University of Vaasa, Finland, Linux Pentium, node number 193.166.120.5 (garbo.uwasa.fi) has a large collection of shareware, freeware and public domain programs which are available by anonymous ftp (file transfer program) and WWW (World Wide Web). This information file ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/0news-ts contains news about the programs in the /pc/ts directory (in reverse order). .................................................................... 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 ; 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. .................................................................... N e w s o f 2 0 0 0 Mon 4-Dec-2000: Made an update of my MS-DOS batches and tips collection. It now is 170451 Dec 4 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat63.zip tsbat63.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi Added the following new items to the batch questions & answers collection 93) How do I add +1 to a variable in a batch? 94) How to copy the errorlevel into a variable in a batch? 95) How can I test for a zero byte file? 96) How to show the last N lines of a file using DOS batch files? 97) How do I get the path of a file located somewhere on my disk? Fri 22-Sep-2000: Made the update 168498 Sep 22 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat62.zip tsbat62.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi to add the following new items 90) Isn't MS-DOS dead with W2K? So why bother with MS-DOS batches? 91) How can I exit the called batch without returning to the first? 92) How do I create a sequence of directories from 001 to MaxValue? Fri 18-Aug-2000: My third filters package has been updated to 108902 Aug 18 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfltc22.zip tsfltc22.zip More filters: dump,col,concat,cut,detab,rep,rot13,undump,... This is a minor update, but PCs faster than 200Mhz have brought along a new problem with some old programs. Turbo Pascal's Crt screen handling ceases to work because of a "divide by 0" initialization error. I just got a new 500Mhz PC at office and discovered that one of the programs "DETAB.EXE Expand tabs properly into blanks", which I frequently use myself, no more worked. Thus I wrote an update which does not choke on the Borland's (now Inprise) bug. Tue 1-Aug-2000: Update 44325 Aug 1 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tspun21.zip tspun21.zip Timo's nauseating groaners (a collection of puns). Tue 1-Aug-2000: I have an MS-DOS program TODAY.EXE "Scan disk for files made today" I have added new a /Thhmm switch to select files made after the said timestamp, because I recently happened to need that feature myself. E.g. to scan the entire C disk for files made today afternoon you can now use TODAY /T1200 C:\ Also added /S Suppress captions, only list the files I have consequently made the update package 95613 Aug 1 10:01 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutld25.zip Timo's 4th utility set (bigcurs,keyrate,caps,today,warmboot,...) Thu 27-Apr-2000: I have released a new version of my 126733 Apr 27 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqn.zip Questions from Usenet and Timo's answers alternatively available with a version number as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfaqn49.zip Most importantly I have put some of the material on WWW pages which are easier to keep up to date. The common link page for the WWW based material is http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html . My purpose is that the WWW version would gradually replace the file version altogether, but that is a long and slow process. I have changed the format slightly so that the material can optionally be more easily read also with various email programs. Fri 31-Mar-2000: Made on update of my MS-DOS batches collection to be 167461 Mar 31 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat61.zip tsbat61.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi Added the following three FAQ items 87) How can I test for the existence of a substring in a string? 88) How can I put MS-DOS FIND results into an environment variable? 89) How to get months as letters and years in four digits in DIR? Sat 4-Mar-2000: Updated again 109747 Mar 4 09:15 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutlc25.zip tsutlc25.zip Timo's 3rd utility set (dirf,dirinfo,doubles,hidden,split,...) 1) Added to my DIRF.EXE "DIRectory in Full program" a /m switch for the month as three letters to give date stamps like Fr-03-Mar-2000 09:40:44. The reason for this addition is that with Y2K the traditional date format like 03-02-00 is more ambiguous than ever. 2) DOUBLES.EXE "Find double file names on a disk": Added the same /m switch as to DIRF.EXE. Extended the year to four digits. 3) HIDDEN.EXE "Find all hidden files on disk(s)" and READONLY.EXE "Find all readonly files on disks": Extended the year to four digits. Added the missing directory designator when the found entity is a directory. 4) SYSFILES.EXE "Find all system files on disk(s)" ZEROFILE "Find all empty files on disk(s)": Extended the year to four digits. 5) Added some usage tips to the documentation. Wed 1-Mar-2000: I have made a routine information update 108850 Mar 1 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutlc24.zip tsutlc24.zip Timo's 3rd utility set (dirf,dirinfo,doubles,hidden,split,...) Functionally, the programs are unchanged. Sun 13-Feb-2000: I have updated by collection of MS-DOS batch files and tricks. It now is 166192 Feb 11 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat60.zip tsbat60.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi Added the following new items: 83) Y2K: My old BIOS gives a wrong year at boot. How can I fix it? 84) Is there a batch to drop the first letter of a file name? 85) How do I close the command window once my batch file has run? 86) Is MS-DOS batch programming going to die along with W2K? Added "Check if a directory contains files or not" into the already existing item: 46) How can I test whether a disk is empty or not? Sat 5-Feb-2000: I have made a routine information update 80381 Feb 5 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutle23.zip tsutle23.zip Timo's 5th utility set (lock keyboard,mailsplit,tdel,cmos,...) Functionally, the programs are unchanged except that the RTE200 fast machine bug has been seen to where necessary. Thu 3-Feb-2000: I have made an update 120548 Feb 3 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsdemo17.zip tsdemo17.zip Assorted graphics demonstrations of functions etc, T.Salmi - PCs faster than 200Mhz have brought along a new problem with some old programs. Turbo Pascal's Crt screen handling ceases to work because of a "divide by 0" initialization error. The update hopefully remedies the situation for these programs. I have not been able, however, to test this since I only have sub-200Mhz PCs available. On the other hand, I have not had any reports of problems with the fix, which as been around for some time now for my other programs. - Corrected a Y2K bug in one of the programs. - Brought some address information up to date. Wed 2-Feb-2000: I have made a routine information and RTE 200 problem correction update 84200 Feb 2 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutlb22.zip tsutlb22.zip Timo's 2nd utility set (touch,chars,dire,setgra) Functionally, the programs are unchanged. Tue 1-Feb-2000 : I have made a routine information update 63904 Feb 1 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutlf16.zip tsutlf16.zip Timo's 6th utility set (advdate,choose,deledir,strings,strmemo,) Functionally, the programs are unchanged. Sun 16-Jan-2000: Made a maintenance update 163479 Jan 16 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsbat59.zip tsbat59.zip A collection of useful batch files and tricks, T.Salmi It includes one new item 82) How would I get a beep in a batch file? Mostly, however, it just updates some minor version and Y2K information. Sat 15-Jan-2000: This sipped version is above all for my own students, also also to others in the field of accounting interested in research on profitability measurement. The original redition is a web page at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/smuc/smuc.html 641216 Jan 15 20:48 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/research/tssmuc10.zip tssmuc10.zip A Simulation Evaluation of IRR Estimation Methods, TS+IV The full title is: Timo Salmi and Ilkka Virtanen Measuring the Long-Run Profitability of the Firm; A Simulation Evaluation of the Financial Statement Based IRR Estimation Methods Wed 12-Jan-2000: I have made an update 94450 Jan 11 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsutld24.zip tsutld24.zip Timo's 4th utility set (bigcurs,keyrate,caps,today,warmboot,...) - PCs faster than 200Mhz have brought along a new problem with some old programs. Turbo Pascal's Crt screen handling ceases to work because of a "divide by 0" initialization error. The update hopefully remedies the situation for these programs. I have not been able, however, to test this since I only have sub-200Mhz PCs available. - Updated some address information. Sat 8-Jan-2000: I have made a maintenance update 165966 Jan 8 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tsfaqp49.zip tsfaqp49.zip Common Turbo Pascal Questions and Timo's answers which is also available without the version number as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/tsfaqp.zip . Although the MS-DOS programs and the Turbo Pascal scene have grown quiet in terms of any new developments, the user base of both continues to be huge, partly because there still are so many old 80386 computers in usage all over the world. The continuing interest is readily seen e.g. from Garbo's download statistics both for MS-DOS programs in general and this Turbo Pascal FAQ in particular. Nevertheless, the steep decline in any new developments is clearly reflected also in this FAQ. There are no new items and there is a fairly limited number of changes in the material. A parallel development that has gradually been taking place on the scene is that so much information resides these days on the WWW pages. Thus so much information is available there rather than on large repositories like the Garbo archives. The advantage is that any updates take effect immediately, and without the need of an outside maintainer. But there also are serious disadvantages. Much of such material is widely dispersed and above all, many links are very transient. There today, gone tomorrow. Hence I feel that this Turbo Pascal FAQ is still useful in its current, downloadable zip-file format. Sat 8-Jan-2000: Take cover, all literary folks. I have released on the scampering news:rec.humor readership the update 41853 Jan 8 2000 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tspun20.zip tspun20.zip Timo's nauseating groaners (a collection of puns). On a serious note. Since I am not a native English speaker, this is one of my methods to strive for fluency. Sat 1-Jan-2000: The older news about the files in the /pc/ts directory are available as : ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/0news99.ts The news announcements of 1999 about ts-programs, T.Salmi : and so on, backwards.