Four Programs


           There are four programs on this disk which may assist you
           to a better understanding of loans. They are called HIFI,
           INTCALC, MOPAY,  and RULE78. Any  of these four  programs
           can be run from the menu or by typing its name at the DOS
           prompt.

           If you  want to break out  of a loop when  running any of
           these  programs, pressing  Q +  ENTER will  do it in most
           cases. If not press CONTROL-C or CONTROL-BREAK.

           The financing of automobiles  and houses is nearly always
           done with amortized  loans. This is a type  of loan which
           is paid off in equal monthly payments. The amortized loan
           equation is covered in another chapter.

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           HIFI  is  a  mortgage  lister  for  amortized loans which
           allows you to examine a mortgage listing on the screen or
           print it on  your printer. Try it with  your own mortgage
           or car  loan. HIFI will  handle larger amounts  than most
           programs  of  its  type.   The  maximum  depends  on  the
           combination of  interest rate and term.

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           INTCALC, as  you may have guessed,  calculates the annual
           interest rate  (a.k.a. Annual Percentage Rate  or APR) of
           an  amortized loan  when you  input the  Amount Financed,
           Term, and  monthly payment. How  could such a  program be
           useful?  Read "How Not to Buy a Used Car."

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           MOPAY calculates  the monthly payment  and total interest
           for amortized  loans when you input  the Amount Financed,
           Term, and APR.

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           RULE78 calculates  the percentage of  interest the lender
           will rebate  if you pay  off a loan  before maturity. The
           answer is given as percentage  of what the interest would
           have  been  if  the  loan  had  remained  in effect until
           maturity.

           This is  not for amortized loans,  because the payoff for
           those loans is calculated by the equation each month.

           The Rule of  78's is generally used for  short term loans
           of the Add-On interest type.

           One caution is to be observed when using RULE78. Interest
           is  almost always  stated as  a whole  number, and RULE78
           follows this convention. The output of RULE78 may be, for
           example, a whole number such as  12 or a whole number and
           a decimal such as  12.5. These are read as  12 percent or
           12 and a  half percent. These numbers must  be divided by
           100 before  they can be used  to calculate interest. This
           changes them to .12 and .125 respectively

           Sometimes the output of RULE78  might be a number such as
           .12, which  should be read as  twelve one-hundredths of a
           percent. When this is divided  by 100 it becomes .0012. A
           huge error  would result should you  mistake an output of
           .12 as being twelve  percent instead of 12 one-hundredths
           of a percent.

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           CAUTION:  If you plan to pay off a loan before maturity,
           always  call the  bank  or  mortgage company  in advance.
           There may be a penalty for  early payoff, or there may be
           bank charges added to the principal balance.

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           NOTE ABOUT PRINTING:

           For  the programs  named INTCALC,  MOPAY and  RULE78, the
           output from  each takes only  a single screen  and can be
           printed,  if desired,  with the  Prt-Scr key.  The output
           from HIFI,  however, can cover many  pages. If you select
           the PRINT option of HIFI, it will print on most printers,
           daisy wheel  or dot matrix, without  any problem. To make
           it do this, I simplified the  code to the point where the
           user must advance  the paper to the top  of the next page
           when the previous page has finished printing. The program
           pauses and prompts you to do this.

           Some of  the newer printers have  some features which may
           conflict with  the on-screen instructions of  the CAR B/S
           program:

           FORM FEED  If you are  using single sheets  and have this
           option turned on, it ejects  the current page. If you are
           using  fanfold paper,  it feeds  to the  top of  the next
           page.

           TEAR-OFF  This option advances the  bottom perforation in
           fanfold  paper  several  lines  past  the  printhead to a
           tear-off bar. Any key press after this moves the top line
           of the next sheet back to the printhead.

           If either of the above options  are turned on and cause a
           problem, turn them off.

           TOP OF FORM Another feature of many printers is that they
           set the top of the page (Top  of Form) to the line at the
           printhead  when  the  printer  is  turned  on. It is good
           practice to  prepare for printing by  adjusting the paper
           so the top  line of the paper is  at the printhead before
           you turn the  printer on. If the printer  has been turned
           on previously, turn it off, adjust the paper, and turn it
           back on.
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                                    End