PUBLIC DOMAIN / USER-SUPPORTED SOFTWARE REVIEWS:

The programs reviewed here are available on the local Lost Dutchman's Gold
Mine RCPMs (LD#1 and LD#2).  Some are 'user-supported', so if you acquire any
of these and find them to be particularly useful, send the author(s) a small
donation to show your appreciation.  (The donation will usually place you on
the author's mailing list for updates and bug fixes... something the commercial
software publishers often fail to do for programs costing hundreds of dollars.)

NULU11.COM  (in NULU11A.LBR)

This program has been reviewed previously, but this first update incorporates
some significant changes.  NULU is a 'library manager', a program that allows
the creation, modification, and general manipulation of libraries and library
members.  It replaces such programs as LUX, LDIR, LSWEEP, and LU301.  For com-
plete details on the program, see my previous tutorial.

NULU11 corrects almost every possible criticism of the original NULU10.  The
only real problem with NULU10 was that it did not check CRCs.  As a consequence
of this, a library created with NULU and uploaded to an RCPM would result in
a CRC error note when accessed by the RCPM's LDIR program.  Though this caused
no permanent problem, it was unnerving to the user who didn't know the source
of the problem.  And it was always possible that the library file was created
by some other library manager and that an error DID exist.  At any rate, the
problem has now been corrected and NULU generates a CRC.

The other objections this user had with the program originated out of a sort
of greed:  It was so good, why couldn't it do EVERYTHING?  Well, now it can
(almost).  NULU was originally designed to combine the advantages of LU300 and
LSWEEP (the latter a WASH/SWEEP/NSWP derivative for libraries).  It lacked only
a mass tagging facility and the ability to delete disk files (like all library
managers, it could delete library members from the library).  These facilities
have now been added.  For instance, if you download a library from an RCPM and
want to place all of its files on a blank disk, all you need to do is bring up
NULU11, open the library, log in the blank disk, and then tag all the files
in the library.  NULU then asks what operation you wish to perform; you respond
with [E]xtract and give the drive/user number for the blank disk.  If the files
are squeezed, you use the [Q] command (for unsqueeze) and the drive/user info.

Before performing the mass tagging operation, you are able to access the sup-
posedly blank disk to see if it has any files on it.  If it does, and if they
are unneeded, you can [Z]ap any or all of them.  This is easy since NULU allows
the user to use wildcards, eliminating the need to list each file to be zapped.

To make things even better, NULU11 now allows such video attributes as reverse
video or inverse video.  The NULU11A.LBR comes with an installation program
for making these changes to fit any computer.  It also comes with MLOAD23.COM,
the latest version of MLOAD from Ron Fowler.  Similar to MDMLNK, MLOAD should
be considered a complete replacement for DRI's 'LOAD.COM', as it is much more
flexible.  (The NULU11A library does not come with documentation for MLOAD23,
except as necessary for patching NULU; you will have to access MEX1xx.LBR for
that documentation.  Unfortunately, it may be contained within MEX1xx.DOC.  If
so, let me know, and I'll either extract it from that file or write some docs
on my own.)
 contained within MEX1xx.DOC.