TODAY71.ARC TODAY72.ARC TODAY73.ARC TODAY74.ARC By Bruce T. Goldman 2180 Bolton St. Bronx, NY 10462 Jan 02, 1988 These files are a compendium of the major data bases I have found or added to for use with the TODAY program. There ˙is ˙Good news and Bad news with version 7 ˙of ˙these ˙data bases. BAD NEWS - WE'RE TOO LARGE The ˙bad ˙news ˙is ˙that ˙the ˙data ˙has ˙outgrown ˙the ˙programs paramaters. TODAY seems to have ˙trouble ˙with ˙a file over 50K. This is understandable in that the original TODAY's monthly files were approximately 15K. ˙So, ˙I ˙cut the files into semi-months. Each month's 1st 15 ˙˙days are contained in TODAY.MMM files, ˙the remainder ˙of the month is held as TODAY2.MMM. ˙Thus ˙to ˙access today, ˙˙on ˙the ˙15th ˙of ˙each ˙month ˙rename ˙the ˙first ˙part (TODAY.MMM) ˙˙˙TODAY1.MMM ˙˙and ˙the ˙second ˙part ˙˙(TODAY2.MMM) TODAY.MMM. (TODAY.FEB didn't need to be split) Of course, ˙the problem of trying to access a different date will have limitations. ˙For example if on Jan 1, you want to see what has happened on Mar 17th, ˙you wouldn't be able as TODAY.EXE will search TODAY.MAR, when in fact TODAY2.MAR contains MAR 17th. PLEASE, PATRICK Hopefully Patrick, ˙will accomodate this problem in a new version of TODAY.EXE. ˙Either he can expand the environment or allow for new ˙filespec ˙names such as "TODAY2." TODAY.EXE could do a full search ˙by "*.MMM" ˙or conversely allow for more extension names. This of course ˙is ˙up ˙to Patrick. ˙Oh by the way there is some Good ˙news/bad ˙news ˙about Patrick (He got married recently ˙and thus ˙TODAY ˙has ˙slipped ˙to ˙a back burner). ˙˙As ˙long ˙as ˙we aretalking about the size of the environment, ˙TODAY.EXE seems to have problems when a data has many lines of information. or some dates I have 60 ˙or so lines of information, ˙and TODAY.EXE ˙will reject that too. ...AND NOW Now for the GOOD news. ˙Besides a ton of new data added, I did a pretty good edit. I made corrections, got rid of most (hopefully all) ˙˙duplicates ˙and ˙generously ˙abbreviated ˙to ˙shrink ˙˙the information into as small a data file as possible. ˙At one point I ˙was trying to stay within the 50K limit and thus made much ˙of the data read like headlines to trim off the excess fat. HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE RIGHT? As ˙to ˙data correction, ˙it is sometimes difficult to ˙verify ˙a specific ˙date ˙when ˙two equally ˙good ˙sources ˙have ˙different information. ˙One problem arises in the change of calendars from Julian to Gregorian and the International dateline does present a problem. ˙˙It may be a different day in California than ˙France. (Fortunately in the future we should have no problem - Star ˙date 8801, ˙˙captain). ˙I ˙read in one particularly enjoyable ˙source (don't ˙recall the title) ˙that contained celebrities ˙birthdays, that when ever a doubt arose they took the earliest date. ˙It is rare ˙that a person would make themselves older. ˙...and when ˙in doubt blame it on typos. AN ANECDOTE As ˙a rambling aside, ˙in the 20's and 30's many European females came ˙to ˙this ˙country. ˙In those pre-women's rights era, ˙˙most European girl babies were not issued birth certificates. So when they ˙arrived at Ellis Island, ˙their birth date was recorded ˙as whatever the lady said. ˙Naturally, many women made themselves a few ˙years younger. ˙Well along came FDR and Social Security ˙and these ˙women, ˙who could have received their benefits ˙when ˙they turned 62, had to wait a few years longer. ALL THIS AND COLOR TOO Now for even better news. I ˙was particularly impressed with the DISNEY file in that it supported ASCII colors. ˙I looked at what he was doing, ˙and figure why couldn't we apply that to the TODAY databases. ˙˙Through ˙experimentation I came up with a ˙slightly better method, ˙and thus we have color. ˙You can experiment, ˙if you wish different ˙colors. ˙If your system doesn't support ANSI colors simple word process them out. COLORS White Birthday title Yellow Birthdays Cyan On this date title Green Events Lilac Remember title Red Things to remember SHAREWARE - NOT GUILT OR GREEDWARE There ˙is ˙a ˙very interesting shareware package ˙on ˙many ˙BBSes called TODAY.ARC written by Patrick Kincaid. ˙In the true spirit of shareware he asked users to contribute dates and ˙enhancements for ˙his ˙program ˙in ˙leiu of money. ˙This ˙is ˙not ˙only ˙more agreeable but becoming ˙more of the hobbyiest's trend to help and work together rather than to turn a small profit for their work. ITS WORTH THE TRIP If ˙you do not have TODAY.ARC, ˙make plans to ˙download it. ˙You will find it to ˙be ˙a ˙neat addition to your autoexec.bat. ˙The program reads the date ˙and then presents interesting events that occurred on that date. I used Daniel Doman's (P.C.S.I. ˙(212-529-0498)) BB-SORT4 program to sort the data. TODAY7 includes dates in history for: (* new category) Celebrities birthdays Manned Space flights The New York Islanders Israelli History Television landmarks Associated Press' dates in history (Newsday BBS) New York Yankees HISTORY.ARC (A.E.S.C. BBS, Atlanta Georgia) TODAYNEW.ARC (Randy Ross, Marin-Somers BBS, S.F.) TODAYAPR.ARC (Invention Factory, New York) World Book Diary NY Times history books Weekly Executive Planner TODAYJUN.ARC TODAYDOB.ARC (Jim Robeson, Pacific Grove, CA.) CAL19.ARC * DISNEY.ARC * 2 holiday and 1 almanac program from a Carolina TBBS * 24 Space event files from STARPOINT BBS in Connecticut * SAINTS.ARC Also some data provided by John Francis and Ned Wilson ...AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR You can modify, ˙spindle, ˙fold, ˙erase or do just about anything you want to these files, but if you give them to anyone, document your ˙changes. ˙If you have any changes, ˙additions, ˙deletions, suggestions or whatever I would like to hear about them. Ican be reached at the above address or most of the major PC BBS in ˙212, 718 and 914 areacode (Execnet, Invention Factory, ˙PCSI, Machine, Sound of Music, M&M, PCSI, Pharmstat, ˙Doctor, etc.) Also AESC in Atlanta, ˙Marin Somers in S.F., Saloon in Md. EXECUTIVE NETWORK - 914-667-4567 (I get there pretty frequently) MARIN-SOMERS - 415-927-1216 (TODAY.EXE's homeboard) And ˙by the way, ˙you don't even have to say thanks, ˙as I ˙would never have compiled this data if I didn't want to.