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Help with custom autoexec messages?

Anonymoose said:
At one point I thought it was because the file was saving as UTF-8 and not ANSI (it didn’t work). What would I have to do in notepad++ to save it differently?
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Try setting the encoding to Western European -> OEM-US or OEM-850
 
PC Magazine's DOS Power Tools book describes a "SAY" program (presumably on the enclosed floppy) which sounds a bit like Chuck(G)'s. I think the book and floppy are both on archive.org and the program might be elsewhere, e.g. I think Simtel 20 had PC Magazine's utilities for a while before they stopped carrying them.
 
doshea said:
PC Magazine's DOS Power Tools book describes a "SAY" program (presumably on the enclosed floppy) which sounds a bit like Chuck(G)'s.
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SAY was first published in PC Magazine itself (like most of the programs found in DOS Power Tools) and you can read about it here:

https://ia804703.us.archive.org/vie...-11-25_jp2/PC-Mag-1986-11-25_0348.jp2&ext=jpg

The BASIC code to create SAY.COM should be as follows:

Code: 
100 ' Program for creating SAY.COM -- by Serge Couture 
110 PRINT "Checking DATA statements; please wait..."
120 FOR B=1 TO 7:FOR C=1 TO 17:READ A$:IF C<17 THEN 140 
130 Z#=Z#+VAL(A$) 
140 NEXT:NEXT:IF Z#=11662 THEN RESTORE:GOTO 160 
150 PRINT "ERROR IN BIG NUMBER AT END OF A LINE -- REDO!":END 
160 FOR B=1 TO 7:FOR C=1 TO 16:READ A$:T=T+VAL("&H"+A$):NEXT 
170 READ S:IF S=T THEN 190 
180 PRINT "DATA ERROR IN LINE";B*10+210;"--REDO":END
190 T=0:NEXT:RESTORE:OPEN "SAY.COM" AS #1 LEN=l:FIELD #l,l AS D$ 
200 FOR B=1 TO 7:FOR C=1 TO 16:READ A$:LSET D$=CHR$(VAL("&H"+A$))
210 PUT #l:NEXT:READ DUMMY$:NEXT:CLOSE:PRINT "SAY.COM CREATED"
220 DATA BE,81,00,FC,BB,00,00,B5,00,AC,3C,0D,74,4B,3C,22,1469
230 DATA 75,14,80,FD,01,75,0A,AC,3C,22,74,0F,80,F5,01,EB,1652
240 DATA E9,80,F5,01,EB,23,80,FD,01,75,08,8A,D0,B4,02,CD,2117
250 DATA 21,EB,D6,3C,30,7C,12,3C,39,7F,0E,24,0F,93,B7,0A,1381
260 DATA F6,E7,93,02,D8,B7,01,EB,C0,80,FF,00,74,BB,8A,D3,2488 
270 DATA B4,02,CD,21,BB,00,00,EB,B0,80,FF,00,74,06,8A,D3,1872 
280 DATA B4,02,CD,21,CD,20,1A,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,683

I tried to correct the Internet Archive's OCR text, but I may have missed some things. So proofread before running through BASICA/GW-BASIC.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Anyone interested in the MASM source for ECO? At least it's not some indecipherable bunch of DATA statements.
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I would think EVERYONE HERE would be interested in the source code! I am, at least.
 
Thanks, it sounds like your syntax is nicer than the one from the PC Magazine utility, at least to programmers who are accustomed to the concept of backslash escapes! Also last I heard (I haven't paid attention for a long time because I actually have them on floppy) I guess the PC Magazine utilities are abandonware rather than freeware.

I had a look at bttr-software.de where I'd expect to find these kind of utilities and found some other alternatives too:
Too many choices! I just want to know what the PC Magazine Editor's Choice is :LOL:
 
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