ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Û ³ Û ÞÞÞÞÞÞ ÞÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞÞÞ ÞÞÞÞ ÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ÞÞÞÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞÞÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞÞÞÞÞ ÞÞÞÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ÞÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞÞÞ ÞÞÞ ÞÞ ÞÞÞ ÞÞ ³ÛÛ Û ³ÛÛ Û Tue 07-27-1993 13:51:00 ³ÛÛ Û ³ÛÛ Û John De Palma on CompuServe 76076,571 ³ÛÛ ßÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙÛÛ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ ÕÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͸ ³ READ.COM ³ ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ; What's that you say? Who needs another "text file loader?" Who needs a small, simple minded executable program that will load an ASCII file and pop it up on the screen allowing you to scroll up and down from beginning to end and then exit with a touch of the {Esc} key? Who needs that in the era of Windows, multitasking, Pentium chips, and dialog boxes. Well partner, we ALL do! Many times all you want to do is use a low memory program to look at a file -OR- display a text file IN YOUR BATCH FILE. This second reason is my reason. I make batch files for myself and for the office. Six months later we both wonder what these batch files were supposed to do. The people at the office don't even bother to wonder, as the normal help file are usually terse "ECHO" line statements telling them to do something that they don't understand. READ.COM is a 8K QuickBASIC 4.5 program. It is NOT a true *.COM file but I left that extension as it appears too small in size to be a QuickBASIC 4.5 executable file. Indeed and in truth if you complied the code inside the QuickBASIC environment, this little honey would be 45K in size! The reduction in compiled size is from compiling with Crescent Software's PDQ Library and then squeezing that file down with EXE2COM.EXE (removes header space and changes the name to *.COM; from PDQ) and then LZEXE.EXE (from Fabrice Bellard, a Freeware program from France). So, unlike most of my stuff, I did NOT include the source code as it is PDQ modified QuickBASIC code. However if any of you junior propeller hat wearers want to see how this is done, just E-Mail me and I will upload to you the plain vanilla QuickBASIC 4.5 code. The source code outline is taken from one of my two favorite BASIC authors, John Clark Craig's book, "Microsoft Quickbasic Programmer's Toolbox, ISBN 1-55615-127-6, Microsoft Press, 1988." The rest of the hard stuff from my other BASIC guru, Ethan Winer of Crescent Software fame. Me? I just provided the "glue" to the code. If you ran GO.BAT when you unarchived this file set, you are reading this INSIDE that batch file. You will know that you are still inside a batch file as when you press {Esc}, this text file will unload, the BATCH FILE will beep and LOAD a second text file. When you read then exit that second batch file, you will note my "Brag box" pops up to tell you I am the proud papa of this little simple son of a code. READ.COM only accepts two parameters on the command line. READ {FileName.Ext} /n    READ.COM File Name No Brag box switch ÕÑÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍѸ ³³ IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, READ THE PARAGRAPHS IN THIS BOX ³³ ³ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ;³ ³ ³ ³ If the text file is NOT in the same directory that you execute ³ ³ READ.COM from, you MUST enter the full path and FileName of the ³ ³ text file or you will get a beep and as very terse help message ³ ³ to do just that. ³ ³ ³ ³ Entering a LONG file name as: "E:\QB45\TOOLBOX\README.TXT," ³ ³ the first line display will read "E:\README.TXT" as the code ³ ³ parses and truncates the full path name so it can be displayed ³ ³ in fifteen (15) characters on line one. ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ READ.COM will display in text mode (Screen 0) any true ASCII ³ ³ file up to two-thousand (2,000) lines! That translates using ³ ³ five (5) characters as the average word plus space length as ³ ³ thirty-two thousand (32,000) words. If the file is larger, all ³ ³ you will see is 2,000 lines. ³ ³ ³ ³ If you enter a name of a file that doesn't exist, a zero length ³ ³ file will be created and you will be staring at an empty file. ³ ³ ³ ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ; Since I know many of you out there are like me and though you make like your new toy, you eventually try to test it to its limits, often times breaking it and then throwing it away.. So, go ahead, load an executable (*.COM, *.EXE, *.DLL, etc) file with this little gem... Surprise surprise, no lock up, no beep, no nothing... Just the first line or two of that file up to the place where the program sees an "End Of File" marker. This is a friendly, simple fella of a program. I made it to insert Help files into my batch files as it allows scrolling, is small and fast and in plain ole vanilla QuickBASIC. Let me know if you feel the same. ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ³ THE AUTHOR ³ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ John De Palma likes computers because he sees them as big toys. Computers to him are complicated black boxes that have infinite possibilities for causing to the user --at the same time -- enjoyment and pain. Unlike most computer users he really doesn't like to use the computer to do anything important (like write a letter to PC Magazine or to your IRS agent) but to tinker with. He was one of those kids that took his Dad's watch apart to see how it worked, but never figured out how to put it back together again (boy was THAT a lesson in "leaving things alone!"). You can usually find him on CompuServe --somewhere-- uploading some fairly useless program that other "kids" like and download. He would welcome any thoughts, comments, criticisms, spelling corrections, or QUICK BASIC code that is under-standable by an ordinary mortal. He looks forward to receiving any kind of reader's mail. He can be reached by dialing CompuServe's E-Mail service and leaving a message there. His CompuServe number is: 76076,571.