SPANISH INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS
                            FOR IBM COMPATIBLE COMPUTERS

                                         by

                                  Philip Roger Yant

                            Doctor Yant's AdequateAnswers

                                     Release 1.1
                                     August 1990



               Release 1.1 corrects a bug in the SP_MATH unit that
          mishandled the input of an accent.  Accents don't appear often in
          numbers, so this was not caught in testing and some users may not
          have experienced it.  There was also an occasional problem with
          the verb programs when using a configuration file.  While fixing
          these, other improvements were made, many of which will be
          transparent.  In addition, a special "Student Manual" has been
          prepared that concentrates on the student-program interface and
          ignores the machine.

               Because this release corrects a genuine bug, it is being
          sent free to all registered users and does not count as the
          "significant upgrade" mentioned on the registration form.


                                  MESSAGE FOR USERS

              Doctor Yant's AdequateAnswers are dedicated to solutions
              requiring the least hardware, useable by the most people.


               A lot of the software that I see requires the best hardware
          currently available.  It's fun to program for the best hardware
          and it's fun to use that hardware, if you have it.  However, I
          know that many times a program that requires VGA graphics and a
          color monitor does not really need those things to do what it is
          intended to do.  That means that those of us with monochrome
          monitors, or LCD laptops, can't use those programs.  Other
          programs that require a lot of memory or CPU speed probably could
          have been written to require less, if the programmer felt the
          need.

               Deciding what is adequate for a particular purpose is not
          easy.  It partly depends on assumptions about the hardware
          available to users.  I suspect that I have undershot the mark.
          There are a lot of bells and whistles that I can add in before my
          programs become unuseable by anyone.  I am considering more on-
          line help, for example, and more helpful screen displays.  The
          tradeoff is that each pop-up window adds to the memory
          requirement of the programs.

               Registered users receive several small utilities that help
          in the preparation and manipulation of vocabulary files.  So far,









          I have resisted the urge to write a special editor for entering
          vocabulary and verb files.  It wouldn't be difficult to prepare
          something that would help in these tasks, and make it easier to
          enter parts of speech into vocabulary files, for example, and to
          be sure that there are the correct numbers of words on a line.
          However, every time I think of this, I decide that the world
          doesn't need another editor, there are so many that are perfectly
          adequate.


               What do you think?  What features would you like to see?

               I really would like to hear from users.  Send me both
          suggestions and criticisms.  These programs have advanced to
          their present state as a result of suggestions from users.


               I can be reached on GEnie with address P.YANT, through
          Internet with address Philip_Yant@ub.cc.umich.edu, and through
          Bitnet with address UserGB2P@umichub.  Internet is accessible
          from both MCI mail and CompuServe.  From MCI, choose a foreign
          EMS and the Internet address above.  From CompuServe, use
          >internet:Philip_Yant@ub.cc.umich.edu.  Or use USPS to the
          address on the registration form.  I welcome and appreciate any
          comments and suggestions.