From ts@uwasa.fi  Sun Mar 21 19:15:00 1993
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: pc/pd2/tspost24.zip file description
To: ts@uwasa.fi  (Timo Salmi)
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 99 6:46:16 EET
Status: RO

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
! This file is in mail format, so you can also read it with any !
! suitable Unix mail program such as elm: (elm -f post24.txt).  !
! On a PC /pc/mail/rmail*.zip is a convenient alternative       !
+---------------------------------------------------------------+

   This is the twenty-fourth file that contains my replies and
comments that I or others have made by email, or just written here
instead of posting to (mainly to) comp.archives.msdos.d, or postings
that I wanted to retain for your information.
   Note that the latest tspost??.zip is always being updated until
it contains 30 messages. The files are located at the /pc/pd2
directory.
   For an index of all the completed tspost*.zip files please see
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost00.zip.
   Please also see http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbo.html#faq

Please note that this index is in reverse order:

1   Dec 31 To Timo Salmi      (25)   pc/pd2/tspost24.zip file description
2   Apr 30 Mark Rogers        (247)  Re: TSBAT48 - Some thoughts....
3   Apr 30 Timo Salmi         (63)   Re: Shareware/Freeware from JUMBO!
4   Apr 21 Timo Salmi         (39)   Link services are not the FTP sites
5   Mar 31 To pgut001@cs.auck (56)   Re: Uploading minor software updates
6   Mar 19 Timo Salmi         (51)   Re: Garbo upload delays
7   Mar 16 Timo Salmi         (94)   Re: Is this a binaries group or what
8   Mar 10 To Dwayne Sterling (39)   Re: tsbat46.zip batch tricks
9   Mar 9  To Czfz@aol.com    (61)   Re: tsgmee-hangman and towers
10  Mar 2  Timo Salmi         (41)   Citations to Garbo + the University
11  Feb 21 Don Costello       (100)  Re: Your batch tips/tricks -- GREAT!
12  Feb 15 Timo Salmi         (80)   Re: Simon Fraser University
13  Feb 10 Lars Alexandersen  (65)   A batch to show the errorlevel
14  Feb 6  Timo Salmi         (54)   Re: My upload to Garbo -- is it lost
15  Jan 19 Timo Salmi         (91)   Re: What Garbo does not carry
16  Jan 3  To philippe gailla (69)   Re: Eigenvalues in tsmatr11.zip
17  Dec 30 Timo Salmi         (67)   File dates/sizes to Garbo's lists
18  Dec 22 To Jelle van Schou (36)   Re: Timo's free WWW GIF collection
19  Dec 16 To Anthony Baechle (51)   Re: Old cam.announce news archives
20  Dec 10 To Scott Lemke     (86)   Re: Seeing package contents at Garbo
21  Dec 6  Timo Salmi         (79)   Re: TP Time Stamping of Directories
22  Nov 21 To Duncan Murdoch  (39)   Re: tsgifs12.zip A free collection o
23  Nov 19 To Maribeth Milner (45)   Re: unix utilities for pc
24  Nov 13 To Sverre Klov     (34)   Re: tstse16.zip SAL macro sources to
25  Nov 4  Timo Salmi         (62)   Using kill files positively (Was Re:
26  Nov 4  To Grace Sylvan    (80)   Re: Your programs
27  Oct 28 To Angry Uploader  (125)  Re: Garbo's stupid uploading
28  Oct 27 Mark J. Restifo    (34)   Re: input from user
29  Oct 26 To Persistent User (55)   Re: No talk?
30  Oct 24 To Bob Hayden      (42)   Re: ts5st16.zip Least absolute devia


From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Oct 24 23:24:18 1995
Subject: Re: ts5st16.zip Least absolute deviation (LAD) multiple regression
To: hayden@oz.plymouth.edu (Bob Hayden)
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 23:24:18 +0200 (EET)
Cc: sjp@uwasa.fi (Seppo Pynnonen)
In-Reply-To: <9510202233.AA24230@oz.plymouth.edu> from "Bob Hayden" at Oct 20, 95 06:33:42 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

>  Hi!

Hello Bob,

I am very pleased that you have found

 82171 Oct 14 01:04 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts5st16.zip
 ts5st16.zip Least absolute deviation (LAD) multiple regression.

of interest.

> I have your program.   Minimizing the sum of the absolute values of
> the residuals does not lead to a unique solution.  How does your

This is a general feature of LAD estimation with LP. The solution
always is degenerate.

> program choose among multiple solutions with the same sum of absolute
> deviations?

Since the solutions are equally "valuable" the choice is simply on
the first-encountered basis. There is no fast rule.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Thu Oct 26 06:42:10 1995
Subject: Re: No talk?
To: Persistent User
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 06:42:10 +0200 (EET)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

Dear Sender!

You wrote this to one of the Garbo moderators.

> I would like to talk with you now, but, you do not want to accept. Can
> I know why? Will you have time for me in the future? If yes, please write me
> weather (or wheather) I can talk with you, or not.
> About me: I am .. year old student at ... in .... I attend 1st class.
> I study ... faculty. My hobby is work with pc,
> because of that I write you....
>  See you soon...

If you wish to socialize there are special newsgroups for the
purpose like news:soc.penpals, news:alt.personals.ads,
news:alt.personals.misc and the moderated news:soc.personals. You
might also try to find out about special alternatives like IRC
(Internet Relay Chat) from a more seasoned friend.

For a more comprehensive treatment of alternative newsgroups for
socializing please see "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing
Lists" by Dave Taylor. It is posted regularly to news.answers. It is
also available from rtfm.mit.edu by their mail server: To receive it
by email send email to "mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu" with the command
"send pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/usenet/social-newsgroups/part1"
(no quotes).

My intention is not to be unfriendly, but Garbo moderators will not
have the time to socialize with individual users. We have our hands
full of work as it is. Thus please do NOT reply to this message or
send requests to Garbo moderators to chit chat with you. If you keep
on persisting, I am afraid we will have to take it up with your
site's administrators.

However, if you have valid Garbo related questions and problems,
then you are most welcome to contact us.

Enjoy the net.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From mrestifo@wizvax.net Fri Oct 27 11:39:01 1995
From: mrestifo@wizvax.net (Mark J. Restifo)
To: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: input from user
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 09:14:11 GMT
Status: RO

ts@reimari.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) wrote:

:> In article <466tlf$87r@aggedor.rmit.EDU.AU>,
:> Rand al Thor <s9407377@minyos.xx.rmit.EDU.AU> wrote:
:> :How do you read input from a user in a batch file

:>  120735 Aug 5 19:56 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat47.zip
:>  tsbat47.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi

        I decided to check out Garbo - WOW! I am impressed with the
veritable goldmine of COOOOL stuff. I went looking for the above
file and forgot what I went for after I started browsing. My
compliments on a very nice archive!!!

Regards,

--
Mark R.
+ ================================================= +
+ mrestifo@wizvax.net                               +
+ 102444,3171@compuserve.com                        +
+ ------------------------------------------------- +
+ I thought I was wrong once.., but I was mistaken. +
+ ================================================= +



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Oct 28 09:00:40 1995
Subject: Re: Garbo's stupid uploading
To: Angry Uploader
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 09:00:40 +0200 (EET)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

A Very Disgruntled Garbo Uploader writes:

: Hi,

Yes, Hello.

: I assume since your e-mail address is at the
: bottom of the submition form for entering stuff
: to Garbo, that you were the person to contact
: when experiencing problems

Yes, I am. Especially in this case as this also seems to be some
kind of a policy complaint even if there are also technical aspects
and misunderstandings to your grievance.

: First off I think it's unfortunate that you've
: chosen to be quite rude in your documents as
: far as telling people what all the rules are
: for donating free software.  It's sad that you

Garbo's foremost objective is to be a selective quality material
site. We are striving at this with limited man-power resources. The
direct implication of this is that we cannot cope unless the users
follow our procedures. I have written a lot of FAQs and advice files
for the net, but experience shows that in this particular case (the
uploading-to-Garbo instructions) the most effective mode is to come
right out with it without a sugar coating. Hence, I have
concentrated into making Garbo uploading rules as unambiguous as I
can.

: seem to have lumped in for-profit software firms
: seeking free advertising with freeware authors
: doing something out of the joy of programming,
: and doing a nice *free* service to others.

Also we are doing "a nice *free* service to others" by bringing the
material (shareware, freeware and PD) to the users without charge to
the net. Besides having written a few hundred (yes) for private
users free programs myself I happen to have some insight into both
sides of the matter. Nevertheless, we must arrange everything in an
orderly manner if we wish to be able to bring the material to the
net.

: Your stupid ftp demeon refused to let me upload

You are barking up the wrong tree. This is a generic ftp daemon.

: a file a second time after the first time failed.

This is a common feature of these daemons.

: Why you'ld want to protect a file that's corrupt
: is beyond me.  I suppose I could've been rude and

This is a known problem with the corrupt or partially failed
uploads. One cannot upload over an existing file. We have to delete
it at this end first if you wish to repeat the upload using the same
file name. I do not know outright how else technically to arrange
this.

: just left the corrupt file and gone on, but I thought
: I'ld be nice and try to overwrite it with the proper
: file or erase it,  but no, you'ld rather have me
: waste my time and your disk space with a corrupt
: file.  Well, that's your choice.

Now that is a totally ridiculous accusation. I have no motivation
deliberately to waste the uploaders' time. But neither do I see any
reason to allow wasting ours by uninformed uploading.

: Why don't you just put up a start-up message
: on your ftp server to tell people that you really
: don't want software uploads.  Because you obviously

We wish to receive quality uploads in an orderly manner. What our
seasoned uploaders do in a case like this is that they email that
their upload did not manage to make it intact and that wish to try
anew. Or they reupload with a slightly different name and inform us
about it.

: don't want them.  Or you apparently only want
: people using your service for commercial purposes.

I do beg your pardon? What on earth would you be talking about? This
is a free university site, not a commercial service. You are
complaining about a free service.

: Because only they would put up with your services
: bad attitude.

Well, I would venture as far as to say that I am not the one of the
two of us with the attitude at the moment. But if what you call bad
attitude manages to act as an effective sieve to weed out amateurish
or non-motivated uploads, then it has well served its quality
guaranteeing purpose for Garbo.

: You may just say:  "if you don't like the way we do
: things, then don't upload"

Yes. That is quite true and accurate! Indeed if someone does not
like the way we have arranged our services, s/he absolutely should
use another service more to his/her liking. Why just not please go
and find one.

: Well, my answer to that is: I won't every try to
: upload again.  But it's to late to get back the time
: and good mood your service already took.

I hope that your venting your frustrations in your tantrum has
alleviated your obviously foul mood and made you feel better for it.

   All the best, Timo

P.S. Those who after reading this still wish to make quality uploads
to Garbo should carefully follow

 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF
 Instructions for submitting material to Garbo archives

 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPTEXT.INF
 The required formula for your Garbo upload announcements

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Nov  4 03:30:56 1995
Subject: Re: Your programs
To: tigger@sylvan.com (Grace Sylvan)
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 03:30:56 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <m0tBUCy-0009DlC@satyr.sylvan.com> from "Grace Sylvan" at Nov 3, 95 02:03:00 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

Hello Grace,

> I noticed that you've got a set of educational program packages out
> there, but have not yet found any documentation that I can easily
> read. (If the doc is only in the program, I, mac owner, can't run the
> program to read it). Jumbo, which has extracted a lot of documentation
> for many programs, has no info on what's in yours.

The information is fairly readily available. Most of my packages
include a *.INF information file, a *.NWS update news file and the
standard FILE_ID.DIZ file which contain the information you wish to
have. From

 20404 Oct 14 01:08 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
 INDEXTS.ZIP Details of the contents of each TS-package in zipped form

one sees for example that

ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgmed13.zip National flags as games, T.Salmi
Filename        Comment                             Date      Time
--------        --------------------------------    ----      ----
FILE_ID.DIZ     Brief characterization of tsgmed  05-07-94  03:27:30
FLAGGAME.EXE    Memory game with flags            05-07-94  03:07:56
FLAGQUIZ.EXE    Learn national flags by a quiz    05-07-94  03:04:44
TSGMED.INF      Document                          05-07-94  03:30:40
TSGMED.NWS      News concerning this package      05-07-94  03:34:10
TSPROG.INF      List of PD programs by T.Salmi    03-12-94  16:39:50
VAASA.INF       Info: Finland, Vaasa, U of Vaasa  03-12-94  10:07:48
----            ------             ------  -----
0007            180084

> So, what are your packages? What system requirements, what do they do?

The system requirements are usually light. Even a 8088 will do. Some
programs require an EGA but some run even on a CGA video adapter.

> Have you had a lot/little response from parents about them? Etc. If

In between. I have had some response from the parents. What feedback
I have got has been positive with occasional, useful suggestions
thrown in. Some of the feedback can be found from

 27065 Oct 15 08:52 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost00.zip
 tspost00.zip Index for Timo's FAQs and Information email + postings

> you're willing to give me doc (see the mac side of my shareware pages
> for the idea... I'm bringing up the PC side right now, already got 15
> programs in), I'm willing to put them on the page (that is, if you
> think they should be on...)

Yes, please. But before I do anything further please see if the
information I gave here on how and where to find my programs'
documentations is sufficient for extracting what you wish to have.

> --
> Tigger (Grace Sylvan)                Mom of Katherine Yelena, 6,
> tigger@satyr.sylvan.com              Robin Gregory, 3.5
> Children's Shareware Pages:          http://www.sylvan.com/

That's nice. If you ever acquire a PC besides your Mac, I hope that
your children might enjoy some of my programs, too.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Nov  4 11:04:13 EET 1995
Article: 7819 of comp.archives.msdos.d
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
Subject: Using kill files positively (Was Re: comp.archives.win32?)
Date: 4 Nov 1995 11:03:21 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

In article <jrs.2519.000BEDCA@dclf.npl.co.uk>,
Dr John Stockton, NPL UK <jrs@dclf.npl.co.uk> wrote:
:In article <9510290613.AA10992@SimTel.Coast.NET> w8sdz@SimTel.Coast.NET
(Keith Petersen) writes:
:>Yes, since the moderator of comp.os.ms-windows.announce will not allow
:>SimTel or Garbo to post their full upload announcements in his newsgroup.
(... much good discussion deleted for brevity ....)

:If a moderated group is used for more than one of [DOS, Win<=3.11, Win95+],
:then article titles need to carry a suitable indication of which.

John, please take a close look at the CAM.announce postings'
headers. The information already is there in "Keywords: ". It
enables the users to preselect the category of announcements they
wish to see.

An example. I most often use the trn newsreader and have

/^Keywords: *simtel, win/h:=:j

in my

~/News/comp/archives/msdos/announce/KILL

This marks those articles as read. The :=: is the beauty of this
trick. It lists the titles of the SimTel Windows articles so that I
could go back if there is an announcement I would like to read.

Kill files are usually perceived as negatively oriented methods of
avoiding something one does not wish to see. But they can be used
positively as tools for much more in preselection. (For example I
use them in many newsgroups to quickly find postings which refer to
Garbo archives.)

 7110 Sep 21 20:58 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/killfile.zip
 killfile.zip rn newsreader KILL file FAQ from Leanne Phillips

   All the best, Timo

Epilogue: A separate newsgroup for Windows announcements was later
created the 19th of June 1996. Official brief description:
comp.archives.ms-windows.announce Announcements about Windows
archives. (Moderated)

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Mon Nov 13 11:18:35 1995
Subject: Re: tstse16.zip SAL macro sources to extend The SemWare Editor
To: Sverre.Klov@stud.idb.hist.no (Sverre Klov)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 11:18:35 +0200 (EET)
Status: RO

> In article <ts9511121701.18471@reimari.uwasa.fi> you wrote:
> : Sun 12-Nov-95: I have made an update
>
> :  50180 Nov 12 17:14 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tstse16.zip
> :  tstse16.zip SAL macro sources to extend The SemWare Editor, T.Salmi
>
> Can I use any of your (by the looks) great macros whith the Q-editor?
> Thanks for any reply.

Hello Sverre,

No, I do not think you can. These are for the SemWare Editor
commercial version. For QEdit I have an older

 31255 Jan 8 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsqed17.zip
 tsqed17.zip Macros and configurations for QEdit text-editor, T.Salmi

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Nov 19 09:48:24 1995
Subject: Re: unix utilities for pc
To: milner@townsqr.com (Maribeth Milner)
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 09:48:24 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <199511190112.TAA32355@townsqr.com> from "Maribeth Milner" at Nov 18, 95 07:12:57 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

> Timo,

Hello Maribeth,

> I've just reviewed your best programs file.  What a great contribution!

Thank you for the nice compliment. I am pleased to hear that you
liked my

 23483 Sep 30 19:55 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/bestp43a.zip
 bestp43a.zip Timo's choice of 43 best MS-DOS SW and PD packages, T.Salmi

>    Thought you might know whether there is a compilation of unix utilities
> for dos.  I saw that you wrote a number of utilities like that, but is there
> a review/compilation of all programs?

Yes, in fact there kind of is. Not a review, but a detailed file
list

 15619 Oct 16 14:57 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/unix/0unix.zip
 0unix.zip .zip files contents in /pc/unix directory

> Thanks,
>
> Maribeth

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Nov 21 19:42:06 1995
Subject: Re: tsgifs12.zip A free collection of GIF labels for WWW
To: dmurdoch@mast.QueensU.CA (Duncan Murdoch)
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 19:42:06 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <9511211437.AA22175@mast.QueensU.CA> from "Duncan Murdoch" at Nov 21, 95 09:37:11 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

> At 03:50 PM 21-11-95 +0200, Timo Salmi wrote:
> > 151939 Nov 21 14:04 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgifs12.zip
> > tsgifs12.zip Timo's free collection of GIF labels for World Wide Web
>
> Thanks for posting these - it looks like a very useful collection, and I
> hadn't seen it before.  One thing I put together which you might want to
> include is a single html page that includes all the pictures and their names
> -- this is helpful for people like me who don't have a nice GIF directory
> browser.

Hi my friend Duncan,

In fact I already have made such an arrangement. Please take a peek
at

http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/gifst/

Thank your for pointing out the need of this information. I'll share
the question and the answer on the net.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Wed Dec  6 07:24:51 EET 1995
Article: 7703 of comp.lang.pascal.borland
Path: zippo.uwasa.fi!reimari.uwasa.fi!not-for-mail
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.borland
Subject: Re: TP Time Stamping of Directories
Date: 6 Dec 1995 05:21:56 -0000
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Message-ID: <ts9512060517.12439@reimari.uwasa.fi>
Status: RO

A Turbo Pascal user wrote to me in an email message:
> I understand that you are expert in Pascal Programming both Generic and
> Borland.  Could you advise me whether there are any shareware or Public

Not really. If I am an expert my expertise lies quite elsewhere.
As a programmer I am a active hobbyist. My field is research in
accounting and business finance. These are my specializations (as
stated by my WWW home page http://uwasa.fi/~ts)
 Financial statement analysis
 Quantitative research methodologies and principles
 Tutoring master's and doctoral theses
 Operations research in accounting

> Domain or Freeware programs/utilities to time stamp (and date stamp)
> directories.  Alternatively, please recommend any commercial utilities that
> you know of which can do this.  Unfortunately PCTOOLS cannot do this.

This is one of the problems I have tried several times but have not
managed to solve. I have posed the same question to the net a couple
of times. What I'll do is I'll pose it again by sending a copy of
this response to comp.lang.pascal.borland.

When I have posed this question previously, I have had answers, but
they have been false. Most frequently they have confused date/time
stamping files and directories. The former I have solved.

(If anyone has answers, please POST them to c.l.p.b for everyone's
benefit. Please do not email just me.)

> I have noticed that you are supplying a program to time stamp files but not
> directories.

That's the why.

> I would appreciate it if you can E-Mail me the answer just in case I miss
> your wonderful and informative FAQ on Pascal.

Please do not get me wrong. Usually, instead of answering by email,
I ask the user to post the question to the news. The email is
welcome, but there are several reasons to this preference.

 1) On the news others might be interested if I happen to know the
    answer.

 2) On the news others might know better or alternative answers.

 3) Much as I would like to help, answering by email usually takes
    too much of my time. It is not any more valuable than anyone
    else's, but as an active Usenet poster and an MS-DOS archive
    site maintainer I tend to get more questions than I can handle.

Please do not be discouraged. This does NOT mean that I would not
welcome email from fellow users. It only means that I often have to
ask redirecting the questions to the Usenet news instead of
answering them in private email.

> Regards

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Dec 10 08:50:55 1995
Subject: Re: Seeing package contents at Garbo
To: janscott@crl.com (Scott Lemke)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 1995 08:50:55 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <199512092348.AA02063@crl7.crl.com> from "Scott Lemke" at Dec 9, 95 03:48:06 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

> how do you get this directory listing showing the comments when you ftp?
> when i "ls" or "ls -l", i just get filename and size.  thanks.
>
> : ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutld22.zip Fourth set of Utilities, T.Salmi
> : Filename        Comment                             Date      Time
> : --------        --------------------------------    ----      ----
> : ADJCURS.BAT     Batch shell for adjusting cursor  08-15-93  06:08:24
> : BIGCURS.EXE     Make the cursor better visible    09-13-92  07:46:58
> : BIGNCURS.EXE    NonResident temporary big cursor  11-29-89  16:17:26
> : CAPS.EXE        Get/set keyboard toggles          07-19-90  14:22:44
> : FILES.EXE       Summary of your different files   09-08-90  13:07:08
> : FILE_ID.DIZ     Brief characterization of tsutld  10-04-94  21:35:08
> : ----            ------             ------  -----
> : 0018            160157

Hello Scott,

Yours is a good question. I'll share the answer with other Garbo
users.

The information you quote in the above is from

 20533 Dec 3 07:11 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
 INDEXTS.ZIP Details of the contents of each TS-package in zipped form

More generally, one cannot get the package contents or even the
package one-liners just by using 'ls' or its derivatives. For the
one-liners one has either to download the appropriate Garbo index
file, or use our WWW option http://garbo.uwasa.fi. For Garbo's
MS-DOS section the former is

 113520 Dec 9 00:19 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEX.ZIP
 INDEX.ZIP The annotated list of Garbo's MS-DOS files, zipped

If you have the option of using WWW, I warmly recommend trying it,
if you have not done so already. It is visually much more
entertaining than the quite drap ftp option. The downside is that
(as far as I know) the illustrated WWW option is only available at
Garbo, not the mirror site, so it will put some additional pressure
on the traffic at Garbo.

As for the detailed package contents you'll always have to download
at least the special index file when they are available. At Garbo we
have a few. They are the said

 20533 Dec 3 07:11 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
 INDEXTS.ZIP Details of the contents of each TS-package in zipped form

and

 21816 Oct 16 15:01 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/0turbopa.zip
 0turbopa.zip .zip files contents in /pc/turbopas directory

 12562 Aug 9 12:45 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopa7/0turbop7.zip
 0turbop7.zip .zip files contents in /pc/turbopa7 directory

 15619 Oct 16 14:57 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/unix/0unix.zip
 0unix.zip .zip files contents in /pc/unix directory

 36419 Dec 4 15:28 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pcmagvol/0pcmagvl.zip
 0pcmagvl.zip .zip files contents in /pc/pcmagvol directory

 6687 Aug 7 10:45 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/miscutil/0miscuti.zip
 0miscuti.zip .zip files contents in /pc/miscutil directory

When such a file is not available, the only way to the detailed file
contents is downloading the entire target package.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Dec 16 10:28:58 1995
Subject: Re: Old cam.announce news archives
To: baechler@cts.com (Anthony Baechler)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 10:28:58 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <m0tQrKE-0001UpC@crash.cts.com> from "Anthony Baechler" at Dec 15, 95 11:46:34 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

Hello Anthony,

> I am not sure where on Garbo to look, but looking through the Garbo index
> (current) and my relatively current SimTel CD-ROM, I can not even find
> any newer archives of the cam.announce newsgroup.  I did find the last
> few days worth from the SimTel listserv, but I would like to go back
> further than this.  Maybe I am just not looking in the right place (and I
> really hate to bother you again with this) but I just can not seem to
> find anything at all, except for the periodic posting of your FAQ.  I

Please try if this helps. Connect by WWW to my home page (see my
signature), click on comp.archives.msdos.announce and click on

MIDnet full search and explore access to
comp.archives.msdos.announce postings

If this does not solve it, please go back to my home page and select
my HTTP links list. Select "WWW link services and lists" to see if
those links are of use to you in this.

> will gladly look through the index again, but I am at a loss.  I used a
> grep utility to search for "archive" and found many archivers and this
> month's list of new files to and leaving Garbo, but the rest is archivers
> and a couple virus scanners.

That is because we do not have the old announcements stored at
Garbo.

> BTW, I have now downloaded all your utility sets, and am very impressed.

I am very pleased to hear that you like the programs in the
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ collection.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Dec 22 18:49:06 1995
Subject: Re: Timo's free WWW GIF collection
To: jellevs@xs4all.nl (Jelle van Schouwenburg)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 18:49:06 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <199512221256.AA22524@xs1.xs4all.nl> from "Jelle van Schouwenburg" at Dec 22, 95 01:56:07 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

Hello Jelle,

> Is there an index list of your nice GIF's collection? Because the title
> doesn't explain everything. If there is could you give me a site where I can
> download it.

No there is no index for

 151939 Nov 21 14:04 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgifs12.zip
 tsgifs12.zip Timo's free collection of GIF labels for World Wide Web

This is because it does not need one. The usage of each gif on one's
WWW page is up to one's own design. But you can see them at one go,
a page at a time, by looking at http://uwasa.fi/~ts/gifst/. The
added advantage is that there are some further images in there that
are not yet in tsgifs12.zip.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Dec 30 07:59:45 EET 1995
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: File dates/sizes to Garbo's lists
Date: 30 Dec 1995 07:57:57 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

Garbo users occasionally ask us to include the date and the size of
the files in our collection to Garbo's annotated file lists. There
is not enough room for this option in the annotated file list since
we wish to keep the right margin absolutely no further than at
column 78. What you can do, however, is to get (the most current)

 113821 Dec 29 22:19 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEX.ZIP
 INDEX.ZIP The annotated list of Garbo's MS-DOS files, zipped

 26103 Dec 29 08:18 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/_file.zip
 _file.zip Sorted filepath list, zipped

 62717 Dec 29 08:18 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/_dir.zip
 _dir.zip Directory list giving the file sizes, zipped

You can make the complete URLs for these, and any other Garbo MS-DOS
files yourself. Not easy the first time, but very useful in a longer
run. If you use a Unix system get

 4944 Feb 21 1995 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/ts/gfind
 gfind A convenient Unix script for Garbo index searches, T.Salmi

Run the result through
 #!/bin/sh
 sed -e 's#garbo.uwasa.fi:#ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi#'

You need to extract the following data files from the listed files
to use this script:
 _file.lst  from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/_file.zip
 _dir.lst   from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/_dir.zip
 INDEX      from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEX.ZIP

and voila! You have a complete URL with file sizes and dates. For
example, the file references in this message have been prepared with
the system I describe.

If you wish to do this on MS-DOS, the package to get is (or
whichever version number is current)

 21838 May 26 08:22 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgarb12.zip
 tsgarb12.zip Garbo related utilities for the PC (ffind,gfind), T.Salmi

Another, somewhat similar approach to this question is using tools like

 7340 Mar 26 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/filelist/garboidx.zip
 garboidx.zip Create a SimTel SIMIBM.IDX-compatible Garbo index file

 17581 Mar 1 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/filelist/garcvt12.zip
 garcvt12.zip Garbo INDEX file string finder, M.Sanders

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Wed Jan  3 20:27:21 1996
Subject: Re: Eigenvalues in tsmatr11.zip
To: 100745.1274@compuserve.com (philippe gaillard)
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 20:27:21 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <960103131223_100745.1274_EHU124-1@CompuServe.COM> from "philippe gaillard" at Jan 3, 96 08:12:24 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: RO

> Dear collegue

Hello Philippe,

> I was very interested with your program of matrix algebra. I, as

I am very pleased to hear that you liked my

 69989 Mar 23 1990 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsmatr11.zip
 tsmatr11.zip Standard matrix calculations. Product, inverse, etc.

> teacher of psychiatry Universite de Tours in France, have to explain
> data analysis (multiple regression, pincipal factors analysis...).
> We possessed the classical package as Statgraphics but it is
> sometimes useful to show step by step the process of analysis. Do
> you know of a freeware which could calculate matrix Diagonalisation,
> Characterics roots and vectors (eigenvalues) ?

I am afraid not, outright. But there is

 303775 May 1 1991 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/turbopas/nrpas13.zip
 nrpas13.zip Numerical Recipes Pascal shareware version, 303K!

which should have such Turbo Pascal source codes. As for actual
programs I would suggest first taking a look at

 114095 Jan 3 15:10 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEX.ZIP
 INDEX.ZIP The annotated list of Garbo's MS-DOS files, zipped

Unfortunately, I don't think that there is one, but I can't recall
for sure. In not, the next step is asking probably in the
news:sci.stat.math newsgroup.

> It is not clear whether one of your program can do it ?

No, I don't think so. Why am I a bit uncertain in my answers to
these questions? The reason is that I am a hobbyist prorgammer and
neither a statistician nor a mathematician. My scholary field
actually is accounting and business finance.

> In this time of the year, i send you my best wishes for the new year

Thank you. Likewise!

   All the best, Timo

> Pr Ph. Gaillard
> Universite de Tours
> Clinique Psychiatrique Universitaire
> BP 134
> 37541 St Cyr sur Loire
> Email: 100745.1274@compuserve.com

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@reimari.uwasa.fi Fri Jan 19 08:09:05 EET 1996
From: ts@reimari.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
Subject: Re: What Garbo does not carry
Date: 19 Jan 1996 08:08:53 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

In article <4dmal0$sah@mailnews.kub.nl>,
Perry Rovers <Perry.Rovers@IAEhv.nl> wrote:
:On 18 Jan 1996 15:35:00 -0000 Timo Salmi (ts@uwasa.fi) wrote:
(My comment of Garbo not carrying all program categories, and
Garbo not going to assume any of the SimTel stall lag.)

:How about listing the categories here, Timo? I know they are listed in
:the upload.inf text, but not directly from the www site and the
:upload file does not state e.g. which kinds of MS-DOS programs are
:rejected (if not already listed in the upload file)/accepted.

That is a very good suggestion friend Perry, but unfortunately there
is no unequivocal answer. The fact is that there are many judgement
calls and Garbo's scope also is somewhat dependent on Garbo's
workforce situation which tends to vary around the year depending on
whether we have CS apprentices to do part of the work. It also is
somewhat subject to how pressed for time Ari and I happen to be and
what happens to interest us personally at the time. Thus it is
impossible to make a binding and an exhaustive list.

However, there are some general notes we can expand from

 15718 Dec 17 16:32 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF
 UPLOAD.INF Instructions for submitting material to Garbo archives

What we do not usually invite:

- Games carried only with a clear educational flavor and purpose
- Additional BBS utilities or systems like Waffle, Wildcat, whatever
- Beta test versions
- Demo versions of fully commercial programs only in cases of
  exceptional interest (to us, not to the uploader :-)
- Programs that we can't test in our own environment (without
  undue arrangements)
- Most programs requiring special equipment are not carried
  - specials cpus
  - special sound cards
  - etc
- Most often no material taken which requires a special enhancer loaded
  before it runs
- Some specialized programming material not often taken, like Basic
  programs (but this, again is a case by case judgement call)
- LAN programs and utilities (we can't take up testing them)
- Programs that do not allow distribution on a commercial CD-ROM
  or require special arrangements with the CR-ROM vendors or with us
- Recreational gifs or animations
- Fringe science crap like astrology or numerology programs
- Program cracks (with the exception of executable uncompression)
- Programs expiring at a certain, prefixed date
- Religious, support a cause and similar material (even when embedded)
- Excessively crippled or excessively nagging programs
- etc, etc, etc (the etc somewhat being a judgement call as I said)

- Currently, only updates of Windows programs
- Currently no Windows 95 programs

Garbo is run with the goal to enhance scientific knowledge and to
promote the geographically remote University of Vaasa, Finland,
instead of a commercial purpose. This is an important factor in the
judgement calls.

The alternative would be trying to find some kind of a commercial
raison d'etre for Garbo. But payments from the uploaders or the
users are not easily arranged in practice nor uncontroversial in
principle taken our background and the Internet philosophy (even if
the latter is changing whether we wish to or not). We have at the
university a domestic BBS (called Walli), however, that is arranged
on a basis of covering its costs, but not producing an actual
profit. Financially, Garbo runs at a loss for the net's benefit. You
gentle Internet users and program authors are in fact subsidized by
the Finnish tax payer!

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb  9 11:36:25 EET 1996
Article: 8344 of comp.archives.msdos.d
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
Subject: Re: My upload to Garbo -- is it lost?
Date: 6 Feb 1996 07:52:08 -0000
Status: RO

> Timo--

Hello Valued Garbo Uploader,

> Sorry to bother you about this, but I uploaded xxxx201.zip
> about 2-3 weeks ago (and also xxxx200.zip 3-4 weeks ago),
> and it has not yet appeared on the garbo site.  Is there a
> chance that this file was lost?  And if not, about how much

No, it is in the overflowing queue.

> average time lag should I expect between uploading and when
> the file is available?  Thanks for your help!

At the moment we are in a totally impossible situation. Both Ari and
I who are resposible for Garbo have other professional tasks. Hence
the queues are growing at an alarming rate even for the MS-DOS
section which currently has the precedence. In the fall we had two
excellent CS apprentices to take care of most of the Garbo uploads,
but they have gone back to school. Hence I can't make any
predictions or promises. The situation is blowing up in our hands.

This situation cannot be resolved until the University of Vaasa
again arranges additional manpower to share the work. I can't
predict the time-table, but this has been discussed positively
several times over here. Some gentle users from the outside have
offered to help, but unfortunately we cannot ustilize it option.
Both for practical reasons and in priciple the Garbo moderators have
to be located at our University.

> ps. expected directory is /windows/science

This makes the situation even more unfortunate from our point of
view since as a university site we would like to welcome science
material, in particular.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland


From lalexand@diku.dk  Sat Feb 10 20:33:27 1996
From: Lars Alexandersen <lalexand@diku.dk>
Received: (lalexand@localhost) by embla.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA26306; Sat, 10 Feb 1996 19:33:08 +0100
Message-Id: <199602101833.TAA26306@embla.diku.dk>
Subject: A batch to show the errorlevel
To: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 19:33:08 +0100 (MET)
Status: RO

Dear prof. Salmi

With interest I downloaded your batch collection and feedback.

 120735 Aug 5 19:56 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat47.zip
 tsbat47.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi

I too have put some effort in getting a batch program to report the
current errorlevel. Early in my batch programming career I took up
the issue of recursive batch programs, so my approach to the problem
is quite different from the ones I've seen at garbo. It depends on
excessive use of DOS brilliant string concatenation capabilities and
a phenomenon we might call Non Returning Recursion.

I have made some shorter versions, but they are either not
compatible with earlier DOS versions (uses call), "slow", lacks
error handling, uses ansi.sys, uses environment variables, or has
unwanted properties under other OSs (as OS/2 .cmd-file)

Speed: We are not *really* interested in speed - are we?

Here it goes:

rem el.bat begins on the next line
@echo off
if '%1=='* goto ?
if '%1=='** goto ?
if '%1=='*** goto !
if errorlevel 200 %0 * 2 0
if errorlevel 100 %0 * 1 0
%0 * 0 0
:?
if not errorlevel %21%3 %0 %1* %20
if not errorlevel %22%3 %0 %1* %21
if not errorlevel %23%3 %0 %1* %22
if not errorlevel %24%3 %0 %1* %23
if not errorlevel %25%3 %0 %1* %24
if %1==* if errorlevel 250 %0 ** 25
if %1==** if errorlevel 255 %0 *** 255
if not errorlevel %26%3 %0 %1* %25
if not errorlevel %27%3 %0 %1* %26
if not errorlevel %28%3 %0 %1* %27
if not errorlevel %29%3 %0 %1* %28
%0 %1* %29
:!
echo Errorlevel %2
rem Another errorlevel report program by Lars Alexandersen, lalexand@diku.dk
rem el.bat ended on the previous line

Have fun

|Lars ALEXANDersen|Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen DIKU   |
|lalexand@diku.dk |                       "Back off man. I'm a scientist."|



From ts@reimari.uwasa.fi Thu Feb 15 21:31:05 EET 1996
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
Subject: Re: Simon Fraser University
Date: 15 Feb 1996 16:17:41 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

In article <4ftus6$o0m@globe.indirect.com>, Charles Dye wrote:

(The quoted example of yet another case of the long-standing inane
abuse against Timo Salmi this time from a forged SFU account deleted.)

:I've never even heard of "Simon Frasier University."

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. Canada certainly exists. I
even happen to recall a former user from there picked from the old
archive backups.

><-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-><
| Samuel C. Ko (aka The Smart One / BOZO) <--> a celebrity & DOS/UNIX wizard :)
:) kko@sfu.ca <--> Outspoken,Highly-talented,Charming... I post this for You! |
[-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-]

Maybe he can give some information to you on this having been at
SFU. His telephone number has been listed as +1 604 436-0339.

   All the best, Timo  (continued below)


-Date: 16 Feb 1996 07:29:56 +0200
-From: ts@reimari.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
-Subject: Re: Simon Fraser University

In article <4g0m1l$qk7@globe.indirect.com>, Charles Dye wrote:
:Okay, SFU, I do apologize.  (And admit your existence.)  But you do
:have at least one rude alumnus whose account you could yank ....

Let me fill you in with a brief history as it is without any
conclusions. Mr. Samuel C. Ko is the person who saw to the voting
process to create the comp.archives.msdos.{d.announce}. He also used
to publish a list of useful programs where the quoted signature is
from. (I no longer offer that list from Garbo.) After the voting
process and the creation of the newsgroups Mr. Ko turned
increasingly hostile posting negative information about alleged
extensive critical attitudes towards yours truly. However, the vote
results were the overwhelming 939:44 in favor of the newsgroups and
can be found in

 21599 Dec 9 1992 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/camvote.zip
 camvote.zip The results of the comp.archives.msdos votes (9-Dec-92)

Mr. Ko never gave any substantiation of the alleged critique. Soon
after that Mr. Ko dropped totally out of sight. The inane ranting
against Timo Salmi that has been going on for years mostly in the
news:comp.archives.msdos.d newsgroup started at the same time. The
postings have been carefully forged to look like they would come
from various sources, but at the outset the originating sites were
always observed to coincide with the providers where Mr. Ko had new
accounts. Later, the system administrators who have looked into the
abuse postings have consistently traced the point of the original
entry back to the general Burnaby/Vancouver, BC, Canada area.

This is the listing of the facts. Please let me make this very
clear. I am making no claims nor do I draw any conclusions. It is
evident, however, that the mentally ill rantings against Timo Salmi
are instigated by one very disturbed individual whatever his true
identity or background.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland


From costello@illuminet.net  Thu Feb 22 06:59:45 1996
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 96 23:55:02 PST
From: Don Costello <costello@illuminet.net>
Subject: Re: Your batch tips/tricks -- GREAT!
To: Timo Salmi <ts@UWasa.Fi>
Status: RO


>Hello Don,
>

(Don wrote originally:)
>> Any ideas on how I can take the output of a program and stuff it
>> into an environment variable. If you know the answer (or a pointer
>> to the answer) that would be great.

(I replied:)
>I am afraid what I'll have to do is to suggest pos(t)ing the
>question to alt.msdos.batch or comp.os.msdos.programmer if you are
>not getting the former. I'd like to look at this one, but I am
>awfully pressed for time.

(Don continues:)
Here's what I got (I love the Internet!):

[START RESPONSE FROM C.S.M.B]
>| This one is sort of similar to all of the well know
solutions but it varies
>| somwewhat:

>| I need to store the output of a Netware 4.1 command (CX) to
an environment
>| variable.  This is not the same as storing the date/time/etc
(see Timo Salmi's
>| TSBAT47 for details).  There is no "constant" portion of the
output that I can
>| key on to make an on-the-fly temp batch file.

>| The CX command will output something of the form
"ou.ou.ou.o" on a line by
>| itself.  Of course, I can stuff this value into a file but I
need it to be in
>| an environment variable, if possible.

>| I know there are programs I can get that will do this (in
fact, I can write a
>| utility in C that would do what I want) but I need to make
this a generic file
>| that can be passed along to non-programmers.

>| Any help would be priceless at this point!
>| Thanks in advance for any hlep you could offer.
>| -- dcc --

You picked the appropriate group to ask! How about 6 lines or
so:

1)      At the DOS prompt type:

        COPY CON TEMP1<CR>
        set your_e-var=<^Z><CR>

        Note!: NO CR after the '=' , just CTRL-Z, then CR

        Save this as a permanent file somewhere

2)      Run your command, redirecting the output into another
temp file:

        COMMAND > temp2

3)      from the command line, or preferably a batch file:

        copy /b temp1 + temp2  whatever.bat

        the /b insures that no CTRL-Z chars get put in the
middle of the file

4)      this will yield a batch file containing  the command:

        set your_e-var=[command output]

        Hope this works for you!

[END RESPONSE]
Other responses were basically the same but this one is
probably the mose useful!

I hope to see this in your batch file tips!

Thanks again for the pointer!

-- dcc --
-------------------------------------------
Don Costello        costello@illuminet.net

      this message is umop apisdn
-------------------------------------------


From ts@reimari.uwasa.fi Sat Mar  2 08:46:59 EET 1996
Article: 11508 of comp.archives.msdos.announce
From: ts@reimari.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.announce
Subject: Citations to Garbo + the University
Date: 2 Mar 1996 08:35:22 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

I-way Magazine has chosen:

Top 500 Sites on the Web

-  Shareware/Downloadable Goodies

   23.(tie) GARBO FTP Archive at Waasa
   340 points

   This shareware and documentation repository is organized by computer
   type or subject. It includes a reasonably complete set of astronomical
   images, too, for which 17 mirror sites are available. Its interface is
   a simple FTP front end.

(My own comment: Details are inconsequential, but there currently
are 27 Garbo mirrors. Furthermore Garbo also has a WWW front end
http://garbo.uwasa.fi/. Anyway, such citations are nice to get.)

The PC Computing magazine December 1995 has chosen the University of
Vaasa, Finland http://www.uwasa.fi/ as the only Finnish university
on its list "Best 1001 Internet Sites".

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Mar  9 20:45:02 1996
Subject: Re: tsgmee-hangman and towers
To: Czfz@aol.com
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 20:45:02 +0200 (EET)
Status: RO

> Dear Dr. Salmi: How do i quit the tsgmee program and return to DOS?

Hello Carl,

You are talking about this package

 71135 Dec 14 1990 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgmee10.zip
 tsgmee10.zip Classic Hangman and Towers of Hanoi, T.Salmi

To interrupt either game just press Ctrl-C when the game asks for
input.

> Do you have a brief finnish-english/english-finnish dictionary of
> key words and phrases for American travelers to Finland, which I
> can download from Internet?

I don't think so. But you can find an English - Finnish dictionary
if you point your WWW browser to my home page and choose my
collection of HTTP links. There is a link to a dictionary in there.
If you need more information about traveling to Finland, the place
to pose the questions is news:soc.culture.nordic.

> Do you plan to upload your educational and business programs such as
> TSGAME to America Online's Computer Software section so I can
> easily download these programs?

You mean

 44138 May 31 1989 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgame12.zip
 tsgame12.zip Three educational games including a management game

I do not upload my programs to other sites and services than our own
(garbo.uwasa.fi) even if all sites are welcome to download and carry
them. However, this should not pose a problem to you. You should be
able to get the files from us or our mirror sites judging from the
fact that our statistics show that we have a considerable number of
AOL users downloading from us. AOL is an excellent service and I
would guess that the file transfer instructions are readily
available on AOL. However, you may also wish to see this:

"If you do not know how to go about getting this material, users are
welcome to email me for the prerecorded garbo.uwasa.fi instructions
(long, about 29Kb)."

> I look forward to your reply. Thank you. Carl Zimmerman, USA,
> e-mail: czfz@aol.com

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Mar 10 07:40:21 1996
Subject: Re: tsbat46.zip batch tricks
To: dwayne.sterling@fastdrs.com (Dwayne Sterling)
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 07:40:21 +0200 (EET)
In-Reply-To: <9603091521252035@fastdrs.com> from Dwayne Sterling at "Mar 7, 96 11:23:51 am"
Status: RO

: I am writing about the file mentioned in the subject...It is a
: rather old file, and i am looking for a very recent updated version,
: if one so exists.

As seen from

 20954 Mar 3 21:19 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
 INDEXTS.ZIP Details of the contents of each TS-package in zipped form

the current version is

 120735 Aug 5 19:56 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat47.zip
 tsbat47.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi

: Also, any recommendations on other sources of MsDos programming
: files. Preferably .TXT or .DOC files.

Point your WWW browser to my home page (http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/),
choose the item "Timo's collection of http links" and select item
"Programming and programs" for Turbo Pascal and Batch Programming
services.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@reimari.uwasa.fi Sat Mar 16 15:35:59 EET 1996
From: ts@reimari.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,news.groups
Subject: Re: Is this a binaries group or what?
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: 16 Mar 1996 02:40:17 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

After making binary postings to news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted and
news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Mr H...... R..... xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxxx
wishes to continue to contest the democratically voted purpose of
comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted first in a private email query (which I
am afraid I can't but categorize as somewhat belligerent) and now
also publicly.

This is how the Usenet newsgroup system works. The purpose of a
newsgroup is decided at the time when the newsgroup is
democratically voted into existence in accordance to the generally
accepted Usenet practice as listed in

 100135 Jan 24 15:26 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pub/pc/doc-net/usenews.zip
 usenews.zip Usenet Netiquette, creating new newsgroups, etc advice

At that time the implicit decision is also made whether the
newsgroup is a discussion newsgroup or a binaries newsgroup. In the
present hierarchy the binary newsgroup is news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc
(moderated) while news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted and
news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d were made the discussion newsgroups. (I
know these newsgroups particularly well, since I was personally
involved in the creation process of these newsgroups with four other
persons on the net). Attached is an extract from the regular posting
about the purpose of comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted. Binary postings do
not belong to discussion newsgroups like comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted.

Discussion about a newsgroup's purpose and the suggestions for
changing it, which can be done along the same voting guidelines,
should be continued in news:news.groups (followups redirected to
there). First a RFD (Request For Discussion) should be posted, and
so on as explained in the guidelines step by step. A serious
contester of the status of a newsgroup should first carefully
familiarize oneself both with the current status of a newsgroup and
the Usenet process of newsgroup creation.

My primary suggestion to Mr R..... is, however, to offer his useful
binary material through the proper binary newsgroups and that he is
welcome submit his material to ftp sites for a more permanent
distribution. On the other hand, if he wishes to change what the
users democratically voted for, the information is readily available
how try to do that properly. Those are the options involving genuine
credibility instead of being just another uninformed net tantrum
thrower.

--------------------- snip -------------------------------------------

The official charter of news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted:
  This group is to be used to post requests/replies concerning where
  to find ibm pc or compatible programs. Topics include requests for
  missing parts of binaries posted to news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc and
  requests for specific programs.

Please note: The "looking for" and similar questions and discussions
about fully commercial programs are covered in news:comp.os.msdos.apps
and news:comp.os.msdos.misc, *NOT* in news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted.

Please note: The newsgroup news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted is not
for binary postings despite its name. It is a discussion only
newsgroup. It is understandable that the name may confuse some
readers, but it is news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc (moderated) that is the
relevant binaries newsgroup in this subhierarchy.

A special note: news:comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted is _not_ a market
place for selling / buying PC hardware. Nor is it in practice
intended for private offers to trade single copies of programs or
their manuals. The "wanted" understandably misleads some posters in
these respects. If you want to buy / sell use one of the many
newsgroups in the misc.forsale hierarchy like
  news:misc.forsale.computers.pc-specific.misc
  news:misc.forsale.computers.pc-specific.software
  news:misc.forsale.computers.pc-specific.systems

------------------------- snip -------------------------------------

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Mar 19 21:44:54 EET 1996
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.announce
Subject: Re: Garbo upload delays
Followup-To: comp.archives.msdos.d
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 21:44:54 +0200 (EET)
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Status: RO

A Valued Garbo Uploader wrote:
> About 12 days ago, I uploaded the program
> The Windows ............... (xxxxx.ZIP &  xxxxx.TXT)
> to the server, but there seems to be no sign of it.
>
> Of course I realize that you must be very busy, but if you can find
> the time, can you let me know if you received the files and if\when

Dear Valued Uploader, we seem to have the xxxxx.zip file, but your
emailed upload announcement was not in the format that we require at
Garbo:

 6710 Jan 15 09:23 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPTEXT.INF
 UPTEXT.INF The required formula for your Garbo upload announcements

> you intend to place them on your server.

Hopefully within a week to a month after we have received your
updated upload announcement in the required format. But with the
current workload vs. capacity I cannot make any promises whatsoever
about the projected schedule.

Please also note that our auto-daemon deletes all non-zipped files
>from  our incoming directories. If you have uploaded a *.TXT file it
will have been deleted automatically.

The unfortunate fact is that the gentle uploaders who do not follow
Garbo's procedures end up at the tail of the queue or even
discarded. We simply do not have the time to notify each and every
one of the problems. We would very much like to, but we do not have
the capacity. We are not a commercial operation with resources to
match.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Mar 31 09:46:29 1996
Subject: Re: Uploading minor software updates to Garbo
To: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 09:46:29 +0300 (EET DST)
Status: RO

: Hi,

Hello Peter,

: I have a question about uploading updates to programs on Garbo (this
: may be of interest to other software authors or news:
: comp.archives.msdos.announce readers as well).  Assuming I have a
: large (say, 500K - 1MB) program on Garbo and I make a relatively
: minor change, bugfix, or update (say, one 50KB file), what is the
: preferred way to distribute the change? Should I upload a complete
: new version of the software, or only the changed component?  The
: advantage of uploading only the changed portion is that it greatly
: reduces the load on Garbo when lots of people download the update.
: The disadvantage is that it might be a bit inconvenient to have to
: download the software in two parts, or it may cause administrative
: problems for you.  UPLOAD.INF doesn't mention anything on this, is
: there a policy for how this should be handled?  With the number of
: large (1MB+) software packages around it might save significant
: amounts of bandwidth in distributing updates which contain only
: minor changes.

It is a good question. I understand the bandwidth concern. However,
the preferred method is updating the entire package. The bandwidth
advantages of the patch method are more than offset by the potential
user confusion. Besides, as far as we can we would like to avoid
anything that deviates in any way from the standard routines in
submitting material to us. Also note that with the present loads the
effect on the total would be negligible.

That having been said there are some notable exceptions like the
SWAG Turbo Pascal information collection where the very system has
been geared to patching the database as updates cames by. But there
are two differences to the present case. The system has been built
that way. The programs do the relevant updating of the database for
the users. The other difference is in the scope. In the case of SWAG
we are speaking of multiple megabytes.

To summarize. Rather submit the update in full as long as we stay
under 1.44Mb.

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Apr 21 20:02:08 EET 1996
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.shareware
Subject: Link services are not the FTP sites
Date: 21 Apr 1996 13:10:03 +0300
Organization: University ov Vaasa
Status: RO

In article <> a reader wrote:
: Re: For best Win95 Shareware Sites try:
:       http://tucows.niia.net/
:       http://www.coast.net/SimTel/
:       http://coyote.csusm.edu/cwis/winworld/diverse.html
:       http://www.jumbo.com/
:

That's very useful. But please let me bring up a principle of
terminology. E.g. www.jumbo.com is not an FTP site, but a file
reference and link WWW service. The work to process the files and
the capacity to carry them is provided by the FTP sites proper!

Sites like Jumbo indeed provide a welcome service. But I am a bit
upset by this recent trend to categorize also the link services as
full-fledged FTP sites. It is the latter that actually process and
carry the files. Besides, some of the link services are
(deliberately?) vague about their true status presenting themselves
as something they are not. Coexistence is fine and welcome. But I'd
rather not see also the work done by someone else guised as one's
own!

   All the best, Timo

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland


From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Apr 30 07:30:21 EET 1996
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.shareware
Subject: Re: Shareware/Freeware from JUMBO!
Date: 30 Apr 1996 07:29:15 +0300
Organization: University ov Vaasa
Status: RO

In article <yvOpyBAi6zgxEwIw@musical.demon.co.uk>,
David Webber  <dave@musical.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:In article <4ltrvg$8ob@reimari.uwasa.fi>, Timo Salmi
:<ts@reimari.uwasa.fi> writes
:
:>Once again in case someone missed it. What Jumbo is is a reference
:>service. It draws on the independent FTP sites that carry the actual
:>material.
:
:You're making an important point here Timo, but sadly I think you're
:losing: people who joined the net to get web access will automatically
:think of the net and www as the same, and really not appreciate the way
:everything works.

Yes, I agree. What the in other respects very useful WWW has caused
as a side effect is this confusion that WWW is somehow synonymous to
Internet.

:WWW makes the ftp site completely transparent and I can see this might
:make problems for ftp sites which need visibility to justify their
:existence.

We have to take this as an existing fact. We will not take up a
losing battle of access or similar denial attempts. Instead we offer
the WWW option of Garbo direct besides the conventional FTP. In
other words we are trying to make the http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ option
as attractive and useful as we can. I am confident that we can be
both cooperative and competitive in this area just like we have
managed to be on the traditional FTP scene. Besides, we have one big
advantage over link services like Jumbo. Our own links will be
constantly up to date.

:I shall continue to put "Download MOZART from <ftp site>" as the text
:for the download links on my web pages.  I recommend that other
:shareware authors do the same - as a token of support for the ftp sites
:which make our existence possible.

Thank you friend Dave. Appreciated!

:Dave

   All the best, Timo

:+---------------------------+-----------------------------------+
:| Dave Webber                        dave@musical.demon.co.uk   |
:|  Author of MOZART, the Windows 3.1 shareware Music Processor  |
:|        For details see http://www.execpc.com/~mozart          |
:|  Member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP)   |
:+---------------------------+-----------------------------------+

....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi   Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives  193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance  ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101,  Finland
From mcr@holly.demon.co.uk  Tue Apr 30 23:33:31 1996
From: Mark Rogers <mcr@holly.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: TSBAT48 - Some thoughts....
To: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 96 20:16:07  GMT
Organization: Unn Ltd.
Status: RO

Timo,

A few thoughts of TSBAT48.ZIP....

I've used several of the TSBAT hints in the past few years, so thanks for
the great work.

============================================================================
BATRICKS.TXT
------------

> 7. Convert a parameter to uppercase
> ===================================
>
> (...)
>
> The also is another method for getting case-independent results.
> This is adapted from Jeff Prosise's column in PC Computing, March
> 1993, pp. 216-217. If the batch below is called TEST.BAT, it makes
> no difference whether you enter "TEST yes" or "TEST YES" or "TEST
> yEs".
>
>   @echo off
>   if not "%1"=="" set %1=*****
>   set status_=
>   if "%yes%"=="*****" set status_=yes
>   if "%no%"=="*****" set status_=no
>   if not "%status_%"=="" echo The parameter %%1 was a %status_%
>   if "%status_%"=="" echo The parameter %%1 was neither a yes nor a no
>   if not "%1"=="" set %1=

Another which I use quite often is just to have

  @echo off
  goto _%1
  :_yes
  echo The parameter %%1 was a yes
  goto end
  :_no
  echo The parameter %%1 was a no
  goto end
  :_
  echo No parameter was passed
  :end

There is no protection against an invalid parameter; however, this is
still a useful case-insensitive method which I use a lot. (The other
might fail in other circumstances, for example if there were insufficient
environment space to create the status_ variable, so neither are
"perfect".)

> 23. Alternatives for testing for the errorlevel value
> =====================================================
>
> (...)
> Alternatively, and more generally
>  for %%e in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) do if errorlevel==%%e set _errlev=%%e
>  if "%_errlev%"=="2" echo Errorlevel %_errlev%

I wonder if a variant on this method would speed up level.bat?

I already use an optimized level.bat which takes short cuts in common
situations, viz:

  @echo off
  echo
  echo  A testbench for a program's errorlevel
  echo  By Prof. Timo Salmi Sat 28-Mar-1992
  echo  Mods by mcr@holly.demon.co.uk
  echo
  echo.

  if not "%1"=="" %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

  echo.
  if not errorlevel 16 goto _15
  if not errorlevel 51 goto _50
  if errorlevel==255 echo errorlevel==255
  if errorlevel==254 if not errorlevel==255 echo errorlevel==254
  (...)
  if errorlevel==51 if not errorlevel==52 echo errorlevel==51
  :_50
  if errorlevel==50 if not errorlevel==51 echo errorlevel==50
  (...)
  if errorlevel==16 if not errorlevel==17 echo errorlevel==16
  :_15
  if errorlevel==15 if not errorlevel==16 echo errorlevel==15
  (...)
  if errorlevel==0 if not errorlevel==1 echo errorlevel==0

  echo.
  if "%1"=="" echo Usage: LEVEL ProgramName [Parameter1] [Parameter2] [...]
  if "%1"=="" echo.

This has two advantages over your version; first, it is a lot quicker in
general use, and second, it can be run after a program exits rather than
passing the command to run to the batch file.

I make extensive use of level.bat, and often have to run it from floppy
disk, hence the importance of any speed improvements I can make.


> 42. Creating an empty file if the file does not already exist
> =============================================================
>
> @echo off
> if exist testfile goto _nocreate
> rem > testfile
> :_nocreate

Would not the single line:

  rem >> testfile

be simpler?



============================================================================
DOSTRICK.TXT
------------

> 3. A config.sys and autoexec.bat example
> ========================================
>
> (...)
> @ECHO OFF
> rem Description: My normal MsDos 5.0 boot with Scrollit
> rem Note below the trick to identify which of my PCs I am currently using:
> set pcid_=karvi
> rem Yellow text on black background
> echo <ESC>[40;33;1m

Presumably that <ESC> means the ESC char and not the five characters <,
E, S, C and >, but that isn't mentioned anywhere. Attempts to use this as
it stands will fail, and probably confuse a few people :-(

> PATH C:\DOS;c:\tools;e:\arczip
> rem DAILY.EXE is from /pc/ts/tsbat46.bat to run a mini-backup
> rem call c:\bat\daily c:\tools\pkzip -u d:\root\root c:\*.*
> PROMPT $p$g
> rem CHKSUM is from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/goldies/chksum16.zip
> c:\tools\chksum command.com 49024 io.sys 9850 msdos.sys 5750
> loadhigh c:\dos\KEYB SU,,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS
> (...)

In passing, may I ask why so few people use whitespace in batch files to
improve readability? Surely

      PATH C:\DOS;c:\tools;e:\arczip

  rem DAILY.EXE is from /pc/ts/tsbat46.bat to run a mini-backup
  rem call c:\bat\daily c:\tools\pkzip -u d:\root\root c:\*.*

      PROMPT $p$g

  rem CHKSUM is from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/goldies/chksum16.zip
      c:\tools\chksum command.com 49024 io.sys 9850 msdos.sys 5750

      loadhigh c:\dos\KEYB SU,,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS

is much easier on the eye? This is a genuine question - very few people
(many of them programmers) seem to produce very hard to read batch
files, and I've never understood why. Incidentally, using :: rather than
rem not only avoids redirection problems, but speeds the batch file up
(each REM is executed then the file is rescanned from the top to find the
next line; labels are just skipped). Also, in passing, I noticed the
other day that you can add comments to genuine label lines, ie:

    goto L1
    :L1     Test label

will work fine.


> 7. Selected Doskey macro examples
> =================================
>
> (...)
> d) Touch a file's date/timestamp, that is make it to be now.
>  doskey touch=copy $1 + ,,$Tdir $1

Surely this should be:
   doskey touch=copy /b $1 + ,,$Tdir $1

Used as is on a binary file it performs an ascii copy and corrupts the
file (or at least it does for me; I understand that ascii is the default
mode for copy when concatenating files).

============================================================================

LATER....

I've just played around with LEVEL.BAT as I suggested earlier. Not
surprisingly, on a cached hard disk there is little to choose between the
two methods. However, on an uncached floppy disk (as I would be faced
with when I have to visit a customer's site, for example) the new version
is a lot faster. For an errorlevel of 128, for example, the old version
took 13+ seconds, compared with 2 for the new version which follows.

  @echo off
  if not "%1"=="" %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
  set _EL=
  for %%e in (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (140,141,142,143,144,145,146,147,148,149,150,151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (160,161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,170,171,172,173,174,175,176,177,178,179) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (180,181,182,183,184,185,186,187,188,189,190,191,192,193,194,195,196,197,198,199) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (200,201,202,203,204,205,206,207,208,209,210,211,212,213,214,215,216,217,218,219) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (220,221,222,223,224,225,226,227,228,229,230,231,232,233,234,235,236,237,238,239) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e
  for %%e in (240,241,242,243,244,245,246,247,248,249,250,251,252,253,254,255) do if errorlevel %%e set _EL=%%e

  echo
  echo  A testbench for a program's errorlevel
  echo  By Prof. Timo Salmi Sat 28-Mar-1992
  echo  Mods by mcr@holly.demon.co.uk
  echo
  echo.
  echo.
  echo errorlevel==%_EL%
  echo.
  if "%1"=="" echo Usage: LEVEL ProgramName [Parameter1] [Parameter2] [...]
  if "%1"=="" echo.
  set _EL=

The new version is also a *lot* smaller than the old one!

Mark.
--
int MeaningOfLife (void) { return 42; }   // mcr@holly.demon.co.uk
function MeaningOfLife :integer; begin MeaningOfLife := 6 * 9 end;



