bugs. However the program does seem rough in places. When adding or replacing a choice in a category you must step through them on at a time; there is no way to go directly to an entry. Furthermore, a careful eye must be kept on the choice's number at the bottom of the screen since no highlighting is done as you step through the list. To further confuse, the entry above the current one flashes momentarily. Several times I found that I stepped through the entry I wanted to change. Since there is no way to step backwards I was forced to go back to the main menu and start again. Even if you choose to ignore all changes the list is written to disk, resulting in a few seconds delay before the main menu reappears. For the most part Your Very Own is fast for a BASIC program and I soon became accustomed to the few minor quirks and rough edges. The documentation is another story. It is a supreme waste of paper and time. When I'm reviewing a program the first thing I do is use Vern Berg's excellent LIST.COM to read the text files. Suprise! The documentation for Your Very Own can only be printed using the included BASIC program. Any attempt to do otherwise reveals gobs of escape codes and all key ----------> (VERY OWN) words replaced by program variables. The only reason I can see for using program variable is that after customizing Your Very Own you can reprint the documentation and see examples like Aunt Hilda's albino canary in the aviary instead of Father's blue suit in the hall closet. The documentation also is in excess of 100 pages with 9/10 th's of it being repeated title pages and identical screen images printed after virtually every described keystroke. The printing program is the slowest thing this side of the Lazy River. Instead of 120 cps it puttered along at about one line every three seconds with occasional pauses up to ten seconds. There are 24 separate files to print and each one must be chosen explicitly. The whole ordeal will take several hours of attention. I must admit that I only read about half the documentation as my patience wore out after two and one half hours. The only good thing I can say about this is that the documentation is entirely unnecessary since 15 minutes of playing with the program will teach you everything you need to know. If you decide that this is the program for you and plan to send Mr. Duke his requested $35.00 - too much in my opinion - deduct the price of the wasted time and paper. ====================================================== DISK CACHING VS. RAM-DISK By Dick Russell Deerhaven Technical Software Reprinted from Boston Comp. Soc PC Report, via CPC Newsletter, September 1987 I am forever hearing PC users talk about using part of their 640K (or beyond 1M on an AT) as a RAM-disk to speed up their PC's operations. What puzzles me is that RAM-disk get all the attention, when disk caching offers all of the advantages of RAM-disk and more. The workings of a RAM-disk, are well known. A portion of RAM is set aside to simulate a real diskette or hard disk drive. Programs address it by drive letter as though it were a real disk drive. The difference is that the RAM-disk code is really a device driver that transfers data to/from RAM instead of to/from a real device. All of the space limitations of a real disk "volume," and "Disk is full" messages can result from filling a RAM-disk with files. Also, before a file can be read from a RAM-disk, something must write it there. This means that after setting up a RAM- disk, programs and files must be copied to it from a real disk. This is the sort of activity some users have done by their AUTOEXEC.BAT upon bootup. Files that are modified or created on the RAM-disk must be copied to a real disk before shutting off the PC (or before a crash). Disk caching is similar to RAM-disk in that a request for disk I/O (input/output) is satisfied by a fast RAM-to-RAM transfer of data so that the requesting program can get on with its work without waiting for a slow mechanical device. That's where the similarity ends. Disk caching uses RAM to buffer real disk I/O, sort of like spooling to and from a disk. The cache area can be as large or small as you can afford, yet there is no limit to how much real disk can be spooled through it. When a disk read is done via caching, the cache program in general will move the information first into available buffers in the cache area, then to the requesting program. Subsequent reads are first checked against the contents of the cache buffers to see if the read can be satisfied by a RAM-to-RAM transfer. When a disk write is done, the request is satisfied by moving the data to a buffer; a short time later the "dirty" buffer (not same-as-disk) is copied to a real disk, while your program continues. A later write may just update the buffer rather than dirty up a new one. Naturally, there comes a time in the operation of cache scheme when all buffers become full and one must be cleared. Most cache schemes use some sort of "least-recently-used" algorithms to determine which buffer is chosen. If the buffer is dirty, its contents must be written to a real disk before being marked as containing different data. (next page) (CACHE) The overall speed improvement a cache provides over a real disk depends upon having enough buffer space to provide a high probability that a disk sector referenced by an I/O request is represented by a RAM buffer. If the buffer area holds all of the program code and data read and written over a particular period of time, the "hit" rate is 100%, and the speed of the cache is essentially that of a RAM-disk of similar size. If less space is available, the overall speed is degraded somewhat by the occasional real disk I/O. With RAM-disk, on the other hand, there is no question of how much degradation there will be. Either the program or file fits on the RAM-disk or it doesn't. If a file doesn't fit, all I/O on the file must be done with a real disk. The other problem with RAM-disk is that if you switch to other programs and files, and they aren't currently on the RAM-disk, you must take action to save what is there and copy in what's needed. This may again involve a space-juggling act. Also, you have to consider the change in drive letter to address a file in its new location. Disk-caching, on the other hand, adapts dynamically to whatever you are doing at the moment. Files no longer needed are displaced to real disk as space is needed for something new. Also, there is no problem of having to save data to a real disk by explicit action. The cache code automatically does this within a preset number of seconds after a buffer is changed. To tell the truth, I have never used a RAM-disk. When I added a multifunction board to my XT, I chose the Orchid Technology "Blossom". The Blossom comes with the usual RAM-disk and printer spooling software you expect. However, the diskette also has an excellent disk-caching utility. Other cache utilities are beginning to be advertised. Even with a skimpy cache area of less that 50K (plus 17K code), the improvement over hard-disk-only operation is impressive, and the boost it gives to floppy operation is even greater. Just having the File Allocation Table resident in the cache buffers, speeds things up. The best part is that I get this improvement, no matter how many programs and files I switch between, without my doing anything explicit. It's all transparent to me. Caching, in my mind, is clearly the winner against RAM-disk. For further reading of performance with disk caching, see Chaney, R., and Johnson, B., "Maximizing Hard Disk Performance", Byte, May 1984, page 307. ====================================================== NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY The following disks have been added to our library for the month of December: SLO #019 Finance Manager II - General Ledger Module. See accompanying article. SLO #040 Mass Appeal - Mailing List Manager. Easy to use. SLO #230 SLO Bytes JOKE disk. A must; nothing else like it. A compilation of pranks collected by George Campbell from several sources. All are harmless although some may shake you up a little. How about the one that "pretends" to reformat your harddisk, or the computer that keeps asking for a "cookie". You'll love this one!!! Updates will occur as new jokes come our way. SLO #231 PC-SIG #592 - TSHELL. A DOS shell program + FINDEX, a flexible field format database. SLO #232 PC-SIG #581 - WORDWORKER - A Bible New Testament crossreferencing guide (1 of 2) SLO #233 PC-SIG #582 WORDWORKER - Bible New Testament crossreferencing guide (2 of 2) SLO #234 PC-SIG #628 BIBLE TRIVIA - a "trivial pursuit" game with 1000 Bible questions. ====================================================== COMINGS & GOINGS And fun was had by all.... This best describes our last meeting where we gave away several door prizes, including a raffle for a computer , shared our favorite software, traded a little, and finally stuffed ourselves with doughnuts and hot apple cider. Whew! A busy meeting to say the least. Wedged in between door prizes and selling/trading software and hardware we elected new officers. They are as follows: PRESIDENT: George Campbell VICE PRESIDENT: John Read SECRETARY/EDITOR: Bob Ward TREASURER: John Rohde A grateful THANK YOU to the past officers for the time and effort they put into the club. We hope they will remain active in other ways and continue to support the clubs activities. This coming month Lynne Boisen from FISBOSA will be demonstrating the ADLIB Music Synthesizer Card. Installed in your computer this card can play 7 different instruments at one time. The package comes with ADLIB Visual Composer software for creating your own music. Other software modules include composition projects, a tutor on how to create your own music, and 50 preset instrument sounds and compositions. ====================================================== CALENDAR JANUARY 7, 1988 ADLIB Music Synthesizer by Lynne Boisen. FEBRUARY 4 ?????? ** ROOM CHANGE ** ROOM CHANGE ** ROOM CHANGE ** See accompanying map for new meeting place for the months of Jan, Feb, and March. Due to conflicts with classes we have had to move to another room. We will be in the adjoining building, Fisher Hall, room 286. This is a large lecture room at the end of the building closest to the administration building. The entrance is located outside the building. The computers will be located nearby in the museum or just down the hall in a conference room. ====================================================== BITS 'N BYTES *** Note the new meeting place for this coming quarter. *** If you are interested in participating in the planning for another COMPUTER FAIR this coming year call Jules Lieber @ 528-1566. He would like to set up a coordinating committee ASAP. If we are to invite some of the larger software producers we must do so in the near future. *** Santa sez..... all SLO BYTES members want for Christmas is computer hardware or software. Ho Ho Ho.... ====================================================== LETTER FROM THE JR. EDITOR The following is a short editorial from my junior editor, Elizabeth, our 1 1/2 year old daughter, who makes sure I have dotted my i's and crossed my t's: vvvvvvvvzlLLLL s,,,,,,,gggfffffffffffffpg9fffutfif8rfififfffff,, nn6uuhhhjiiiiuuuu nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndsd Signed Elizabeth (with a little help from the senior editor!) ======================================================