                                Test Your DOS IQ

                      You, Too, Might Be A Computer Guru!


A lot of people think they know DOS pretty well. Here's a chance to see how
close you really are to being a guru. (Questions are based on the features of
unenhanced, unmodified DOS 3.3, although they should be valid for all recent
versions of DOS. Answers are listed further on in the newsletter.)


1. REN will rename a file name but not a subdirectory name. T___ F___


2. The maximum number of files allowed in the root directory of a 360k disk is
a) 64
b) 112
c) 128
d) limited only by disk space


3. The maximum number of files in a subdirectory of a 360k disk is
a) 64
b) 128
c) 256
d) limited only by disk space


4. DRIVER.SYS is required in your CONFIG.SYS file in order to use a 1.44meg
floppy drive. T___ F___


5. The batch command IF %1 <<>> C: tests to make sure that "C:" was not the
first parameter entered on the DOS command line when invoking the batch file.
T___ F___


6. The APPEND command
a) lets you run programs not in the current directory;
b) lets programs find data files that are not in the current directory;
c) lets you join one file to the end of another.
d) lets you "append" a directory to a drive letter so that DIR C: would actually
show the contents of the specified directory.


7. SUBST can be used as an alternative to the ASSIGN command. T___ F___


8. FASTOPEN speeds up disk access simply by keeping track of where frequently
used files and directories are located. T___ F___


9. If you enter CHKDSK A: and lost clusters are found, you can elect to either
save them to one or more files or delete them. T___ F___


10. If a directory has 80 files in it, which of these commands will let you see
each of the file names before they scroll off the screen?
a) DIR /W
b) DIR /P
c) DIR | MORE
d) None of the above.


11. The command COPY ?? will copy only files that have exactly two characters in
the name. T___ F___


12. The command XCOPY *.* D: /S copies the current directory and all of its
subdirectories to drive D:. T___ F___


13. The following batch file command will backup the file AVG%INCR.WKS to the
directory C:\BAKUP.
                IF EXIST AVG%INCR.WKS COPY AVG%INCR.WKS C:\BAKUP
T___ F___


14. The maximum number of command line parameters you can pass to a batch file
(without using the SHIFT command) is
a) ten - %0 through %9
b) nine - %1 through %9
c) 255 - %1 through %255
d) none of the above


15. What is the maximum number of characters that can be typed on the DOS
command line?
a) 255
b) 255, less the length of the DOS prompt string.
c) 127
d) 127, less the length of the DOS prompt string.
e) unlimited



                 And Now For Something Completely Different...

The two hottest hardware items right now seem to be lightweight laptop computers
and cheap 386's. Since you can read about those in any magazine, let's talk
about something different - a very inexpensive "lunchbox"-shaped portable
computer, a relatively inexpensive 486 from Silicon Valley Computer, and a 386
with 14 slots and 10 drive bays.


The Lunchbox
------------
The "lunchbox" is a portable computer that gets its nickname from its shape. At
20-25 pounds, it is somewhat more luggable than the CRT-based "transportables"
like the Compaq, but still not a joy to carry.

The only reason anyone would choose a lunchbox over a laptop computer is that
the lunchbox generally has two or three free slots which will accept most
interface cards. Unlike a laptop, a lunchbox is not battery powered.

Lunchbox computers range from 286-12's with backlit CGA-compatible LCD displays
up to 386's with VGA compatible gas plasma displays. Lots of publications are
willing to tell you about (and sell you) the high-end machines (thumb through a
Computer Shopper), so we will stick to the low-end.

For $1350, you can get a 286-12 lunchbox with a fast 40 meg hard disk, 1.2 meg
or 1.44 meg drive, serial and parallel ports, floppy/hard disk controller (with
1:1 interleave), a meg of memory, three "free" slots and a padded carrying case.
Memory on the motherboard is upgradeable to 4 meg.

While there are three slots left open on the motherboard in this configuration -
two half-lengths and one full - one of them is pretty well blocked by the three
drive cables coming from the controller card, and the other half-length is a
tight squeeze. The full-length slot is easily accessible.

The supertwisted LCD with electroluminescent backlight provides a bright, sharp
display for text and CGA graphics. The video controller card will support
several types of external CRT displays: CGA, IBM Monochrome Display Adapter, or
Hercules compatible monitors.

We were most concerned about the keyboard, since unlike a desktop computer for
which you can easily get a replacement keyboard, you are pretty much stuck with
the one that comes with the lunchbox, but this one has a good touch - not mushy.
We had no trouble typing full-speed on it.

For someone who needs a low-cost portable computer with a couple of slots, this
generic lunchbox computer is a good choice. One of our staff members was
impressed enough to buy one for home use. PsL offers these for $1350 plus $20
shipping.

For those willing to spend more, a nice alternative is the (1-800-)PC-BRAND
lunchbox. A 286-12 with VGA Gas Plasma video and 40meg hard disk is $3000, but
that means you are paying a premium of $1650 to put nice video on a $1350
computer.

Another alterative for those who need a slot, but really want a laptop is Dell
Computer's laptop with a half-length slot.


The 486-25
----------
A couple of months ago, the rep from the company that prints PsL News was
waiting for the promised camera-ready copy while we tried to get some last
minute changes made on the cover. It took over 12 minutes just to load the cover
art into Corel Draw on a 386-25. A couple of times of moving between Corel Draw
and Ventura easily burned up most of an hour.

We decided right then that we had to have a faster machine. About that time, we
got an ad from Silicon Valley Computer. A bare-bones 486-25 was only $3800. For
about $1500 more, we got a package that included a 15ms 104meg hard disk, 8 meg
of memory, a 1.2meg floppy, 360k floppy and two 1.44meg floppies. The hard disk
and floppy controllers, as well as serial and parallel ports, are built into the
motherboard, but an additional controller card was required in order to have
four floppies, leaving seven slots free. We got the large tower to hold all the
drives plus an internal Bernoulli.

The first thing we tried was loading that same art work into Corel Draw. The
loading time dropped from over 12 minutes to less than 2 minutes. Of course, we
would be even happier had it dropped to less than 2 seconds, but this was still
the kind of speed improvement we were looking for.

We had lots of problems with the computer when we first got it. SVC's "tech
support" consisted of a gentleman who didn't know what a "TSR" is and a lady who
could not answer any question without putting us on hold while she asked someone
else. They sent us new ROM's overnight, which didn't help. We finally paid $60+
to ship the unit back, waited a week, instead of the promised two days, and
called to get some action. When we finally got it back, it performed well, but
not without some quirks (related mainly to the two extra drives).

A couple of devices that frequently do not work with higher (10 mhz) bus speeds,
a Bernoulli drive and a Sound Blaster card, worked with no difficulty. We ran
Ventura, Windows-386, QEMM, and DESQview. SVC also claims compatibility with
Xenix, Unix, Novell, Pick and Concurrent DOS.

The computer has a Landmark speed rating of 114 mhz (for whatever that is worth)
versus 55 mhz for a 386-33 that PsL associate Baine Brimberry recently put
together for well under $2000. If that speed difference is worth the price
difference and aggravation over its quirks, Silicon Valley Computer's phone
number is 408-453-8837.



                                Retail Products

MS Windows 3.0
--------------
                 PsL Price: $95.95. Cash Discount Price: $91.95
On the off chance that PsL News is the only computer publication you read, here
is what all the others are saying: "MS Windows 3.0 will save the world. Get it
quick." Be sure to see new Windows 3.0 programs and files in the New Programs
sections (both Large and Small) this month.



Floppy Controllers
------------------
            2-Drive: PsL Price: $31.95. Cash Discount Price: $29.95
            4-Drive: PsL Price: $46.95. Cash Discount Price: $44.95
We neglected to mention the obvious in last month's introduction of our
inexpensive 1.44meg drive: if your computer pre-dates the advent of 1.44 meg
drives, your floppy controller will not recognize the drive and you will need a
new floppy controller.

These controllers support all floppy drive types (360k, 720k, 1.2meg, 1.4meg).
If you have enough empty drive bays, you could have up to four floppy drives
with the four-drive controller. In my machine, I have a 1.2meg, a 360k (because
some other drives have trouble reading a 360k disk that was created on a 1.2meg
drive), and two 1.44meg drives, which makes for easy disk copying.

Check your machine before ordering. These controllers are supposed to replace
your existing one. If your hard disk is connected to the same controller card as
your floppy drive(s), you CANNOT put in a new floppy controller.



Certificate Maker
-----------------
        List Price: $50. PsL Price: $25.95. Cash Discount Price: $24.95.
Some of our members have sent us computer generated certificates as a way of
saying thanks for whatever, and it looks like fun, so we have added the program
they are using.

Over 200 different professionally designed certificates files come on the disk
and you can design your own. Features include large fonts, graphics, and a over
20 different fancy borders. As a bonus, you also get gold foil and colored
stickers to add pizazz to your certificates. A dot matrix printer is all that is
required.



Scrabble
--------
                PsL Price: $37.50. Cash Discount Price: $35.95.
After you have honed your skills and learned all the trick words by playing the
computer, bring in up to three other players and strut your stuff. The computer
keeps score, and you don't have to worry about knocking over the board.



                                 DOS IQ Answers

(If you are working your way toward the front of the magazine, don't read this
until you take the quiz on page 1.)

1. True. You need a utility like RDIR (#277) to rename a directory.

2. b.

3. d. The file capacity of a subdirectory on any type of disk is limited only by
disk space.

4. False. DRIVER.SYS is required only for using DOS's FORMAT to format a 1.44meg
disk, but pd/shareware utilities will format it without DRIVER.SYS.

5. False. The correct syntax is "IF NOT %1 == C:".

6. b.

7. True. SUBST normally is used to assign a path name to a non-existent drive
letter (eg: SUBST Z: C:\WORDPERF\LETTERS\SMITH), but SUBST A: B:\ is equivalent
to ASSIGN A: = B:

8. True.

9. True. This was a double-twist trick question. CHKDSK will not make any
corrections unless you add "/F" to the command line, but even if you just enter
"CHKDSK A:", DOS, for some perverse reason, will ask you which you elect to do,
even though it ignores your response.

10. a, b, and c are all correct. We had to have one easy question.

11. False. It will also copy files with names one character long.

12. False. XCOPY *.* D: /S will not copy empty subdirectories. To copy the
complete subdirectory branch, you must also add the /E parameter.

13. False. To use in a batch file a filename that has a percent sign in the file
name, you must enter the percent sign twice; eg: AVG%%INCR.WKS

14. b. Our DOS manual says "You can specify up to ten replaceable parameters,
%0-%9." We consider that statement misleading because "%0" is always the name of
the batch file, over which you have no control on the DOS command line. The only
user-specifiable parameters (without using SHIFT) are %1-%9.

15. c.


Scoring:
-------
This was a pretty tough test; in fact, two local computer experts who took it
got only two or three questions right. The real purpose of this "quiz" was to
introduce you to some little-known functions of DOS.

Still, if you got no answers right, you should do two things: (1) thoroughly
study your DOS manual and (2) stay out of Las Vegas. (These were multiple choice
and T/F - you should have lucked into a couple of correct answers.)

If you got 1-5 correct, you either guessed right a few times, or you have a
pretty good working knowledge of DOS. You should read through all the command
descriptions in your DOS manual to learn about less commonly used options.

If you got 6-10 right, you're a certified whiz. You just need to browse the DOS
manual and refresh yourself on the fine points.

From 11-14 points - you spend too much time reading your DOS manual already. Go
see a movie or something.

All 15 right - uh, you were supposed to work the test before reading the
answers!


                              Truth in Advertising

We received a one-page ad from a disk vendor with the headline Only $2/disk. Why
pay more?, which is a rather common appeal from low-budget distributors.

However, this one, possibly unintentionally, gave some good reasons why you
might want to pay more. Under a headline of Why is it so cheap?, it explained:
Many of these programs are great... Some are not. Since there is not enough time
to test every program, we make no guarantees about quality... and because we are
not experts, we cannot offer technical advice.

At PsL, we have a full-time staff that screens over 500 programs a month. We add
only those that we think are high quality and which perform useful functions.
While we cannot guarantee that a lemon will not slip by us on rare occasion, we
do guarantee that if one does, the person who convinces us to that a program
does not deserve to be in PsL will get a two-disk credit and anyone else who
bought the disk in prior six months will get a one-disk credit without returning
the disk.


                                PC-File Bargain

With the last major update of PC-File, the registration fee went up to $130.
However, PC-File has become such a popular database program that it is now sold
through Softsel, the nation's largest wholesaler. That means that PsL (with Jim
Button's explicit blessing's) can offer you the registered PC-File package at
our usual extreme type of discounts, just like we do the retail-only products,
for only $79.95 by credit card, $76.95 for cash, check or m.o.

While we're at it, let's congratulate Jim Button for having the first shareware
program to make it into Softsel's catalog. (Non-shareware versions of FormGen
and Procomm are carried by Softsel, but PC-File 5.0 is the first "pure"
shareware program to make it.)


                             Shareware in the Press


PsL in Computer Currents:
-------------------------
"If you want to look into shareware utilities, call up Public (software)
Library. Don't even bother with other shareware vendors - PsL has a bigger, more
diverse and more current shareware collection than anyone else, and they know
more about the problems. Service is excellent too."


PsL in Congress!?!
------------------
The following reference to the Public (software) Library appeared in a recently
published record of a Congressional Hearing on government dissemination of
information.

Chairman Robert Wise, speaking to Dr. Clark of the National Technical
Information Service:

"It seems to me you're in a bit of dilemma on pricing. I'm holding up here, for
instance, a floppy disk [of files] that NTIS sells for $75, and yet right here,
I have another floppy disk [of software] that our staff bought from the Public
(software) Library in Houston, TX, a private organization, that cost $5. And so
my question comes why a private company sells similar product at a fraction of
the cost that NTIS charges."

Well, given what the Pentagon pays for hammers and ash trays, $75 for a disk of
collected text files seems downright reasonable. Interestingly, Dr. Clark later
stated that he buys pd/shareware for "my PC at home."


                              Source Book Delayed

At PsL, we have always strived to give the fastest possible service.
Fortunately, the nature of shareware distribution allows us to fill orders
quickly. However, for retail products and books, we have to rely on other
businesses to whom a "lifetime guarantee" means that if you are lucky, they
might deliver the promised goods in your lifetime, or in your grandchildren's
lifetime anyway.

It took two weeks from the latest update of the Reviews Disks for us to get 640
camera-ready pages and cover artwork for the new Source Book to Whitehall Press
for printing. We swallowed hard when told it would take them five weeks to get
the printing done, but now we are told that that "estimate" was off by 50% or
more and the books will not arrive until sometime in July.


                                    Letters

More on Forms Managers
----------------------
Wanda Barts, Kiel, WI: I wanted to take some time to comment on some gross
injustices you partook upon yourself in your review of a superb program called
"PF~Form". To totally destroy a very well written, easily executable program
such as this is beyond belief. I think you owe shareware purchasers an apology
for ripping apart PFF. And you CERTAINLY owe its author one.

We looked back at our article to see what could have inspired such wrath. We
praised PFF's data entry approach; we pointed out that while PFF's line drawing
method "works all right", it is more complicated than Form Master's (and said
why); we reported that PFF has very limited data input screening and does not
allow a one-character field, which is true; we said that PFF's formula-entry
routines are more complicated than the others (and showed why); and stated that
we could not get the fancy printing options to work on our Epson compatible
printer. We stated that PFF "has some very useful and unique features", but
lacks an auto-numbering feature. We concluded that all the programs reviewed
work well in general and that "you can't go too far wrong with any of them."

"Gross injustices", "totally destroy", "ripping apart"? Are we reading the same
article? At PsL, we try not to make nebulous criticisms like "We just didn't
like the feel of this program." We state specifically what features we like or
don't like and what features are present or missing, but it is up to the reader
to decide if he or she agrees with the importance we place upon specific
features. We have always tried to emphasize that our opinions are not
necessarily relevant to anyone else, which is true of all reviews/reviewers.

Ms Bart: There is no limit as to number of columns on the program...

Actually, the docs say there is a limit: 200 characters. We didn't catch this
feature during our review because, as we stated: Because creating a form is
something that you probably don't do every day, our testing put a premium on
intuitive operation and ease of use... PFF has a 130k DOC file that we scanned
for reference the way we believe most people would do with programs intended for
occasional use.

We tried the form designer again and could not get past column 80 while creating
a form. (In Form Master, when you get to column 80, the screen simply starts
scrolling horizontally.) So we went back to the 130k doc file and searched for
the word "wide". We found where it said that forms can be up to 200 characters
wide. More searching, and we found where it said how to achieve this: you select
the width before you start working on the form by pressing F3. This is not
mentioned in the on-line help.

Ms Bart: [regarding our criticsim of no auto-numbering:] How many businesses
need automatic sequential numbering of forms?

Sequential numbering is needed for purchase orders, invoices, statements, return
authorizations, check requests, work orders, price quotes... The list is
virtually endless.


More Home Accounting
--------------------
Dr. Bill Schroder, via Email: First, I enjoyed your review of Home Accounting
software but feel you missed an extremely worthy competitor: Home Budget
Management System 4.1 (#1250) I understand how you might not be able to test all
possible programs, but I have tried Quicken, MYM, Fred's Checkbook, and
MoneyCounts and have stuck with HBMS. It is very powerful and very easy, and the
author supports the product well. I won't drone on about the features, but I
urge you to give it a look and write a brief addendum in next month's newsletter
giving your opinion of this fine program. Since I agree with your reviews of all
the programs I'm familiar with, I'm confident you'll agree with mine.

NF: I did test HBMS and it did not appeal to me for the following reasons: Setup
was more complicated than most, with no predefined chart of accounts. It is
needlessly technical for home use: "Ledger Posting", "Close/Open Month",
"Increment/Decrement Accounts". You can't add accounts in the middle of entering
a check/deposit. There is no on-line help. You can't see/edit the checkbook
register while entering a check/deposit as with Quicken and Fred's Checkbook. It
has only one on-screen report; the rest must be printed.


Money Counts
------------
Many very happy MC users wrote to point out that contrary to our report, it is
possible to change from entering checks to entering deposits with a keypress;
you simply press the $ key. One writer said that this is not documented in the
manual.

Karl Rosenberger, CPA, Framingham, MA, who says he has used MC for 2.5 years,
also mentioned the $ trick and further commented: I thoroughly enjoyed your
review of Home Accounting Programs. I have reviewed several accounting packages
and thoroughly understand the risks that one takes in reviewing accounting
software.

Your complaint regarding MC's menus are valid and something they have improved.
Short cuts through the menus are found by using the reverse slash and the
account number of the cash account that you want to use. Since your review was
largely favorable except for those two items, perhaps that would raise your
opinion of the program. I think it is great.

NF: These two tricks do help. I still firmly believe that everything else being
equal, the best solution is the simplest solution, which means that being able
to enter, edit, and browse entries all at the same time on the same screen is a
feature highly to be desired. Quicken and Fred's Checkbook allow this, Money
Counts does not, so I would still not choose MC for myself. But MC is certainly
one of the best programs without the all-in-one interface.


Reprinting Reviews
------------------
Charles B. Macklin, Carlsbad, CA: Your review of home accounting programs should
be widely read. I have read several similar articles in the large circulation
computer publications and they have been far less competent.

Would it be ethical/acceptable to copy and distribute this article at the local
user group? Can extra copies of PsL News be purchased on a non-subscription
basis. Would it be be better simply to tell people to contact you directly?

PsL, with its thoughtfully phrased reviews, publication of registration prices
and other consumer-sensitive and ethical policies, has helped me find a way
through the jungle of pd/shareware software.

Thanks for the nice remarks. As noted in our copyright notice at the end of PsL
News, reprinting of information from PsL News can be done without advance
permission for non-commercial purposes if PsL's info is given. Please see that
notice for details.

Non-subscription copies of PsL News can be purchased in bulk while supplies
last. Single issues are $2. Ten or more copies sent to the same address are $.40
each plus $2 shipping per each 10 copies ordered; you can even have a bulk
subscription at the same rate. Anyone new to PsL or who has not received an
issue in a long time can call for a free sample issue.


More MegaDisks Wanted
---------------------
Edward De Spain, Dallas, TX: I want to congratulate you on your new MegaDisk
Collection. The current list is weighted in favor of larger programs. You should
consider expanding your offerings to the Small Programs disks. You should offer
the Monthly Small Programs disks on MegaDisks. You could easily get them all
onto two 1.44meg disks.

Thanks for the suggestions. The driving motivation for the MegaDisk Collection
was to correct two situations which we viewed as very real inequities.

The first inequity was that programs on three or four disks, like PC-Write and
PC-Key-Draw, costs three or times more for people to try out than a one-disk
program because of the common practice of charging a flat fee per disk.

The second inequity was that in program categories with a lot of similar
programs, it costs too much (in our opinion) for a user to try a lot of them to
find the one they liked best.

In contrast, disks with lots of small programs on them costs us an average of 20
times more to put together and to keep updated. A better solution (than just the
MegaDisk Collection) would have found some way for us to raise the price of
those disks to reflect their substantially higher costs, but we could think of
no acceptable way to do so.

The high cost in time and money of producing the Monthly Additions Disks of new
small programs and updating our large collection of Small Programs Disks in the
PsL on a monthly basis is the reason that no other distributor does these
things.


                             "Does Not Compute..."
                     Users' problem reports and solutions.


Screen Save (May #2)
--------------------
Fred J. Howard, Brooklyn, NY: I left the computer in Word Perfect 5.1 with a
document on the screen. The screen saver did not work and when I returned, there
was garbage on the screen at the bottom left and bottom right, with the WP text
in the middle and at the top. The computer was frozen and I had to cold boot to
get rid of the screen and regain control of the computer.

We retested the program on a couple different computers and it worked for us.


QuikFlop (May #2)
-----------------
E. L. Fritz, Pinole, CA: The documentation file for this program states that you
need QUICKFLOP.EXE or COM to operate the program successfully; it is missing.

To start the program you will need to type: QF201.COM. A number of programmers
will rename the main .EXE or .COM files so that they reflect the current version
number. Although we discourage this since it does cause confusion, this has been
common practice among programmers. This situation is explained in PROBLEM.DOC
that is on most PsL disks.


NewKey (U2-290)
---------------
After a recent update, the file NEWKEYSP.EXE turned up missing from the Newkey
disk. It is the main program file. If you got the disk without that file on it,
let us know.

An "m" after a disk number indicates that it is part of a low-cost MegaDisk set.
See information about MegaDisks elsewhere in PsL News.



                                 Minor Updates

(U2-1404) 22Disk 1.33
(U2-2159) Anadisk 2.03
(MS-1401) AlbumMaster & CDMaster 6.1
(ML-1138) B&B Mail 3.4
(U2-1203) BurnIn 4.2
(MS-1212) By The Numbers 4.2
(AB-1588) C-A-S-E Accounting 2.4
(ML-1082) CataList 3.31 (2 Disks)
(BZ-2009) DRC's Directory of NYSE Corps.-06/90
(P2-1600) Elfring Soft Fonts & Utilities - LJ
(WU-2451m) FormFill 1.2
(WU-0645m) FormGen 4.0
(WP-1791) Iris 1.26
(BZ-2165) JCAL 7.4
(P2-1430) LoadFont 4.50
(CM-2331m) MaxiHost
(BZ-2194m) PC/Bill 3.2
(CM-1962) PC Data Controller 3B
(AB-1957) PC-Food 4.61
(DB-0733) PDS*Base 4.04 (2 Disks)
(BZ-2129) PDS*EPrice 4.10
(CH-2132m) PDS*Member 1.08
(BZ-0731) PDS*Quote 4.10e
(P1-0778) Prnset & Friends 2.14a
(ED-1965m) ProGrade System 4.4 (2 disks)
(U1-2497) Software Susie 1.3
(AB-1800) TakeHome Pay Calculation 3.61
(BZ-2198) WorkQueue 1.7


                                   Accounting

Accounting-101 1.03B
   Iddo L. Enochs; $25
   #1296
is a double-entry accounting program with a Deposits journal, Accounts Payable
journal and General journal. This update now warns you if you delete an account
with balances or with subaccounts. The limits of checks and journal entries
which can be made for one period has been increased. One posting now does the
posting for the deposits, the journal entries, and the checks. The Main menu now
has only the procedures you will normally use in an accounting cycle.

BuyAHome 1.4
   Home Finance
   Shareable Software, ASP; $30
   #2512
is an outstanding home purchase planning program. It determines total yearly
costs (PITI, points, insurance, expenses, and more), after-tax costs and present
value costs for fixed rate, ARM, PLAM, and Two-Step mortgages. It also handles
prepayments, and rates a home buyer's chances of loan approval. This is the best
home loan analysis program we have seen. We suspect that it would be good enough
for loan institutions and other such professionals, yet it is easy enough for
anyone to use, walking you through each step of the program. The output is clear
and contains very useful information.

Kupfer Business Programs
   Robert E. Kupfer; $6-$10
   #2513
is a set of mostly financial analysis programs for businesses. Business Analysis
1.0 is a collection of 16 financial and statistical business functions. Some of
the topics covered include, accounting, asset management, labor, inventory, and
stock holders.

Recovery Cost Comparison helps you make purchase decisions. It determines the
most cost-effective purchase among a group of products.

Business Financial Analysis 1.2 produces a combination Income and Cash flow
analysis projection for a company for a five year period.

PRO PC-Accounting 5.0
   General Ledger Programs
   Pro Systems Software; $90
   #1102m
is a completely integrated accounting program. This version offers a General
Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Inventory, Invoicing, and Time
and Billing features.


                                    Business

Almanac for Windows 0.94
   Windows 3
   Leonard A. Gray; $25
   #2514
is a calendar and information utility for the MS Windows. It provides
traditional calendar displays in month and year format as well as a pop-up desk
set for day-to-day notes and schedules.

Almanac will keep track of weekly, monthly, and annual events by day or date, as
well as birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and others. Up to ten overlays may be
specified in a configuration file. Two sample overlays are provided which define
holidays for the United States and Canada.

DayMaster 2.8
   Appointment, Calendar Programs
   Unicorn Software; $20
   #2126
will list all the events, birthdays, anniversaries, and appointments and
anniversaries for the date as well as a quote for the day. This update adds a
Quik Quote function, and fixes all known bugs.

Project Manager System 1.2 (PM)
   Software Science, Inc.; $49
   #2553
is designed to help you keep track of a project's progress and costs. Within
this program, a project is divided up into phases. A Phase is then divided up
into project steps. Reports of various kinds help you keep track of the current
progress of the overall project and each Project Step.

Softrack 2.0
   Business
   Multiuser Microsystems; $50
   #2552
provides a method of tracking software application inventories. Many
corporations are faced with internal and external software audits, and the worst
part is not knowing what software should be on what computer or where the master
diskettes are located.

Success Line Video Store
   Specific Biz
   Success Line Software; $204
   #2515
manages all aspects of video store operation from customer and inventory
management to rentals, sales, reports, reservations, late fees, and various
price categories. Features include instant tracking of a movie's last four
renters, context-sensitive help, and fast file handling with full indexing. It
prints labels, reports, receipts, and bar codes. Requires 640k, hard disk, and
DOS 3.0 or later.

Video Tape Control 6.4
   Micro Methods; $95
   #2556
will automate a video tape rental business. It handles movie rentals and returns
quickly and easily. Late fees are automatically calculated and you are alerted
when fees are due. It will keep track of membership, film, and reservation
information. Reservations can be made on tapes and items for more than a week in
advance and you are reminded of the reservation when the tape is rented or
returned. Requires 512k.


                                     Church

Church Shareware Software 3.0
   Other
   Cedric Fairweather; $?
   #2516
is an information management program for churches. It will keep track of
information about families and individuals, including committee membership,
special talents and church contributions. It will print reports and labels.

Church Visitation System 4.02
   Other
   Ronald Bryan Byxbe; $49
   #2517
is a system for tracking contacts made by visit, phone, or letter. Select by
contact type, age group code, residential code, date last visited, or not
visited since a certain date. Prints 3 x 5 cards. 4 x 6 cards, Labels, and a
contact list report.


                                 Communications

Commo 4.3
   Communications
   Fred P. Brucker; $25
   #2330
is a general purpose telecommunications program. In this update, several
enhancements have been made to the general operation of the program.

Telemate 2.11
   Comm Program
   Mr. Tsung Hu; $40
   #2418 [2 disks]
is a communications program that is powerful, but easy to use. In this update, a
DOS command window and terminal command stack are added; the interface is
improved; the script language is greatly improved; expanded memory is supported;
and the program is much faster and is DESQview aware. Requires 480k.


                                    Database

Staff 2.16
   dBase III
   MSC - Morariu Software Consulting.; $83
   #2420m [3 disks]
is a dBase III Plus compatible data file manager. This update makes changes to
the filtering criteria and additions to troubleshooting. Requires a hard disk.

WorkBase 2.2
   dBase Utility
   R. K. West, ASP; $49
   #2204
provides an interactive environment for dBase/Clipper commands. This update
includes the ability to create data files with up to 200 fields and modify
structure of files with unlimited fields.


                               Desktop Publishing

PixCat 2.5
   Clip Art Utility
   MIDPA Softworks; $10-$20
   #2478
will print a catalog of all pictures in a NewsMaster, PrintMaster, Print Shop,
or New Print Shop graphics library. This update has added support for Panasonic
1124 printers (both Epson and IBM Emulation) and IBM compatible 24 pin printers.

Tools
   Clip Art
   $0
   #2518
is a set of 22 PCX files of old-fashioned, carpenter's tools as they might have
appeared in a mail-order catalog circa 1900.


                                   Education

Animated Alphabet
   Pre-School
   Tom Guthery; $8
   #2519m [4 disks]
teaches the alphabet to pre-schoolers through first grade using animated
graphics. When the child matches the correct letter to the displayed picture,
they are rewarded with a movie-like animation. The author is an artist with over
a dozen years of experience in classical animation. Requires 640k, EGA/VGA and
either a 1.44meg drive or a hard disk.

PC-Quizzer 2.2
   Test Making
   Data Assist, ASP; $29-$129
   #875m
aids in creating a quiz and also administers the quiz. It will optionally make
use of graphics. New features include sound effects, additional graphics
commands, and support for PCX files created by PC-Paintbrush IV, Deluxe Paint II
Enhanced, PC Paint, Pictor, and several image capture boards.

TutorialWriter 2.0
   For Teachers
   Intelligent Educational Software; $53
   #2550
is an educator's toolkit for Computer Aided Instruction/Testing. It lets you
produce computer based tutorials which feature Hypertext, menus, help system,
pop-up windows, tests, quizzes, colors, sounds, graphics and more. Programming
skills are not a requirement. Requires 300k+ RAM.


                                     Games

Apples & Oranges 1.0
   Strategy Games
   Expert Source Code, Inc.; $15
   #2520
is the game of Othello using apples and oranges rather than the usual black and
white pieces. Unfortunately, the program plays a rather weak game, but the
graphics are unbeatable. So it's not that much fun to play, but it's great for
showing off your video. Requires EGA/VGA, 355k RAM and a mouse.

Aldersoft's Bowling Secretary 1.0
   Aldersoft; $30-$50
   #2521m
keeps track of all of your league's time consuming secretarial duties. It
maintains averages, handicaps, high game and series both scratch and
handicapped, most improved averages and automatically detects most ABC/WIBC
awards for up to 9999 players in up to 9999 teams. It also performs team point
scoring based upon the ranking system and produces 12 different reports ranging
from membership lists to league statistics summaries, nightly scoring sheets and
even turkey shoot score sheets. Requires 512K and two drives. (MegaDisk: This
disk plus #1522, 1297, 2217, 1134 bowling secretary programs.)

Bowl-101g 1.0
   Bowling Secretary
   Randy L. Stowe; $53
   #1522m
is a bowling league management program. This update includes 70 help screens. It
will handle match or Peterson points and three or four game matches. A built in
calendar and pop up calculator were added. There is also an option that will
allow you to manually enter the number of wins if your league uses a different
type of scoring system not handled in this version.

HGR_Bowling League Secretary 05/90
   H.G.R.III Ltd.; $79
   #2522 [2 disks]
is a bowling league secretary program. It's quick and easy to use. Features
include 98 teams per league, 999 bowlers per league, mixed league with separate
weekly and season stats, the ability to do substitutes, automatic blind or
absent scores and allowing bowlers to change teams.

Advanced features include the ability to keep records for a split league (A/B
divisions) or split season, and the ability to start in mid-season. It prints
out a weekly team, bowler, pairing sheets with averages, handicaps and team
points; a standard weekly performance sheet showing team status and bowler
status; team and bowler high games, games handicapped, high series, and handicap
series; lane assignment for the season; and team rosters with telephone, address
and social security fields for each bowler. Requires 512K, and a hard drive is
recommended.

Battle for Atlantis 1.0
   Strategy Games
   William Soleau; $12
   #2523
is a simulation, strategy war game with great graphics. You play against the
computer. It plays like Risk, but with variations such as earthquakes, floods,
and more. It includes many options including sound toggle, scores, levels, and
pop windows. Requires EGA.

Football Pool 2.03
   Gambling
   Charles G. Summers III; $8
   #2524
is a point spread, football pool manager. It is based on a weekly setup and
includes editable databases and the executable, source code (Clipper). It prints
sign-up sheets, charts, and result sheets.

Race Manager 3.25
   Games Management
   Steve Hilsman & Rick Williamson; $25
   #2525
will manage a racing event such as running, swimming, dog sledding, and more. It
supports entries of teams or individuals. It will manage the entries, starting,
finishing, and results. It does not do the timing. Times must be entered
manually.

Second Conflict 2.71
   Strategy Games
   Jerry W. Galloway and E. R. Markgraf; $20
   #1748
is next step beyond the Galactic Conflict game in which you battle for power and
money. New features include support for the Admiral Standings, a display of the
Top Ten Admirals, the ability to recognize PLAYERS.SCD file from Second Conflict
On-line registrations, and new options that give some new strategies. All known
bugs have been fixed.

Sharks
   Arcade Game
   Alive Software; $20
   #2526
is a professional quality arcade game in which you, as a scuba diver collecting
marine samples, must evade and fight off sharks while you go about your work.
Two versions of the program are on the disk. One is for VGA only and takes full
advantage of the detail and color shadings that VGA offers. The other is for
other video systems. A mouse is supported, but not required.

Shooting Gallery 2.1
   Arcade Games
   Nels Anderson; $10
   #2527
is a terrific arcade shooting game with several different challenges. New
features include a new round seven: a wild west shootout that may be the best
part of the game now. Also in this version is the ability to turn off the sound;
the ability to turn off the video card detection; and a command line option that
lets you slow things down. All known bugs have been fixed. VGA is required
because of the Arcade-quality graphics used.

Space Shades 1.0
   Arcade
   Rich Frank; $0
   #2528
is a 3D space flight simulator game that places you in the cockpit of a Space
Cruiser. You control your cruiser, a space station, and a spy remote while
exploring planets in preparation for your encounter with a hostile enemy. You
can optionally play with a friend via a modem. Requires 340k.

TEGL Big 2 1.01
   Card Games
   TEGL Systems Corporation; $15
   #2554
is a graphical card game which originated in Hong Kong. The object of this game
is to be the first player to play all the cards in your hand while attempting to
maximize the number of cards remaining in the other players hands. This is a fun
and challenging game with excellent graphics and sound effects. Requires 512K,
an EGA or VGA display adapter and monitor.

Video Blakjak 2.0
   Card Games
   Federal Hill Software, ASP; $30
   #2529m
is a casino Blackjack game and tutorial. It can be played strictly for fun, but
it also includes basic and advanced card counting strategies, auto-play for
research, and fully adjustable rules for various casinos. It keeps track of all
financial and card stats. Requires 384K. (This program is on a MegaDisk with
other blackjack game disks: 090, 1599, and 1664.)


                                    Graphics

Chaplinesque
   Graphics Display
   Wilton T. Thornburg II; $25
   #2530
contains a multimedia animation of Hart Crane's poem "Chaplinesque". Requires a
hard disk, VGA, and 640K.

Finger Paint 4.0
   General Drawing
   Poisson Technology; $32
   #1112
is an excellent graphics program along the lines of PC Paintbrush. The new or
improved features include the following: Scroll - scroll the picture either
horizontally or vertically; Triangle - draw a three-dimensional pyramid; Cube -
draw a three-dimensional box; Spray - change size, box type, fill, circle,
random; Pie - draw a piece of pie with defined starting and end angles; Parallel
- draw a parallel; Brush - change size, box type, fill, circle, eraser; Loadpic
- select filename interactively and load in PCX format; Savepic - save full
screen or part of it in PCX format; Dir - interactive listing of filenames;
Global - reduced view or full screen view; Polygon - draw a polygon with or
without fill; and Line style - select one out of 8 different line styles. Four
different stroke fonts are included in this release.

Fractint 13.0r
   Graphics Displays
   Bert Tyler; $0
   #1795m
generates Mandelbrot and Julia set fractal images using 32-bit integer
arithmetic specific to the 386 microprocessor. New features include a boundary
tracing option, more speed, Super-Solid-guessing, the ability to set all points
not inside the fractal to a specific color, Speed Key feature for fractal type
selection, Attractor fractals (Henon, Rossler, Pickover, Gingerbread), diffusion
fractal type, 'type=formula' formulas, optional sound effects, printer support
for color printers, and more.

PC Key Draw 3.76
   General Drawing
   OEDWare; $100
   #0121m [3 disks]
is a very powerful graphics (CAD) and "Hyperdraw" program. New features include
the ability to use the context sensitive help feature as a context sensitive
help file for Hyperdraw stacks; faster hot key files; an editor added to
KD_UTIL; and background color override. All known bugs have been fixed. Only
disk #1 has changed.

Picture-This 3.00
   General Drawing
   Patricia Y. Williams and Gregory Williams; $65
   #1312m [4 disks]
is a vector-mapped Postscript drawing program intended for output on laser
printers. New features include sophisticated typesetting features,
dotting-and-dashing of curves, automatic two-dimensional data plots, mouse
support, a fun Kartoons mode, and much more. This program also runs on
8088-based laptops, so you can draw or typeset on-the-go. CGA-compatible video
is required. (This is available as a MegaDisk.)

VGACAD Utilities #2
   Lawrence & Marvin Gozum
   #1794m
contains many utilities to be used with VGACAD. GIFpub has been updated. New
features include support for virtual screens for SVGA pictures up to
2KBx2KBx256, PCX 5.0 support (to 2KBx2KBx256), fully-optimized PCX RLE
compression, histogram-equalization, error-distributed algorithm using modified
Floyd-Steinberg matrix with "Stucki" values, 256 greys mapped, fast 256-color
palette read/write algorithm, user-definable dither density, and user-definable
EGA/SVGA video modes. GIFPUB and GIFDOT have been combined into one stand-alone
program. A few other enhancements were made. All known bugs have been fixed.

SQZGIF 2.1 ($28) converts large (e.g. 640x480x256) GIF files into 320x200x256
format. New features include user-specified zooming or squeezed GIF and PCX
pictures, the choice of fast interpolation or color averaging methods, and PCX
(version 5) format (to 2KBx2KBx256). Integration with VGACAD is provided for
immediate importing of user-specified, squeezed or zoomed, color-averaged or
interpolated screens. All known bugs have been fixed.


                                  Investments

Qotin 4.0
   Investment
   Leonard Abbey; $0
   #2531
facilitates the handling and processing of stock quotes obtained from
CompuServe. You can download quotes, convert them into the format required for
import into most popular spreadsheet programs, and produce archival files of the
quotes received for later use by this or other programs. It also manages the
printing for all file types.

Stock Portfolio Record Manager 3.0
   Investment
   Robert Gellman; $25
   #2058
stores, manipulates, and prints records needed to manage a portfolio of stocks.
This update adds full screen editing. All user input screens have been revised.
It allows the user to supply a title for one of the reports. In addition, there
are a number of minor improvements.


                             Mailing List Managers

Doctor Data Label 5.0
   Mailing List Programs
   Doctor Data Software; $59
   #1167
is a powerful mailing list management program that does CAR-RT sorting, prints
labels and much more. New features include increase in capacity to a total of
one billion records per database, five indexes, and a 47,000+ city, state and
zip code database. Previous "shareware" versions of Dr. Data allowed a
reasonable, but artificially limited, number of entries - a restriction that has
been removed in this update.

Other features include fields for account number, CAR-RT SORT number, three
2-character code fields and a note field that can be up to 64k. Unwanted fields
may be "turned off".

Complete control is allowed in designing labels, form letters and master lists,
including the ability to change printer fonts by word or line and to print up to
nine-across on any size label, post card, index card, rolodex card, etc.

Import formats accepted are ASCII delimited, SDF or dBase III. Doctor Data's
files are dBase III compatible. Requires 512k.

IRates
   Shipping Rates
   Digi-Tech Engineering; $20
   #2532
is an international mailing rate calculation program. It calculates postage
rates and displays restrictions, observations, and prohibitions for mailing to
any international country in addition to weight limits for each type of mail
class. International express service is shown when available for a given country
along with points served. A hard disk is recommended and 512k of DOS RAM is
required.

PostCard Master 2.5
   Unicorn Software Limited; $20
   #2533
helps create, print, and address post cards. This is handy for sending meeting
notices, change of address, etc. The program lets you save the text of cards as
well as names and addresses and will also print mailing labels, 3x5 cards, or
Roladex cards.

Reliance Mailing List 2.3
   Mailing List Programs
   William Meacham; $25
   #596
is a mailing list program. New features include better support for the HP
Laserjet and Deskjet printers and for subdirectories; the ability to export data
in formats compatible with WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect,
and Sprint; the ability to select categories for output and to define your own
mailing label style; and more. Requires a hard disk.


                                  Misc., Home

6-Step Stress Manager
   Health
   Self-Health Systems; $50
   #2534
teaches you how to regulate stress levels. It includes a stress test designed to
measure and analyze your overall stress level, a method for identifying your
stressors and assessing their intensity levels, and a display system for showing
trends over time in stress levels for different stressors. Requires 512K.

Astrology 9.6
   John Halloran; $29
   #0634m
is a zodiac calculations and analysis program. In this update, many small
improvements have been made, and a program to produce a printed Program
Assistance Manual is provided.

Boater's Helper 2.1
   Shelter Island Press, ASP; $50
   #2535
is a complete system for managing every aspect of your boat or yacht from food
and supplies to charts, projects and repairs. The program is easy to install and
use. Requires 512K.

MotorHome Manager 2.1
   Shelter Island Press, ASP; $50
   #2536
is similar to Boater's Helper, above, but for motor homes.

Cassette Master 6.6
   Music Tapes
   Unicorn Software Limited; $25
   #1689
will catalog your cassette tapes and print catalogs, listings, labels and case
inserts for the tapes. This update fixes compatibility problems with some Epson
compatible printers.

Video Master 6.1
   VCR Tapes
   Unicorn Software Limited; $25
   #1174
catalogs VCR movies and prints labels. This update adds a quick exit key and an
alignment test to the label printing routines. Some other minor changes were
made.

Green Consumer's Source Disk & Almanac
   ID/P Systems; $7
   #2537
contains a wide variety of information for those concerned about our
environment. It includes the names of cleaning products that don't contribute to
pollution; ideas to help you reduce, reuse, and recycle your garbage; ways to
keep your lawn greener without chemicals; methods to improve your home's energy
efficiency and liveability; a symptom-to-cause database that links a person's
symptoms to possible toxic-based causes; information on how the deadliest
substances have found their way into your breakfast table; and a battle-plan for
fighting Lyme disease, mosquitoes, fleas, dandelions, etc., with natural
formulas. Requires 640K and a disk with one megfree.

Save the Planet 1990 1.14
   Environment
   Roger & Kathy Cox; $15
   #2538
blends environmental education with political action. Graphically illustrated
information on ozone-destroying CFC's, atmospheric chemistry, and climate change
modeling is presented on the same disk that includes a customized word processor
for writing quick letters to Washington. Names and addresses of politicians are
selected from menus. Also included is a simulation-based global warming model
that demonstrates the ecological tradeoffs associated with the timing of
greenhouse effect policy decisions. The environmental voting records of all
Congress members for the 1989 legislative session is also on the disk. Requires
512K.

Nautical 1.4
   Science
   Rory O'Conor; $?
   #2555 [2 disks]
is an astronavigation program. It includes a built-in almanac for 1950 - 2050.
There is automatic reduction of sights, graphical displays of the stars, and a
world map.

SkyGlobe 1.3
   Science
   Mark A. Haney; $10-$15
   #2551
lets you see on the screen what the sky would look like at night. SkyGlobe
contains coordinates for 3250 stars. You can specify the time, date, direction
and location of the view. You can change the number of stars; adjust the
magnification of your sky view; and brighten the stars. The program can display
Latitude, Longitude and Ecliptic lines to help you orient yourself on the
celestial sphere.

Storm 6.0
   Science, Weather & Maps
   UTopia Software ASP; $25
   #1210
tracks hurricanes. New features include the ability to project the location of
the storm 12 hours into the future based on current course and speed; the
ability to enter and display central pressure data; storm intensity categories
for printout; displays of the time zone selected, and units on wind speed and
central pressure; the ability to differentiate storm tracks, show storm
strength, and compare storms; the ability to default map types, the ability to
generate 11 x 17" Plots on HP7475A and 7550A plotters; and support for HP
ColorPro Plotters.


                                  Music/Sounds

Digitized Sounds #1-3
   Music/Sounds
   $0
   #2558m [3 disks]
is a collection of digitized sounds for SoundBlaster. Disk #1 has Beep,
FeelGood, GameOver, GoodGod, Hallelu, Hi, MakeMe, Meant-To, and MGun. Sound2
contains Mother, Now-What, Pee-Wee, Richo, Spam, TakeMe, and Vulcan. Sound3 has
Belch, Gong, MacPuke, WoobWoob, and Yabba. They may also be played on the PC's
speaker via SOUND (#2388). The sounds are mainly intended for adding a little
personality to your home computer's batch files.


                                    Printing

Bar Tender 1.51
   Printing
   Kevin Vigor; $20
   #2362
allows you to print bar codes from within any application. This update includes
printer port selection, and error handling has been considerably improved. All
known bugs have been fixed.

Label Magic 2.18
   Label Making
   Joseph Albanese; $25
   #1983
is an excellent labeling system that generates professional looking labels,
complete with graphic icons. New features include the following: support for
Epson LQ-2500 and Panasonic KX-P1124 printers and for the New Print Shop,
shipping labels, icon importing, Hercules monographics support, alphabetically
sorted directory entries, DESQview compatibility and more.

ZapCode 3.2
   Printer Control
   Robert L. Morton, ASP; $20
   #2539
is a printer control utility for all types of printers including dot-matrix,
ink-jet, laser, and even plotters. It can be used as a 17k-27k pop-up, allowing
it to be used from within any word processor or other types of programs. Drivers
are included for most types of printers or you can create your own. It supports
LPT1-3 and COM1-4.


                                  Programming

Interface Plus 2.1
   QB 4.5
   George Campbell; $10
   #2503
is an interface shell for QuickBASIC 4.5. Routines include mouse support, a
Windows-like text interface, drop-down menus, file picker and viewer, automatic
configuration, color-setting, data entry routines, file display, buttons, boxes,
and more. This shell is used in the program BurnIn (#1203). Source code is
included.

QLib 5.0
   QuickBASIC
   Douglas Herr; $25
   #1926
is a library of assembly language subroutines for QuickBASIC. This version, QLIB
has been optimized for QuickBASIC 4.0, 4.5 and BC7.

Windows R-E-Z 3.6
   QB
   Richard A. Magnanti; $25
   #2368
is a window management system for QB4+. New features include single mark scroll
windows, page up/page down for scroll windows, segmented pull-down or scroll
windows, key characters (different colors or hi-intensity) for items in pulldown
or scroll windows, and more.

M2JFTools 1.4
   Modula-2
   John Forester; $30
   #1586
contains programming libraries and tools for Modula-2. This update includes a
library module for probability calculations of factorials, combinations,
permutations, binomial probabilities, cumulative binomial probabilities, normal
probabilities, cumulative normal probabilities and a procedure for entering data
values and calculating their mean and standard deviation. Requires a hard disk.

NSChart 1.05
   Programming Tools
   Siltronix; $35
   #2540
generates Nassi-Shneiderman structured flowcharts from a Program Design Language
(NSPDL). Translators are available which convert existing code (C, Pascal,
FORTRAN, etc.) into NSPDL. The chart can be printed or viewed on screen.


                                   Statistics

KS Probability & Statistics 1.01
   Statistics
   Joseph Hudson; $0
   #693m [2 disks]
is a set of stats programs, including exploratory regression, crosstabs,
Lilliefor's test for normality, histograms and text-mode scatter plots. In this
update, the graphics in the example files have been improved, a few minor
features have been added, and a bug has been fixed. Requires DOS 3.2 or later.


                                   Utilities

4DOS 3.01
   Oper. System Utils.
   J. P. Software ASP; $50
   #1890m
is a replacement for COMMAND.COM, but more powerful. Most of the changes in this
update are compatibility improvements and bug fixes. Better support has been
added for non-English characters in filenames, environment variables, and
aliases. Batch files can be nested six levels deep. New environment variables
return the day of the week, screen rows, and screen columns. There is the
ability to do numeric comparisons. Some new commands have been added. Several
other commands have minor changes, including ALIAS, CD, CDD, COPY, DIR, GLOBAL,
GOTO, KEYSTACK, LIST, SET, and SETDOS. HELP has several enhancements, including
a complete ASCII table, better pagination on screens with over 25 lines
displayed, and the ability to specify where 4DOS should look for HELP.EXE and
the help text file DOS.HLP.

ABF 1.50
   Hard Disk Utilities
   Communications Ink; $20
   #1141
is an Automated Backup Facility that monitors the status of your files and backs
them up as required. This update fixes all known bugs and improves the cache
operation and utilization, disk I/O performance and video performance.

Asc2com 1.75
   File Utility
   MorganSoft; $20
   #1928
will convert a plain text file to a self-scrolling COM file, just like the
-DIRLIST.COM file on our Monthly Additions Disks. New features include mouse
support, four new colors, the ability to mark individual text lines with color,
and replace characters for the Taglnes. The entire front end has changed, going
to a pull down menu approach. All known bugs have been fixed.

Cliff's Directory Program 1.5
   File Manager
   Cliff Roberson; $40
   #2541
is a pop-up file manager and directory utility. Its main display has three
windows plus a menu bar. One window is a graphical directory tree that also
shows the number of files and total disk space used by the directory. Another
window shows the files in each directory as you move through the tree. The third
window shows disk, directory and file statistics.

Features include the usual file management functions (move, copy, erase, rename,
view, execute, etc.) except archiving. We feel obliged to point out that most of
the claims the author makes about the uniqueness of this program (eg: "the only
TSR that can be loaded twice", "the only pop-up file manager that uses less than
160k") are not correct. Nevertheless, the program is very fast, easy to use, and
well worth a look on its own merits.

CounterPoint 2.3
   DOS Menu
   Busarow Software; $74
   #2542
is a graphical menu system that runs any application from an icon. Features
include up to 255 sub-menus, unlimited nesting, drop-down menus, 40 icons per
screen, passwords, on-screen clock with sweep second hand and date with
day-of-week, built-in screen saver, and a graphic editor included for
customizing icons and the logo. Requires 640x350 16-color EGA/VGA and a mouse.

For maximum speed, it can be made to stay resident while other programs are
running, or it can remove itself to run memory-hungry programs. If you would
like a Graphical User Interface and don't like MS Windows, CP is worth a look.

Directory Scanner 4.0
   File Managers
   Nat Martino; $15
   #593m
is a very slick, popular subdirectory and file management program. New features
include split screen mode; DESQview awareness; the ability to tag or untag files
based on read-only, system hidden, archive bits, matches or comparisons with
name, date, and/or size of files; and the ability to compare files across split
screen displays. Users may specify a file printing program to be used in place
of built-in file printing routines.

Easy Access 6.0a
   DOS Menu
   Tengware Enterprises, ASP; $25
   #1656
is a hard disk menu system. This update has user defined function keys Alt-F1
through Alt-F10 and the option to always return to the Top Menu rather than
returning to the last menu accessed. The number of options per menu have
increased to 26.

EasyFile 1.9
   File Managers
   Dennis LaBelle; $30
   #2543
displays two different, sorted directories side-by-side, allowing you to select
individual files and groups of files for the program to act on. It allows
tagging and untagging, copy, move, delete, and much more. You can quickly move
up and down directories, displaying and working on their files. The
double-directory display makes it easy to compare directories and copy or move
files between them.

To long-time Qfiler users, this may all sound very familiar. Well, it looks very
familiar too. The screen and key-usage is pretty much a clone of Qfiler. In last
month's review of home accounting programs, we encouraged programmers to copy
the best parts of existing programs and improve on them, but blatant copying of
screen designs and key usage go beyond that advice.

However, there is one major extenuating circumstance in this case: Qfiler,
itself, was born the same way - as an almost direct copy of another file
management program. So things seem to come around eventually. (NF: To set the
record straight, I have always been a fan of Qfiler, having registered it
twice.) And as with the birth of Qfiler, many major improvements have been made
in the process.

One nifty feature is that archive files (ARC, ZIP and LZH) are treated like
subdirectories: you can point to one, press a key, and the contents are quickly
displayed. Another is the addition of a DOS Menu feature for running
applications from within Qfi..., I mean, EasyFile. (This is going to take some
getting used to.) Other features of Qfiler are included as well, such as mouse
support and the ability to link up with popular archiving programs, with List,
and with your favorite editor, graphical tree display, etc.

ElfTree 1.D3b
   File/Directory Manager
   Alan J. Avery; $50
   #2544
is a slick, fast, high capacity DOS shell for running applications and managing
files and directories. This update has enhanced the menu features. There is no
limit on the length of a menu command line, and the program can be made to
unload itself completely from RAM when running a program, making it possible to
install TSR's from inside the program.

Extended Batch Language-Plus 4.0
   Batch File Utilities
   Seaware Corp., ASP; $82
   #243
is a powerful batch file enhancement program. This version is a major overhaul;
it has over 100 built-in commands and functions, yet it takes less memory.
Features of EBL include error handling and recovery, string and arithmetic
expressions and operations, easy custom DOS menu creation, windowing, "bouncing
bar" menus, fill-in-the-blank menus, buttons, sound and more.

Format Converters
   Op.Sys. Utilities
   Sydex
   #2545
This disk contains utilities for reading and writing disks from other systems
that are not DOS compatible. Included are utilities for the Apricot, the DEC
Rainbow, the Eagle, and the HP 150.

Also on this disk is the following:

RWAll 1.0
   Op.Sys. Utilities
   ZIS Software; $15
   will allow you to read and write Amiga and Atari ST floppys with your PC.
HDM IV 2.6

DOS Menu Programs
   Jim Hass, ASP; $52
   #1854m
   is a flexible DOS menu shell. New features include a Beep function, the
to display menu entries vertically, automatic detection of video type and more.

HDTest 4.98
   Hard Disk Utils.
   P. R. Fletcher, ASP; $35
   #0698
tests your hard disk without damaging data. Fixed were a bug related to disks
partitioned by non-DOS software; improper parsing of long extended partition
chains; and a logic error in disk reset code.

InfoSys Utility Disk
   Utility Sets
   Richard Levey, ASP; $20 each
   #2557
is a set of four utilities:

TSRCalc is a calculator that can load into conventional DOS memory or LIM
Expanded memory. It has a virtual memory manager which uses disk files if there
is not enough DOS or Expanded memory available.

NoahsARC is a file compression utility which the author says creates smaller
compressed files than any other utility. It will only compress one file at a
time. On a 40k EXE file, NoahsARC took 5.77 seconds to get a 36.2k file while
LHarc (no speed burner, itself) took 2.8 seconds and also created a 36.2k
compressed file. On a 307k TIF file, it was 42.3 seconds, 105.8k and 14 seconds,
105.8k, respectively.

ScrBlank is a DOS menu program.

InfoSys displays a computer's configuration and there are numerous utilities and
tests included.


Metz Software for MS Windows
   MS Windows
   Art Metz
   #1871m [2 disks]
This disk contains the latest updates to Metz's programs, which now work with
Windows 3.0, as well as Windows 2.x, and which works better with CGA now.

Desktop Manager 3.12 ($30) will now display a graphical directory tree. The file
finder will optionally search multiple drives. The Auto Menu Generator, file
manager and file printing have been improved. The menu bar contains many new
options such as file, copy, move, delete, rename, and print.

Desktop Navigator 2.43 ($30) new features include the ability to pass selected
files to a specified application, copy/move directories to multiple floppies, a
file printer and more.

FreeMem 3.41 ($0) will now compute the total of all the free memory fragments.

Time 2.41 ($10) is a digital time display.

Phones 3.31 ($20) is a name, address, phone number application with autodialer.
You can now dial phone numbers containing characters. Many other enhancements
were made, including doubling the size of the Notes area.


PC-Catalog 2.3
   File Cataloging
   Dale R. Andrews; $15-$40
   #2546
is a disk/file cataloging system. It is menu driven, mouse aware, and reads all
types of disks. It also reads file names and descriptions from inside ARC, ZIP,
LZH, PAK, ZOO, an more. It allows you to enter keywords and descriptions for
everything, automatically add BBS descriptions, view files with any external
program, and search for things in several ways including looking for duplicates.
You can customize your report printouts and write to a printer or a disk file.

Point & Shoot Backup/Restore 2.0
   Applied Micro Systems Technology, ASP; $35
   #2547
is a hard disk backup and restoration program. This is a companion program for
the Point & Shoot Hard Disk Manager, but can be used by itself. You can specify
up to 10 different backup configurations, each with a list of up to 10
directories and/or complete directory branches to backup. Features include files
being stored in DOS readable format, optional file compression, optional disk
formatting, and support for all floppy disk sizes.

QuikMenu 1.03
   DOS Menu
   On-Site Computer Services; $20
   #2548
is a graphical user interface DOS menu program. It works in all standard
graphics modes. It automatically creates buttons for most major applications and
makes it easy to manually add others. Other features include network
compatibility, password protection, run time command variables, text viewer,
free form layout, multiple menu pages, on-line help, mouse support, DOS shell,
and more.

Compared to CounterPoint (above), QM works on more types of video, such as CGA,
but CP has fancier features, such as icons for programs (versus a simple
program-name-in-a-box for QM) and an on-screen clock. However both programs are
very attractive and fast and easy to use.

Shez 5.5
   Archiving
   California Software Design ASP; $25
   #2030
is a shell program to make viewing and working with archive files easier. This
release features numerous enhancements which include the following: tagged file
display, a display of file sizes and dates, the ability to extract only newer
files, the ability to sort by file size, the ability to activate an alternate
file viewer, either generic or file extension specific, and more.

WallPaper
   MS Windows 3
   $0
   #2559m [4 disks]
is a collection of dozens of different "Wallpaper" bitmap graphics files for use
with Windows 3.0. Almost all of them are in vivid colors. See this month's Small
Programs Additions for Windows for a utility that will install a different BMP
at random every time you start up Windows.


                                Word Processing

Book 1.0
   HyperText
   Robert Wallingford; $7
   #2549
lets you make and read your own computer book on your monitor. Display the
contents of a specially prepared file, one page at a time, with the pages
subdivided into chapters. The index display lists these chapters with their
index keys. Access any chapter with one keystroke. There is a special password
provision in the program to prevent the accidental accessing of a file which was
not written for BOOK.COM. It also includes a demo to show what your masterpiece
might look like. Requires an ASCII word processor to make pages and index.

Galaxy 3.0
   #0624m
is a fast, easy-to-use word processing program. This is a major upgrade, but no
details were provided about what the changes are.

VDE 1.53
   Text Editor
   Eric Meyer; $0
   #1933
is a fast, powerful, WordStar-compatible text editor. New features include two
new commands to move to the Last and Next pages; a print control that allows you
to align the platen for printing on various kinds of forms; adjustable tab
spacings; support for the file format of MS Word 5; and support for Chips &
Technologies based VGA cards, as well as ATI cards. The use of VDE for foreign
languages has been simplified.


                              New Small Programs

These disks contain compilations of small programs received during the last
month. Programs written up in this section are on the disks indicated 99.9% of
the time. It is possible, however, for us to have to omit a program for some
reason. If you are ordering a disk SOLELY to get one specific program on the
disk, please let us know when you order so that we can verify that it is still
on the disk.

The first two disks are our "main" Additions Disks, ie: the two disks sent to
regular subscribers. Programs on those two disks tend to be smaller and aimed at
a broader segment of users. Programs on the other disks are likely just as good,
but tend to be larger or more specialized.

Names shown in parentheses are in the file names on disk and in Small Programs
Index file on the Reviews Disks.

The following programs are available as a set on one or more disks, in addition
to being added to the permanent disks in the PsL by category. These are programs
which have undergone minor changes which should not have a major effect on their
use. In a few cases, programs are classed here because no details were provided
about changes in the program.



                          Small Minor Updates


4Edit 1.03                             KutsGlue 1.2 (KUTSGLU)
4Zip 1.04                              MicroText 4.0
Arcopy 1.5                             Quic-Type 2.01 (QUICTYP)
BatKit 5.2d                            Reflex 1.3.0
Chk4Lze 1.5                            Teledisk 2.04
CMPCalc3 3.11                          Toddy 2.20
CopyQM 2.21                            TWatch
DirEdit 3.05                           UnLZexe 0.5
Fast File Find 3.4.0 (FFF)             US-BBS 7.3
Gin Rummy Challenge 4


                          July 1990 Additions Disk #1

XDIR 3.0
   File Cataloging
   Iram J. Weinstein, ASP; $25
is a directory listing program that will save and automatically display file
descriptions. When you copy the file, it will copy the description, too.

The author writes: I found very interesting your remarks (in April PsL News)
about commented directory utilities. You motivated me to finish work on XDIR and
provide a way to run programs by selection from the directory list.

We are happy to have had our comments taken as the positive suggestions they
were intended to be. For a program to be added to PsL, it has to be of high
quality, yet when we point out bugs or make suggestions about improvements we
personally would like to see, some authors take offense where none is intended.
Many others feel encouraged to do more to their programs, which we are glad to
see happened in this case.

Our comment in April was related to cleaning up Utility subdirectories where
lots of utilities accumulate whose purpose may be forgotten. Now with XDIR, you
can view a sorted directory listing, complete with comments, and select one or
more programs to run. You are prompted for parameters before running each one.

You can also "launch" an application by selecting a data file. You must tell
XDIR in advance which programs use which filename extensions (eg: WKS = 1-2-3).

The only fly left in the ointment is that you have to select which function you
want to perform on the DOS command line. You can choose to add and edit
descriptions, to copy files, to run programs, etc, but you can't do all in the
same running. Nevertheless, this program is ideal for keeping track of what
files are for and easily selecting them to be executed.

AMenu 2.1
   DOS Menu
   CompuTech Group; $15
displays all executable files (.COM, .EXE, .BAT) in a directory, executes the
one you choose with a keypress, or lets you quickly move around the directory
tree. It does not let you enter parameters when executing a program; it is
intended simply to provide an easy menu program without having to go through
complex menu set-ups.

AnsiEd
   Video
   John Queern; $0
makes it very easy to add color and other flourishes to your text files. AnsiEd
will display a specified text file and let you quickly and easily make changes
to it. When it saves your file back to disk, it inserts ANSI color commands;
then the next time you TYPE the file in DOS, your text appears in the colors you
used, assuming you have DEVICE=ANSI.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file (see your DOS
manual). C source code is included.

AutoFont
   Sign Printing
   REXXCOM Systems; $19
converts input of up to 17 characters to a large font created with ASCII
characters and saves it to disk. This is similar to Big-Txt (#689), except that
Big-Txt offers a wide variety of fonts (including custom-made), but AutoFont is
menu driven and thus a little easier to use.

Compr 2.0
   Archiving Utilities
   Mark B. Foster; $0
is a set of small, fast utilities to simplify working with files that have been
archived using a variety of different archiving programs. This update includes
the release of DL.COM which is a deleter for ZIP, LZH, LZS, PAK, ARC, ZOO, and
DWC archives. There is now added support for SH (shar), UUE (uuencode), TAR, Z
(compress), SIT (stuffit), and PIT (packit) archives.

CutEm 1.1
   File Conversion
   Mentor Systems; $10
extracts records from text files based upon key values you supply. This is
useful for mailing lists, log files, or any file you want to clean up based upon
any given string

DiskMan 1.0
   HPLJ Disk Labels
   StatMan; $6
is a disk labeling program for the HP LaserJet. It reads the files on a 5-1/4"
or 3-1/2" disk and prints a label for it. It lets you load up to 12 disks and
print all 12 labels on a single sheet of disk labels.

DLT 1.1
   File Deletion Utility
   Eric Meyer; $0
is an enhanced file deletion utility. In addition to verify-delete, it can
delete lists or groups of files, even in different directories, including
hidden, system or read-only files. It also allows selection of files by time and
date (DLT /E(arlier than) or /L(ater than) MMDDYY:HHMM. It will delete all files
EXCEPT specified files.

NATime
   Desktop Utilities
   Softworks; $0
displays the current time in the six North American Time Zones and shows several
of the most well known cities in those zones. It alerts you when Daylight
Savings time is in effect and displays the season.

TimeZone 1.0x
   Desktop Utilities
   Gunnar Richwell; $25
displays time in seven time zones around the world. It can also be used as a
stop watch, and to find the weekday for any date from year 1980 to year 2099.

PMap 2.01
   ResUtil
   Christopher Dunford; $0
displays memory usage statistics for both DOS RAM and EMS. We use this primarily
as a quick way to see what TSR's are in memory and how much space they take, as
well as to see if we have shelled to DOS from some program and forgotten about
it. This release fixes a problem that prevented PMAP from working on systems
with no expanded memory.


                          July 1990 Additions Disk #2


Clock 2.0
   Video
   Gunnar Richwell; $15
is an interesting TSR time display utility. It displays the time in the top
right corner of the screen, like many of these utilities do, but if a program
writes to that location, it moves down the screen to the next unused space. It
is also not stymied by changing video pages - it will automatically adjust. It
will chime on the hour. We almost said that this was the "ultimate" time display
utility, but then we would be left without adjectives if someone wrote a utility
with similar features that also lets you set an alarm.

Dazzle 3.9f
   Graphics Display
   MicroTronics; $0
is the best kaleidoscope program we've seen yet. The beautiful use of colors,
enhanced even further by the use of fading in and out, is, for want a better
word, awesome. On VGA, all 256 color palette registers are employed. EGA/VGA and
286/386 required.

FastDump 1.1 (FASTDMP)
   Video Utils.
   Systems Technology, Inc.; $10-$20
is a fast 7k TSR screen dump program which supports CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules and
text screens. It supports Epson and IBM Proprinter dot matrix and HP LaserJet
compatible printers. Output can be landscape (1 to a page) or portrait (1, 2, or
3 to a page). Alternatively, the output can be directed to a file.

Maxi 1.6
   Drives
   Herne Data Systems; $10
lets you put 420k on a 360k disk, 800k on a 720k disk, 1.4meg on a 1.2meg disk
or 1.6meg on a 1.44meg disk. New features include support for "360k" disks to
800k in a 1.2meg drive. It also has an improved disk verify method that writes
data to a track when verifying it instead of just trying to read it.

Print Interceptor 1.3 (PINT)
   Printing
   Eric Meyer; $0
is a TSR intercepts printer output and changes characters to one or more other
characters according to a table that can be changed at will. This allows you to
embed complex printer control codes in documents with a single character and is
especially useful with programs that do not otherwise support extensive printer
control.

Prnt-LK
   File Printing
   Lambert Klein; $0
is a set of small file printing utilities. One will skip perforations and add a
formfeed at the EOF. One will eliminate any extra blank lines beyond one.
Another will delete most blank lines and reduce paper usage.

Short Hand Expander 1.0 (SHRTHND)
   Keyboard
   TABS Software; $25
is a 17k TSR that saves keystrokes by expanding predefined abbreviations into
longer words or phrases as you type. New abbreviations may be added as you go.

SideTwo 1.01
   HPLJ File Printing
   Microsystems Software, Inc.; $49
is a 20k TSR spooler and file printer that lets you produce two-sided output
from any word processor. It will print in 1,3,5,7,9 - 10,8,6,4,2 page order
automatically. Only one re-feed is required even if you have requested 20
copies. It supports soft fonts, line-heights, macros, and more within the print
stream.

TVTimes 2.0
   Mark Holgerson; $20
creates a personal TV viewing schedule log. It is slick, fast, easy to use and
comprehensive. You can enter regularly scheduled programs for daily or weekly
viewing or enter one-time program viewing. It also keeps track of which networks
are on which channels. Schedules can be printed or browsed on-line.

VidType 1.7
   Batch Util.
   Vince Deegan; $5
sets up a DOS environment variable that indicates the type of video you have.
This update includes the added options for detecting DOS version, free
environment space, and keyboard type.

WhereIs 4.0
   File Finder
   Keith Ledbetter; $0
is a hard disk file finding utility. This update adds the ability to search all
drives, including Archive files, and to display only duplicate filename entries.
The program will no longer pause with the "More" message if WhereIs detects that
the output is being redirected to a file or a printer.


                          July 1990 Additions Disk #3

CardFile
   Names & Addresses
   Magma Systems; $0
is a clone of the Microsoft Windows CardFile program, but in text mode. The full
C source code is included. The CardFile program is used for keeping track of
names and addresses.

CommChk/CommSet 90-2
   Utilities: System
   John W. Roberts; $10
let you examine and change the settings of four serial ports. Use these
utilities to save time when you are installing new serial devices. They detect
changes made to transmission speed, data bits, stop bits and parity by programs
designed to use a serial port. Janus Ada source code is included.

Comment 2.81
   Quote Generator
   Scott Wenzel; $6-$15
is a random quote generating program. This update is expanded to 325 quotes and
adds a pause option and timed wait-after-display option.

CSAP 3.0.0
   Directory Sorters
   Don A. Williams; $0
will sort and rewrite directories by name, by extension, or by date/time and
size, in ascending or descending order. This version can handle DOS 4 and DR DOS
3 large partitions. It introduces the optional ability to truncate directories.
C source code is included.

DaLabeler 3.2 (DALABLR)
   Printing: Dir. Labels
   Robert Neal; $10
lets you print a disk directory listing on labels, including up to five lines of
comments. New features: up to 66 file names can now be printed on a label; you
can override the volume label; and other enhancements were made.

EEBond 3.0
   Home - Finance
   Franklin Leibsly; $10
maintains a database of variable rate Series EE Savings Bonds. This update
contains the latest tables from the Bureau of the Public Debt.

EnvMM
   Printing
   Steven D. Stern; $0
is a companion utility for EnvLJ (#1289). It takes the address records from an
EnvLJ data file and creates a quote and comma file usable by most mail-merge
programs, word processors, and spreadsheets.


                          July 1990 Additions Disk #4

DUP 5.6
   Fmt-Copy
   R. MacLean ASP; $25
is a mass disk duplication utility. IOCTL support for all operations on 1.2M and
1.44M disks has been added along with a number of improvements that allow faster
copying of disks that aren't completely full.

Easter
   Calendar
   Fred Schimmel
will calculate the date that Easter falls on between the years 1900 and 2099.
'C' source code is included.

FC 2.2
   File Comparison
   Mike Albert; $25
compares two text files and lists the differences between them line by line.
This update includes increased speed and has an improved computation for word
changes within lines in order to pick more intuitive changes. All known bugs
have been fixed.

FormatQM 1.62
   Format/Copy
   Sydex; $10
is a bulk diskette formatter. You may now choose to have disks with bad tracks
rejected rather than having them marked in the File Allocation Table.

Galley Master 1.0 (GALLEYM)
   Health
   Ponanon Systems; $15
turns your plain resistance type rowing machine (hydraulic cylinder type, as
opposed to spinning disk or other type) into one of those fancy computerized
ones. The screen changes color and the speaker sounds the drum to insure that
you row at the correct rate. (What? No little boater going across the screen?)

At the end of the exercise period, the program prompts you to take your pulse
and enter it into the computer. Your pulse, combined with data such as your age
and your time in the program, are used to customize the workout to insure that
maximum results are achieved safely with minimal investment of time.

Laser Label 1.1 (LASRLAB)
   HPLJ Printing
   Tri-State Computer Services; $20
will print sheet labels on a laser printer in three different popular label
forms. It allows you to use and re-use a page of labels and place the data on
the page as needed. Requires a printer (Laser Jet preferred, but a dot matrix
printer with labels meeting the selected form type will suffice).

Payoff
   Gambling
   Scott Andrews; $0
will help you make the decision whether to bet a horse to win, place, or show.
You provide the track information and odds from the daily paper. Various charts
and reports are available showing payoffs, etc.


                          July 1990 Additions Disk #5

Laugh
   Sounds
   $0
is a digitized laugh box. The quality is about as good as can be expected on a
PC.

LL7FMT
   Drive Utilities
   $0
is a low level format utility from Western Digital for ESDI drives and the
WD1007V-MC1 Microchannel controller.

Memo Master 1.0 (MEMOMAS)
   Database
   John G. Kacmarcik, Jr.; $25
is a free-form data manager. It is basically designed to let you type in
whatever you want and then search for it when you need it by text or by dates. A
"reminder date" field will cause the program to automatically draw your
attention to an entry on a specified date.

PCopy 8.5
   Utilities
   Norm Patriquin; $15
is a powerful, flexible utility for copying files. This update allows all
directories to be copied to a target drive. Many other enhancements were made.

Print to PostScript 1.4 (PPS)
   Object Engineering, Inc.; $15-$40
prints ascii text files to a PostScript printer. It allows the selection of page
header information, line width, page length, margin sizes, multiple page images
per sheet, margins, tabs, and more.

PrinDIR 3.0
   Printer Utility
   Michael A. Hotz; $10
is a 1k TSR printer redirection utility that allows you to easily redirect
output intended for the printer. You can now specify which printer to intercept
and allow other printers to run untouched.

Ref Cards (REFCARDS)
   File Utilities
   $0
is a pair of program reference cards, for List and for ArcMaster, created with
Publish It!.


                          July 1990 Additions Disk #6

Box Office Manager (BOM)
   Business
   Jerold A. Garber; $50
manages the sale/distribution of tickets, handle reserved seating, and keep
track of ticket sales. It will also optionally print tickets, configure a season
of events, design the house seating plan, and print or display sales reports. It
is well suited for theaters, schools, churches, etc.

HotKey-Z 6.0
   Comm Utility
   Mark Albrecht; $10
is a DSZ protocol interface utility. This version is smaller and faster and many
enhancements have been made to the operation of the program.

PayCheck Calculator 4.0 (PAYCHCK)
   Lotus 2.01+
   Naldo Systems; $?
lets you calculate employee paychecks easily in Lotus 1-2-3 v.2.01+.

Phone-Utility 2.0 (PH-UTIL)
   SideKick+ Utility
   John Land; $11
provides five functions for use with the phonebook files used by SK+. This
update fixes a problem with listing very large phonebooks. Also, the comparison
routine is significantly improved; it now takes into account all subfields of
the address field, and the note field. Secondary sorting of entries is now done
based on the name field.

Sarah 1.0
   PreSchool
   Meg Noah; $15
is a program for entertaining toddlers. You can select colors and designs which
fill the screen in an animated way. Infants as young as three months will become
fascinated by the quickly changing bright pictures and will learn to press the
keys to change the design. By five months, two fisted banging begins - but can
be controlled by parents encouragement. By nine months the baby will have
learned that certain function keys play music and have favorite letter keys.

SEV
   Batch File Input
   John H. Staelens Jr.; $0
will allow keyboard input, or the output of a program, to be captured into a DOS
environment variable. It affects all environments, not just the current or
master. Requires DOS 3+. C source included.

Spur Gear Genie (GENIE)
   Engineering
   Leonard R. Miller; $19
provides precise calculations for gear-cutting operators.

Watchcat (WATCHCT)
   RBBS Util.
   Joseph R. Ahlgren; $0
is a TSR for RBBS sysops. It will reboot the system if no carrier is detected in
eight hours, or if the carrier is lost during a critical period, such as while
executing a Door, or if the phone rings 20 times without answering, or if the
"hit any key to return to system" message appears on the screen. Watchcat drops
the line if the left and right shift keys are pressed simultaneously.

XChange Fax/Lan Toolkit 1.5 (XFAX)
   Network
   Commtech International, Inc.; $89
is a LAN Fax driver utility. You can use it to integrate fax capability into any
of your current applications or simply to access your fax board from the DOS
command line. It lets you buy one fax board and give everyone on the network
access to it. Supports Intel, CAS, Hayes JT Fax 9600B, and other Fax boards
compatible with those.


                           July 1990 Programming Disk

VerReg
   General
   Dragons Eye Software; $0
lets you add registration information to programs without recompiling. (This

DOSTrace 1.0 (DOSTRCE)
   General Utilities
   Steve Bridges; $25
is a TSR that will trace DOS calls your programs are making. It will show you
open files, what's in memory, and allow you to display and edit main memory. It
also has a primitive memory protection option. Requires 286+.

InfoBar 1.5
   General Utilities
   Philip Maland; $5
will show you the exact (X,Y) position of any point on the screen. It also
displays the current color and ASCII character number under the cursor, and the
video offset. InfoBar is very helpful for programming in many different
languages.

Say Invalid (SAYINVA)
   General Utilities
   Leithauser Research; $5
can be called by your program to say "Attention. Invalid input. Please Redo."
through the computer's speaker in a voice guaranteed to wake up your user (and
everyone else in the office). Frankly, we prefer HAL's soothing "Sorry, Dave, I
can't do that." (See disk MU-2388-2392 for Sound player and sound files.)

ToolBox 1.0x
   General Utilities
   Gunnar Richwell; $40
is a resident program providing a unique set of utilities including a
calculator, screen dump, a RAM viewer, an extended ascii character utility, plus
a practical video attribute display/selector, and more.

W3SDK
   General Info
   $0
is a text file announcing the release of Microsoft Windows Software Development
Kit for Version 3.0.

BASIC Tutorial #1. (BASCTUT)
   Basic
   Richard Harper; $0
is the first in a planned series of tutorials on BASIC. This first lesson deals
with variables, INPUT and PRINT statements and simple program flowcharting.

BKScreen
   QuickBASIC
   Bill Hewitt; $10
produces QuickBASIC code to produce a screen display from a text file. The
screen display file can then be merged or included in your QuickBASIC program.

Q4Tool Library 1.1 (Q4TOOL)
   QuickBASIC
   R. J. Crouch ASP; $25-$55
is a small collection of programming tools for QB4+.

Uneek 1.0.0
   'C'
   Don A. Williams; $0
is C source for a program that will eliminate duplicate records in a file.

Browse
   TP: File
   $0
is a TP routine that allows the user to browse through a text file.

WinCalendar (WINCAL)
   TP: Date Routines
   Rick Justesen; $0
is the source for a program to display a pop-up calendar for any year 1980 to
2099.

CmdLn
   TP: DOS Interface
   Power SoftWare; $10
is a TP 5.5 object to parse the DOS command line and extract parameters.

Colour
   Turbo Pascal
   David Morris; $0
is a unit that allows you to set up color installation procedures with great
ease.

CoUn 2.0
   TP: Data Files
   Carl A. Franz; $0
is a unit that Compresses/Uncompresses string data in order to save disk space
in your data files that allow variable length records.

Make-IO2
   TP: Video
   Richard N. Alger; $25
lets you create I/O screens with a text editor, then it converts them to TP
source code. Requires Technojocks Turbo Toolkit (#0738). Source code included.

PrtErr
   TP: Error Handling
   Brad Stephenson
is a routine that intercepts printer errors before DOS reports a critical error.
Source and sample code included.

Spool (SPOOL-DB)
   Turbo Pascal
   David Bradley; $0
gives your programs the ability to spool print jobs by giving you access to
DOS's PRINT utility. It also has various functions to control and monitor the
spooler.

TPSpool
   TP: Printer
   Douglas Webb; $10
implements a device driver which allows TP4-5.5 programs to print in the
background in your programs.

TurboDXF 1.0 (TURBDXF)
   TP: Graphics
   David Dorosh; $25
allows you to create DXF files compatible with AutoCAD (through release 10), PC
Intergraph, MicroGrafx Designer, CorelDraw and any other package capable of
importing a DXF file.


                               July 1990 Games #1

Aldo (ALDO-JR)
   Games: Strategy
   Jason Riordan; $10
is based on the childhood game of paper-rock-scissors, but this version is not
for young children. The strategy in deciding which item to play and where on the
playing board to place it is pretty difficult to master. (This game has no
relation to the run-and-jump arcade game of the same name.)

CD Dot Challenge 1.4 (CD-DOTS)
   Strategy Games
   Cam-Don Group; $13
is a computerized version of the old Connect the Dots game. We are somewhat
stunned by the amount of promotion this old grade-school game is being given:
formal competitions, a newsletter, "customer support", etc.

Cuber 1.0
   Arcade Strategy
   William Soleau; $12
is a challenging variation of Tetris.

EGASnake 1.0
   Arcade Games
   Michael Hulthin; $10
is an EGA version of the old game Snake. It has realistic looking rats for the
snake to eat, adjustable speeds, and multiple board layouts.

Sinkem
This variation of Hangman was written up last month, but would not fit on the
disk.

Puzzles
   A. Thomas; $?
is a sliding number puzzle game like the ones they sell for party favors. The
possible moves.


                               July 1990 Games #2

KaosKeys 1.0
   Fun Stuff
   Philip Maland; $0
is a simple TSR joke program that will cause keystrokes to be randomly
capitalized.

Supreme Ruler Plus (SRULER)
   Role Playing
   Orcus Maximus Software International; $0
is a game in which you are the president of a small country trying to beat up as
many as eight other countries in a race for land and wealth. It can be played by
nine people or up to nine computer opponents.

StopSign 2.0
   Puzzle
   David B. Howorth; $0
is a sliding puzzle game, only this time it's a stop sign that you have to put
back together. This update adds mouse support and greatly improved graphics for
EGA and VGA users. The program will work on CGA as well.

Target Word (TARGET)
   Word Games
   David Farrar; $0
is a word game, with the objective of finding the "target word" that the
computer has chosen from a list of words in a data file. The player uses
carefully chosen "probe words" and logical analysis to eventually find out the
identity of the target word.

Troff
   Arcade Game
   N. Soumarokov; $0
is a game that combines the old "Snake" type game with the old "Blockade/Tron"
type game to come up with a tough new challenge. You must race the computer's
snake to get to the randomly appearing "pellets", and at the same time try to
make the computer's snake run into your snake, a wall or itself while avoiding
having the computer's snake do the same to you. Pascal source code is included.
Requires EGA and DOS 3.3+.

This game was sent to us by N. Soumarokov of Vienna, Austria, who writes: I am a
with my parents in Vienna and here had a chance to buy several PsL disks. I 17
years old and my experience in programming is not so rich, but I like to
relatively poor English [Could have fooled us!] but I think it is easy to
understand the game. I hope you will include it in one of the PsL diskettes.

The game is well designed, challenging and fun to play. We are happy to have it
in PsL.

Vegas-Dice (VEGASDI)
   Casino Games
   Dennis Coyle; $0
is a dice game in which you can bet on "pass" or "don't pass".

WordMix 1.2
   Word Games
   Blanchard Software; $10
is a word game in which you reconstruct puzzle words from mixed letters. Clues
involve trivia information, common phrases or expressions, and words within
words, riddles, and synonyms. It has 41 clues and more than 900 puzzle words. It
is intended for teens and adults and requires a moderate vocabulary, some
knowledge of English letter combinations, and the ability to juggle words and
letters mentally.

                                 Ad Lib Music

ElecRock is an original composition.

GetBack (arranged by Joe Simon) is a good version of Ringo's song. GitIt is from
the movie "Little Shop of Horrors".

GraGho is "Graceful Ghost Rag" composed by William Bolcom.

Gryffon, Lament and Ridin are all by Barbara Baser.

KindHush ("Kind of a Hush", arranged by Joe Simon) is a full-bodied version of
the old Herman Hermit's song, but it could use some work on the timing.

LetItBe (arranged by Joe Simon) is a very good version of the Beatles "Let It
Be."

MacArthr is a good rendition of "MacArthur Park".

NF-Dream (transcribed by Nelson Ford) is Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams".

TwoOfUs (arranged by Joe Simon) is a fairly good arrangement of the Beatle's
"Two of Us".


                              July 1990 Anti-Virus

VCopy 0.3V63
   Anti-Virus
   McAfee Associates
is a replacement program for the DOS copy command that checks for viruses as it
copies. It prevents infected programs from entering your system and it
identifies infected diskettes during the copy process. VCOPY copy will detect
all of the viruses detected by the current version of VIRUSCAN. It will also
scan inside programs that have been compressed with LZEXE.

ViruScan 3.5v63
   Anti-Virus
   McAfee Associates; $25
scans diskettes or entire systems and identifies any pre-existing PC virus
infection. Checking for 17 new viruses and virus sub-strains was added. A new
major feature allows SCAN to check inside of programs compressed with LZEXE; and
several loopholes were repaired that allowed some virus sub-strains to slip
through. The same new features are also included in the new versions (on this
disk) of NetScan, VShield, and CleanUp. Yankee Doodle and Vacsina have been
added to the list of recoverable viruses in CleanUp.

File Shield 1.3 (FSHIELD)
   Security
   McAfee Associates; $25
is intended for software distributors; it shields executable files so that virus
infections are instantly detected and automatically removed by the shield. This
protects the software manufacturer against possible legal or liability questions
when the software is introduced into an already infected site. The Shield adds
about 2k to an executable file.


                           MS Windows 3 Additions #1

Most of the programs and files on this and the following disks require MS
Windows 3.0.

Click! Filer 1.0 (CLICK)
   MSW3: Utility
   The TrogloByte; $0
is a file management utility. "Source" and "destination" directories are shown.
Files can be copied, deleted, renamed as a group or individually. Directories
may be created and removed. There is also support for PKPak, PKUnPak, PKZip and
PKUnZip.

Dragons Eye Utilities (DRAGUTL)
   Dragons Eye Software; $0
contains the following programs:

Run 1.2 allows you to run one or more apps from the DOS command line or from
within Windows. It also lets you give each app it's own command line.

Closer 1.7 allows you to close applications as long as that application
registers a window.

Clean clears the clipboard and global compacts memory in order to squeeze any
available memory out of Windows

ExitW
   MSW3: Utility
   Dragons Eye Software
allows you to shut down Windows 3.0 without the Program Manager or File Manager
arguing about it.

Fun 1.02
   MSW3
   Dragons Eye Software; $0
is a collection of various, harmless practical joke programs for Windows.

HighMem
   MSW3: System Info.
   Ashley Saldanha; $0
is a text file containing information about Windows 3.0 and high memory.

HotKey
   MSW3: Utility
   $0
lets you assign applications to certain keys so that they can be launched with a
keypress.

Icondraw (ICONDRW)
   MSW3: Icons
   Philip B. Eskelin, Jr.; $15
is an icon editor with which you can make your own 16-color, 32x32 pixel icons
which fit into the Program Manager perfectly.

Icons
   MSW3: Desktop
   $0
is a collection of icons for various applications:

FMIcon contains a Cprompt icon, an MStock and QuatroPro icon.

MBIcn (Mike Barrs; $0) - an old-fashioned alarm clock, file manager diskette for
weather programs, the mouse pointer, and Earth from space.

NortIc (Isaac Matarasso; $0) is a set of three icons designed primarily for use
with Peter Norton products.

Icons is a set of six icons: Clean, Menu, Monitor, Nu, TieDie, and Wp51.

CorelI is a pair of icons for Corel Draw.

PCSIcon is an icon for PC-Tools.

PrcPlus (Procomm+); AutoSig - for comm programs.

GameIc is a set of icons for various games: Bon, Empire, Harpoon, Popolous, Q3,
Romance, TC, TimesLp, WarEast, WarGame, and WarRuss.

Sierra is a set of icons for Sierra games.


K-Free 1.4
   MSW3: Utility
   Dragons Eye Software
displays the amount of free memory and disk space on your system. Optionally, it
will also display free disk space for any drive.

Klotz 2.09
   MSW: Games
   Wolfgang Strobl; $0
is a game of falling pieces similar to Tetris for use under MSW2+.

Lorenz Attractor 1.0 (LORENZ)
   MSW3: Graphics
   Bryan A. Woodruff; $0
generates the Lorenz Attractor chaotic pattern. Source code is included.

Magic 1.02
   MSW3: Video
   Bill Stewart; $20
is a configurable screen-saver utility for MS Windows. If left unattended, the
program fills your screen with colorful animation, as well as providing password
protection for your computer.

PBIcon 1.0
   MSW3: Graphics
   Len Gray; $0
lets you create/modify icons with MSW Paintbrush.


                               MSW3 Additions #2

Mark30 1.33
   Windows
   Charles E. Kindel, Jr.; $?
marks Windows 2 applications so that they will run under Windows 3.0 without a
warning message.

METZ Dialer 2.0 (METZDLR)
   MS Windows
   METZ Software; $10
is a pop-up, speed telephone dialer for MS Windows. Names and numbers can be
easily entered, stored and dialed. The program works with Windows 2 or 3 and
supports Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE).

METZ Runner 1.01 (METZRNR)
   MS Windows
   METZ Software; $10
provides a quick method to run applications and files from Microsoft
Windows.Command line parameters can be specified. A configuration dialog allows
you to specify a default application to run when no application is found for the
file extension. Selecting files can cause applications to be launched if the
extensions are defined in WIN.INI.

METZ Windows Lock 1.2 (METZ-LK)
   MS Windows
   METZ Software; $0
is a security application for Microsoft Windows. Windows 3.0 compatibility and a
new icon have been added.

MouseI
   MSW3: Utility
   $0
allows activation of the mouse for non-Windows applications.

ROPS
   Windows 3
   Allan Bellin; $0
is a Raster image loader for Windows 3.0.

Run 1.1
   MSW3: Utilities
   Dragons Eye Software; $0
executes other Windows programs. It will allow you to execute more than one
application from the DOS command line.

Stars
   MSW3: Desktop
   David Stafford; $0
animates the desktop with a lot of moving stars, creating an effect similar to
looking through a spaceship window. It also provides a cheap-O method of
launching other Windows applications. Notepad, Command (DOS shell), WinHelp, DOS
Executive and Calc are supported. Mouse support is provided.

StartUp
   MSW3: Startup
   Keith Burgoyne; $0
is a macro that shows how Recorder can set up your desktop upon initial system
boot-up. It performs all actions in a very visual manner by scrolling through
menu items, etc.

Screen Peace Saver (SCRPEAC)
   MSW3: Video
   Anthony Andersen; $5-$10
is a screen saver, blanking the screen after a certain number of seconds. You
can add additional screen savers just by putting more screen saver files in the
proper directory. (See below.)

SPX
   $0
is a set of files for use with Screen Peace Saver: Aquarium, Clock, Eyes, Fade,
Fire, Flash, Space, Spheres, and Wall.

WinChar 1.0
   MS-Windows
   Roger L. Jack; $7
provides a listing of the OEM and ANSI character sets that are available under
MS-Windows 3.

CD Cassette Template (CASS)
   Corel
   Peter Thies; $0
is a cassette tape liner template created using Corel Draw. The purpose is to
provide you with an easy-to-use template from which you can create tape liner
inserts for your cassettes.


                            July 1990 OS/2 Additions

Bitmap.DPR
   OS/2
   John Ridges; $0
is a picture reader extension for DESKPIC. It allows DESKPIC to read the new
Windows 3.0 style bitmap. See Windows section for Windows 3 bitmaps.

CPU Load Monitor 1.0 (CPULOAD)
   OS/2
   $0
monitors and displays the CPU usage patterns of an OS/2 system.

DeskANI
   OS/2
   John Ridges; $0
contains four built-in animated desktops for the ANIMATE Animated desktop
program, re-compiled as animated desktop extensions for use with DESKPIC.

DskDSS
   OS/2
   John Ridges; $0
is a set of seven screen saver extensions for DESKPIC.

DskExt
   OS/2
   John Ridges; $0
allows you to write a Desktop Picture Reader Extension and Desktop Screen Saver
Extension.

Deskpic
   OS/2
   John Ridges; $0
is a desktop picture and screen saver program for OS/2 Presentation Manager. It
will read BMP, GIF, PCX, or MET picture files, and it will also read Animated
Desktop Extensions (.ANI files) for the ANIMATE.EXE Animated Desktop Program.

FatBits
   OS/2
   John Ridges; $0
is a screen pixel, magnification program for OS/2 Presentation Manager. It
magnifies a 16 x 16 pixel area at the mouse pointer into a window. This update
has added window sizing and menu magnification control.

Gone2
   OS/2
   $0
blocks all keyboard and mouse inputs till a password is keyed in.
