LnSOS BOOT 1.1 SOS.KERNEL SOS KRNLI/O ERRORFILE 'SOS.KERNEL' NOT FOUND%INVALID KERNEL FILE: xةw,@  ȱlmi8#)!)0 WAP /// SIG MENU.MAKER PROGRAM (v. 6.2) =".D1"210: Coldstart (320: Warmstart &*X=11000: TEXT SLOW-DOWN LOOP ,X.1 CHANGE DISK SUBROUTINE23œ202:2200<RFa$=" YOU MAY SELECT YOUR DISK BY (TAUCOL10 u u (TAUCOL11,u u (TAUCOL12  u u" %SEG.T j'Ÿ/ u u0 (TAUCOL04 u u9 (TAUCOL05 u u; (TAUCOL06 u u (TAUCOL07 u u (TAUCOL08yu u (TAUCOL09 4u u III.BLM.01.095Bu' %HELLO v u ;%INDEX'u u *MENU.MAKER  z'&(TAUCOL01 u u- (TAUCOL02 u u. (TAUCOL03 >dLԡm#i㰼m#iЕOLԡȱfg hi !dLԡ憦  Ljmkm l y`2 Lԡ8(Je稽)ʈ@LVOLUME NAME (/DISKNAME) OR DEVICE NAME (.Dx)"P12);::"80C";a$;:Zb$="CHANGING DISKS"$d=23:=0::"80C";b$;::12).n=12:=20:"MAKE A NEW MENU FOR DISK: ";N$xN$)<2110=N$ :210 I=1L(A$(I),A$))200B$ ";"ANY KEY RETURNS TO THE MENU.">G$:::320H: Error Routine 202:U=11:"79C";"BAD PATH ERROR (NO DISK IN DISK DRIVE OR DESIRED FILE NOT FOUND.)"X=11000:X:::210Z a$="{,|,~,}; selects; back 1 level;1600 &:WW=1:0 :SEG=1;".D1/S EG.F" SEG=1".D1/SEG.G"diskname$=3802  CATCH PASCAL TEXT FILES 202 :F*=08:"78C";"SORRY BUT MENU.MAKER CAN'T READ PASCAL TEXT FILES."04=10:"78C"NOVEMBER":1750M$="DECEMBER":1750826);"-";M$;" ";Ѡ,2));", ";"19";Р,2);" ";/П,2))=>13П,2))-12;џ,6);:1780$П,2))=0"12";џ,6);:ٟ;$П,2))=>12" PM-":" AM-" 1830WW=1530 =26:=21 0,1670,1680,1690,1700,1710,1720,1730,1740^M$="JANUARY":1750hM$="FEBRUARY":1750rM$="MARCH":1750|M$="APRIL":1750M$="MAY":1750M$="JUNE":1750M$="JULY":1750M$="AUGUST":1750M$="SEPTEMBER":1750M$="OCTOBER":1750M$=")2070H540R\A$="RUNNING "+B$(I),16,B)f"79C";A$;:=0pB$(I),16,B) z::SEG=1".D1/SEG.T"t=+B$(I),16,B) yCT=CT+1~240:=24:=0:"@ ..... "DATE.TIME.LINE" ....JM=Ҡ,4,2))BTM1630,1640,1650,166=+IBOTM/2-.5):I=IBOTM:I/2=I/2)I=I-1 œ2120B=B$(I),16)," ")-1 B$(I),"BASIC 0")850B$(I),"TEXT 0")890 B$(I),"CAT 0")1140*B$(I),"FONT 0")18504B$(I),"FOTO 0")1930>B$(I),"PASTXT 0I);v:520: 500THPOS=4:I/2=I/2)I=I-1I=IBOTM THPOS=44:I/2<>I/2)I=I+1I2=-1:I=I-2:IBOTM<30THPOS=44I=IBOTM/2)*2:=+IBOTM/2)-1:0"PRINT.ALL": OA+P 3HA=(81+UCA)A=(81+LCA):::: OA+Q Quits 3IA=(83+LCA)A=(83+UCA)"PRINT.SHOW": OA+S 2JA=(68+LCA)A=(68+UCA)/Screen.Savers/HELLON=THPOS:B$(I);XA<8A>11540bA-7640,660,690,720l:=THPOS:B$(00 =Q:WW=0A=:A=21A=9&oldprefix$=40A=31410: Control C "aborts" program to Basic(:A=13770: Return Selects a file *DA=27:50: Escape to change disks/FA=324000: back out one directory level 3GA=(80+UCA)A=(80+LCA)SIC 0":150A$="TEXT 0":150A$="CAT 0":150A$="FONT 0":150A$="FOTO 0":150A$(L),"BLOCKS")510*=27:=19:"FREE MEMORY AVAILABLE: ";=7:=20:"80C";A$(L);$:=5:THPOS=4:I=1:IBOTM=J-1:620Q=:=26:=21:16; +Q Quits."r12);::"80C";a$;:+w#9,"DISKNAME.DAT":#9;DISKNAME$:#9|d$=DISKNAME$$=23:=0::"80C";d$;::12)201M=3:=14:"This /// SIG Disk is \^ 19";Р,2)", Washington Apple `, Ltd."=4:B$(1)="":B$(2)=""A$="BA16,B) THEN 240 #1, d$="":=10:"80C";d$ ž#1300I=0"I=I+1:#1;A$(I):290,#1 6L=I-1@j=1:same=0 J:SEG=0 Tœ2030^CT<1CT=1:CT>13000Zha$="{,|,~,}; selects; to new disk; J/2)=4:=+1:ۙ=44B$(J);:J=J+1I:1,180,22:2,280,21:2,2380,23:8A$(1000),B$(1000),C%(511),C$(20),name$(20):=10:=0UCA=128:LCA=UCA+32CT=15 IF PREFIX$= PREFIX$+MID$(B$(I), By Dr. Al Bloom. This is a program to conver ASCII files intoAnew files that can then be uploaded into your favorite data base,Jspreadsheet or whatever. Makes it simple to move things between daks Drive Wheaton, Il.60187(312) 665-6319CONPATH by Bloom Public Domain0933.50 2.50/order:This program finds ways of getting between one file format and another without programming.   TAU c/o Lavona Rann1113 Wheaton Oaks Drive Wheaton, Il.601 TAU c/o Lavona Rann1113 Wheaton Oaks Drive Wheaton, Il.60187(312) 665-6319 DIF Utilities Public Domain0893.50 2.50/order7The DIF utility program explained in the November, 1987TAUTALES. By Dr. Al Bloom. TAU c/o Lavona Rann1113 Wheaton O Public Domain0843.50 2.50/order=This has both of the first two Apple /// PD disks. They wereHcreated in 1983 by the Original Apple ///'rs Users Group. Many BusinessEBasic programs. Text.File.Scroll and Make.Menu are winners accordingto Dr. Al Bloom.EAD PASCAL TEXT FILES."04=10:"78C";"ANY KEY RETURNS TO THE MENU."!>G$:::".D1/MENU.MAKER",320R",220(204::"79A";""; 2D=1:F=1 <#4;a$ FD=D+1 P#5;a$ZD=60#5;12)dD=60D=1nF=F+1::d$;::Y=1100:Y x13402  CATCH PASCAL TEXT FILES 202 :F*=08:"78C";"SORRY BUT MENU.MAKER CAN'T R".D1/MENU.MAKER",220 d$="" A$="PRINTING "+B$(I),16,B)=01:=0::"80C";A$;:#3,B$(I),16,B)Z=1#3;b$:"78A";b$Z=Z+1:Z=18:1290 1260 #4,B$(I),16,B)#5,".PRINTER"+ž#4#5;12):::".D1/MENU.MAKE30C$="N"C$="n"1160;:=23:=0::"79C";"PRESS ANY KEY TO HALT LISTING": $1020.202 8::Z=1B::=23:=0::"79C";"WOULD YOU LIKE A PRINTED COPY?":1C$:C$<>"Y"C$<>"y"C$<>"N"C$<>"n"1170*C$="N"C$="n"79C";"PRESS ANY KEY TO HALT LISTING"::202 1020#2,B$(I),16,B)ž#242:::1160Z=1#2;A$:"78A";A$Z=Z+1:Z>1842:::Z=1980*:=23:=0::"79C";"CONTINUE...?":1C$:C$<>"Y"C$<>"y"C$<>"N"C$<>"n"10 MENU.MAKER TEXT MODULESEG=0"MENU.MAKER"890&*X=11000: TEXT SLOW-DOWN LOOP ,X.1,180,22:2,280,21:2,2380,23:z:A$="LISTING "+B$(I),16,B)$=01:=0::"80C";A$;::12)>=23:=0::"3.50 2.50/order6This disk contains all the information provided in theB"Getting Here from There" columns. "A useful set of tools for theApple /// user."  :TAU c/o Lavona Rann1113 Wheaton Oaks Drive Wheaton, Il.60187(312) 665-6319ASCIDIF Public Domain1103.50 2.50/order:By Dr. Al Bloom. This program converts ASCII files to DIFEformat and will be helpful for those that use programs (like Visicalc+and /// EZ Pieces) that can read DIF files.Tau Members only. 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Bloom, PhD CDP"=20D=12:" _______________________________________________________"E=12:"| |"E=12:"| Use 'up' and 'down' arrow keys to change selection. |"E=12:"| Press RETURN to select choice. ESCAPE to exit. |"E=12:"|_______________________________________________________|"=pointer% i=113x%(i));menu$(i)i7 GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 1: We're Off! Allan M Bloom, PhD CDP 23l INDEX processing routinevF$<>"INDEX"::10:=23:=1 œ:10 30)="Enter chapter number (1-12). RETURN to menu: ";pointer%pointer%<110pointer%>1210F$=pointer%) œ1740390 IS A DISK ACCESS ERROR ***";:=16:"The library disk must be in the prefix drive." :=20-"Error number ";;" occurred at line "; =23:=27$"Press 'RETURN' to continue..."keypress$  œ1808 #110Press RETURN to continue }"41510;"{ Press ESCAPE to return to the menu }" KEY$"KEY$=27)::10 @1020 ERROR ROUTINE 3 ---------------------------------------------::26);0);23); =11:=22-:"*** THERE=MAXLENGTHT=ZIP:B$=BNK$ 1300:=6  79C'=25:"*** DOCUMENT READER ***"F::1510;"To view the document use the UP and DOWN arrow keys."A:1510;"To leave the document reader press the ESCAPE key"/=22:1510;"{ B$,T*J-T+1,T)=A$(INDEX+J),HIINDEX,T)::HI=HI+T:LEFTSCROLL$((T=1));B$;7(VI24SCROLLDOWN$;A$(VI-25),HI,80);:VI=VI-1FPZdHI>ZIPT=ZIP:B$=BNK$ n1280:(xHI+79+ZIP<B$=BLANK24$:T=1.MOVE+11360,1280,1300,1320,1340,1380,1400 :1230wHI>TINDEX=VI-25:HIINDEX=HI-T:J=124:B$,T*J-T+1,T)=A$(INDEX+J),HIINDEX,T)::HI=HI-T:RIGHTSCROLL$((T=1));B$; HI+80<=MAXLENGTHINDEX=VI-25:HIINDEX=80+HI:J=124:A$(I))>80A$(I),1,80);::A$(I):HI=1:VI=24:BLANK24$=" " BNK$="""I=1ZIP:BNK$=BNK$+BLANK24$:Z$Z$=27)1900CURSOR=Z$)ZMOVE=(CUSOR=8)+2*(CURSOR=21)+3*(CURSOR=10)+4*(CURSOR=11)+5*(CURSOR=136)+6*(CURSOR=149)+3)+21)+"5"+12)_tRIGHTSCROLL$(1)=SYNC$+23)+1)+26)+0)+0)+2)+26)+0)+23)+3)+21)+"5"+12)?~SCROLLUP$=16)+3)+26)+0)+23)+10)+21)+"5"+SYNC$,SCROLLDOWN$=16)+3)+12)+11)+SYNC$:21);"5";6I=023:+256-ZIP)+26)+80-ZIP)+0)+2)+26)+ZIP-1)+24)+3)+21)+"5"+12)a`LEFTSCROLL$(1)=SYNC$+23)+255)+26)+79)+0)+2)+26)+0)+23)+3)+21)+"5"+12)ejRIGHTSCROLL$(0)=SYNC$+23)+ZIP)+26)+0)+0)+2)+26)+ZIP-1)+23)":i----------FILE SCROLL READER------------- :1500#1,FPATH$MAXLENGTH=0 $ZIP=1 .ž#11090E8I=0500:#1;A$(I):A$(I))>MAXLENGTHMAXLENGTH=A$(I)):::BLASTRECORD=IG#1LSYNC$=22)mVLEFTSCROLL$(0)=SYNC$+23)nter%-1^pointer%<5pointer%=17hchoice$=13)380;r=last.point%:=x%(last.point%-4):menu$(last.point%-4)w300!|pointer%=17F$="INDEX":410F$=pointer%-4)F$)=1F$="0"+F$F$="TAUCOL"+F$FPATH$=+F$i=030:a$(i)=" ,=pointer%:=x%(pointer%-4)::menu$(pointer%-4);:1last.point%=pointer% 6choice$8choice$=03)::+;choice$=27)::".d1/Run.Side.One"'@choice$=10)pointer%=pointer%+1Jpointer%>17pointer%=5'Tchoice$=11)pointer%=poi03 San Marcos Street, Blacksburg VA 24060 This is the first of several semi-regular columns on file conversion and data issues. The general topic is "getting there from here" -- converting from one data base or spreadsheet to another, going fromvironments than to have to live with the alternative -- typing one computer's output into another computer. As any good mathematician, I'm lazy. As any good engineer, I look for the lowest overall system cost. As any good husband, I try operating system and software. I accept submissions from participants in two electronic mail and a dozen floppy disk formats. I deal with disparate environments. It has been easier for me to work up conversions among those disparate enI have an IBM PC-3270 at the office. I use my university's IBM 3090 mainframe in both CMS and MVS environments. I coordinate a regional data exchange program among 27 major public universities, each with its own favorite computer and , Al Bloom. Why on earth should you listen to me on this subject? I suggest it is because I've been betwixt and between for a lot of years and have survived the ordeal. I have an Apple /// at home. My wife has an Apple //e in her "office" next door. ry. I suspect that the computer user is in worse shape. Especially if he or she is on his or her own shrift. I hope this column can help both Apple /// professionals and Apple /// users. Given the "why," let's look at the "who" of this column -- mein a manual file conversion that was expensive and time consuming and error prone. And probably unnecessary. That's the "why" of this column. Computer professionals can get trapped into the expensive and error prone and time consuming and unnecessa and address right, your name and address should stay right until you move or change your name. As a customer of long standing, I was annoyed at the foul-up. As a computer jock of long standing, I was stunned by computer professionals indulging of those publications did convert from one data base to another by re-keying. After years of being properly addressed, my magazine suddenly appeared at a neighbor's home addressed to some chap named Alan Blum. Once "the computer" has your name the admittedly superior product without re-keying all one's data into the superior product. Re-key all the data in even a modest sized data base? Think of the time and money involved and the sure chance of transcription errors. I suspect oneut Mail List Manager (MLM). Each editor suggested that the writer dump MLM for a more powerful data base. That's not a bad idea. Like me, MLM is old and slow and limited. Neither magazine editor, however, suggested how to convert an MLM file to I'll stick to what you as user (and not you as programmer) can do to get from here to there. Let me give you an example. In the past few months I've seen two different letters to the editors of two different Apple /// magazines asking abosometimes hotshot programmer, I will sometimes ask you to consider solutions that cannot be store-bought. Sometimes you'll need to do -- or get -- some programming. I'll address both commercially and specially available solutions, but mainly one computer and operating system to another. Without breaking anything you are fond of. In most cases you CAN get there from here, either completely or almost automatically. Without being -- or having to hire -- a hotshot programmer. As a to keep my wife off my back. As any good professional, I want to share the knowledge I've gleaned in such matters with others. OK, we have a "why" and a "who." What am I going to be talking about? I have a precious few specific subjects on which I feel like blathering. They may or may not be of general interest. That is were YOU come in, gentle reader. Please tell me what FC&D issues you are interested in. Otherwise, this is going to be a bodaciously short series of columns. You c using to the otherwise obviously superior product. Lotus is particularly astute in this matter. 1-2-3 can import a DIF file, a VisiCalc file, a MultiPlan file, a dBase file. I call these built-in file conversion features "program bridges." A program ofnd Keystroke for example) have "bridge" features built in. So do the newer products in the IBM PC (et seq) world. Vendors have learned that they can sell more of their products if a customer can readily convert whatever he or she has been DIF has become something of a standard. Among the more recent goodies, it is a rare data base or spread sheet program that cannot read or write a standard DIF file. DIF is a "bridge" between program products. Later Apple /// products (3EZ Pieces at seen fit to address our needs. This is not a blanket statement. The VisiCalc folks considered inter-system data transfer from day one. They invented the DIF (Data Interchange Format) file for transporting data between disparate products. conceive of a reason to import data from another system or of a reason to export its data to another program product. We users have found several excellent reasons to import or export data, but the producers of those early program products have noh only commercially available software. How did you do? Could you get there from here? PFS, like most of the early Apple /// products (Mail List Manager, QuickFile, etc) thought of itself as a standalone application. The "standalone" mindset cannot GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 2: Bridge Programs and Program Bridges I gave a homework assignment last time. I asked you to find three ways to convert a PFS data base to a 3EZ Pieces spreadsheet witght. time. Do you know three ways to convert a PFS:File data base to a 3EZ Pieces spread sheet? Without programming? Using only commercially available software? If you don't, stayed tuned to see how. If you think you do, stay tuned to see if you are ri get you a good answer as soon as possible. If I get a neat idea for this column, it'll be printed whenever TAU thinks it is warranted. It would not befit my "university faculty" image if I left you without assigning homework for next (BitNet address IRBLOOM at VTVM1, and CompuServe address 76656,1514). I think I've addressed journalism's "Five Ws" -- who, what, when, where, and why. If you ask me a question directly, and if I have the wherewithal, I'll move heaven and earth toan get to me in several ways -- mail to my home (2303 San Marcos St, Blacksburg VA 24060) or to my office (Institutional Research, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA 24061), phone to my home (703-951-2025) or to my office (703-961-7921), and E-Mail interest can "bridge" between other programs' formats. I trust you are not surprised that most of these program bridges lean to the "import" side. You can import a VisiCalc file into 3EZ Pieces. Haba had no economic stake in your going the other way. 3EZ Pieces will read, but not write, a VisiCalc file. It seems surprising that most of the various commercial program bridges will both read and write DIF files. Reading is not a surprise. It makes sense to be able to import a file in that GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 3: Me and You and Baby Blue I dunno about y'all (second person plural, Southern), but mere mention of the IBM PC and its clones and its derivatives makes me feel a balue preceded by data name) should allow the MLM user to convert his or her MLM file to a more powerful data base management system.l List Manager (MLM) who would like to convert to something else without killing themselves. TAU sells a cheap MLM bridge program (MLMASCI) that will convert an MLM file into one of three export formats. One of those formats (DIF, data value, vd (the "paper dollie" approach) and a high-tech method (send me ten bucks, and I'll send you the program) for finding conversion paths between the data base you have and the data base you want. If you recall from last month, I mentioned folks with Maihout hiring a super programmer to convert your data expensively and accurately. If you want to know more about conversion paths, look for a forthcoming article on same in THE /// MAGAZINE by your humble correspondent. YHC gives a low-tech metho to 3EZPieces-SS via 3EZPieces If you have a PFS data base, and if you want to convert it to something else, you have at least three ways to do so. Without hiring a bunch of data entry types to re-key all your data slowly and inaccurately. Wit to 3EZPieces-SS via 3EZPieces Path 3: Convert PFS to ASCII via PFS:File Convert ASCII to KeyStroke via KeyStroke-DB Convert KeyStroke to VisiCalc via KeyStroke-DB Convert VisiCalc CII to QuickFile via GRABIT Convert QuickFile to 3EZPieces-SS via 3EZPieces Path 2: Convert PFS to Table via PFS:Report Convert Table to DIF via Reformatter Convert DIF or a bridge program? Are you ready? Here are what I think are the three ways to convert a PFS file to a 3EZ Pieces spreadsheet -- with only commercially available software: Path 1: Convert PFS to ASCII via PFS:File Convert ASa PFS file to 3EZ Pieces involves the program bridge capabilities of Keystroke. With cheap or public domain alternatives, I wouldn't buy Keystroke for this one transformation. On the other hand, if Keystroke is available, why pay even PDS prices fs reviewed the program and hopes that said review will be disseminated to the Apple /// community. YHC's review of REFORMATTER has already been disseminated via publication in Volume 2, Number 8 of THE /// MAGAZINE. The third way of converting ridge functions. To your homework assignment of last time. Two of the three ways to convert a PFS file to a 3EZ Pieces spreadsheet involve bridge programs -- GRABIT and REFORMATTER. GRABIT is in the public domain. Your humble correspondent harogram bridges are generally keyed to importing files from other products, "bridge programs" generally go the other way. They also add "program bridge" functions to the older program products that had none and that haven't been updated with any b standard format. Writing? That's an export function. Why would a good capitalist want his/her proprietary data formats read and used by the dread "something else?" Maybe the old time hacker ethic is alive and well. This week. While commercial pit like George Custer. With superior equipment, and with maybe superior troops, George got swamped. We shall not bring up Custer's lousy decisions (I'm going to send half my force on a wild goose chase and then sit at the bottom of a valley w is the KERMIT /// that Frank Moore sells as part of THE /// MAGAZINE's PDS library. It is awful. It is slower coming than Christmas, and it uses no known Apple /// feature. Like sex however, even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. I catudent data communications programmers to build us a KERMIT ///. They took a generic UCSD Pascal KERMIT program (originally written for the Terak, whatever a Terak is) and took our money just before skipping town at the end of the school year. Thisarrived the way I sent it. Then the university discovered KERMIT, a family of error-free file transfer programs named after the frog, and installed the VM/CMS version. Our local Apple /// user group hired a couple self proclaimed hot-shot grad s to the trouble of writing NOBLANK, an Apple /// Pascal program that ensures no null lines exist in a file to be transferred. I still got occasional glitches in the uploaded files. I had to examine every uploaded file carefully to ensure that it e thought it was dealing with a mere super typist, and make dead certain that the file to be transmitted had no null (nothing followed by a carriage return) lines. A lot of mainframe systems think that a null line signals end of input. I even wentts of mainframes are like that. To "upload" an Apple /// file to the mainframe, I had to be in "input mode" for a new mainframe file, set Access ///'s file transmission character delay and line delay values high enough that the dumb mainframnd absolutely abysmal at transferring any other file type. My mainframe system is real good at "typing" text files to the console screen (for Access /// to capture in a recording file) and has no inherent ability to receive files. Lobig part of getting there from here. I started out transferring files between my home /// and the mainframe, using Access ///, my modem, and Mother Bell's phone lines. Access /// is pretty good about sending and receiving text (human readable) files a Turbo Pascal for the PC. I might want to take advantage of the free, high quality mainframe laser printer for long documents. These are mainly problems in data communication, in passing chunks of information between computers. That's a to run Lotus 1-2-3 on my ///, and I don't care to run PL/1 applications on my PC. I might want to convert a spreadsheet between VisiCalc (or 3EZ Pieces) and Lotus 1-2-3. I might want to convert a favorite program between Apple /// UCSD Pascal and a living arrangement with the mainframe. Living with IBM's Piece of Chunk has been comparable. In general, I look at the ///, the mainframe, and Baby Blue as separate entities. I don't care to run Apple Writer on the mainframe, I don't carey Blues. Back in the good old days, all I was concerned with was interfacing with the university's IBM VM/CMS mainframe. I didn't even think of Baby Blue as a problem until my masters foisted one on me in 1985. By then I'd already worked outhile every Indian in the world comes down on me like ugly on an ape) or the hubris that made those tactics seem like a good idea at the time. I live in the Baby Blue world, yet I am not of it. My 1982 model Apple /// preceded the influx of Babn send text files to the mainframe without worrying about null lines and without worrying about glitches. What does this have to do with Baby Blue? Lots. Granted, any personal computer can talk to any other through the RS232 data communications ports with the proper data communications software. I promise you I was never at my office PC when I wanted to send it a file from my home Apple ///. Or vice versa. However, there is always someone working the university mainframe. I could upl PFS file's data. Two of those ways involved first "printing" the PFS file to disk as an ASCII text file and improting that ASCII file to another program. A program that can import an ASCII text file expects to be told how many "lines" cs' question pointed up an error/omission in my Column 2, on program bridges and bridge programs. If you have been keeping track, you know that I presented three ways of converting a PFS file to 3EZ Pieces without programming or re-keying all your GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 4: The Perils of ASCII Remember I asked for reader input? Thanks to Banks Doggett of Iowa State University, I have something to write about this month. Bankirectly read the file.OPY program let an Apple /// read and write PC-DOS files. DA's goodies transfer general files, not just text files. I find it generally easy and fast to write a file to disk, drive the disk to the other computer, and use that other computer to dncluding ProDOS -- Apple /// SOS -- format). My PC doesn't have any spare slots. IBM doesn't let you do anything without eating a slot, and I actually have my PC doing some things. On the Apple /// side, Daryl Anderson's PC-Disk 400 unit and PC-Cdirect, way to transfer files between an Apple /// and a PC. Disks. If you have a vanilla IBM PC (No clones need apply) with a spare slot, Vertex System's "Apple Turnover" card will let your Piece of Chunk read, write, and format an Apple disk (ito a CompuServe transmission. I've never known a CompuServe transmission to actually lose anything, but I do see swine among the pearls. I didn't stick around MCI Mail long enough to find any of that service's particular foibles. There is another, // to transmit a text file. Then trundle on over to your PC, log onto the service, and receive your mail. Or -- again -- vice versa. Your imported file may have garbage in it. I never cease to be amazed by the strange characters that can creep in ems don't use KERMIT, but you don't really need it. CompuServe and MCI Mail and their clones (unlike most mainframe systems) do indeed have "text file import" features. You can generally just invoke the service's "import" feature and use Access /of the many available electronic mail services -- CompuServe, MCI Mail, whatever. Without KERMIT or its ilk. Send a file from one personal computer to yourself via E-Mail. Log on to the service from your other computer and download. Most E-Mail systoad a file to the mainframe from one personal computer, move my body to the other personal computer, and download the file from the mainframe. I used the mainframe as a holding tank between the /// and the PC. You can use a similar scam with one onstitute each record. Each line corresponds to a field in the importing program's data base or spread sheet record. Banks noted "printing" a PFS file to disk as an ASCII text file can be a problem. If any field of any PFS record is blank, the field won't be printed. The below example shows what can happen. The left hand column shows the contents of two records in a PFS "source" file. STREET is missing from the first record, and FIRM is missing from the second. A PFS ASCII file looring: string; begin write ('Enter input NAME:VALUE file --> '); readln (wk_string); e:Value" file to ASCII} var infile: text; outfile: text; wk_steach ASCII text file entry is pretty explicit. If I can't write a progrm to do that, I should place myself under citizen's arrest for impersonating a computer jock. Here is a simple Pascal program to do so. program NVASCI; {Convert a "Namlowed as how that was a bore. He also allowed as how that massive amount of editing would strain an otherwise good relationship with his secretary. Any operation that can be explicitly described can be computerized. Stripping a "name:" string from n "name:value" format, even blank PFS record fields have corresponding output-file lines. However, 3EZ Pieces will not import a "name:value" file. Banks must remove all the "name:" prefixes from each line of the "name:value" file. Banks alle would yield one line per datum -- assuming he found each and every unused field in each and every PFS record. Unlikely. Second, Banks allowed that he could "print" his PFS file to disk in "name:value" format. When printing to disk iblem. He wanted to convert a PFS file to a 3EZ Pieces data base. He had two choices. First he could go through each PFS record and enter something meaningless (like "--") in each unused data field. Then "printing" his PFS file to an ASCII text finctions that provide said courtesy. In general you will find out that your newly created file is messed up when you use it. You may actually find that out soon enough to correct the problem. Given that information, let's look at Banks Doggetts' pro----------- -------------- The best you can hope for is that the importing program will tell you that the last imported record is short a field or two. I don't know of any commercial program "ASCII file import" fu Street-2 CITY: City-2 Zip Code-2 City-2 STATE: State-2 --------------- State-2 ZIP: Zip Code-2 Zip Code-2 ----ode-1 Tom Brown Zip Code-1 NAME: Tom Brown Street-2 Tom Brown FIRM: City-2 STREET: Street-2 State-2 Company Three STREET: City-1 CITY: City-1 State-1 City-1 STATE: State-1 Zip Code-1 State-1 ZIP: Zip C PFS ASCII File Expected File --------------- -------------- --------------- NAME: Joe Smith Joe Smith Joe Smith FIRM: Company Three Company Three ks like the middle column. The "target" system expects one line per record field (as in the third column). What happens? The target file gets "Tom Brown" as Joe Smith's Zip Code. Tom Brown's name becomes City-2. It's a mess. PFS Source File assign (infile, wk_string); reset (infile); write ('Enter output ASCII file -->'); readln (wk_string); assign (outfile, wk_string); rewrite (outfile); repeat readln (infmajor commercial programs. Both have the same problem -- special features and formatting commands are lost in the translation. I may get in over my head here. My word processing experience has been mostly limited to Apple Writer on my /// and file. The ASCII file is the word processing world's medium of exchange, much like DIF is in the world of spread sheets and data bases. Both are standardized file formats. Both are almost universally recognized as import/export formats by the ats. That program bridge is reading from and writing to "ASCII text files." In the word processor context, an "ASCII file" has one document line per file line. Each document line is terminated by a carriage return (CR) -- and a line feed in a MS-DOS e limited program bridges, and there just isn't much in the way of bridge programs between word processor document files. A word processor generally has one program bridge between its own unique file format and document files in other-package form programs in the context of data base and spread sheet conversions. Bridge programs and program bridges can usually get you from one data base or spread sheet to another, often across different computer systems. Word processors, however, haved products can handle the inter-machine problem, with varying ease. The A3-PC connection is just one of Scott's problems. Scott's biggest problem is conversion between word processor document file formats. I introduced program bridges and bridgee cleaned up version given back to them on their IBM data disk." Inter-machine file transfer is a character builder. I've mention (#3 in this series) some of the joys of transferring files between an Apple /// and an MS-DOS machine. Hardware basenants want us to do is take a word processing document that they have created on an IBM PC using WordStar, Microsoft Word, or other popular word processing program, and to clean up the document and print it. They would then like to have th GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 5: Converting Word Processor Files Scott Warner of Cupertino, CA (No, not THAT firm) has a problem. Scott is an island of sanity in a sea of Baby Blue. He says "What our tser hostile). It may not even work right if your NAME:VALUE file doesn't have a blank after the colon as in PFS. I expanded it (to some eight pages of good code) and gave the result to TAU's public domain library. close (outfile,lock); close (infile); end.{NVASCI} The above is too simple (as in utterly unforgiving and uile, wk_string); delete (wk_string, 1, pos (':', wk_string) + 1); writeln(outfile,wk_string); until (eof(infile)); Script on the university's VM/CMS IBM mainframe. I saw Word Juggler just long enough to write a review some years back. I do not word process on my office Piece of Chunk. The bulk of my Baby Blue experience has come recently. A colleague is building a book, with chapters written by folks who are all over the country. They send him disks. He runs to me for help in decoding various file formats he gets. I do very little conversion between word processor document files. That low level oinitiation into inter-machine file transfer. My /// has the family letter quality printer. She was not about to do anything important on her //e's color graphics printer. File format wasn't a problem. After a year of using Apple Writer ///, she in the Apple family -- the Apple II series. I've lived with II-/// file transfer for quite a while. Way back in the dark ages of 1983, my wife's new //e made us the first family on the block with one computer per human. Leslye's computer was my GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 6: II and Fro In Number 3 of this series I talked about sharing files with MS-DOS machines. Let's talk about sharing files between the Apple /// and our cousins double CR is sincere. A single CR may not be. Within a paragraph of text, it should be removed. The CR at the end of each line of a table, or of an interior address, or whatever, should stay. new line. You must edit out extraneous CR's from an "imported" ASCII file. That can be a bore. Can extraneous carriage returns be programmed out? Not generally. An ASCII text file gives little clue as to whether a carriage return is sincere. Afor bringing an ASCII text file into Apple Writer. Apple Writer can read an ASCII file, but it doesn't really import it. Remember that a text file has a carriage return (CR) at the end of each line. Apple Writer uses carriage returns only to force adStar doesn't export ASCII files. Even "printed" to disk, the WS file still looks like a WS file -- with high bits flagged and hard/soft carriage returns and other things your mother never wanted you to know about. The second bridge program was ther messy or expensive or illegal. I also had to write a couple bridge programs just to use an ASCII file as an intermediary. One helped a student with an article written with WordStar 3.2 that he needed to get to the university mainframe. Wor I told Goodwife Bloom to enter her newsletter in Apple Writer, and I'd convert the AW file into a format that could be processed by the Waterloo Script word processor on Tech's system. Writing AWSCRIPT was a major bother, but the alternatives were ei goodies available from Tech. However, she didn't have an account. No problem. She logged on to my account from home. That raised a domestic tranquility issue. I had to do useful work on the Tech computer, and I found "myself" already logged on. nia Art Education Association newsletter. She knew the marvels available from the Virginia Tech computing center. She saw no reason to pay a printer for mis-typing her deathless prose. She would present the printer with camera ready copy using thef activity generally makes it most cost effective to use an ASCII file as an intermediate and to manually re-enter the special commands into the importing program's document. I've violated that rule of thumb once. My wife was editor of the Virgi didn't mind my insistence on Apple Writer //e for her machine. Disk format was the only problem. At the time, Apple Writer //e was a DOS 3.3 product. No problem, right? Apple Writer ///'s utility program would read to, and write from, a DOS 3.3 disk. All Leslye had to do was bring her DOS Apple Writer disk to the ///, boot Apple Writer Utilities, and transfer her deathless prose to a SOS disk. That's fine unless one forgets things and refuses to write anything down. There is certain entertaif Apple II graphics was available to us poor benighted folk who don't have graphic printers. I downloaded the program from CompuServe's ARTSIG forum, converted the resulting SOS Ascifile to a DOS 3.3 text file with the "new" Apple Writer Util does this have to do with the II-/// connection? Bear with me. While searching for goodies, I ran across a public domain Apple II program (LHGR) that converts Apple II hi-res graphics files to digitized pictures. Aha, said I. The wealth oENDAR program (TAU public domain disk #071) that prints a wall calendar with an optional "art" work. I started collecting art for the calendar in the form of "typewriter graphics," the digitized stuff for which you don't need a graphics printer. Whathe Qume Sprint 5/45 daisywheel persuasion. I didn't even know it could do graphics until I saw Roger Wagner's PRINTOGRAPHER program do its thing under emulation. However, I got a burr under my saddle last year. Said burr resolved itself as the CAL readable) files "II and fro" with very little problem. AN EXAMPLE I'm not large on graphics. For one thing, that's Leslye's domain, and we get along better if we don't compete. For another, my printer is of twhen invoked under Catalyst. PUFFIN has a cousin named HUFFIN, an Apple II program that converts Pascal text files to DOS 3.3 format. ProDOS utilities converts between ProDOS(SOS) and DOS 3.3 files. You should be able to transfer at least text (humane only problem is that Leslye prefers typing on a /// to typing on a //e, but that's another story. Let me tie up a few loose ends. The current version of Apple Writer Utilities (distributed with Apple Writer Version 2.0) doesn't crash your hard disk life at our house. When Apple announced the ProDOS version of Apple Writer //e, I immediately ordered the upgrade for Goodwife Bloom. As I hope you all know by know, SOS and ProDOS disk formats are identical. No conversion necessary. Now thApple II Pascal program to native mode. The upshot (PUFFIN ///) solved two problems. It ran safely under Catalyst, and its "catalog disk" option let Leslye see what file name she mis-spelled without leaving the ///. PUFFIN /// had a short useful things, check out my recent article ("Converting Apple II Pascal," ON THREE, Nov 1986, 6-7,18). Suffice it to say that Apple /// Pascal will easily read an Apple II Pascal disk and that it doesn't take much programming savvy to convert an led to my second venture into II-/// conversions, converting Apple II Pascal programs to Apple /// native mode. Tom Woteki's public domain PUFFIN reads a DOS 3.3 disk file and writes it out as a text file. If you're interested in such, which is the hard disk under Catalyst. It wrote a DOS 3.3 file right over the ProFile directory. It did not help my mood that this happened before Apple provided Backup ///. I had to re-build the contents of the ProFile from scratch. Thistilities under my brand new Catalyst. The first time it converted an Apple /// file to Apple II format, it clobbered my hard disk. Seems it was insincere about telling you to put the Apple II disk in the "built-in" drive. It meant the "boot" drivenment value to watching your wife mistype a file name, have to run back to the //e and catalog the disk to see what she should have typed, run back to the /// and do the same thing again. Things got less entertaining when I installed Apple Writer Uities, popped into emulation, and EXEC'd it into Applesoft BASIC. I told LHGR to do its thing on one of Leslye's pretty pictures, then converted LHGR's output DOS 3.3 text file into SOS (again with Apple Writer Utilities). How's that for "II and fro," folks? While I used Apple Writer Utilities in native mode for that II-/// connection, I could have taken my downloaded SOS Ascifile over to Leslye's //e and let ProDOS Utilities do all the conversions. I could also have read the downloaded Ascie MLM Utilities package was reviewed by Banks Doggett in TAU Tales (Dec 86 and Mar 87). 3-1. NOBLANK is an Apple /// Pascal program that ensures no null lines exist in a file to be transferred. It is a program I wrote that I've not documented or pac by data name) should allow the MLM user to convert his or her MLM file to a more powerful data base management system. TAU sells it as Royalty Disk 510. It is part of the six-program MLM Utilities package, Royalty Disks 515-517. Thbmitted a related article to 3Mag. It may be published Real Soon Now. Send me a SASE for your very own copy of the article. 2-4. MLMASCI converts an MLM file into one of three export formats. One of those formats (DIF, data value, value precededy been disseminated via publication in Volume 2, Number 8 (Aug/Sep 86) of The /// Magazine. 2-3. CONPATH is a program for finding conversion paths between the data base you have and the data base you want. TAU sells it as Royalty Disk 531. I suEnvelope, business size) for a copy of the review. 2-2. REFORMATTER converts a data table or card-image flat file into either QuickFile (3EZ Pieces DB) or DIF files. Pair Software sells it as Item Number 5414. My review of REFORMATTER has alreadTN: New Orders, 3201 Murchison Way, Carmichael, CA 95608, 916-485-6525 for VISA/NC orders) sells it as item number 5410. I've submitted a review of the program to 3Mag. It may be published Real Soon Now. Send me a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped t of the products I've mentioned, sequenced by order of mention within column number. 2-1. GRABIT converts an ASCII text file to QuickFile (3EZ Pieces DB) format. TAU sells it as PDS Disk 020. The /// Magazine's business arm (Pair Software, ATthis column. Shame on me. It was purely an oversight. I have no wish to lord over you with secret knowledge that makes me seem brighter than I am. Let's devote this column to correcting the situation. I hope the following is a comprehensive lis GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 7: Interfacing Resources John Broussard of Kapaau, Hawaii, gently slapped my paddy for not telling y'all about how to get the toys and goodies I've mentioned in r 96 lines of the rightmost 61 columns. A masochist can join the halves with any handy editor. I wrote a mindless little program (LHGRJOIN) to do it automatically.a foible. An Apple II hi-res file digitizes into a 140-column by 96-line text file. LHGR was designed for 80-column file transmission, so its output is in two parts -- 96 lines of the first 79 columns of the picture followed by anothefile into the Pascal editor, converted it to a Pascal text file, saved it to an Apple II Pascal disk, then used Huffin on the //e to convert it into a DOS 3.3 file. There are plenty of ways to skin that particular cat. If you want to use LHGR, note kaged for release as PDS ware. If you want a copy, send me a blank disk and SASM (Self Addressed Stamped Mailer, with 2 oz postage) -- or five bucks. 3-2. KERMIT is a family of error-free file transfer programs named after the frog. There is a generic UCSD Pascal KERMIT program that runs in Apple /// native mode. This is the KERMIT /// that Pair Software sells as Item Number 5304. I sent a copy to TAU's PDS library. 3-3. The PC-DISK 400 unit and PC-COPY program let an Apple /// read and wri GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 8: Wire Transfers In Number 3 of this series (Me and You and Baby Blue), I gave rather short shrift to direct RS232 communications between micro-computers.f the rightmost 61 columns. I wrote LHGRJOIN to join the parts. Both programs will soon be on a disk in the TAU public domain library.format. I got it from CompuServe's now defunct ARTSIG forum. An Apple II hi-res file digitizes into a 140-column by 96-line text file. LHGR's output is in two parts -- 96 lines of the first 79 columns of the picture followed by another 96 lines o utilities (Apple IIe, etc) converts between ProDOS(SOS) and DOS 3.3 files. Apple dealers sell it as part of the ProDOS system. 6-5. LHGR (Apple II, Applesoft BASIC) converts Apple II hi-res graphics files to digitized pictures in DOS 3.3 text file roup ($25 per year, $7 initiation). It has an active ///-SIG headed by Dave Ottalini. 6-3. HUFFIN (Applesoft BASIC), a mirror of PUFFIN, converts Pascal text files to DOS 3.3 format. It's in "All About Pascal." WAP sells it on disk V132. 6-4. ProDOS P.L.E. In Depth, All About Pascal. It is available to A.P.P.L.E. members only. I think A.P.P.L.E. is out of business. Washington Apple Pi (8227 Woodmont Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814) sells PUFFIN on Pascal II disk PG8 to members. WAP is a user gout as a text file. Its "catalog disk" option let's you see what files are on the DOS disk -- an improvement over Apple Writer Utilities. I converted it to Pascal /// ("Converting Apple II Pascal," ON THREE, Nov 1986, 6-7,18). PUFFIN is in Call-A.P. 3.3 disk. The current version of Apple Writer Utilities (distributed with Apple Writer Version 2.0) doesn't crash your hard disk when invoked under Catalyst. 6-2. Tom Woteki's public domain PUFFIN reads a DOS 3.3 disk file and writes it ported" ASCII file. It is a program I wrote that I've not documented or packaged for release as PDS ware. If you want a copy, send me a blank disk and SASM -- or five bucks. 6-1. Apple Writer /// utilities reads ASCII files to, and writes from, a DOSve not documented or packaged for release as PDS ware. If you want a copy, send me a blank disk and SASM -- or five bucks. 5-3 ASCIAW brings an ASCII text file into Apple Writer. It is a semi-automatic program to edit out extraneous CR's from an "imkaged for release as PDS ware. Nobody's been interested in distributing it. If you want a copy, send me a blank disk and SASM -- or five bucks. 5-2 WSTEXT (IBM PC program) converts a WordStar file to an ASCII text file. It is a program I wrote that I'for correct ASCII uploads into other data base packages. TAU sells it as PDS Disk 078. 5-1 AWSCRIPT converts an Apple Writer file into Waterloo Script word processor format (IBM VM/CMS). It is a program I wrote that I've documented and pacMagazine. DA has since updated the PC-COPY software several times. The updates have answered most of the concerns I noted in the review. 4-1 NVASCI converts NAME:VALUE format file into an ASCII text file with one line per source-file record field te PC-DOS files on 5-1/4 inch floppy disks. PC-DISK is also a 360K SOS drive. The system is available from DA DataSystems, 3792 Windover Drive, Hamburg, NY 14075, 716-648-2462. I reviewed the package in Volume 2, Number 8 (Sep/Oct 86) of The /// It had something to do with never being at my home Apple /// and at my office PC at the same time. However, I now have an Apple /// in my office. Since I depend on this beast, I've been building a store of spare components. If a piece fails, thought it was going to a printer, and it had no error-free transmission protocol. Higher speed might have dropped a few bits more than were dropped. Setting Access ///'s recording buffer small (say 20 blocks) kept glitches minimal. Writing frommatted document shot out the COM1 serial port through the connector to the ///'s serial port, appeared on the Apple /// console, and was captured on disk. Since this was unregulated file transmission, I kept the speed to 1200 baud. The PC program . First use MODE to initialize COMx, then use it to re-direct LPTRx to COMx. Marvelous, yes? I invoked Access /// and set it to "record" a disk file. Then I spun the swivel chair to the PC and invoked the document printing program. The forer to print the stuff. I asked local PC experts (I'm not one) if printer output could be re-directed to a disk file. They were unanimous. No way. Into the DOS manual. Aha! The MODE command will re-direct printer output to the communications portmanuals intelligible. It prints to the console screen or to the printer. Period. No way to print to disk and ship the formatted file to the mainframe for fast and pretty printing. Even at draft speed, my little Epson would take two days shy of forevPC programs often cannot "print" to disk. My most recent toe-stub in that area was with some program documentation. The manuals, some three inches worth of paper, are scrunched and encoded on two disks. There is a supplied program that makes the p. Learning to use any is dear. I am not about to give a lesson in data communications here. It can't be done in two pages. What I am going to do is give you an example of direct RS232 inter-machine connections. You might get some ideas out of it. familiar with -- and using -- data communication on each machine. If the "other" computer doesn't have a serial port, and your Basic Blue PC doesn't, you'll spend a hundred or more just for the card. Datacomm programs may or may not come cheats me directly read from and write to MS-DOS disks. However, direct connect file transfer is slower, more awkward, potentially more error prone, and more difficult to use than PC-COPY. You gets what you pays for. I'm assuming here you're already end of the modem eliminator into the ///'s serial port. I also already had several data communications programs for each machine. No marginal cost. Direct connection is bunches cheaper than the "PC-Disk/PC-COPY" setup I have at home that le modem. I already had a modem eliminator cable from back when I ran my printer through the ///'s serial port. All it took was pulling the cable from the PC's modem, plugging it into the female end of the modem eliminator, and plugging the male I really could be at both machines at once, direct RS232 communications became a viable method of inter-machine file transfer. Direct RS232 hookup is definitely the "poor man's" method of data transfer. My PC already had a serial card wired to a I can swap it out and not miss a beat while the deader is getting fixed. Those spares eventually added up to a complete system, so I set it up at the office. The first thing I did was connect the /// and the PC serial ports together. Since the large buffer to even hard disk took too long for the PC program. It started sending before Access /// was ready. I sent the formatted print files back to the PC the way they came -- over the wire. Not wishing any further bit dropping, I opted for error-free transmission. Access /// doesn't have that feature. I fired up Xmodem /// on the Apple and ProComm on the PC, set ProComm to "receive Xmodem" and wheeled over to tell Xmodem /// to transmit. The result was junk. All the blaing PFS and Apple Writer data files with Apple Writer documents. MERGE /// is a bridge between data bases and documents, a process more commonly called "mail merge" or "form letter" production. Forsythe Computers is no longer around, but MERGE /// is now in England) reminded me that there are "bridges" in the word processor world, too. John wondered if his PFS data might somehow be incorporated into an Apple Writer form letter. The "Apple /// Resource Guide" says MERGE /// (Forsythe Computers) allows merg GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 9: Mail Call I've talked about "bridge programs" before, in the context of transferring files between data bases and spreadsheets. John Figes of London (the real one,for the program and printed documentation. Xmodem /// is sold by Pair Software (1-800-541-0900) as item 5305 for $61.95.f you can't find PC-DOS KERMIT, send me $10 for the program and manual. ProComm is a shareware communications program from Datastorm Technologies, PO Box 1471, Columbia MO 65205. Send $10 for the program, $35 for the program and on-disk manual, or $50 $495. Call ALF's Bryce Morris at 1-800-321-4668. I hear ALF is discontinuing the product. Call fast. KERMIT is a family of public domain programs implementing an error-free file transfer protocol for a variety of computers. TAU sells KERMIT ///. ICOPY program were available from DA DataSystems, 3792 Windover Drive, Hamburg, NY 14075, 716-648-2462. DA is now selling only the software (device driver and PC-COPY program). The "DC3-SDU" 400K disk drive may be available from ALF Products for Mentioned Modem eliminators, also called null modems, are widely available. Radio Shack has Part Number 26-1496 for $17. You MUST have a modem eliminator to connect two RS232 ports. Unless you want to buy TWO modems. The PC-DISK 400 unit and PC-h. The transmission was slow (KERMIT /// runs at maybe 300 actual baud, no matter the port speed), but it was perfect. My 3270-PC's file transfer program zapped the files to the mainframe for printing. Products emulates a Z-19 terminal so I can use full-screen 3270 emulation on the mainframe, and it has a modest setup and "hot key" macro capability. I invoked PC KERMIT and told it to receive a manual, told KERMIT /// to send it, and went to luncnk lines had been removed. I don't know which program provided that feature. I switched to KERMIT. The available Apple /// KERMIT is slower coming than Christmas. PC-DOS KERMIT, on the other hand, is one of my favorite programs. It is fast, it in the public domain. You can find it on Ed Gooding's "///'s Company" bulletin board in the section on WPL programming. MERGE /// is also available from TAU's Public Domain Library. MERGE /// consists of three WPL programs. Two of them are file conversion bridges. One converts a NAME:VALUE file -- like PFS "prints" to disk with the PRINT ITEM NAMES option -- to a special mail/merge format. The other bridge program does the same for "one line per field" ASCII text files. Note that MERGE /// is not at all sphe Apple /// Resource Guide is available for $15 ($3 S&H) from ON THREE, Order Department, PO Box 3825, Ventura CA 93006, 800-443-8877. The "///'s Company" bulletin board is a superb Apple /// resource. It is a no-fee service run by Ed Gooding of Richmondt files with the super-long labels that some folks are fond of. It leaves out files with multi-line data like John Figes has. MERGE /// takes only the first line of any field with several lines of text. Products Mentioned Tnted it, and sent it to TAU. MERGE /// also has a quirk or two. As with MAILLIST, each letter starts a bit lower on each page unless you pre-set "top margin" to zero. MERGE /// requires that a PFS "label and value" not exceed 80 characters. That leaves ouy efficient, but it is an improvement over MAILLIST. I fixed the problems, made the program a bit less user hostile, and even allowed using a special Print/Program file to specially format each form letter. I called the modified program MLMFORM.WPL, documethe form letter and the MLM data file be on the same disk and that they be named MLMLETTER and MLMDATA. MAILLIST is flawed. And it is rude. I screwed my courage to the sticking point and broke out the WPL manual. The result of my efforts is not marvelouslt form letter overprints the first line if the form letter doesn't start with a blank line. MAILLIST gives you extraneous blank lines before and after each reference to the "mailing label" or "complete record" part of an MLM record. MAILLIST requires that equirements. The MAILLIST program is a bit of a dog. It only references 11 of MLM's 12 data fields. Each form letter starts a few lines further down the page than does its predecessor unless you preset the "top margin" at zero. The second line of the firsect version of Apple Writer Utilities, adding other features after finding that Version 2.0 of Apple Writer Utilities had been corrected. Interestingly, the other output options of MLMASCI (NAME:VALUE and ASCII text formats) fit right in with MERGE ///'s rersion of Apple Writer Utilities didn't understand about MLM's "index" file, so it got the wrong MLM records (included deletions, missed good records) and paid no attention to the MLM sort sequence. It was flat useless. I originally wrote MLMASCI as a corrocuments. It's similar to MERGE ///, but it only works with Mail List Manager files, the MLM file doesn't have to be "printed to disk" first, and the mail/merge file formats are different. The Apple Writer - MLM system has a checkered history. The first vlso converts a Mail List Manager file directly into a special format mail/merge file for creating Apple Writer form letters. The distribution disks also have a WPL program (MAILLIST) that merges data from the converted MLM file into Apple Writer template dh Word Juggler, so I'll say no more. The Apple Writer distribution disks have a bridge program called Apple Writer Utilities. I've mentioned that Apple Writer Utilities converts ASCII text files between SOS (ProDOS) and Apple II DOS 3.3 disk formats. It aERGE /// is certainly not the only way of producing form letters with your Apple ///. A Word Juggler accessory (Mail List Manager Interface) converts an MLM file directly into WJ's own special format file for merging with WJ documents. I'm not familiar witecific to PFS. Any number of data base and spread sheet systems can export a NAME:VALUE or ASCII text file. The third MERGE /// program actually creates form letters, from the special mail/merge format files and from an Apple Writer "template" document. M, Virginia. Have your modem call 804-747-8752 (7 bits, odd or even parity, full duplex) and press RETURN when you connect. Be prepared for a treat. All kinds of good stuff on that board. MLMFORM.WPL is a corrected version of the MAILLIST program that comes with Apple Writer. Until TAU offers the program, get it from me for ten bucks. MLMASCI converts a Mail List Manager file into one of three formats -- Apple Writer mail/merge, ASCII text, and NAME:VALUE. It is part of the six-program MLM Utilities system hard disk. However, that wasn't the end of the trip. The data still had to be converted into a form that Aladin could import. The subfiles were still in MS-DOS text file format, with each line terminated by both a carriage return and a line feed, and witMS-DOS diskettes. One file transfer step left. I took the MS-DOS disks to my /// and used Daryl Anderson's PC-COPY program to transfer the files from my PC-Disk 400 to the CMC hard disk as SOS files. The data had travelled from mainframe tape to Apple ///. Once the subfiles made it to CMS, the 3270-PC file transfer facility took over. That facility consists of a mainframe and a PC program that combine to blast files between the units. Even at that high speed, it took an hour to transfer the data onto six S disk. The mainframe utility program PRNTCOPY cut up the file into six subfiles of about 5,000 records each. Another mainframe utility (LISTCD) extracted the fields of interest into the equivalent of an ASCII text file and transmitted the result to VM/CMSta base. Each tape record contained six fields of interest, but those data were to be uploaded into existing 34-field Aladin data base records. The data of interest used some 70 characters of each tape record. It all wouldn't fit on one 360 kilobyte MS-DOith fields defined by start and end positions within each record. Aladin can only import ASCII text files, with one datum per line. Aladin for the Apple /// has a quirk. Each field of the text file must be exactly the length defined for it in the Aladin da PC's disk drive can take it. From there it is straightforward to copy the disks from my PC-Disk 400 to the client's CMC drive. The logical part of the trip was no more straightforward. The tape data were in a "flat file" of 32,000 fixed length records, w part (VM/CMS) of our computing center. From VM, I could have directly downloaded the data into the Apple /// over phone lines, but not in this life. My 3270-PC is hard wired to the mainframe by coax cable, and I can transfer data error free as fast as theugh another 3090 mainframe running VM/CMS, and passed through an IBM 3270-PC before getting to the Apple ///'s CMC-20. The trip had to start on the MVS side of the mainframe. My Apple /// doesn't have an attached tape drive. Neither does the communicatingme to get to an Aladin data base on a CMC 20-megabyte hard disk from a 1600-bpi EBCDIC-encoded 9-track 2,000-foot reel of magnetic tape. Just the physical part of that trip was a bit convoluted. It started on an IBM 3090 MVS/XA system, skipped lightly thro GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 10: Putting It All Together This column is a story about the farthest "there" I've ever reached from a given "here" in the world of data conversion. A client recently asked TAU sells as Royaltyware Disks 515-517 for $43.50. h the whole file terminated by a CONTROL-Z. An Apple /// ASCII file has only a carriage return at the end of each line, and it is terminated by hexadecimal zeros. PC-COPY has a utility program that strips line feeds from an imported MS-DOS text file, but it is no speed merchant. Worse, the program does not strip the trailing CONTROL-Z, giving the processed file one more line than it should -- a fatal error when importing an ASCII file defined by the number of lines per record. Further, only six fields wereabout DIF files. While targeted to the way /// Easy Pieces handles DIF file import and export, the article also provided a good general introduction to the DIF standard, and I won't repeat it here. Although DIF is a standard, that standard can be honored  is a text (human readable) format, files can even be transferred between different computers and operating systems. Those of you with good memories and better records will recall an article I wrote in the November 1986 TAU Tales (Vol 5, No 2, Pages 7-10) GETTING THERE FROM HERE Number 11: DIF-ferences DIF (Data Interchange Format) is a standard file format for data interchange between disparate data base management and spreadsheet programs. Since DIFiscontinuing the product. Call fast. PRNTCOPY is a PL/1 program that prints or copies selected parts of an arbitrary file based on counts, table lookup, or file matching. It's free. Contact me. Windover Drive, Hamburg, NY 14075, 716-648-2462. DA is now selling only the software (device driver and PC-COPY program). The "DC3-SDU" 400K disk drive may be available from ALF Products for $495. Call ALF's Bryce Morris at 1-800-321-4668. I hear ALF is ded data fields from an arbitrary file. A listing to disk with all output fields starting in column 1 is structurally equivalent to an ASCII text file. It's free. Contact me. The PC-DISK 400 unit and PC-COPY program were available from DA DataSystems, 3792, CA 916-381-8334, $795. ASCIAL is a copyrighted AMB program. It can be available as is or modified for other use. Contact me. CMC (Charlie McConathy) is no longer selling Apple /// hard disks. LISTCD, a PL/1 program by my favorite author, lists specifiere was complete. I hope you enjoyed the travelogue. More, I hope this story gives you some ideas for new and different ways of getting there from here. Products Mentioned ALADIN, ADI America, 8001 Fruitridge Rd, Sacramentolength in specified sequence. After passing the six-field-per-record MS-DOS formatted text file through ASCIAL to create a 34-field-per-record SOS formatted ASCII text file, Aladin's file import facility could be directly invoked. The trip from here to the is in MS-DOS or SOS format. Its general purpose command file selects any field from the input ASCII file, fixes its length to the desired value, and outputs it in whatever sequence the Aladin record expects. It will also create blank fields of specified din record was defined. I had to write a program. Watch the client grind his molars while my meter is ticking away. I'm rather pleased with ASCIAL. It will create any Aladin upload file from any ASCII text file. It is insensitive to whether that ASCII fil extracted from the tape, and they were to be imported into existing 34-field Aladin records. To handle the quirk in the Apple /// version of Aladin, each of those imported fields had to be padded or lopped to the field length specified for it when the Alamore in the breach than in the observance. I mentioned in the November article that /// Easy Pieces can import a standard DIF file only if the numeric fields are in decimal format. It accepts "35.38" but ignores the equally valid "3.538E01" exponential form that is produced by programs like Lotus 1-2-3. EZP doesn't even have the courtesy to crash when it sees an E-format numeric value. It just puts ZERO in the cell. In the article I suggested that such indigestible DIF files be imported into VisiCalc (which/ SOS format ASCII text file. Depending on how the file was transferred from the other system, those differences might remain in the imported file. If I read an MS-DOS text file directly into my ///, or if I use XModem protocol in a wire transfer, the resuPD library. While I was putting everything in a single program, I decided to address file format incompatibilities, too. There is no standard for text files across different operating systems. An MS-DOS ASCII text file is subtly different from an Apple //ife in MS-DOS. Since I prefer to work with the Apple ///, I brought it over to SOS. Since it was mostly developed at the expense of the long suffering taxpayers in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I've released it to the public domain as an addition to TAU's rams that handle quirky DIF files. While preparing a presentation on data sharing recently, I decided that things would be a bit more impressive if I combined everything into a single program. Since I must live in a sea of Baby Blue, that program started l I'm betwixt and between a lot. If a colleague has data of interest in a SuperCalc spreadsheet, I'd best be able to convert an SDI file to standard DIF if I want to use it in Lotus 1-2-3 without retyping. Over the years I've accumulated several little progwhich program choked at not seeing the EOD group. I remember being embarrassed. A program that is indifferent to receiving an EOD group could well not produce one when writing a DIF file. That omission could be fatal. As I said when I started this series,he EOD trailer. This deviation from standard is more subtle than SuperCalc's omission of the "unnecessary" information in the header. I forgot an EOD group once, in a program that wrote a DIF file, and it was two years before the error burned me. I forget grammers prevents most other programs from importing an SDI/SDF file. Like VECTORS and TUPLES, the EOD group is unnecessary. A program can determine when it runs out of stuff to read. As a result of that thinking, some programs create a DIF file without t section. SDI's earlier incarnation, SDF, has the same quirk. The DIF standard calls for an importing program to know what it is getting, and almost every program counts on having that information. That brilliant labor saving observation of SuperCalc's pro meaning spreadsheet rows) and tuples (columns) are represented in the DIF file, so they saved bother by ignoring those two header groups. SuperCalc exports an SDI (Super Data Interchange) file that lacks VECTORS and TUPLES information in the file's headerramming languages around that don't know about end-of-file indicators and some operating systems that require pre-allocating space for output data sets. The folks who wrote SuperCalc noted that a program can certainly figure out how many vectors (usuallyany vectors and tuples to expect so those numbers could be checked against how many were actually received. They specified an EOD group for an affirmative indication that all the stuff that was sent was actually received. Besides, there are still some prog required -- TABLE, VECTORS, TUPLES, and DATA. The DIF standard also calls for a two-line EOD (end of data) group at the end of each file. The folks who wrote the DIF standard were belt-and-suspenders types. They wanted the importing program to know how m knows about E-format) before being read into EZP. I've a superior suggestion. Read on. EZP is not the only program that does strange things to the DIF standard. The DIF standard admits to several extensions in the file header section, but four groups arelt is still in MS-DOS text file format. The subtle differences in source file structure most often are utterly incomprehensible to an importing program. That single program (I call it DIFUTIL for "DIF File Utility") deals with all the above mentioned incompatibilities and creates a standard DIF file that any "DIF importing" program can read successfully. When DIFUTIL encounters an SDI/SDF file, it creates the header entries required by the DIF standard. It creates an EOD trailer segment if one is missing iwill select any fields from an ASCII file and output them in any order for uploading into another data base or spreadsheet. It will even create import fields that don't exist in the original file. The output file fields can be either fixed or variable lened ASCIAL, a rather specialized program that creates an upload file for the Aladin data base program from a general ASCII text file. A couple hours fiddling last month turned it into a general purpose ASCII upload program. Its new incarnation, ASCIUPLD, ublic domain. If you're interested in getting there from here, I suggest you give CONPATH a try. I've also mentioned the second program I'm offering to TAU's PDS library. If your memory stretches as far back as October, you may recall the program I call of file-to-file conversions. It tells you one or more ways you can get from a file format you have to a file format you want without programming, using various bridge programs and program bridges. CONPATH had been TAU Royalty ware. I release it to the pincense and myrrh. Just three bridge programs that you might find useful. I've mentioned the CONPATH program several times in this column. While it doesn't actually do any file conversions, it is conceivably the most generally useful program in the area aside his curmudgeonly image and play Santa Claus in this column. While I've never really understood the concept, I'm told it is more blessed to give than to receive. In that spirit, I present the /// community with three gifts. Sorry, no gold and frank Getting There From Here Number 12: Christmas Bridges This is the twelfth in this series of columns, and the twelfth month of the year. With that serendipitous symmetry, I think it would be appropriate for Uncle Al, The Kiddies' Pal, to set resting. Interesting problems keep me going.verts one of two acceptable standard forms for those importing programs that do not recognize both forms. In a perfect world we wouldn't have need for such programs, I suppose. On the other hand, in a perfect world I wouldn't have a job that's half as inteU's usual ridiculously low price. DIFUTIL is a kind of "bridge" program that I haven't mentioned before -- one that standardizes a file structure that is itself a supposedly standardized bridge between programs. In the case of numeric entries, it also conuy and learn VisiCalc to launder a DIF file with E-format numbers before importing into EZP. If you can type an input and an output pathname and press "Y" in response to the "Convert E-format?" question, you can create an EZP-digestible DIF file. And at TAn the source file. It optionally converts E-format numeric entries to decimal format. It is immune to whether the original file is in PC/MS-DOS or SOS/ProDOS ASCII text format. With DIFUTIL in the public domain, the /// Easy Pieces owner doesn't need to bgth. ASCIUPLD is extremely handy should you have an ASCII file (maybe received from someone else) that contains just some data that you'd like to use in your favorite spread sheet or data base, that isn't in the proper order for importing, or that has some missing fields that you'd enter manually later. I've already been paid for most of the development work, so I'd feel bad about charging again for it. The third program in my gift bag is of more limited interest, and it isn't in the public domain, but itTEXT 5, 7 XMODEM 8, 11 4, 7 PC COPY 3, 7, 10 PFS 1, 2, 4, 9 PRNTCOPY 10 PROCOMM 8 QUICKFILE 2, 7 REFORMATTER 2, 6, 7 SDF/SDI 11 SUPERCALC 11 VISICALC 2, 3, 11 WORD JUGGLER 9 WORDSTAR 1, 5, 7 WPL 9 WS, 7 HUFFIN 6, 7 LHGR 6, 7 LHGRJOIN 6, 7 LISTCD 10 LPTRX 8 MAILLIST 9 MLMASCI 2, 7, 9 MLMDATA 9 MLMFORM 9 MLMLETTER 9 MLMUPLD 12 MULTIPLAN 2 NOBLANK 3, 7 NVASCI 3EZ PIECES 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11 ALADIN 10, 12 ASCIAL 10, 12 ASCIAW 7 ASCIUPLD 12 AWSCRIPT 5, 7 BPI 10 CONPATH 2, 7, 12 DBASE 2 DIF 2, 5, 7, 11, 12 DIFUTIL 11 GRABIT 2short fields, so ZIP Codes and state abbreviations aren't lost or mangled, but it is otherwise pretty draconian. That's probably the deep down reason I'm not charging extra for it. - 30 -ited, so it is very likely that at least some of an upload file's data would overflow the available space in an MLM record. MLMUPLD forces the newly created records to obey MLM's rules, so it is rather procrustean in lopping excess length. It doesn't lop Now. UPLD is far from a panacea, and it can be a little frustrating. A Mail List Manager record can hold no more than 40 characters in a mailing record line, and the whole record can be no longer than 105 characters. Lots of mailing lists are not so lim in one of three formats -- ASCII text, Name:Value, and DIF. The program is in user testing now, by ace system crasher Banks Doggett and by Marlin (That'll teach him not to make suggestions), and should be ready for foisting on the larger world Real Soon ager file, but I didn't have one that would import a file into Mail List Manager. My response, that the question hadn't really come up before, sounded awful weak even to me, so I wrote MLMUPLD. MLMUPLD creates a Mail List Manager file from an upload file's still free. I've added a seventh program to the MLM Utilities system that rounds out the package and that will not increase its $40.50 selling price. The University of Colorado's Marlin Cohrs asked why I had a program that would export a Mail List Man