ABN.ISCAMS%usc-isid@sri-unix.UUCP (10/17/83)
Friends in Netland: A few weeks ago I replied to an individual asking about software to support church administration, offering a program of mine. About six people jumped in and offered to test it, look at it, accept it no matter what it was, etc. Well, I finally have Toad Hall's KERMIT up and running, and I've transferred my church program up into ABN.ISCAMS@USC-ISID (my directory). The files involved are: MBRS.BAS.1 The runnable version (no comments) MBRSCMT.BAS.1 The bigger one, full of comments, that overflows 64K of memory, so don't even try it! MBRS.DOC.1 The operator's manual and commentary/explanation. The program is in Microsoft BASIC (version 5.something), is formatted for an 80-column screen or printer, and has only a very few machine or terminal-unique items (Clear Screen, Cursor Addressing a la common terminals (ESC,=,32+vertical, 32+horizontal), and a special debugging section (you don't have to use it) that uses the Freedom 100's special ability to display but not act on control characters so you can look directly at records with their data separators, relative file LSET's, etc.) You can weed all them out if you want. I tried to make it pretty simple to use, but the code AIN'T SO SIMPLE! Example: To get 13 weeks of regular donations, 13 special donation names, and 13 weeks of special donations into one FIELD line isn't easy, much less trying to fit all the data into a 126-character record. So...I MKI$'ed or MKS$'ed them all and concatenated them! Flashy, works fine, nice and tight, but lord, don't try to figure the code! All are welcome to download via FTP and try them out on their micros (unless you happen to have Microsoft BASIC running on your Cray). I only ask that you tell me the name and address of the church (or person) using it so I can help with bugs, updates, and just get a good personal feeling out of it all! (Why give it away? Well, I owe a lot to those public domain authors out there, but from actual useful utilities and the chance to learn from their documentation and programs. Even KERMIT came free! So this is a small payback.) David Kirschbaum SGM, USA (civilian persona Toad Hall)
POURNE%mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP (01/07/84)
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE@mit-mc> If you can get a disk of your Church Support software to me by US Snail, Workman would be willing to distribute at what amounts to his cost (somewhere between 20 and 30 bucks depending on a number of factors) largely for good will. He's got a number of churches within his customer base and they're always asking for help.
ABN.ISCAMS%usc-isid@sri-unix.UUCP (01/16/84)
Sirrah, Would be more than pleased to cooperate with fielding the Church Support software, and have no objections to someone making back their costs and time. HOWEVER... I have NO feedback from anyone in the world that it works! I have bitter, embarrassing experiences with my perfect programs that I can't crash for trying -- and then a buddy sits down and ties the entire bloody system into one horrible knot! Please hold on until I can get SOME kind of feedback (good or otherwise) so we can be sure we aren't ruining anyone's reputation (me too!) and wasting church members' time. And if ANYONE out there is actually running the program, how about some feedback, huh? Huh? (Cooperate, and you get a free copy of Toad Hall's world famous Kamikaze Ducks - the CP/M version of the Osborne magazine article and listing "DUCKS" - with operational divebombing ducks, droppings, the whole bit. Compiled, it becomes (of course) Hypersonic Ducks!) Regards, David Kirschbaum Toad Hall