National Debt Calculator v1.1 Copyright (C) 1994, by Cutting Edge Online All rights reserved. Programming and Documentation by John Marx Cutting Edge Online (318) 537-7089 Voice 6372-B Kucinski Street (318) 537-7746 BBS Fort Polk, LA 71459 Hayes Optima 28.8k U.S.A. FidoNet: 1:3817/9 National Debt Calculator v1.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements The requirements for using this PPE are as follows: a. PCBoard 15.21+ (This program was created with PPLC v3.0 and will not work with any version less than 15.21.) b. Enough space on your hard drive for installation of the program. c. It's not needed but placing this PPE and all your PPE's into different subdirectories is helpful. This allows you to more easily update or remove a PPE with it's accompanying files. Plus if you place more than one PPE in a directory you may run into the program trying to use a file it shouldn't. This is all that is needed to run this program. National Debt Calculator v1.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Program Overview The objective of this program is to keep people appraised of the many things that's happening in their country, namely the national debt. This program came from a need of wanting to inform people what state of sadness our country is currently in and to hopefully get people to better know their own country. It's my hope that if the right number of people see this program that they will talk to others and the word will spread and we might get the US government to stop playing around and get their buns into gear to rectify the great depression which we currently are in. Some of the features of this program include: ž Will calculate the national debt to the second when the user logs on ž Completely 100% definable ž 100% multilingual ž No daily maintenance ž Easy to install, especially if you have a front door program ž External files are here! One to display the national debt information and another display more information to explain to the user exactly where these numbers come from and how quickly the numbers grow. You might find it interesting that the national debt ž Increases by $367 per year ž Increases by $31 Billion per Month ž Increases by $7 Billion per Week ž Increases by $1.0 Billion per Day ž Increases by $42 Million per Hour ž Increases by $697 Thousand per Minute ž Increases by $12 Thousand per Second When the Government announces that it is recucing the Deficit it does not mean that the Debt is being reduced. The only way the Debt can be reduced is for the Government to spend less money than it is taking in. Just follow the step by step instructions below and you will be running in no time. National Debt Calculator v1.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Program Installation If you need a more complete installation help see the GUIDE.ME file provided. This file was created to more easily guide new SysOps through the process of installing FileMenu. To install this program you will need to do the following: 1. First unZIP the archive into its new subdirectory. 2. You will have to edit the external files: DEBT.language MORE.language to the specifications that you desire. 3. You will need to run the DEBT.EXE file either when the user logs on to keep the calculation as current as possible or each night in you nightly event. I have mine run in my SPAWNBBS.BAT file which is run before the user gets to the board. It only takes about two seconds to run this program so your users won't even know that it's doing this. As an example: %PCBDRIVE% cd\pcb\ppe\debt debt cd%PCBDIR% pcboardm 4. You will most have the PPE run either during your login, logoff, or at the command prompt. To add it to your login/logoff screens you would do something to the way of: a. Load PCBSETUP.EXE b. Type B for File Locations c. Type D for New User/Logon/off Questionnaires d. Press the down arrow TWO times e. You should now be ontop of a file called D:\PCB\GEN\LOGIN or something similar. This is on the line that says: Name/Location of Login File f. Press F2 edit g. Add the following line !d:\pcb\ppe\debt\debt.ppe NOTE: The paths will most likely be different from my system to yours so your will need to make the appropriate changes. Also, take heed of the LOGIN at the end! This may be upper, lower case, or mixed case but must be there. Nothing will be displayed to the user. This is to set the user up for when they logoff the system. If this is not there your bulletin may not reflect what the user actually did while online during their stay on your system. NOTE: For your LOGOFF file you would do the same thing except you would edit your LOGOFF file instead of your LOGIN file. To add the command to your command prompt you would do the following: a. Load PCBSETUP.EXE b. Type B for File Locations c. Type B for Configuration Files d. Press the down arrow until you're ontop of CMD.LST. e. Press F2 edit f. Add the following line Command Security PPE ------- -------- ------------------------------------- debt 10 d:\pcb\ppe\debt\debt.ppe NOTE: Your paths will most likely be different from what I have on my system so make the changes accordingly. That's all there is to it! Enjoy! National Debt Calculator v1.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below are a listing of the available @variables@ for use with this program. Along with these variables you may use any combination of @variables@ which PCBoard supports, this may either be color, variables or positioning. These variables MUST be written in all UPPER CASE LETTERING for them to operate correctly. The following are the variables that are available to you: Variable Width Description ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ @version@ 3 Current version of the program you're running @totaldebt@ Changes The total national debt @debtdate@ 8 The national debt calculated as of this date @debttime@ 5 The national debt calculated as of this time NOTE: It is strongly encouraged that you use the @pos:##@ variable with the @variables if you use borders so that the borders will line up correctly. As of this writing the @totaldebt@ is taking up 17 characters. National Debt Calculator v1.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible Error Codes There are several reasons for error codes. The main reason is something went wrong in the program. Even though all efforts have been made to remove any and all possible errors there still may be some configuration we haven't thought of. As such we've included extensive error checking in all of our programs to eliminate any and all possible errors. Errors will be shown to the caller on the screen explaining what went wrong and why if the program can determine without a doubt what it was. All errors will be logged to the callers log! This allows you to correct any problems that your users might not tell you. A lot of times when an error occurs the users like "that's nice." We feel that even as nice as it would be for the user to explain to the SysOp what they were doing when such errors occur, we know not to expect it so we've added this to the code as well. When it logs this information to the callers log it also logs the exact saying that it gave to the user. This gives you the most complete information we can. You may also wish to check out the "Frequently Asked Questions" at the end of this document for it may cover a question you are currently having about PCBoard and PPE's. National Debt Calculator v1.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contacting the Author I can be reached on either my BBS or through my home phone number at any time. If I'm not home and you receive the answering machine just leave your name and number with a short explanation, if you can, of the problem. I WILL call you back as soon as I can and if you gave me a description of your problem will more than likely have an answer for you when I do call you back. When you do call us with information about a bug in the program please give us the following information. This information will help us determine what the problem is: 1. Program name and version number. 2. Type and brand of computer, hard disk, plus any peripherals. 3. Version of DOS plus any TSRs or device drivers in use. 4. Explanation of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. 5. Description of what is in memory from the MEM command (DOS 4 and above users only) or a similar utility. 6. The exact problem you are having. Please be as specific as possible. Having a printout of the screen and/or being at your computer will be helpful. The Cutting Edge Online BBS operates 24 hours a day, is using a Hayes Optima 28.8k modem, PCBoard 15.2/10 and the number is (318) 537-7746. You will be able to download if you wish on the first call. There are no callback doors. We do use CALLER-ID for just this purpose. I personally don't like callback doors and am sure many others feel the same. We've recently upgraded the system bringing the system to 13.2 Gigs online with 5 CD-ROMs. I'm available also on the PCBoard Support BBS, Salt Air. I only call once a week, normally on Saturday so the replies won't be as quick as you may like. I'm also in the FidoNet PCBoard, PCB-Net conferences. Our FidoNet address is 1:3817/9. If you have a problem, suggestion, comment, download or just wish to talk please call and we will be more than glad to serve you. We're not happy until YOU are happy so let us know if we're doing something wrong. If we're doing it right tell your fellow PCBoard SysOps, if not tell US!