Microreview for October 1998 Micropendium by Charles Good DOWNLOAD FILE CONVERTER by Bruce Harrison When you download text files or the source code of web pages from the internet to a 99/4A the text files often end up as a file in DF128 format. The same thing occurs if you download text from a BBS. Almost all TI word processors (“PRESS” is the exception) cannot handle this file format and require their text to be in DV80 or sometimes DF80. Bruce Harrison has written a pair of public domain assembly language programs that convert DF128 text to DV80 text and visa versa. These programs are very easy to use. Just enter the path of the input file and the path of the output file. Long path names will work so those with SCSI or HFDC hard drives will have no problems. The DV80 output is nicely formatted with word wrap. You see the conversion on screen as it progresses. In addition to Harrison’s software there are two other older software products that accomplish DF128-to- DV80 conversion and one very well known product that does DV80-to-DF128. Richard Phillips’ CONVERTIT v1.1 will do DF128-to-DV80 conversion. It is written in extended basic and is thus very slow. It was written specifically to convert text downloaded from a MAC computer and is supposed to recognize special symbol codes on the MAC and translate them properly on a TI. These symbols include copyright, trade mark, pound sterling, and all the common mathematics symbols. I haven’t tried CONVERTIT with MAC text but I have tried it with “regular” DF128 text. It works, but very slowly. Ben Yates wrote PRINT128 in the “c” language. This does essentially the same DF128-to-DV80 job as Harrison’s software, and like the Harrison product PRINT128 is hard drive and Geneve compatible and does word wrap. An unusual aspect of PRINT128 is that it will do DF128-to-anything, such as DF24 or DV30. I don’t know why anyone would want to do this with text, but the ability is there. Another thing I don’t know why anyone would want to do is create DF128 text from DV80 on the TI. Harrison’s software will do this and so will the Funnelweb word processor. Using either the 40 or 80 column versions of the Funnelweb editor you can use PF (print file) to save a disk file in DF128 format compatible with unix or MS Dos, your choice. For example, in the Funnelweb editor after typing PF and type M, a space, and a path name to save the text in the edit buffer as a DF128 file in Dos format with cr and lf at the end of each line and ^Z at the end of the text. Send me $1 and I will send you all the software described above on a TI DSSD disk. Or email me and I will email you the software as an attached file in PC99 format. This software includes Bruce Harrison’s new Downlaod File Converter as well as the older Convertit, and Print128. NOTEPAD 80 by Walid Malouli This is 80 column word processing on the cheap! If you can find an old 80 column terminal then this software lets you do 80 column word processing without an 80 column card. You hook the 80 column terminal to the RS232 port of your TI, and it acts as a second monitor for 80 column work. Yes, you do need two video displays for this software, your normal TI monitor and the 80 column terminal. The software is written in extended basic and is thus kinda slow. It is, however, one of the most full featured extenced basic word processors I have seen. You start out on your TI monitor selecting RS232 port, size of left/right and top/bottom margins, double or single space, paragraph indentation, and the number of text lines per page. There is also, on the TI monitor, an indicator that tells you which page of your document is being displayed on the terminal. You get a 24 line 80 column display, about 1/3 of a 60 line document “page”. When typing a new document keyboard response is somewhat slow, but adequate for most people. Newly entered text is word wrapped. Documents are saved to disk as DV80 files. While typing or editing existing text the following operations are possible: line and character delete, blank line and new character insertion, paragraph indent, destructive backspace, move cursor left/right one character of up/down one line, quit program, write document to disk, print document to printer, load new document, go to end of document, go to beginning of document, next page or screen, and previous page or screen. Besides its slow speed, which is not unbearable, Notepad80 suffers from the same problem that affects all word processors written in extended basic, namely that you can only modify one line of existing text at a time. Any changes you make to a line do not affect text on adjacent lines. This makes it difficult to insert lots of text within a line and have the whole document look good. You can, of course, insert blank lines within existing text and then add additional text to these blank lines. Terminals that hook to the RS232 port are not easy to find. I am not sure if they are still manufactured. When you can find one they are either free or almost free. Notepad80 is public domain. The author asks no money for his efforts, but welcomes your suggestions and comments. Send me $1 and I will mail it to you on a SSSD TI disk. ......................... ACCESS: Walid Maalouli (author of Notepad80) 757 Main St. Olean NY 14760 email wmaouli@eznet.net Bruce Harrison (author of Download File Converter) 5705 40th Place Hyattsville MD 29781 email rottencat13@hotmail.com phone 331-277-3467 Charles Good (source of software described in this article) P.O. Box 647 Venedocia OH 45894 email good.6@osu.edu phone 419-667-3131