From ts@uwasa.fi  Mon Dec 31 12:00:00 2019
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: pc/pd2/tspost26.zip file description
To: ts@uwasa.fi  (Timo Salmi)
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2019 12:00:00 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 post26.txt).  !
! On a PC /pc/mail/rmail*.zip is a convenient alternative       !
+---------------------------------------------------------------+

   This is the twenty-sixth 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) news: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      (26)   pc/pd2/tspost26.zip file description
2   Feb 6  To A friendly prog (40)   Re: Will you allow uploads soon?
3   Feb 6  To Madhumati Krish (42)   Re: Correlation package registration
4   Jan 27 ANGUITA, HORACIO E (33)   Batch Env_trick
5   Jan 25 To Frank Winstan   (76)   Re: Garbo's empty Windows95 directories
6   Jan 15 WellsCom           (108)  Re: >>> What NOT to post to alt.comp.sharewa
7   Dec 6  Timo Salmi         (101)  Will 1998 be Garbo's last year?
8   Nov 24 To A Garbo User    (123)  Re: Registering non-crippled STATREGR
9   Nov 20 Timo Salmi         (48)   Re: Garbo upload-procedures ...?
10  Nov 9  To Milan Palus     (48)   Re: Paper request of the Salmi & Virtanen bo
11  Nov 1  To gcutter@melbpc. (68)   Re: WWW file uploading to Garbo
12  Oct 23 To del Rosal Ahuma (50)   Re: Multiple Internal Rates of Return
13  Sep 26 Timo Salmi         (45)   Re: Capture a DOS Text screen
14  Sep 17 To Potential mirro (75)   Re: Setting up a Garbo Mirror Site
15  Aug 30 To lawrock@voyager (136)  Re: IRR Calculation
16  Aug 30 To wilkinson@DIGSY (53)   Re: today utility suggestion
17  Aug 26 To Luiz Augusto de (42)   Re: Business games
18  Aug 17 Timo Salmi         (120)  About Garbo's non-carry policies
19  Jun 13 Timo Salmi         (56)   Re: Garbo problem and future?
20  Jun 4  Ilkka Virtanen     (204)  Re: IRR-publication, Contribution Distributi
21  Jun 3  To A Garbo User    (30)   Re: Garbo's ftpmail server?
22  May 22 Ilkka Virtanen     (61)   Re: Ahmavaara's technique
23  May 21 To rkaliss@snet.ne (41)   Re: Garbo's upload situation
24  Apr 16 To Sustainable Lon (55)   Re: Any good PC anti-virus at Garbo?
25  Apr 12 To wilkinson@DIGSY (59)   Re: Today utility suggestion
26  Apr 7  Timo Salmi         (68)   About "nag" and "demo" at Garbo
27  Mar 30 Jim Carroll        (53)   Thank you for DELEDIR.EXE
28  Mar 25 Tommi Rintala      (61)   Garbo Announce Mailing list
29  Mar 9  Timo Salmi         (41)   Re: Wordquiz Your vocabulary game
30  Feb 25 To Conny Andersson (36)   Re: Timo's batches and no RAM-drive


From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Feb 25 08:08:46 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Timo's batches and no RAM-drive
To: ccontour@algonet.se (Conny Andersson)
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 08:08:46 +0200 (EET)
Status: RO

> I just tried some of your interesting batches. Especially the
> exe2zip could be useful for me but on this new computer I dont use
> any RAM-drive. How to modify the batch?

Dear Conny,

I am pleased to hear that you liked my batch collection

 129938 Nov 17 1996 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat51.zip
 tsbat51.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi

The advisability of using a ram-drive is that when you close your
computer, all potential, intermediate auxiliary files are erased.
But any other drive will do as well. Just replace the r:\ with
another, existing path in your configuration. Often e.g. c:\temp.
This has the added advantage of making you trace the logic of the
batches and you'll hopefully learn even more about batch commands in
the process. You could also try "subst r: c:\temp". Warning! Don't
use that method if you are running DOS under Windows.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Mar  9 21:02:44 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
Subject: Re: Wordquiz Your vocabulary game
Date: 9 Mar 1997 19:00:45 -0000
Status: RO

> Would have or know of where I can get vocabulary files for your
> game, without having to create a text file ( english & french ) I
> would like the entire dictionary.

Dear Garbo User,

I am pleased to hear that you are finding of interest my
wordquiz.exe or wordexam.exe from

 105218 Mar 9 1995 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgmec12.zip
 tsgmec12.zip Timo's educational games: ascigame,linegame,wordexam

or hangman.exe from

 76207 Dec 29 17:48 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgmee12.zip
 tsgmee12.zip Classic Hangman and Towers of Hanoi, T.Salmi

Unfortunately I neither have an English / French vocabulary file
myself nor know off-hand where one could find one. One would expect
that such wordlists might exist somewhere on the net. However, if
you are using word{quiz/exam}.exe practical experience with my
relatives' children (when they still were at school) has shown that
preparing the wordlists oneself is an important and efficient part
of the learning process.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


From t2r@uwasa.fi  Tue Mar 25 13:06:49 1997
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 13:06:46 +0200 (EET)
From: Tommi Rintala <t2r@UWasa.Fi>
Sender: t2r@hinaaja.uwasa.fi
Subject: Garbo Announce Mailing list
Message-ID: <ML-2.1.859288006.9084.t2r@hinaaja>
Status: RO


Dear subscriber,

It has perhaps been a while since you have received previous mail from
Garbo Announce Mailing list. This has been known fact. Now the list has
been  cleared to avoid  duplicate  and wrong  addresses.  We  hope that
efficiency of this list is also now a lot better than before.

********************************************************************
*
*       This e-mail is intended to inform you that your subscribtion
*       of 'Garbo Announce Mailing list' has been removed.
*
*       If this is an error, you can stop reading further.
*
*********************************************************************

Garbo-Ann is a moderated one-way mailing list which  is used by Garbo
MsDos and Windows archive managers to announce new additions to Garbo
collections.  If you  have questions  or  comments about these  files
please contact the uploader or the archive managers of Garbo.

The announcements  posted  to this  mailing  list are also  posted to
Usenet newsgroup  comp.archives.msdos.announce.   If your  host   has
Usenet News please do not subscribe to Garbo-Ann.

If you wish get Garbo Announces in e-mail in near future, please Send
mail to

  Majordomo@Garbo.uwasa.fi

and the body of the message should have a line like this:

  subscribe garbo-ann youremail@somewhere.net.land

This server will NOT send program  files. Please  do  not include   a
signature  because  it  may  confuse the server. If   you want to  get
a  list  of  commands   you   can  send  to  Majordomo  send  mail  to
Majordomo@Garbo.uwasa.fi and as the  body of the message "help"

We apologize for the inconvinience.



yours,

tomppa2
.................................................................
Tommi Rintala, t2r@uwasa.fi   http://www.uwasa.fi/~t2r/
Moderating  garbo.uwasa.fi http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ FTP archives
Computer Centre, University of Vaasa,  Box 700, FIN-65101 Finland


From 105417.2506@compuserve.com  Mon Mar 31 06:33:20 1997
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 22:32:30 -0500
From: Jim Carroll <105417.2506@compuserve.com>
Subject: Thank you for DELEDIR.EXE
Message-ID: <199703302232_MC2-137A-48FA@compuserve.com>
Status: RO

Professor Timo Salmi,                                 30 March 1997

Several weeks ago, using a DOS shell, I created or renamed  (I  forget  which,
but  it  probably  doesn't  matter) a directory named "CVT-# &F" (that's eight
characters including a space). I then found out that most of my  software  was
confused by this unusual name and generally performed unpredictably with it.

In  fact, for a day or so, I couldn't even make this unusually-named directory
the "current" directory. DOS couldn't CD or otherwise get to it  and  none  of
three DOS shells that I tried could "change to it" either.

Finally  I  tried a little utility named NEXT.COM that came with PC Magazine's
book "DOS POWER TOOLS". It was able to make the "crazy" directory the  current
directory. Because of this, I was able to move all files to another directory.

Then  I  realized  that  I  didn't  know  whether my disk-back-up software and
de-fragger software would perform predictably and reliably.

I  decided  then  that  I'd  rather  forego the advantages of spaces and other
unusual characters in directory names and wished that I could rename or delete
my unusual directory.

I contacted the author of my favorite DOS shell, asking for advice on deleting
or renaming the crazy directory. (It was his DOS shell that had allowed me  to
assign  this  "crazy" name to a directory). He was reluctant to suggest that I
use  his  DOS  shell  to  try  to  delete  or  rename  the  "crazy"  directory
(presumably)  because  he  hadn't  intended  that it be used with such unusual
directory names).

I considered other means  of  getting  rid  of  this  unusual  directory  name
including  learning  to  use  some  of the disk sector editors in Compuserve's
libraries. I also searched Compuserve's libraries hoping  to  find  a  utility
program  that  would  enable me to rename or delete this directory; however, I
certainly did not expect to find anything so  specifically  "tailored"  to  my
unusual need as your DELEDIR.EXE from ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutlf15.zip.

I'm writing this to thank you for making DELEDIR.EXE available; it very easily
solved a problem for me that presumably would have otherwise been formidable.

There  must  be a few others that have similar directory name problems; I hope
they too will find  or  learn  of  the  unique  capabilities  of  DELEDIR  and
GOTODIR.EXE.

Again, I thank you. --- Jim Carroll --- 105417,2506 --- 30 March 1997


From ts@uwasa.fi Mon Apr  7 23:30:28 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d,comp.archives.ms-windows.discuss,alt.comp.shareware.programmer
Subject: About "nag" and "demo" at Garbo
Followup-To: comp.archives.msdos.d
Date: 7 Apr 1997 23:28:40 +0300
Organization: University ov Vaasa
Status: RO

Since this subject occasionally causes confusion, when our
information is not sufficiently known by our valued authors, further
below is an edited extract from "The required formula for your
garbo.uwasa.fi upload announcements"

Please note that there is _nothing_ negative meant with the "nag"
and "demo" designators, nor are they meant to influence the authors'
choice of shareware payment inducements.

If our long-time conventions and usages sound unacceptable to an
author, there is no reason to get upset by our usages. Simply regard
Garbo archives as an unsuitable alternative for the submissions in
that case.

Nagware: Y/N
        (Answer Yes if the software displays registration reminders
        or if it requires the user to type in extra characters which
        are not necessary in the registered version or if it induces
        delays in the unregistered version. If you are not sure, answer
        Yes.)

Another choice that we use at Garbo that causes occasional confusion
is the /demo directory. Usually, we do not carry demo versions of
programs at Garbo. There are some exceptions, including these major
ones.

1) When a demonstration program is of exceptional general or some
other special interest to our archives.

In the case of #1 being fulfilled there are further considerations:

2) When a shareware program is crippled in some important dimension
like not being able to save its data, is severely limited in its
dimensions (e.g. an editor with 100 line-capacity) etc.

3) When the initial or ending delays of the registration reminders
have been made so long that the program effectively freezes the
user's computer for e.g. a whole minute(s).

The /demo directory is a respectable, in fact even an exclusive
directory. It is not a dump of ill repute to get upset about.

Our uploading instructions and conventions are available as

 15847 Oct 16 1996 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF
 UPLOAD.INF Instructions for submitting material to Garbo archives

 7007 Jan 11 1997 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPTEXT.INF
 UPTEXT.INF The required formula for your Garbo upload announcements

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Apr 12 17:26:32 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Today utility suggestion
To: wilkinson@DIGSYS1.md.essd.northgrum.com
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 17:26:32 +0300 (EET DST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL27 (25)]
Status: RO

Hello Jeff,

> Today utility suggestion

Thank you for the welcome feedback on my TODAY.EXE from

 92776 Jan 25 1997 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutld23.zip
 tsutld23.zip Timo's 4th utility set (bigcurs,keyrate,caps,today,warmboot,.

> This util is nice, but would be much more useful if you had
> an option to put out only the bare path/filenames.  That way
> the output could be piped to another program for use in
> copying, backup, or whatever.  (like dir /b but with paths)

This is a good suggestion. At the very least I'll make a note of it.
But in the meanwhile you can achieve what you wish if you combine
TODAY.EXE with CUT.EXE and SLICE.EXE from my

 86983 Apr 14 1996 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfltc18.zip
 tsfltc18.zip More filters: dump,col,concat,cut,detab,rep,rot13,undump

This is the trick
 today c:\ | cut 19 80 | slice 6 9999 /s

which at the moment produced on my PC

C:\CHYDE\VIESTI
C:\CHYDE\VIESTI.TXT
C:\MOUSE\MOUSEDRV.INI
C:\OPISK\TLMA\TLMA.REK
C:\TEKSTI\KIRJE\SUKU1.TXT

> Actually, if you do it, 2 options might be useful:
> 1. show absolute paths  c:\data\somestuff\file.txt
> 2. show relative paths
>                 you're in c:\data
>                 shows   somestuff\file.txt

For the latter requirement you can use
 today c:\ | cut 27 80 | slice 6 9999 /s

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Wed Apr 16 06:29:43 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Any good PC anti-virus at Garbo?
To: slt@gn.apc.org (Sustainable London Trust)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 06:29:43 +0300 (EET DST)
Cc: frisk@complex.is (Fridrik Skulason), 74777.3004@compuserve.com (Wolfgang Stiller)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL27 (25)]
Status: RO

Dear Garbo User,

> Many thanks for the continuing presence of Garbo. I find it is one of the
> most useful and well-constructed FTP sites available.

Appreciated!

> Please could you recommend any inexpensive sources of anti-virus software,
> as I think this machine may be infected with 'anti-exe' and another machine
> with 'Tentacle'. What software do you use yourselves for this?

The major virus material at Garbo is the following. My own number
one favorite is F-prot. I also like Integrity master. McAfee's and
Thunderbyte's are also fine products but the authors have show no
interest whatsoever in keeping the major FTP archives up to date
:-(. Datawatch has obviously become old. We have not received any
updates of that either. Vsum is not an actual virus scanner, but
contains interesting further information.

 949601 Feb 24 02:26 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/fp-226.zip
 fp-226.zip Virus Protection system by Fridrik Skulason, great

 428559 Feb 28 03:11 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/i_m311c.zip
 i_m311c.zip Integrity Master anti-virus + data integrity, W.Stiller

 644329 Mar 12 05:54 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/scn-300e.zip
 scn-300e.zip McAfee VirusScan for MS-DOS, SCAN.EXE

 392971 Jan 10 07:07 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/tbav707.zip
 tbav707.zip Thunderbyte virus detector, Thunderbyte B.V.

 342684 May 3 1996 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/virx299.zip
 virx299.zip Datawatch Virex anti-virus scanner and disinfector, nagware

 1065713 Feb 25 10:37 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/virus/vsumx702.zip
 vsumx702.zip Virus Information Hypertext Summary List, P.Hoffman

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


From ts@uwasa.fi Wed May 21 11:49:47 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Garbo's upload situation
To: rkaliss@snet.net
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 11:49:47 +0300 (EET DST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL27 (25)]
Status: RO

> Timo.. you have been closed for months now... what does the future
> look like for you?

Hello Ray,

As you will have noted, there is a regular automated posting in the
relevant comp.archives.* newsgroups giving the current situation.

Yes, it is true that Garbo's incoming directories have indeed been
closed for extended periods. However, the MS-DOS section
(/pc/incoming/) is most often open, but both the Windows 3.1x
(/windows/incoming/) and Windows 95 (/win95/incoming/) sections have
been constantly closed from Sat 30-Nov-96 on. I _hope_ that we
manage to keep the /pc/incoming open in the future. I _wish_ we
could sometime reopen /windows/incoming. As for Windows 95 I do not
expect a reopening of /win95/incoming/ in any foreseeable future.
The Windows 95 section at Garbo was an interest of a former student
apprentice, and I was glad to let him set up the Windows 95 section
at Garbo. However, since at our university we do not use Windows 95
(nor OS/2 BTW) in our work, there is little interest in it from our
side.

The reason for this scarcity is our untenable workforce resource
situation.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland

From itv@reimari.uwasa.fi  Thu May 22 08:51:25 1997
From: Ilkka Virtanen <itv@UWasa.Fi>
Subject: Re: Ahmavaara's technique
In-Reply-To: <3378F8DC.1C74@uga.cc.uga.edu> from Joe McCrary at "May 13, 97 04:27:24 pm"
To: cmsjlm@uga.cc.uga.edu
Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 08:51:22 +0300 (EET DST)
Cc: ts@reimari.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL27 (25)]
Status: RO

(The question obviously concerns Salmi, T., Virtanen, I and
Yli-Olli, P. (1990). On the Classification on Financial Ratios. A
Factor and transformation analysis of accrual, cash flow, and
market-based ratios. Acta Wasaensia, No. 25., University of Vaasa,
Finland. Also available from Word Wide Web: <URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/sera/>.)

> Professor Salmi,
>         My name is Joe McCrary, and I am a doctoral student in the University
> of Georgia's Doctorate of Public Administration program.  I am currently
> working with Robert Golembiewski on estimating change in organizations,
> and we would like to estimate Ahmavaara's technique on factor analyses.
> I saw your article on the web, On the Classification of Financial
> Ratios, and was interested in how you estimated the transformation
> between 1974-1978 and 1979-1984.  Is there something in SAS's proc
> factor that can do this?  Thanks.

Dear Joe,

Ahmavaara's transformation analysis is a multivariate statistical technique
developed to compare factor solutions (produced by some factor analysis
technique) between two (or more) different groups of objects. We have also
used the technique to compare two different factor solutions among the same
group of objects, the two factor solutions being based on measurements made
at different times or during different time periods. The latter means
measuring the temporal stability of the factor analysis model.

You can find a brief description of the methodology e.g. in

Paavo Yli-Olli and Ilkka Virtanen: Transformation analysis applied to
long-term stability and structural invariance of financial ratio patterns:
U.S. vs. Finnish firms. American Journal of Mathematical and Management
Sciences, Vol. 10 (1990), Nos 12, 73125.

in which you may have an easy access.

Unfortunately, the transformation analysis technique is not available in
standard statistical software packages (like SAS). We have used our own
programs coded by our colleaque, associate professor Seppo Pynnonen
(sjp@uwasa.fi).

Best wishes     Ilkka Virtanen

--
Ilkka Virtanen.
Professor of Operations Research and Management Science.
Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
University of Vaasa, POB 700, FIN-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Tel. 358-61-3248256, Fax 358-61-3248557, Telex 74262 vyk sf
E-mail: itv@uwasa.fi     http://www.uwasa.fi/~itv


From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Jun  3 22:16:25 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Garbo's ftpmail server?
To: A Garbo User
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 22:16:25 +0300 (EET DST)
Status: RO

> I've tried to use the ftpmail server at Garbo, but I've never received any
> response.  Is access to this service restricted?

Dear Garbo User,

I very much regret, but I have practically no knowledge about
Garbo's email server. You see, I am a policy maker at Garbo
archives. I am not a system manager. To make matters even worse,
Garbo's latest system manager Tommi Rintala is on vacation. I do not
know what will happen after that. In other words there is nothing I
can do nor do I have any relevant information that I could give you
about the potential ftpmail server problems at Garbo. The question
simply is outside my scope. Sorry.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


From itv@uwasa.fi  Wed Jun  4 12:20:45 1997
From: Ilkka Virtanen <itv@UWasa.Fi>
Subject: Re: IRR-publication, Contribution Distribution!
To: semet@ra.abo.fi (Stefan Emet MATE)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 12:20:41 +0300 (EET DST)
Cc: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Status: RO

> Hello,
> I'm a math-student at bo Akademi University and I'm now
> working on my 'pro-gradu', in co-operation with Prof. Ralf stermark.
>
> I have read your interesting publication on the WWW:

Hello Stefan,

It is nice to hear, that you have read our article and found some interest
into http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/simu/ .

> Timo Salmi and Ilkka Virtanen,
> Deriving the Internal Rate of Return from the Accountant's Rate of Return:
> A Simulation Testbench.
> Proceedings of the University of Vaasa, Finland, No. 201, 1995.
>
> I've tryed to do the calculations in chapter 3.1 , but i've had some troubles
> with the Negative Binomial Contribution Distribution.
>
> My qestions are now;
>
> How have you calculated the Neg.Bin. Contrib. distr. in
> figure 4 (chapter 3.2) ??
>
> Which formula is used and with which parameters (on p and s ) ??
>
> I have tryed with the formula (chapt. 3.2):
>
> (17) b(i) = s (i+1) p^2 (1-p)^i       for  i = 1...20.
>
> with p=0.85 (and different values on s, but with bad success).

The formula (17) is a little bit modified form of the original definition
of the (statistical) negative binomial distribution given in formula (16).
We need only the "right" life-cycle form from the distribution for our
contribution distribution purposes.

Parameters in (17) are as follows. We have intuitively (or from practical
experience) chosen p=0.85 (p determines the shape of the distribution).
Parameter s (a scaling parameter) must be chosen so that the desired true
profitability level (4%, 8%, 12% or 16% IRR in our simulations) is achieved.
In other words, s must be chosen so that formula (5) becomes valid (for
the fixed value of profitability r). This is an (easy) problem of numerical
analysis. If you have only a few contribution distributions to determine
(four different r values means four different values for s), you can also
apply the simple trial and error method to find the value(s) for s.

Because you are a math student, you should also be able to determine the
value of s analytically:

                 1
s = --------------------------
     2  N                    i
    p  SUM (i+1)((1-p)/(1+r))
       i=1

With best wishes and good luck for your master thesis.

Ilkka Virtanen

--
Ilkka Virtanen.
Professor of Operations Research and Management Science.
Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
University of Vaasa, POB 700, FIN-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Tel. 358-6-3248256, Fax 358-6-3248557, Telex 74262 vyk sf
E-mail: itv@uwasa.fi     http://www.uwasa.fi/~itv


-Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 12:36:16 +0300 (EET DST)
-From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-To: semet@ra.abo.fi (Stefan Emet MATE)
-Cc: itv@uwasa.fi (Ilkka Virtanen)
-Subject: Re: IRR-publication, Contribution Distribution!

My colleague and co-author professor Virtanen gives you in the above
the answer both from numerical analysis and the analytical
mathematical point view. From the point of computer programming the
task is solved in FINDNEGB.PAS which you can readily find in

 23490 Apr 21 1996 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/research/simirr11.zip
 simirr11.zip Deriving IRR from ARR: A Simulation Testbench, TS+IV

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


-Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 10:04:15 +0300 (EET DST)
-From: Ilkka Virtanen <itv@UWasa.Fi>
-To: semet@ra.abo.fi (Stefan Emet MATE)
-Cc: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-Subject: Re: Contribution distr.

> I've tried to evaluate (with bad success) the figure 4, in your publication:
> "Deriving the IRR from the ARR: A Simul. Testbench". (1995).
>
> I solved s analytically from:                         1
>                               s = --------------------------
>                                    2  N                    i
>                                   p  SUM (i+1)((1-p)/(1+r))
>                                        i=1
> with N=20, p=0.85 and r=0.12.
>                       Result: s = 4.154015110125110
>
> And then I used the calculated s in formula
>
> (17)   b(i)= s*(i+1)*p^2*(1-p)^i    , for i=1,...20.
>
> But this didn't give the same b(i) as in figure 4 (of the above publication),
> (my: b(1)=0.9003828, b(2)=0.202586  compared to the figures
>      b(1)~0.11       b(2)~0.13                               )
>
> Is this the way to calculate the contribution distr ??
>       1. Solve s, with p=0.85, N=20, r=0.12.
>       2. Use (17) for i=1..20.

It is all OK that you have done above. Unfortunately, there seems to be
a printing error in our paper: the value we have used for p is not 0.85
but its complement 0.15 (we have changed notation during the preparation
of the paper, we have used p instead of 1-p, and the value 0.85 has
remained unchanged). If you make the computations anew, using p = 0.15,
you will find the results given in the paper. Thank you for bringing the
misprinting to our attention.

> About the Contribution distribution, doesn't it have to fulfil
> (the probability distribution condition):
>
>                          N
>                       SUM b(i) == 1           ??
>                         i=1

The term contribution distribution is used in accounting only and must
not be confused with the statistical probability distribution (although
the general form of the CD is usually taken from some PD as is the case
in our study).

The definition of the CD is given in sections 2.1 and 2.2 (formulas (3)
to (5)) in our paper. From (5) you can easily see that the sum of the CD
coefficients can not be equal to one unless the IRR of the investment is
zero (and in the case of 0 profitability the sum of the contributions is,
of course, equal to the original investment, there is no time value for
the money).

Bye for now

Ilkka Virtanen

--
Ilkka Virtanen.
Professor of Operations Research and Management Science.
Head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
University of Vaasa, POB 700, FIN-65101 Vaasa, Finland
Tel. 358-6-3248256, Fax 358-6-3248557, Telex 74262 vyk sf
E-mail: itv@uwasa.fi     http://www.uwasa.fi/~itv


-Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 12:22:41 +0300 (EET DST)
-From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-To: itv@UWasa.Fi (Ilkka Virtanen)
-Cc: semet@ra.abo.fi (Stefan Emet MATE)
-Subject: Re: Contribution distr.

> > About the Contribution distribution, doesn't it have to fulfil
> > (the probability distribution condition):
> >
> >                          N
> >                       SUM b(i) == 1           ??
> >                         i=1
>
> The term contribution distribution is used in accounting only and must
> not be confused with the statistical probability distribution (although

Exactly. A further comment on this. Ours could be regarded as a
multi-disciplinary paper (accounting and business mathematics). Put
in accounting terms it would not make sound business sense sense for
a firm to make capital investments which would produce a return rate
of zero. The whole point of making investments is to gain more
revenues than the investment made, i.e. to make profitable
investments. That's in economic terms basically what rational
business is all about.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <URL:http://uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Jun 13 19:34:08 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d,comp.archives.ms-windows.discuss
Subject: Re: Garbo problem and future?
Followup-To: comp.archives.msdos.d
Date: 13 Jun 1997 19:33:50 +0300
Organization: University of Vaasa
Status: RO

In article <5nrlpv$odu@netaxs.com>, Sheldon Isaac <sisaac@netaxs.com> wrote:
:Haven't been able to reach Garbo Web site lately - anybody comment?

She seems to be down as so often on weekends. Nothing to be done
over the telephone lines.

Apropos, Garbo program archives. I am afraid that the gradual
disintegration of the upkeep of Garbo archives will probably
continue. Garbo's system manager is on a vacation and there is no
telling what happens after that. Currently system administration is
done on the side with necessarily a lower priority by University's
overloaded sysadmin. Furthermore, Garbo's part-time archivist cannot
take on all the load of the incoming material, so the queues move
relatively slowly, and only for MS-DOS.

Personally, I have never been Garbo's sysadmin, and as for my own
archivist activities, my computer related interest have been
shifting in another direction. I have become more and more
interested in scientific WWW publishing. I have never made it a
secret that even my original, calculated goal in trying to make
Garbo archives known worldwide was draw attention to our remote
University's existence and the scientific work we do especially, of
course, at my own department. Thus I have lately found myself being
decreasingly involved with Garbo archives.

Mind you, I do not expect Garbo to disappear in a near future,
barring some catastrophe. But I do expect that the contents of the
Garbo collection will gradually stagnate. Since this coincides with
the rapid decline of any truly novel MS-DOS applications on the
scene (please recall that Garbo is foremost an MS-DOS archive) in a
way the situation is not as dramatic as it may sound. The fine
MS-DOS material that we have got to Garbo archives over the years
will stay useful and relevant to all MS-DOS users for MS-DOS's
remaining few years even if there would be not much or any renewal
in Garbo's material.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland




From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Aug 17 09:43:44 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.shareware.authors,alt.comp.shareware.programmer
Subject: About Garbo's non-carry policies
Date: 17 Aug 1997 09:43:21 +0300
Organization: University of Vaasa
Status: RO

Since there occasionally is some misuderstanding about Garbo's
moderation policies some factual information is in order. Garbo is a
narrow-scope university site with voluntary moderators and thus
extremely short of manpower. Garbo specializes in certain areas of
software. In fact, even within those currently only to MS-DOS
categories. Particular areas of interest are good utilities, Turbo
Pascal programming material, scientific and educational material and
such. On the other hand many categories of programs are outside of
our scope. Some *examples* of categories that we do not wish to
carry are

   - We do not take new BBS programs or utilities.
   - We do not take new LAN programs or utilities.
   - We do not take recreational games, only educational.
   - We do not take new material that requires special equipment to
     run like some exotic chips or sound cards (i.e. programs that
     we can't possibly test)
   - We are a university site. We do not take material that involves
     scientific non-sense like for example horoscope, numerology
     and such augury programs.
   - Fair or not we do not carry programs or material which are
     under public controversy (e.g. virus making programs).
   - We do not wish to carry religious or similar material or programs.
   - Programs that are of narrow, and from our point of view remote,
     interest (e.g. American football or baseball related programs)
   - All the programs / documentations /announcements must be in
     English.

Since we are extremely short of manpower we are very glad to have
every now and then advice from some friendly experts about the
submitted programs.

Then some information about an unfortunate side of Usenet life which
one has to encounter when moderating at an archive site. Our
policies usually relate to the nature of the material offered. But
in some uncommon cases an author is no more welcome at Garbo. That
is extremely rare, but it can happen if and when things go too far.
At the moment I can think of only three authors who are denied
permanently as persons at Garbo. One of the cases is an author who
threatened us with a lawsuit because we used our standard label
"nagware" for his program in our file index. The other is a rather
old case of an author who became personally very insulting when we
required that he must use Garbo's uploading formula like anyone
else. The third case relates to the campaign of offensive language
and disinformation postings on the Usenet news by a disgruntled
author whose non-complying program was rejected from Garbo after it
was brought to my attentiontion that the author's utility collection
contained such a constituent. I originally missed the inclusion
myself.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.

-From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-Newsgroups: alt.comp.shareware.programmer
-Subject: Re: About Garbo's non-carry policies
-Date: 19 Nov 1997 11:00:22 +0200

In article <34729066.13603878@news.storm.ca>,
Yves Bellefeuille  <yan@storm.ca> wrote:
:On 17 Nov 1997, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) wrote:
:> At the moment I can think of only three authors who are denied
:> permanently as persons at Garbo. 
:
:I think you're forgetting at least one case. You banned me from
:uploading to Garbo (but not from downloading) because of disagreements
:between Keith Petersen and myself over the list of best freeware I was

Dear Yves,

Your case is very different from the three offenders whom I never
want to hear of in any connection because of the abuse. You have not
abused me personally. Writing critically every now and then
questioning my actions as you do is not abuse. Furthermore, I had
been hoping that some day the situation would resolve itself between
you and Keith.

:Or perhaps you considered the list of freeware to be controversial? In

No, of course not. That's not the case as you can easily deduce from
my stand in another discussion going on (shareware vs. freeware).
I've told this on the Usenet news on many occasions: The Garbo
archiving takes place on the side of my actual profession and I wish
mostly to concentrate on the latter. I do not wish to nor do I
intend to get caught between two disagreeing parties or other
controversial situations that would take a lot of my time, effort
and attention. This is an honest, selfish copout from my part.

:One silly consequence of this is that Garbo now carries an outdated
:version of one of the programs on your own list of best shareware,
:because I couldn't upload the latest version!

The situation naturally is most unfortunate.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Aug 26 06:21:16 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Business games
To: rocha@eps.ufsc.br (Luiz Augusto de Giordano Rocha)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 06:21:16 +0300 (EET DST)
Status: RO

>          Have you some kind of PC business games ?
>  Regards,

 130498 Aug 22 09:38 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEX.ZIP
 INDEX.ZIP The annotated list of Garbo's MS-DOS files, zipped

 22227 Jul 29 20:33 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
 INDEXTS.ZIP Details of the contents of each TS-package in zipped form

ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsgame13.zip Educational games by Timo Salmi
Filename        Comment                             Date      Time    CRC
--------        --------------------------------    ----      ----    ---
FILE_ID.DIZ     Brief characterization of tsgame  03-07-96  06:40:42  34CA
HEXAGAME.EXE    Guess the hidden number           03-09-96  19:52:14  9852
MANAGAME.EXE    One person management game        03-09-96  19:54:46  8753 <----
MLTIGAME.EXE    Multiplication table as a game    03-09-96  20:02:00  1C9A
TSGAME.INF      Document                          03-10-96  17:53:28  B7B5
TSGAME.NWS      News announcements about tsgame   03-10-96  17:17:54  8621
TSPROG.INF      List of programs from Timo Salmi  02-25-96  10:12:36  CD1C
VAASA.INF       Info: Finland, Vaasa, U of Vaasa  02-23-96  11:58:56  8E67
----            ------             ------  -----
0008            107900

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Aug 30 08:04:45 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: today utility suggestion
To: wilkinson@DIGSYS1.md.essd.northgrum.com
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 08:04:45 +0300 (EET DST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL27 (25)]
Status: RO

Hello Jeff,

> If you get to doing updates to the TODAY util, here's a small thing.

I am very pleased about your continued interest in my "TODAY.EXE
Scan disk for files made today" from

 92573 Jan 25 1997 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutld23.zip
 tsutld23.zip Timo's 4th utility set (bigcurs,keyrate,caps,today,warmboot,...)

> It seems that it works in order of how the files are saved, so an
> option to sort output alphabetically would be nice.  I know you can
> pipe through sort, but that will mix the root files in with the
> subdirs.  An option for you would mean the output gets sorted within
> each subdir...

Thank you for the welcome and good feedback. I have looked into
this, and I think that one should circumvent this rewriting. At the
very least I'll postpone it. The reason is a kind of laziness. That
the sorting operation is rather complicated, since it involves both
the directories and files. But I'll store the tip. The alternative
solution is to presort the harddisk's directories and files. That is
what I do myself on a regular basis. I use the disk-sort program
from Norton Utilities MS-DOS version to keep my harddisk's
directories and files always in the alphabetical order.

   All the best, Timo

>           ____________________________________________
>  ________|                                            |________
>  \  ><>  | Jeff Wilkinson       Northrop Grumman ESSD |  <><  /
>   \      | wilkinson@digsys1.md.essd.northgrum.com    |      /
>   /      |____________________________________________|      \
>  /___________)  or use  jwilkinson@who.net       (____________\
>
> I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma. -- The Wizard of Oz

....................................................................
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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Aug 30 09:21:08 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: IRR Calculation
To: lawrock@voyager.net
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 09:21:08 +0300 (EET DST)
Cc: itv@uwasa.fi (Ilkka Virtanen)
Status: RO

>  Dear Professor Salmi
>
>          This is a repeat of a returned message.  I did not consider
> that you were probably in the business of consulting with respect to
> financial and computer matters until I went back to your CV and read
> your very impressive credentials. I will be honored if you will consider
> my question which I outline below.

Dear Rockwood,

Here is what I have on this. Furthermore, since this directly
relates to what I am doing, I'll store this response into

 14101 Aug 26 06:25 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost26.zip
 tspost26.zip Information email + postings, from 25-Feb-97 to ...

>         I found the abstract of the article you co-authored in The Finnish
> Journal of Business Economics 4/1982, 329-345, concerning the "Direct
> Estimation of the Internal Rate of Return from Published Financial
> Statements; with results on the long-run growth, profitability . . ."

This paper is now available also on the World Wide Web as
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/dire/dire.html

> interesting because it suggests your expertise in estimation of IRR. I
> apparently have no such expertise, for I have found it utterly
> impossible to manually calculate the internal rate of return for a
> series of cash flows in a business pro forma.

Yes, that is to be expected. The internal rate of return is not
meant to be calculated by hand since it involves finding the roots
of a higher-degree polynomial as explained shortly.

>         I know that all spread sheet programs, e.g. Excel and Lotus123, have
> financial functions which readily and easily make the calculations for
> us.  However, I am involved in a series of multimillion dollar
> investments over a period of months and years which I wish to set up in
> a database.  Specifically, I am using FileMaker Pro 3.0v5, (Claris
> Corporation) which does not have the IRR financial function.  While it
> is not impossible, it in inconvenient in the extreme to try to import an
> IRR calculated in some other program.

This is a tricky situation, because the computation is not trivial.
Solving the polynomial equation by the computer requires iteration,
and I can't think of a way you can circumvent using an external aid.

The IRR is defined as the solution to the equation

                        N
  Initial investment = Sum NetCashInflows(t)/(1+IRR)^t
                       t=1

I use the secant method of numerical analysis to solve it with the
iteration. Some 30-odd lines of mathematical programming code is
needed, so there is no simple way.

>         Can you tell me how to calculate the IRR without the use of a
> spreadsheet with a built-in IRR function?  Any help you can give me will
> be enormously appreciated.

As you will have realized, there are programs to do that and many
modern calculators have a function to calculate the IRR. I have
written two programs myself for the purpose. But they are external
programs and means. My own programs are listed in

 22227 Jul 29 20:33 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
 INDEXTS.ZIP Details of the contents of each TS-package in zipped form

ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfima13.zip Financial mathematics by T.Salmi
Filename        Comment                             Date      Time    CRC
--------        --------------------------------    ----      ----    ---
ANNT.EXE        Tableau of annuity factors        03-03-96  20:49:56  1AE3
FILE_ID.DIZ     Brief characterization of tsfima  03-03-96  19:49:22  08AB
IRR.EXE         Solves internal rate of return    03-03-96  21:01:56  C801 <---
IRSR.EXE        Multiple internal rates of ret.   03-03-96  20:55:42  AD0C <---
LAINA.EXE       Loan amortization, Bilingual      03-06-96  17:58:28  70E7
NPV.EXE         Investment's net present value    03-06-96  18:02:38  C1FD
PVT.EXE         Tableau of present values         03-06-96  18:12:24  D7E0
TSFIMA.INF      Document and a readme             03-06-96  18:05:40  5860
TSFIMA.NWS      News announcements about tsfima   03-06-96  18:04:22  F6F7
TSPROG.INF      List of programs from Timo Salmi  02-25-96  10:12:36  CD1C
VAASA.INF       Info: Finland, Vaasa, U of Vaasa  02-23-96  11:58:56  8E67
----            ------             ------  -----
0011            154507

>         Incidently, I would like to locate a copy and read your article on
> direct estimation of IRR from published financial information.  I would
> find it interesting  in connnection with a variety of financial matters
> in which I frequently find myself involved.

I'll be happy to help. If you mean the following, you can easily get
it via the WWW using the given URL

Timo Salmi & Ilkka Virtanen (1995). Deriving the Internal Rate of
Return from the Accountant's Rate of Return: A Simulation Testbench.
Proceedings of the University of Vaasa, No. 201, 1995. Also
available from World Wide Web: <URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/simu/>.

If you mean the following, it has not yet come out

Timo Salmi & Ilkka Virtanen (1997). A Simulation Assessment of Three
Methods for Deriving the Long-Run Profitability of the Firm as Its
Internal Rate of Return. The Finnish Journal of Business Economics
Vol. 46, No 3 (in print).

> I am also interested in your
> view of the fundamental value of IRR as a financial evaluation tool.

It is a good tool, both in theory and in investment practice.

>         Thank you very much for your review of this inquiry.

Unfortunately, I was not able to solve you principal problem, that
is giving you an easy function to include into FileMaker Pro 3.0v5.

   All the best, Timo

> Rockwood W. Bullard III
> (lawrock@voyager.net)
> Clarkston, Michigan USA

....................................................................
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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland


From ts@uwasa.fi Wed Sep 17 07:24:11 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Setting up a Garbo Mirror Site
To: Potential mirror maintainer
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 07:24:11 +0300 (EET DST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL27 (25)]
Status: RO

> Dear Timo,

Hello again!

I am very sorry that as I told you earlier we cannot currently make
new Garbo mirroring arrangements / agreements because of the
personnel resource situation and my own workload which does not
allow extra activities and development in this area.

> I also wonder if you'd keep me in mind in the event you get free enough
> to consider new mirror sites for Garbo.

Much as I would like I can't keep a contact list for potential
future events. It is a practical impossibility.

Incidentally, this is not only a problem of me being a bit pressed
for time. It also is a problem not having the personnel resources to
take care of the extra technical system management activities at
Garbo's end. Only ordinary everyday problems can bee seen to. You
see, while I am responsible for Garbo's general policies the system
management of Garbo is done by our Computer centre, not by yours
truly. I work at another department (Accounting and Finance) of our
university.

> In the same vein, I would like your permission to link my Web site
> to files on Garbo.

Certainly. You are most welcome to make a link to the Garbo
archive's main page
  http://garbo.uwasa.fi/
and the main section pages such as
  http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/
  http://garbo.uwasa.fi/windows/
  http://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/
  http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ql/
  http://garbo.uwasa.fi/Astro.html

> Finally, I would like to know if you
> do any consulting work with companies wanting to do business in
> Finland.

Sorry, no, despite my academic field being in general terms in
business economics. In these days I am entirely a theoretical and
empirical research and teaching oriented scholar with very little
business consulting activities. Earlier in my career I used to do
also business consulting, but after gaining the experience and the
income I wished to have I have practically given it up altogether in
my later years.

> I'll leave it at that for now, before I take too much of your time.

I was very pleased of the contact. Besides, I'll utilize my answer,
since it may be of general interest to other sites potentially
considering mirroring Garbo, by copying my response to the Usenet
news, naturally preserving your anonymity and all confidentiality.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi  <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Sep 26 07:07:41 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
Subject: Re: Capture a DOS Text screen
Date: 26 Sep 1997 07:07:26 +0300
Organization: University of Vaasa
Status: RO

In article <606lib$hfq$1@news.NL.net>, J'Haba <jhaba@dds.nl> wrote:
:Does anyone know a program that can capture DOS TXT screen, preferably convert
:it to a BMP (of TIFF) file. The screen will be used in a teachers manual.

Here is a complicated solution. You can use one of the many DOS
capture programs first to capture the text screen into a file. Then
read that file with a Windows editor or wordprocessor. Then apply
the following program to make the picture

 535118 Jan 13 1997 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/windows/screen/snagit32.zip
 snagit32.zip The Windows 3.1x/95 screen capture utility, C.Wheeler

The potential MS-DOS capture programs are listed below

 20379 Mar 14 1991 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pcmagutl/snippr24.zip
 snippr24.zip Selective text screen capture (good), no quote option

 21154 Oct 20 1992 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pcmagutl/snippr26.zip
 snippr26.zip Selective text screen capture, tweak, (good)

 45727 Oct 19 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/screen/scrlit18.zip
 scrlit18.zip SCROLLit, Advanced Screen ScrollBack Buffer (good)

 10714 Apr 18 1991 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/screen/buffit30.zip
 buffit30.zip Resident screen scrollback utility, v3.0 (useful)

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi  Thu Oct 23 08:16:07 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Multiple Internal Rates of Return
To: al341506@mail.mty.itesm.mx (del Rosal Ahumada Victor Manuel)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 05:34:50 +0300 (EET DST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL35 (25)]
Status: RO

>   To: Professor Timo Salmi
>   From: Victor Del Rosal
>   Industrial and Systems Engineering Student
>   Tech of Monterrey, Mexico (ITESM)
>
>   Professor:
>   I was reviewing your explanation on the Web about estimating the IRR,

Dear Victor,

I am pleased that you have found of interest our publication
Salmi, Timo and Ilkka Virtanen (1997). Measuring the Long-Run
Profitability of the Firm; A Simulation Evaluation of the Financial
Statement Based IRR Estimation Methods. Acta Wasaensia, No. 54,
University of Vaasa, Finland. Also published on the Word Wide Web:
<URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/smuc/smuc.html>.

>   since I am taking an Engineering Economy course, and I would like to know
>   how to determine the real or correct IRR (if there is one) when you get
>   several positive roots as a result.
>
>   Thank you in advance for your help.

As any good capital investment / finance textbook will explain there
is no unambiguous answer as the IRR (internal rate of return) when
there are multiple roots to the equation that defines the internal
rate of return. (This happens when the cash flows change sign more
than once.) In that case one must use the NPV (net present value)
criterion in capital investment analysis instead of the IRR.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.



From ts@uwasa.fi Sat Nov  1 06:33:42 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: WWW file uploading to Garbo
To: gcutter@melbpc.org.au
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 06:33:42 +0200 (EET)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL35 (25)]
Status: RO

> Good moring,
>
> I read in the INF file about sending programs by FTP to /PC/incoming and
> that transfer by email attachments is not desired. I use an internet
> browser and am now familiar with WWW and email and can download files. Do
> you have a description of how to upload to "incoming" with the software I
> now have?
>
> regds   Geoff                  Saturday, 1997-11-01
>    gcutter@melbpc.org.au  (address expires Mar 98)

Hello Geoff,

The information is not included in the uploading instructions, but
it is not very difficult. This is how it goes using the Netscape
Navigator.

1) Connect to http://garbo.uwasa.fi/

2) Click on the "Garbo FTP" thumbnail image.

3) Select the directory /pc and then /incoming

4) Choose Navigator's "File" menu

5) Choose the item "Upload file"

The rest should be obvious. Please do not forget to send by email
the upload announcement described in

 7142 Oct 4 1997 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPTEXT.INF
 UPTEXT.INF The required formula for your Garbo upload announcements

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.

-Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 14:41:31 +0200 (EET)
-From: Hannu Hirvonen <hh@UWasa.Fi>
-To: Timo Salmi <ts@uwasa.fi>
-Cc: gcutter@melbpc.org.au
-Subject: Re: WWW file uploading to Garbo

> > But for uploading with Netscape, I get a message half way though the
> > upload "Network error: Connection reset by peer."

you have most propably enabled proxying for ftp also. most proxies can't handle
uploading. i suggest that you try removing the entry for ftp proxy for the
duration of uploading.

--
                                                      --  hh


From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Nov  9 08:18:28 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Paper request of the Salmi & Virtanen book
To: mp@uivt.cas.cz (Milan Palus)
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 08:18:28 +0200 (EET)
Cc: itv@uwasa.fi (Ilkka Virtanen)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL35 (25)]
Status: RO

Dear Milan,

>            Measuring the long-run profitability of the firm;
>         A simulation evaluation of the financial statement based
>                          IRR estimation methods

>  Could you, please, send me a copy of the above paper?
>  Thank you very much in advance.

We'll be most pleased to consider this together with my co-author
professor Ilkka Virtanen. But before we do, an important question.
Are you aware that you can read the _entire_ scientific book also on
the World Wide Web at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/smuc/smuc.html

P.S. I have now listed in my email filter-rules file

mp@uivt.cas.cz

as as a privileged user, which means that the potential, future
email from the said address should reach me directly past my email
password requirement notification.

>  ************************************************************
>  Dr. Milan PALUS
>  Institute of Computer Science AS CR | Phone: +420 2 66053430
>  Pod vodarenskou vezi 2              |        +420 2 66053660
>  182 07 PRAGUE 8                     | Fax:   +420 2 8585789
>  Czech Republic                      | E-mail: mp@uivt.cas.cz
>  ************************************************************

....................................................................
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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi Thu Nov 20 06:34:26 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.shareware.programmer
Subject: Re: Garbo upload-procedures ...?
Date: 20 Nov 1997 06:31:48 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa
Status: RO

In article <34739CD7.71F7@algonet.se>,
Borje Hagsten  <hagsten@algonet.se> wrote:
>I got curious about the Garbo-site and went there, because I thought I
>maybe can contribute with something. Well, it really is a serious site,

Thank you. We strive to be.

>So, I tried to read through
>all the text in the "instructions for upload", telling me what to do and
>not to do, but finally I gave up. I was probably too tired to read a
>long text like this in the middle of the night, but why must it be so
>difficult? If I tried to sell my shareware this way, I wouldn't get many

Your observation about the difficulty is correct. Although once one
figures it out and gets set, it is mostly routine. But there is no
big secret about why the uploading procedures are fairly involved.

We are a university repository that runs on extremely limited
personnel resources. We are really in a bind in this respect. The
sad fact therefore is that we can't handle the incoming submissions'
queue fast enough. We have to find ways to keep the volume down.
Furthermore, since there are sites like Simtel.Net, who run the
whole gamut of various kinds of programs, we aim to specialize both
in scope and in quality. Our uploading procedure is one small part
in the quality control chain. It is to be expected, although there
is not a one to one correlation, that authors who understand and get
the submission procedures right are a bit more liable also to write
good programs.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi Mon Nov 24 21:20:40 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Registering non-crippled STATREGR
To: A Garbo User
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:20:40 +0200 (EET)
Status: RO

> I tried STATREGR for the first time yesterday and really like it!
> I am using the unregistered version for doing research on ...
> [snip] ... (not for profit).

Dear Garbo User,

Thank you kindly for your very welcome enquiry about registering my
material

 74935 May 20 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts2st22.zip
 ts2st22.zip Statistics: Multiple (OLS) regression analysis, T.Salmi

> Could you tell me how I can register it to use it fully?

The documentation in my packages indeed usually says:

"This package may be used and distributed freely for NON-COMMERCIAL,
NON-INSTITUTIONAL, PRIVATE purposes, provided it is not changed in
any way. (Repacking with another method is ok, though.) For ANY
other usage, such as use in a business enterprise or a university,
contact the author for registration. Uploading to bulletin boards is
encouraged. Please do not distribute any part of this package
separately."

I am afraid I have to breach the part about registration being
possible. Especially with the prohibitive Finnish taxation, I do not
have the time, nor the incentive, to arrange the registration option
in a manner that would make a shareware distribution of my programs
worth my while. Therefore I regret to inform you that for the time
being my material cannot be registered for commercial or
institutional usage. This also goes for public university classroom
usage. The only allowed usage of my programs for my users thus is
your own, private, personal, non-profit usage which does not require
registration.

Thus I currently have no other choice than realistically to
recommend that you find corresponding material from some other
author if you need my material for commercial or institutional
purposes.

My apologies for the inconvenience caused by the facts of my busy
life.

   All the best, Timo

-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 06:49:28 +0200 (EET)
-From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-To: A Garbo User
-Subject: Re: xyz3 STATREGR

Dear Garbo User,

Thank you for your continued interest in STATREGR.

> > usage. The only allowed usage of my programs for my users thus is
> > your own, private, personal, non-profit usage which does not require
> > registration.
>
> That would be me. I don't work for a company or an institution. I do

Yes.

> do a multiple regression equation, it requires more than 4. Apparently,
> it says that you have to register in order to be able to do that kind

Yes, would that have been possible would registration be possible,
but for the reasons stated it is not.

> of thing (eg., it won't let you specify more than 4 independent
> variables but if you specify less than 4, it still won't do it).

Sorry I do not understand. You don't mean here that if you use less
than four variables the program still won't work, right? Hardly so.

> Am I using the right version? This little package is a godsend because
> I had been, since leaving university, doing it by calculator. ugh.

Yes, you are. I have good and bad news for you. The good news is
that I am considering releasing the full version under the same
conditions as the limited version. The reason is that it being an
MS-DOS program it has lost any serious earning potential it might
have had. The bad news is that I have no idea if and when I will
have the time to do that. Furthermore, it would have to be all the
following packages at the same go

 48700 Sep 23 1992 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts1st20.zip
 ts1st20.zip Statistics: Univariate statistical measures, T.Salmi

 74935 May 20 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts2st22.zip
 ts2st22.zip Statistics: Multiple (OLS) regression analysis, T.Salmi

 50303 Sep 23 1992 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts3st17.zip
 ts3st17.zip Statistics: Transformations of observations, T.Salmi

 38046 Sep 23 1992 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts4st17.zip
 ts4st17.zip Statistics: Correlation analysis, T.Salmi

 81978 Oct 13 1995 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts5st16.zip
 ts5st16.zip Least absolute deviation (LAD) multiple regression.

and maybe also

 114638 Nov 20 1993 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tslin34.zip
 tslin34.zip Friendly linear programming and linear goal programming.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi Tue Dec  9 13:24:47 EET 1997
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.announce,comp.archives.ms-windows.announce
Subject: Will 1998 be Garbo's last year?
Followup-To: comp.archives.msdos.d
Date: 6 Dec 1997 08:53:04 +0200
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
X-Warning: Junk / bulk email will be auto-filtered, traced and reported
X-Password: Spam foiling, elm filter will first return a required email password
Status: RO

   The Finnish network traffic is carried by FUNET (Finnish
University and Research Network). The infrastructure and the traffic
costs have until now been paid by the Finnish Ministry of Education,
Science and Culture. Each university has paid only a fixed sum. This
policy is now under revision. The universities will be paying by the
traffic from the start of 1999. Unless Garbo is given a preferential
treatment because of its international scope, year 1998 will its
last. The workforce resources already have been a big problem and
have seriously curbed Garbo's operation, but the fixed nature of the
university's connection costs have allowed us at least keep Garbo
running. As you know, Garbo is a joint project of the Department of
Accounting and Finance, and the Computer Centre of the university.
There is no way the financial situation of the departments will
allow continuing donating the existence of Garbo to the net should
the variable costing scheme hit also her.

   All the best, Timo


-Date: 7 Dec 1997 23:40:31 +0200
-From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-Newsgroups: comp.archives.msdos.d
-Subject: Re: Will 1998 be Garbo's last year?

In article <bWbUuEA9ibi0EwKt@merlyn.demon.co.uk>,
Dr John Stockton  <jrs@merlyn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:I hope a solution can be found.

As do we. We hope that Garbo's traffic would get a special treatment
and be allowed to be exempt from the by the traffic charges as an
international good-will service.

:If necessary, would it be possible for Garbo to supply files ONLY to the
:official mirror sites?  That should reduce the traffic, while preserving

That is a sound suggestion. Technically that might well work, but
managerially and motivationally the answer is a no. Such
arrangements are suited for full-time operations and operators such
as Simtel's. I am afraid that there will not be enough local
incentive left to keep Garbo artifically or burdensomely alive
should worst come to worst.

But let's forget this for now. There still is a lot of time till
1999.

   All the best, Timo

-Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 23:30:07 +0200 (EET)
-From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
-To: mkring@netcologne.de (Matthias Kring)
-Subject: Re: Will 1998 be Garbo's last year (xyz3) ?

Dear Matthias,

> I am very sad about your posting about the possible cancellation of
> garbos excellent services, which I have used for several years now.

Thank you for your support. I am moderately optimistic about Garbo
maybe getting an exception treatment. The Finnish Education
Ministry's planning group has indicated that it is aware of the
special Garbo dilemma in a costing by traffic model intended to take
effect at the beginning of 1999.

On the other hand I am rather pessimistic about us being able to
keep Garbo up to date whatever happens with the traffic costing
model. Thus, I predict Garbo eventually narrowing down to taking in
only Turbo Pascal material irrespective of whatever else happens.

> Is there anything that we, garboss users and friends, can do to stop
> this? Maybe writing a letter to some officials or ministers or else?

I do not wish to bring external pressures. To be honest, I am in an
ambivalent position in this. I have no personal income at stake in
Garbo, rather the contrary. In fact, Garbo, as much as I like the
concept, takes far too much of my time away from my academic
research and teaching.

> Thanks for all your engaged work in the real internet community.

Thank you for the nice compliment.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland
Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.
From wellscom@aol.com Thu Jan 15 19:21:31 EET 1998
From: wellscom@aol.com (WellsCom)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.shareware.programmer
Subject: Re: >>> What NOT to post to alt.comp.shareware.programmer <<<
Date: 15 Jan 1998 13:51:42 GMT
Status: RO

DingDing@ix.netcom.com (Patrick W. Jones) writes:

>> 4815 Nov 11 1996 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/faqacs.zip
>> faqacs.zip FAQ for news:alt.comp.shareware, Robert Lindsay Wells

> From the above FAQ, I quote:
>"Shareware authors are especially encouraged to subscribe
> to alt.comp.shareware.programmer, which was created to discuss
> writing software and marketing by the Shareware principle."

> It specifically says "writing software" which I interpret to
> include programming.

Patrick:

Here is some background on a.c.s. and a.c.s.p. that might clarify
the situation. a.c.s. was started by Richard Harper (then ASP
president) as a Usenet forum for shareware authors. It was quickly
overrun with messages from users looking for programs, binary
postings, etc.

As a response to this, a.c.s.p. was started by Cary Farrier
(LaserPoint Software). The idea was that a.c.s. would be for the
"where can I find ..." posts and general shareware discussion
(including adverts from authors), and a.c.s.p. would be a meeting
place for authors. Another group, alt.comp.shareware.authors was
also started later, but it never took off.

Timo started the "What NOT to post" automatic postings to help steer
the discussion in each newsgroup (especially to keep garbage posts
out of a.c.s., and to keep off topic posts out of a.c.s.p.). The
motivation was to try and preserve a place on Usenet where shareware
authors can correspond and discuss our products and business.

After soliciting input from both newsgroups, Jean-Claude Wippler
(the SAX) and I put together the a.c.s. FAQ. It was approved by the
Usenet FAQ moderators, and is automatically posted once a week. It
gives basic posting guidelines for a.c.s., and includes a list of
shareware links for the web. It is clearly aimed at new visitors to
the newsgroup.

Later, Jean-Claude and Ray Kaliss (SDN) put together the a.c.s.p.
FAQ (Cary had dropped out of the newsgroup because his wife had
twins). This FAQ is a really handy document for all shareware
authors, approved by the Usenet FAQ moderators, and posted once
every two weeks. The charter for a.c.s.p. is given there, as taken
from the charter that Cary outlined in the original a.c.s.p. FAQ.
The current FAQ can be viewed in html format at:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/shareware-faq/programmer/

Here is the a.c.s.p. charter statement as it exists in the current FAQ:

BEGIN

Subject: What is the charter of alt.comp.shareware.programmer?

This newsgroup was created as a forum for shareware authors to
discuss issues relevant to shareware programs, FROM THE PROGRAMMERS
POINT OF VIEW.  It is intended to be an area where shareware authors
can discuss programming, marketing, distribution, and generally
exchange information related to creating shareware software.

The discussion is not limited to programming per se. As a matter of
fact, you will probably find a better technical programming
discussion in one of the programming language or operating system
newsgroups, but your programming questions are also welcomed here.

You can find a lot of additional information and lists of other
newsgroups in an excellent periodic post by Prof. Timo Salmi
(University of Vaasa, Finland) which is appropriately titled:
>> What NOT to post to alt.comp.shareware.programmer <<<


END

We can see that the intent of the FAQ, and the "What NOT" posting is
to steer programming questions to the appropriate programming
newsgroups, while leaving a.c.s.p. open to all discussion that helps
authors with their shareware programs. Programming questions are
therefore relevant, but are often better answered in the programming
newsgroups.

One final point. No one is "in charge" of a.c.s and a.c.s.p. The
authoring, auto-posting and maintaining of the FAQs is a voluntary
effort. Also, authors voluntarily refrain fom advertising their
products here, and use a.c.s. for that purpose instead. As Timo has
indicated, unmoderated newsgroups take on their character from the
character of the posts. With some cooperation, a.c.s.p. can be
maintained as a Usenet resource for shareware authors. But it could
also evolve into a newsgroup with an entirely different focus, or no
focus at all. It's all up to us.

Lindsay
----------------------------------------
Robert Lindsay Wells ++ WellsCom@aol.com
+++ http://members.aol.com/wellscom/ +++
----------------------------------------



From ts@uwasa.fi Sun Jan 25 18:43:41 1998
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Garbo's empty Windows95 directories
To: winstanf@vaniercollege.qc.ca (Frank Winstan)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 18:43:41 +0200 (EET)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL35 (25)]
Status: RO

Dear Garbo User,

You wrote about Garbo archive's Windows95 section

> Very odd site! All of the links on the page listing windows 95
> shareware subdirectories bting up an HTML page with one link (to an
> 00index.txt). Clicking on these links brings up a file having just
> the following text.
> 
> (e.g., for \bootutil)
> 
> bootutil :      System boot utilities
> -----------
> 00index.txt     Descriptions of the files in the bootutil directory
> 
> That's it .  Hardly helpful.

This is correct. The reason is simple. There are no actual files in
that, and many other Garbo Windows 95 directories. However, not
quite all the directories are empty.

> I appreciate the effor people put into putting up resource rich web
> pages, but if you can no maintain them, may I suggest that you unlink
> them. I'm sure your original intention was not to confuse and annoy.

You might not be fully aware of the background and the history.
There is currently very little maintenance at Garbo archives,
because we do no longer have the necessary personnel resources. The
only active parts are MS-DOS Turbo Pascal material and specially
invited uploads. But back to the Windows95 section. Along the years
we have had some computer apprentices to temporarily maintain Garbo.
One of them got very enthusiastic about setting up a Windows95
section, so I said yes. He built the directory trees and the system,
but that was about as far as his enthusiasm lasted. There is very
little material in there.

If you do not wish to waste your time by browsing the empty
directories, the file to get first is

 3425 Jan 1 08:33 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/win95/W95INDEX.ZIP
 W95INDEX.ZIP The annotated list of Garbo's Windows95 files, zipped

As for your suggestion of unlinking the directories, that's a very
sound proposition. However, I do not have enough cause or motivation
to do anything at all about that section. You gentle Garbo users
will have to take this free site as it is.

For more on Garbo's situation, you may wish to see
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbo.html#faq

and

 5387 Aug 18 1992 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/garbohis.zip
 garbohis.zip A popularized history of Garbo archives by Timo 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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland

Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.



From bn813754@intbba1.buenayre.com.ar  Tue Jan 27 16:43:31 1998
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:39:20 -0800
From: "ANGUITA, HORACIO ENRIQUE" <bn813754@intbba1.buenayre.com.ar>
Organization: Banco Del Buen Ayre
To: Timo Salmi <ts@uwasa.fi>
Subject: Batch Env_trick
Status: ROr

Prof. Timo Salmi:

I send you a little trick that I think is useful when you find an
"out of environment".  It works in DOS 6.x.

@echo off
if not "%var%"=="" goto start
set var=$$$
%comspec% /e:1024 /c %0 %1 %2 %3
goto end
:start
::
::here the rest of the batch file
::
:end
set var=

Best regards

Horacio Anguita
Buenos Aires - Argentina

E-mail: Horacio Anguita <bn813754@bed.buenayre.com.ar>


From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb  6 06:39:58 1998
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Correlation package registration
To: madsri@giasmda.vsnl.net.in (Madhumati Krishnan)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 06:39:58 +0200 (EET)
Status: RO

>    I had downloaded your correlation package from the net.
>    I found it to be really useful.can u tell me how I can
>    get the registered version ?

Dear User of my Statistical Programs,

I am very pleased to hear that you have found of interest my program

 35718 Dec 13 19:15 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/ts4st18.zip
 ts4st18.zip Statistics: Correlation analysis, T.Salmi

Filename        Comment                             Date      Time
--------        --------------------------------    ----      ----
FILE_ID.DIZ     Brief characterization of TS4ST   12-12-97  21:16:02
STATPROG.REG    About registering this package    12-13-97  08:50:04
STATRCOR.EXE    Statistics: Ranks, Correlations   12-12-97  20:59:52
STATRCOR.INF    Document of the STATRCOR package  12-13-97  11:49:54
----            ------             ------  -----
0004             80506

As for your question, please read the file STATPROG.REG. It has been
added in version 1.8 of this 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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland

Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.


From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb  6 12:00:05 1998
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Will you allow uploads soon?
To: A friendly program author
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:00:05 +0200 (EET)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL35 (25)]
Status: RO

Dear Program Author,

You wrote:
> I have managed to get my program into a school in .......  The teacher
> says it "fills the children with joy".  I would like to upload it to your
> site and you still tell people how to do it but the site is closed.

I regret if the information leads the potential uploaders on. That
is not my purpose. At the moment he Garbo site is almost, but not
quite closed. Hence my posting of the pointer to the instructions. I
personally handle Turbo Pascal uploads and exceptionally some other
material where I have had a long-time (usually covering several
years) agreement and relationship with the authors of programs or
material which I use myself.

> Please tell me whether you can give me special treatment and allow an
> upload.

I am very sorry, but we do not currently have an archivist to take
care of the general uploads even if very worthwhile as I am sure
yours is.

   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
mailto:ts@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/>  ; FIN-65101,  Finland

Spam foiling in effect.  My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.

