                                                       Release date 1-11-99
                         Polynomial Program Readme

About this program:

The explanation screen in this program should be sufficient to explain how to
use it.  This is, basically, a polynomial calculator program: you can add,
subtract, multiply and divide two polynomials.  You can also raise a
polynomial to a power, and substitute a polynomial into another. You can find
the value, derivative, integral, save the polynomials to a file, load the
polynomials from a file, export them to a file that other programs can use
and input a polynomial by specifying its roots, and by generating a random
polynomial.  You are limited to a polynomial of degree 50.

Why does this program exist:

This is a program that I wrote long ago on the Apple IIe.  At the time I
didn't have the money to buy a math program that would manipulate polynomials
(I was just a kid), so I decided to write one of my own. I have been busy
porting it over and expanding to it significantly to a PC compatible format
off and on during the last few months.

Even though this program is an anachronism, I decided to port it over because,
in my experience, most math programs on graphical OSs you can't get to do
much very easily.  When you do get these programs to do something, they are
usually very slow and cumbersome.  With this program, you don't have to do
much for it to do something, and when it computes something, it is usually
instantaneous (at least on a 486).  This is of course coming from someone who
is of the school that bigger, bulkier, slower, clumsier should not be the
wave of the future for programs, even though at the present time, it is.

Who contributed to this program:

The user input routines and the menu routines are from code provided by my
roommate:  William Black.  Please see his website at: 
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/5508/index.html

How to install this program:

Just unzip the poly04.zip archive file in an empty directory and type poly04.
Important:  The file: polymenu.dat must reside in the same directory that the
program poly04.bas is in.  If the .dat file is not the same directory then
the poly04.bas program will return a file not found error.  The program
qbasic.exe must be in the path or the poly04.bas file will not be able to run.


What's new with release 0.4:

1)  A listing of what locations in memory are occupied was added in the top
    right hand side of the screen.
2)  There is now an automatic and manual mode for displaying polynomials in
    memory.
3)  There is a nice preview of how graphing polynomials will work in the
    future.  The routine to specify what polynomials need to be graphed hasn't
    been implimented yet.

What's next:

In future releases I will fully implement graphing polynomials, and finding
roots using a multiplicity of methods.

My apologies to anyone who has followed this program with how long it has
taken me to improve its functionality.  On 1-11-99 I recieved an email from
Matthias Hofer <mhofer@radon.mat.univie.ac.at> who asked if he can distribute
my program on a CD he is compiling, and asked if there was an update.  This
is it ass I have it now.  It's not as functinal as I wish it to be, but it is
an update nonetheless.


This program is covered under the GNU general public license.  Please see the
site:

http://dutlls1.lr.tudelft.nl/support/teTeX/generic/xypic/xyguide-html/COPYING/index.html

for more information.  In summary anyone can distribute this program as long
as it is distributed unmodified and with its source code included.

Please E-Mail me the description of any errors or bugs you find in using
this program, hopefully it will prove useful to some.
Contact Chris Katscher at schmong@primenet.com.

This zip file should contain the following files:

Name              Size   Description
file_id.diz        281   A short description of the program
poly04.bas     103,029   The polynomial program source
polymenu.dat     1,763   The polynomial program menu data file
readme.txt       4,594   This file, the program information file
poly.bat            24   The batch program to launch the source code from qbasic.exe
polydev.bat         22   The batch program I use to launch poly.bat inot 50 row mode.
save0001.pol       219   A sample .pol file
save0002.pol       714   Another sample .pol file
save0003.pol     1,366   Yet another sample .pol file
save0010.pol    14,177   And yet another sample .pol file
