PCBDE v4.03 Copyright (c)1996 by Practical Computer Services HISTORY OF CHANGES, FIXES, & ADDITIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! 09/22/96 Practical Computer Services is proud to be the new owner of this fine software. PCS will now be taking all registrations, releasing all new updates and handling all support questions. See v4.02 release notes for additional information. BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v4.03 10/03/96 Corrected some problems with the key routines for detecting if the program is registered or not. v4.02 09/29/96 Practical Computer Services has purchased the source and rights to PCBDE from GO/4 Software as of 09/22/96. Changes made to the code and related files to reflect this change of ownership. Please direct all questions and registrations to PCS, not GO/4 Software. Company info: Practical Computer Services 483 Klockner Road Hamilton, NJ 08619 Voice: (609) 584-7947 Support BBS: The TAO BBS (609)587-2672 33,600 USR v.everything Internet E-Mail: bob.watson@tao.com v4.01u 12/08/95 * Added Universal Key Routines. * Added code to make PCBDE Dbase capable, this will eliminate all the LST files (in the next version) and should greatly speed up the dispaly for all you people running 100's of doors. * Replaced alot of the internal code with Functions and procedures, making debugging much easier. v4.01 06/29/94 * Added a new configuration file, for those of you running with long path names, you can add the path to a file called LONGPATH.DAT, and have your path picked up from there, this is only neccesasry for PPE's. Format of LONGPATH.DAT is as follows: 9;C:\PCB\PPE\GAMES\ADVENTURE\TEXT\ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ³ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ The number as shown on ³ Full path (remember no PPE name), the doors open menu! ³ with the trailing slash! Ù A Semi-Colon Simple, No? Then the only thing you need to place in the PCBDE.CFG (in the slot for path) is the keyword LONG. Using the LONG parameter here, will tell PCBDE to look in the file LONGPATH.DAT. Any questions? Give a call. v4.00 06/08/94 * New owners! GO/4 Software are now the support, registration and programmers for the newly named PCBDE (previously called TCMDE). * Display modifications to reflect the new company name, added the (A)bout feature (all of our software has it in it, just basically a "who we are" screen, only those people who know about it bother with it anyway . * Placed hooks into the code so that we can launch both PPE's and regular door programs and have them register in the counter display. This will be in ver 4.01. v3.62 12/06/93 * I finally broke down and called Clark to find out EXACTLY what was causing the Buffer errors. They gave me some hints, and I recoded a few segments! I sure hope this takes care of the problem! v3.61 12/02/93 * Recompiled with 12-01-93 beta of PPL 2.0. This should hopefully get rid of the nasty buffer errors that where cause by the Beta compiler! v3.60 11/15/93 * Fix a few spelling errors in the Display files! I was not an English major!!:) * Recompiled code with PPLC version 2! Optimized code for new compiler. Performance improvement noted on my system. Added a few incentives to register the code. v3.51 11/09/93 * Minor Bug Fix. Something went amiss with the 3.50 compile. The code was STILL not picking up the PPE Paths from the menu............................................FIXED! This one was a real pain to track down! Several code segments had to be changed. v3.50 11/08/93 * Yet another bug release! v3.40 was getting PPE paths from the command line, but not if the user picked it from the menu................................................FIXED! v3.40 10/18/93 * Bug squashing release only! v3.30 was not reading in the PPE path from the PCBDE.CFG properly................FIXED! v3.30 10/18/93 * Added SysOp definable header for registered users. - By request, I aim to please. PCBDE defaults to *NOT* use the .HDR file. If you want to define your own header create a file called PCBDE.HDR and edit it as you please. HDR.DAT is included as an example. * Did some serious code optimization. PCBDE should now run faster. I removed many lines of redundant code! * NEW! PCBDEBLT.EXE by Chuck Valecek. This little executable will create a nifty bulletin with all your door info. * UPDATED! PCBEED3.EXE by Chuck Valecek. Now includes option to pick your highlight color. * Had a request to add a column the display to show if the door registered. I'm interested in hearing what you folks think about this. v3.20 10/11/93 * YOU MUST DELETE *EVERYTHING* IN THE PCBDE SUBDIRECTORY TO UPGRADE TO THIS VERSION. * Added ability to pass command line parameters to the door that is called. For example users can automatically start their Qmail download with the "OPEN QMAIL D" command. This feature does not work with PPE's yet! * If user entered 007 instead of 7 at the prompt, it was creating 2 different LST files. This caused the times opened and last opened indicators to be off.........................................FIXED! * Added 2 additional highlight colors for a total of 3. You may now choose which color to use on a particular entry. Because of this you MUST edit the PCBDE.COL file and add 2 lines. see UPGRADE.DOC. v2.60 09/23/93 * No bugs to squash, but I had some requests that I thought would improve the code. Request 1 - Improve display speed. Request 2 - Keep LST files static so they don't grow so huge! These two are actually related so I went back to work.......... * YOU MUST DELETE *EVERYTHING* IN THE PCBDE SUBDIRECTORY TO UPGRADE TO THIS VERSION. The way I was calculating Times opened for each door was pretty slow so I changed it. the .LST files stored in the PCBDE directory are now *STATIC* in size! They will NEVER get any bigger! * I re-wrote a ton of code for this release so holler if a bug pops up! v2.51 09/22/93 * I went and fiddled with the Command line! v2.50 wasn't allowing you to go right into a door from the command line................FIXED! The High price of Progress! ;) * ADDED: PCBDE_ED.EXE - This is a little configuration file editor written by Chuck Valecek! Fire this up for quick changes without the comma headaches normally associated with a file like PCBDE.CFG! Say it with me guys.......Thanks Chuck! * Unless someone finds a bug, this is the last version of PCBDE for a week or 2! I have an article to work on for the PPE Newsletter! v2.50 09/21/93 * Slight Display bug with new colors..........FIXED! If your system had less than 15 doors which is less than 1 page, they were not displayed correctly...................................FIXED! * ADDED: Ability to categorize Doors! * ADDED: Command line switches! OPEN A - displays ALL doors OPEN C - asks category v2.11 09/20/93 * v2.10 sent out on the wire with no REGISTER.DOC! Optimized some code which should improve speed. Still working on categorizing doors. v2.10 09/19/93 * ALL Color's are now SysOp configurable. v2.05 09/16/93 * PPE's were not loading properly.......FIXED! v2.01 09/15/93 * Initial Shareware release v1.00 07/25/93 * Limited Initial Release. Wanted to work out the major bugs. 08/01/93 * Author gets side tracked due to major abdominal surgery. Doesn't write any code for several weeks for obvious reasons.