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429 lines
20 KiB
Plaintext
America Online
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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
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Tuesday, August 28, 1990 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
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Topic: Complete Pascal
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with Special Guest, Vince Cooper of Complete Technology
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Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
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AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe we are now ready to get started :)
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AFL Dyfet Good evening and welcome to the Apple II Development Forum
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Conference. We will
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AFL Dyfet be discussing Complete Pascal tonight with our special guest,
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Vince Cooper of
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AFL Dyfet Complete Technology. We will be using protocol starting now!
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This means that
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AFL Dyfet if you wish to ask a question, enter a '?' on a line by itself,
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AFL Dyfet and if you wish to respond/comment on the current question,
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AFL Dyfet enter a '!' on a line by itself. I will now turn the floor over
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AFL Dyfet to our guest, Vince, who can explain to you what Complete
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Technologies is,
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AFL Dyfet and what their relationship with TML, and TML Pascal II users will
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be.
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VCooper Thanks Dave!
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VCooper Hello everyone!
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VCooper My name is Vince Cooper and I am the president of a new company
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called
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VCooper Complete Technology, Inc. Some of you may know me as the former A2
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GS products
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VCooper manager from TML Systems.
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VCooper We are now in the business of publishing development tools for the
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IIGS with
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VCooper the former TML Pascal II and TML Basic being the first products we
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have
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VCooper brought to market.
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VCooper We have updated the Pascal product to fix some problems in the
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text editor
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VCooper and have recently released Complete Pascal 1.0, and are working
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hard on
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VCooper Complete Pascal 2.0 which is to be a full blown upgrade of the
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product.
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VCooper We will do some work on Basic after the first of the year to
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correct some
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VCooper massive problems there, however, we felt the current market
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dictated that
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VCooper we work on the Pascal product first.
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VCooper Basicly what has happened is that TML Systems felt that their
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company was
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VCooper better off to focus their attentions on creating new and inovative
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products
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VCooper for the Macintosh and that you, their former customers were better
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off with
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VCooper another company handling their former IIGS products.
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VCooper The last few months at TML Systems all development and support
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attention was
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VCooper spent in the direction of the Macintosh and they, nor I, felt this
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was fair
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VCooper to their many many loyal IIGS customers.
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VCooper Therefore, on the first of July we started Complete Technology,
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and purchased
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VCooper the rights to TML's IIGS product line and and started immediate
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work to make
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VCooper the products the best that we could for IIGS developers. We feel
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we have
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VCooper corrected the most drastic problem in Pascal (you couldnt edit
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source) and
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VCooper are now working hard on the other known problems as well as some
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enhancements
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VCooper that I felt were warranted...
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VCooper As far as technical support and updates go, we have institued a
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support
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VCooper program for TML's former clients with our company to open a
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support channel
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VCooper for you, and to make updates and upgrades available in the
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future.
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VCooper Unfortunately due to many different circumstances we could not
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offer free
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VCooper updates and support to all of their former clients, therefore, the
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support
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VCooper program and update offer that we have put together has a nominal
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charge
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VCooper associated with it.
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VCooper We would like to have been able to do this for free for everyone
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since
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VCooper the previous preformance of the publisher left a bit to be desired
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in the
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VCooper support area, however, we just couldnt do it for several thousand
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people and
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VCooper stay in business very long.
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VCooper Plans? Well, as stated we are working on an upgrade to the Pascal
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product
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VCooper to bring it in line with what we feel a professional quality
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development tool
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VCooper should be. We will then start working on Basic to correct its
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many problems
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VCooper and bring it up to date with the current operating system used on
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the IIGS.
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VCooper The Basic work will be a little more intense since it also
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involves a
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VCooper conversion of development systems, however, we feel we can have
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something
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VCooper accomplished sometime early next year. Not the news some of you
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wanted to hear
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VCooper but better than you would have heard under the former
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circumstances.
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VCooper with that, I'll hand this back to Dave and see if I can handle any
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questions
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VCooper he or any of you might have for me tonight.
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AFL Dyfet I for one feel you have a strong series of products to work with,
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and hope that
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AFL Dyfet you can overcome some of the negative impressions left by TML
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Systems in the
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AFL Dyfet market place. I think now is not a time to dwell on the mistakes
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of the past,
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AFL Dyfet but to look at the future for these potentially superb products.
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This is, in
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AFL Dyfet many ways, about the best thing that could have happened for TML
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Pascal and
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AFL Dyfet Basic. I believe that A2 has the first question. GA A2...
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A2GS 2 brief Q's....1) Any plans for supporting C?
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A2GS In the long run of course, GA
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VCooper In the very long run, maybe. Personally I feel there are already
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two good
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VCooper C compilers available and I would rather see our company pursue
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something
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VCooper that isnt already there such as Fortran, or to add an assembler to
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our product
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VCooper line..
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AFL Dyfet (Just so long as you keep the nightmare of Cobol away from the
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IIgs :)
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AFL Dyfet And your 2nd Q, A2?
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VCooper No Cobol, please! :)
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A2GS 2) What is your view of the II's current status and future?
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A2GS GA
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VCooper I feel the IIGS has a bright future or I wouldnt be here... We've
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made a
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VCooper substancial financial investment in taking over these products and
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setting
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VCooper up a company to support and maintain them. Obviously we wouldnt
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have done
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VCooper this if we didnt feel it was going to be worthwhile in the long
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run.
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VCooper GA
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AFL Dyfet Okay, Omega Man, you have the floor now...
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Omega Man does/will the resource editor allow you to save sound and picture
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resources? GA
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SteveB That would be nice!
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Omega Man :)
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VCooper Right now it doesnt. We are in the process of deciding what we
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want to do with
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VCooper the resource editor. I'm not sure if we should enhance it to
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handle many
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VCooper different types of resources, or if we couldnt better spend the
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time and
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VCooper resources in enhancing the compiler so that it can handle OMF
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files from
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VCooper outside sources and other options that it now doesnt have. As
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with any
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VCooper development company our resources are limited. It might be better
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for us to
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VCooper leave high level resource editing and creation to speciality
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products such
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VCooper as Genesys and others and stick to the compilers. What we have
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now is enough
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VCooper to get a basic program up and running. It doesnt handle
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everything, and could
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VCooper probably use a small bit of enhancing, but I doubt you'll ever see
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anything
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VCooper from us that is as indepth as Genesys is in handling resource
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generation.
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VCooper GA
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Omega Man ga Froo
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AFL Dyfet Okay, Frooddude, you have the floor now...GA...
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Frooddude Ok.... Vince, who are the people behind the "We" you have been
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speaking of?
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VCooper Well, at this time the people making the decisions are myself and
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a couple of
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VCooper folks that have invested money. I've also sent offers to a couple
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of
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VCooper programmers that I hope to bring online soon to work on our linker
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and on our
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VCooper Basic product. right now I'm doing all of the programming and
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support and
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VCooper that is just a bit to much for one guy to handle. We also have a
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couple of
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VCooper girls that work here in the office handling phone calls and paper
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work so that
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VCooper I dont screw things up too bad... :)
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Frooddude Ok, thanks.
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AFL Dyfet Okay, Michael, you have the floor now...GA...
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Michael515 Will you have a Direct Connect area in ADV soon?
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VCooper We've spoken to Dave about that and some things are working behind
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the scenes
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VCooper for online support here on AO.
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VCooper GA
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VCooper (Right now you can catch us in the Pascal folder in the Let's
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Discuss area.) GA
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AFL Dyfet Hmm...there are a few things in the works, yes ;)...
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Shadow100 About when will v1.0 be ready to send out and how much will that
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small upgrade
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Shadow100 be.
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VCooper 1.0 is already shipping, sans nice looking labels. The support
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program costs
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VCooper $29.95 for Pascal customers and $19.95 for Basic customers. There
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are
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VCooper some letters containing information about what is going on being
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mailed out
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VCooper to all of TML's former clients, although this is moving a little
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slower than
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VCooper we would like. If you're really curious we have posted the
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letters here online
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VCooper in the Pascal folder, inside a folder titled News From Complete
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Technology.
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VCooper GA
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Shadow100 Thanks.
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Kerry C2 Whats will v2.0 offer over the current v1.0 of Pascal?
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VCooper 2.0 will offer a linker that allows you to link asm and c
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subroutines to
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VCooper your Pascal programs, or generates Pascal files that can be linked
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to your
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VCooper asm or C programs. It will also offer some enhancement in the
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resource
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VCooper editor although as I stated these enhancements will not be
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bringing it inline
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VCooper with some of the resource specific products like Genesys.
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VCooper It will also correct some problems that we have found to be our
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fault in
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VCooper the existing editor and compiler.
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VCooper (By our fault I mean we are now accepting responsibility for
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things that
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VCooper were wrong in the origional release which of course we didnt
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write.)
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VCooper GA
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AFL Dyfet Go ahead Omega Man...
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Omega Man will the 2.0 upgrade be free (to 1.0 users)?
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VCooper We're not sure what the price will be at this time. Please
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understand that
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VCooper you are not buying version 1.0. It is simply thrown in as an
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enducement to
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VCooper get folks to join the support program.
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VCooper We will ONLY offer future updates and upgrades to those that do
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join the
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VCooper support system. This is the only manner in which we can stay in
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business
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VCooper and support thousands of people that didnt purchase software from
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our company.
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VCooper Kind of a drag I know, but also a fact of business life...
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VCooper GA
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Omega Man sounds cool, :) ...ga...
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Kerry C2 Do you have plans for improving the size of source code files
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generated
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Kerry C2 by the compiler, such as an optimizer in future versions?
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VCooper Once we have improved the linker then we'll look at licensing some
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things that
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VCooper will make this possible. A few things that are not possible now
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will become
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VCooper reality once we have a new linker in the system. There are
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existing utilities
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VCooper that can be used to decrese the size of the load files and such...
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I've
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VCooper never tried to use what is there now, so I cant say for sure if
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they work or
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VCooper not on what the compiler system is generating right now. Some of
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you may
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VCooper have given it a try and may be able to answer this. This is not
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an area that I
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VCooper have checked out in depth yet. There were too many aligators in
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the swamp for
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VCooper me to look at the ducks... :)
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VCooper GA
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Kerry C2 Thanks.
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AFL Dyfet Okay, RobertHess, you have the floor now...
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RobertHess I realize that at this time, you have your hands full, but is
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there a
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RobertHess glimmer in your eye of future products and directions? Do you see
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your
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RobertHess company just being in the develpment tools business, or might
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you
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RobertHess also look towards 'general' applications as well? GA
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VCooper Right now we're just looking at development tools and utilites.
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Since we
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VCooper came into being with an existing product line, something most
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companies dont do
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VCooper we havent taken a long look at application programs or anything
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like that
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VCooper yet. I never say never, but its not in the business plan right
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now.
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VCooper We do plan to look at another language or an assembler, but that's
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still many
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VCooper months away.
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VCooper GA
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RobertHess Thanks, (looking forward to a Modula-2 :-) GA
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VCooper ( I thought someone just released a Modula-2, but I may be
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wrong..)
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AFL Dyfet Okay SteveB, you have the floor now...
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SteveB Ok-- I noticed AWSOME pastinng in CP v1.0. The Cutting still
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stinks, thought..
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SteveB Are you planning to fix this? :)
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SteveB (Dumb Question :)
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VCooper Yes, however, we're waiting to see what, if any, corrections are
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in the
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VCooper next version of system software. CP 1.0 cuts and deletes much
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better than
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VCooper its counter part, Pascal II, however, we and our beta testers
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admit there are
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VCooper still some problems there with large chunks. We havent found any
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scrollbar
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VCooper freezing or any of the other problems, however, at least in 98% of
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all cases.
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SteveB I'm a Beta tester :)
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SteveB GA- Thanks :)
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VCooper I wont say they wont ever freeze, but nothing like what was in the
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original
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VCooper releases of this software. We did find some problems there with
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the way the
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VCooper program was coded and corrected them.
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VCooper GA
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AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead Omega Man...
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Omega Man Did you correct the problem with the Case statements (they couldnt
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handle multiple numbers.. like Case numer of 45..100
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VCooper that is not a bug, but it is the way this particular
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implimentation works.
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VCooper That IS something we are looking at changing, but I've not even
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looked at
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VCooper the source code in that part of the compiler yet. If we can get
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to it, we'll
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VCooper handle that in the 2.0 release.
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VCooper You can code around that problem, and if you're having trouble
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send me some
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VCooper email and I'll get you some code fragments that show you how to
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can work around
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VCooper the limitation.
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VCooper GA
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RobertHess First a comment on the previous question... case ranges are not
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part
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RobertHess of 'standard' pascal, but are implemented by a couple compilers.
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RobertHess ...and TML 'did' document theirs as being one of them... now my
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?
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RobertHess Vince, I assume that many of your 'support' questions are still
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in
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RobertHess the relm of 'ToolBox' programming on the GS, rather then actual
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RobertHess problems with your product. What ideas or methods do you have
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for
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RobertHess dealing with this? How much of a burden is this proving on your
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RobertHess overall support efforts? GA
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VCooper Well, I'd like to see some of the book publishers update their
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existing
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VCooper books and I'd like to see some new books done on programming with
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resources.
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VCooper However, right now, most of the questions we're getting are on how
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to deal
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VCooper with and get around some of the problems that were in the original
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release of
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VCooper the compiler. I believe with our first update, and our future
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upgrade, we
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VCooper will correct that and go back to answering general programming
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type questions.
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VCooper I'd MUCH rather answer those types of questions even though they
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dont really
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VCooper have anything to do with the tool being used to create the
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program... :)
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VCooper GA
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RobertHess :-> yeah, I know what you mean... GA
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AFL Dyfet Okay Kerry, GA...And then Steve will have the last Q for
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tonight...
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Kerry C2 I've never been able to get Real2Integer in TMLUtils library to
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work correctly,
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Kerry C2 has this/will this bug/feature be fixed in future versions?
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VCooper It is a bug, and yes, we'll fix that in 2.0.
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VCooper Right now you can call SANE and use a call that will accomplish
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much the
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VCooper same thing.
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VCooper GA
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Kerry C2 I use SANE to do the conversions.
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SteveB Will you fix the Resoource Editor's problem of messing up Resource
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files when..
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SteveB you edit a menu resource? Is this a bug? :)
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VCooper It's a bug, but we're not absolutely sure whos... Right now we
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are aware of
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VCooper some problems in the Resource Manager that cause trouble when you
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are changing
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VCooper the size of a resource which is what happens when you edit a menu
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with our
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VCooper editor. I'm sure some of the problem is also in CP's code. We'll
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be fixing
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VCooper this as soon as we get some updated system software and get the
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word that
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VCooper the problem we know about in the Resource Manager has been
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fixed.
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Dave Lyons Steve, what sort of messing-up happens?
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SteveB When executing the Progam, I get an error "Unable to open Resource
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Fork".
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SteveB And then some Error numbers.
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Kerry C2 Whenever I edit menu resources, the rest of the file becomes
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corrupted
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Kerry C2 and useless. If you don't use menu resources you should be ok
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now.
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VCooper There are some other problems with some things being off in the
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resource
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VCooper editor that ARE our fault and only our fault that we will be
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repairing soon.
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VCooper We'll get the word out to our customers in the support program as
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soon as
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VCooper something is done.
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VCooper GA
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SteveB Thanks :)
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AFL Dyfet Okay, I would like to thank our guest, Vince, for attending
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tonight....it was
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AFL Dyfet much good news you have brought....
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AFL Dyfet I know you need to leave shortly, so if you have any closing
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comments?
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VCooper Not really... Just would like to say that it has been a real
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pleasure to
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VCooper talk to everyone and if you have further questions for me you're
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welcome to
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VCooper post them in the Pascal folder here in the Let's Discuss area. I
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check that
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VCooper area a couple of times daily and answer any questions. Also for
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those that
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VCooper are interested we are also doing some work on the manual and will
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be making
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VCooper some improvements there. Wont do those of you that already have
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it much good,
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VCooper but future people that use the product wont go through the same
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cold sweats
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VCooper that some of you did... :)
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VCooper Thanks folks! its been a real pleasure!
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Kerry C2 Thanks for your time and help, and good luck!!
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AFA Gary J Thanks, Vince!
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VCooper Good night, everyone!
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