jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) (01/09/89)
Please excuse me for continuing this side trip away from the real topic
of this group (i.e. AMIGA.)
By the way, even if you can still find a 30 day, no interest, no annual
fee credit card; the major card companies (i.e. MasterCard, Visa, American
Express, etc.) keep a percentage of the charges. This means that the retailer
must raise his prices to compensate for the 'lost' income. So, even if you
get it for 'free', it is NOT free!!! The credit card companies can get up
to 4 or 5% of the amount charged. I believe that the actual percentage can
vary significantly depending upon the institutions involved and the monthly
dollar volume of charges the retailer has.
Now, we return to our regularly scheduled program...
Sometime back, I bombarded the net with questions about certain of the
Lattice supplied library functions. You may have wondered why. Well...
I have hacked on the Loftus, Schein, et. al. UUCP stuff in order to convert
it to Manx C. I haven't converted everything, but I do have the uucico and
some of the supporting stuff converted. Mostly this involved changing a few
routine names with #define and writing replacements for several 'standard'
library routines that Lattice has and Manx doesn't. Now, before I get a
deluge of requests for the diffs and source code, please note the following.
1. There is a new version out now. I don't have it yet, so my changes
will probably not be completely compatible with the new version.
2. My Lattice replacement routines are very 'quick and dirty' hacks.
Although they seem to work, I haven't had time to fully test them.
3. The routines replaced are:
strtok()
getcwd()
remove()
chdir()
getfnl()
strbpl().
4. I haven't gotten around to bundling up the stuff for posting. (No,
sending me a 'round tuit' will NOT speed up the process.) However, if there
is great interest in the stuff, I will consider posting it. (Assuming, of
course, that SAS/Lattice will not object to my posting 'clones' of these
routines. John Toebes, are you listening? I would think that they shouldn't
object since since most of these functions are fairly common C functions, but
logic rarely applies in legal matters these days...)
5. I will probably update the new version somtime, but I don't have
much spare time these days...
--
Jim Pritchett
UUCP: killer!gtmvax!dms3b1!caleb!jdpdan@hp-lsd.HP.COM (Dan Schmelzer) (01/20/89)
> / hp-lsd:comp.sys.amiga / jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) / 4:44 pm Jan 8, 1989 / > > Please excuse me for continuing this side trip away from the real topic > of this group (i.e. AMIGA.) > > By the way, even if you can still find a 30 day, no interest, no annual > fee credit card; the major card companies (i.e. MasterCard, Visa, American > Express, etc.) keep a percentage of the charges. This means that the retailer > must raise his prices to compensate for the 'lost' income. So, even if you > get it for 'free', it is NOT free!!! The credit card companies can get up > to 4 or 5% of the amount charged. I believe that the actual percentage can > vary significantly depending upon the institutions involved and the monthly > dollar volume of charges the retailer has. I have a 30 day, no interest, no fee, Visa Classic card with a several thousand dollar credit limit from some bank in Chicago. The fine print (after translation) reads that the 30 day grace period disappears if you don't pay in full every month. So for the typical consumer who may not keep the card paid up, a hefty interest charge is applied. But, if you pay off charges on the card like you would for, example, American Express, you get the service for free. Although a retailer will pass on his/her credit card service costs with higher prices, almost every retailer is doing so (no competitor with lower CASH ONLY prices). Therefore, if I don't use a credit card I lose because I still pay for the service but don't get the convenience of a credit card transaction. Dan "no interest charges on MY monthly statements" Schmelzer