Secret Stuff

You just clicked on the symbol that got Sandra Bullock in all that trouble in "The Net"!

Guess that scared you... Okay, relax. This is just an area in which to place messages and links to files that people have asked for. You're welcome to anything here too. But since you seem to be in an adventurous mood, how would you like to go to a cool place that's always dark and dangerous? No fooling. Click here to put some real adventure into your life!

Special Links, Files, and Messages:

Programmers File Editor for Win 3.1 (558k). Most electronic mail is transmitted as ordinary ASCII text or a similar 7 bit character set. The only text entry program in Windows designed to handle this data format is Notepad, but even that will not process IBM extended ASCII correctly. PFE is a true word processor for extended ASCII with macros, unlimited file size, advanced formating, capture DOS output to window, etc. Don't let the name scare you off, you don't need to be a programmer to use this. It's easy to use, but has all the extras that programmers need. I use it daily. You won't believe how powerful it is. Freeware from the Lancaster University Computer Centre in England.
Programmers File Editor for Win 95, 98, NT (622k). Same as above, but a 32 bit version for Windows 95 and up.
Super Pad. (107k) For Win 3.1 or 95. Fixes many of the shortcomings of Windows Notepad. You can select fonts, handle unlimited file sizes, etc. Makes a great replacement for that wretched version of Notepad that pops up when you click on a TXT file. Works very well using the MS-LineDraw font below. Freeware from PC Magazine.
MS-LineDraw font (76.8k). This IBM font will fix the problems any version of Windows has displaying the full IBM-ASCII extended character set. This is the standard character set used by DOS (code page 437). If you are trying to import ASCII line artwork into most word processors, you will find that the ANSI character set used by Windows corrupts the data. You could switch to the Terminal font furnished with Windows, but many word processors can't handle that either. Now you can use WinWrite, MSWord, WordPerfect, or any other word processor that uses TrueType fonts to import or work with ASCII line drawing files. Just specify this font for rendering the imported text. Great for FAXing and printing. Free from IBM.
PC-Pine Mail Program (697k) 16 bit version for Win 3.1. Pine is a very powerful electronic mail handling program. You can process multiple accounts, specify different domain and user names, have hundreds of folders, send from large lists, and much more. Best of all, it's based on the IMAP mail server so you can selectively process your email before it's downloaded. POP3 based servers, used by Eudora, Internet Explorer, NetScape, and others, will immediately dump all email waiting in your account as soon as you log in. If you have a lot of mail waiting, or some bozo sends you a huge spam file, you have no choice but to wait until it's all received. With Pine you can delete garbage you don't want before you download anything. Pine also has codepage 437 support and can correctly display all of the extended ASCII symbols found in DOS. Originally written for Unix, Pine is really for the power user. Setting it up can be difficult for the inexperienced. Freeware from the University of Washington.
PC-Pine Mail Program (1.6 Mb). 32 bit version for Win 95, 98, NT. This version has built in spell checking and many additional features. Use this one if you can. It may perform satisfactorily under Windows for Workgroups 3.1 or 3.11. You will just have to try it. It works on my machine. Freeware from the University of Washington.
Note: If you are a Pine user on the Alachua Freenet and you are receiving SSH "certificate" error messages when you check your mail, you can suppress them. Open your local 'pinerc' file (on your own computer) which contains your configuration information and change the "inbox-path=" data to read: "{imap.afn.org/novalidate-cert}inbox" (without the quotation marks). The Alachua Freenet is making adjustments to permit encrypting your email connection.

Pine For Other Systems. Versions of Pine have been ported to DOS and many other operating systems. All are free and you can obtain them by following this link.

The programming resources below are only available to you at great cost of human effort. That they are free should thrill you to use them to make your own contribution. Free software improves the lives of others beyond measure.

Anansi, free HTML editor. This is a link to an excellent freeware HTML authoring program to help with your web page. Available for all versions of Windows, it's better than most of the commercial packages found in the store. This is not one of those WYSIWYG editors that produce uneditable HTML. From Harry Bosma in the Netherlands. Also useful would be the HTML Reference Library (below), version 4.0, by Stephen Le Hunte (cmlehumt@swan.ac.uk) in England.
HTML Help Library. Freeware. Here, you will find Stephen Le Hunte's HTML Help Library ver. 4.0 (hlbsetup.exe, 2.9 Mb or htmlib9530.zip). I believe it's the most comprehensive resource ever written. Best of all, it pops up as a help screen from within the "Tools" menu in Anansi! If you can't find or download it from the link above, here is another resource. If you're just getting started, don't let yourself be talked into expensive courses or books. Many of them are ripoffs aimed at newcomers (like the "Internet Membership Kit", peddled to people who thought they had to join the Internet). Start with Anansi and this help fiile, then purchase whatever additional references you feel are necessary. Free!
DJGPP Free C++ Compiler. This is powerful software. It's the GNU C++ compiler (from Linux) ported over to DOS complete with a nice Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The IDE very closely resembles the one furnished with Borland's Turbo C++ package. If you want to learn ANSI C or C++ this is for you! You will need a book on the subject. I like those written by Naba Barkakati while he was authoring books for The Waite Group. While you are at D.J. Delorie's site downloading DJGPP, don't miss the "Files Found on Other Sites" link. That's where you'll find RHIDE, the IDE for this compiler (but see below). You have to download it separately. What makes this such a valuable piece of software is that it's FREE. You can put a copy on every computer you own: home, office, laptop, etc. I carry a CD-ROM copy with me for other computers in case I need to write a quick utility to solve some problem. In case you don't know, the GNU C++ compiler is from the Free Software Foundation.
RHIDE For DJGPP. Follow this link to the free IDE for DJGPP (see above). You really need this to enjoy programming in C++. Complete with pop up help menu describing all of the DJGPP functions and keywords. If I ever get to Germany, I'm going to find the author and take him out for a nice dinner! Free, like the compiler above.
Win95 IDE For DJGPP. This is a nice free Windows 95 programming environment for DJGPP.
DJGPP Documentation. Extensive documentation including a C++ library reference, pop up Windows help file, etc. Free.
NASM Free Intel Assember. Now I'm giving away a really important secret. You can get started programming, using first rate tools, without spending a dime. The Netwide Assember is an excellent tool for creating assembly language programs for Intel processor based computers (386 and up). It even handles the latest MMX multimedia extensions. Superior to commercial and shareware assemblers costing upwards of $125. This is another tool you can place on every computer you use without violating any license agreements. To use it effectively, you need the IDE below. For the purest truth attainable on the subject of assembler programming, buy the Waite Group's Assembler Bible by Naba Barkakati. In addition, you should locate the latest copy of Ralf Brown's Interupt List at Simtel Net, an excellent free reference. Freeware, by people who know how to go through life with a little class.
IDE for NASM Here is the excellent free IDE for the Netwide Assembler, above. It very closely resembles the IDE for the DJGPP C++ compiler. I find it a very comfortable environment to produce programs. It makes it easy to rattle off a time saving utility in just a few minutes. One mouse click gets you documentation on all of the assembler mnemonics used with Intel processors. Freeware, of course.
MASM32 Windows assembler. Write Windows software in assembler? I must be joking, right? Full of features to directly interface to the Windows API, this assembler makes it easy. If you crave power and speed in your programming this 32 bit assembler will give you all you want. Comes with an excellent Windows IDE (written in assembler, of course). Check out the author's website for some superb, tightly written Windows text editors that execute with blinding speed. Proof positive that the Australians, who insist they don't walk around upside down, haven't had their blood run to their heads. Freeware from our friends "down under" :-)
ASIC BASIC Compiler (327k, DOS). Terrific compiler for fast solutions to everyday problems. Don't think of this as BASIC, think of it as an assembler environment with BASIC-like constructs. It produces very tightly compiled native x86 code executables (com or exe), using most of the QBasic keyword set, that run on any IBMPC. I carry it everywhere on a single floppy disk so I can quickly create problem solving utilites on the spot. Complete with built in IDE, Help, and mouse support. If you are getting started in programming on a computer with limited memory, disk space, or speed, this is an excellent choice. The only hitch is this appears to be shareware that has been abandoned by it's author. All email bounces, phones are disconnected, or answering machine messages are never returned. Last update was 1995. So is it freeware now? If David Visti hasn't fallen off the face of the earth, registration is only $20. So I'm conditionally listing it here hoping it's author will resurface and place his superb software in the public domain or resume support. David, if you're reading this, please write to me and explain.
1. Prewritten ASIC routines to get you started (185k bytes). Good!
2. Extension library (an IBRARY :-), don't skip this!
3. Password system for ASIC. (Haven't tried it.)
Java Resources. Jane Wang in Beijing, China....this is for you. And I scarcely know where to begin because new developments seem to be occurring daily. The Java language has exploded in popularity for three principal reasons: Java programs are so portable you can literally write them once and run them on anything, the language is tailor made for Internet applications, and many programming packages are available as freeware. The downside is that Java bytecode has a reputation for executing slowly, direct hardware access can be difficult, and the free programming packages are colossally large. Still, unlike the early predictions made for Pascal, Java probably is going to inherit the planet earth. So where does a poor soul get started?
The principal programming package for Java is the Java Development Kit (JDK) from Sun Microsystems. The good news is you program using an ordinary text editor and compile in DOS using the command line ... like most professionals. The bad news is you must use the DOS that comes with Windows 95, 98, or 2000 and have enormous amounts of memory (128 Mb recommended) and speed (233 MHz suggested). The compiler is massive, weighing in around 100 megabytes for the whole package. So downloading can be difficult and running it on anything less than the latest computers impossible. A good alternative to the Sun compiler is Visual Age from IBM (standard version free). This, too, tilts the scale at around 82 Mb, but has gotten rave reviews and may be worthwhile. Borland has a first rate (150 Mb) Rapid Application Development (RAD) package, offered free as the foundation version of JBuilder, which offers drag and drop screen creation. Borland makes good products and I use the commercial version of JBuilder. My reservation is that "drag and drop" or "wysiwyg" can become such a addictive crutch that it is poisonous to new programmers. It deprives them of the ability to code without it. I suggest you start with a text mode IDE, a command line compiler, and try JBuilder later. Note: There is also a "FreeBuilder" project going at the Free Software Foundation which offers a JBuilder alternative with more relaxed licensing requirements. Finally, there is the Microsoft's Java SDK which is surprisingly small (20 Mb) considering their tendency for overlarge software. I don't really recommend it. Microsoft has modified their Java development kit to include a number of special functions for use on their Windows platform. Because it's non standard, you might have trouble getting software you write to run on other operating systems .... violating the "write once, run anywhere" strategy of Java. Documentation is available as a separate 10 Mb download. Old and new versions are listed here.
Then there is JIKES, the very compact compiler from IBM's Alphaworks. I'm not familiar with all of it's features, but it has the advantage of being much smaller than the other packages, only 430k for the zipfile download. You still must have either Sun's JDK or Microsoft's SDK on the same system. From it's introduction:
"Jikes is a Java compiler, written from scratch in C++, that translates Java source files as defined in The Java Language Specification (Addison-Wesley, 1996) and Inner Classes Specification (JavaSoft, Release 2/10/97) into the bytecoded instruction set and binary format defined in The Java Virtual Machine Specification (Addison-Wesley, 1996)"
Free JIKES looks like a minimal way to get started. It appears that JIKES combined with one of the Java compilers consumes the smallest amount disk space. JIKES was written for Java 1.1, but the documentation suggests the version doesn't matter. If that's not true, someone please let me know. Here is more information about it.
There are many freeware editors, code formaters, obfuscators, and other items out there for Java, but I haven't tested them. I will start adding links here as I learn which are best. This is a cooperative effort with my site visitors, so please write to me and tell me about your favorites. I'm especially interested in smaller free compilers and power tools.
What we really need is a free Java programming package small enough to install and leave on every computer so it's always available when we need it.
Free PERL for Windows 9x. PERL, the Practical Extraction and Report Language, is the backbone of CGI scripts and server processing. Very powerful and similar to C, it has been ported to every platform imaginable. Originally a scripting language, it can now be used to write stand alone programs, embeddable HTML page scripts, and much more. You can get more information from the main support site at: www.perl.org. If you do any sort serious Internet work you need this. Supported by the Free Software Foundation.
LOGIN11.CMD Trumpet Winsock logon script. The Alachua Freenet now has a high speed logon script to go with their new 56k modem line. This is version 1.1. If your present script is dated before 7/10/99, then you need to upgrade. I volunteered to program a new script because the old one wasted so much time waiting for messages (like CONNECT or BUSY) that never arrived. I designed a new routine that rapidly scans the incoming data stream and accepts modem responses immediately, and in any order, without choking up on garbage. From the time your modem establishes a carrier link, you can start your browser in less than two seconds! Please send comments, suggestions, and bug reports to Bill Oldacre at: afn04143@afn.org. Free, of course. Enjoy!
FLIP1EXE.ZIP Converts to/from Unix and MSDOS text file formats. This file is an aid to new users of my Trumpet Winsock logon script (above). Some users have received their new Trumpet script via email or by cutting and pasting from a web page. If the emailed script has been exposed to a Unix or Linux based system, it's possible that all of the invisible carriage return "CR" and linefeed "LF" characters at the ends of the lines have been changed to just linefeeds. In other words, all carriage returns have been stripped out of the text file. You can tell this has happened by launching Trumpet and clicking on DIALLER/EDIT SCRIPTS/LOGIN.CMD and examining the file. If it's badly formatted and hard to read, "CR" characters are probably missing. This is standard end of line formatting for Unix, but it can seriously confuse both Trumpet Winsock and Windows Notebook. FLIP will easily put everything right again. Drop to the DOS prompt, unzip (type "PKUNZIP FLIP1EXE.ZIP") this file into a directory which is in your PATH statement (type "PATH" alone on the command line to inspect your PATH). Then navigate to your C:\FREENET directory (type "CD\FREENET"), and type this command line:

FLIP -m LOGIN.CMD
This will convert all "LF" line ends back to "CRLF" pairs. Be sure to keep FLIP on hand, because you will probably run into this difficulty again sometime. If you have a hexadecimal file viewer, you can easily identify the problem. Each line should end with hex numbers "0D0A" or, if rendered in extended IBM ASCII, a single musical note followed by what looks like a playing card with a circle in the middle of it. Please let me know if you still experience difficulty. Freeware, of course, from Rahul Dhesi.
DeepSat Information! Finally, for those friends and colleagues who've been wanting to see examples of my new image enhancement process. Here is a collection of photographs taken from all the best sources: NASA, Popular Photography, Corel, and SoftKey. All are DeepSat enhanced. Opinions solicited so please leave me a comment. And please be patient, this page contains images that will require a little extra time to load. If you are viewing these images with Windows 95 or 98 using America Online or Compuserve software, be prepared for some distortion. Sorry folks, but they still haven't fixed their software yet ---- it's not the fault of my images.

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You are invited to contribute. If you're looking for a software solution to a vexing problem, or better yet, have found one, by all means contact me! Also, please let me know if one of the links above gets broken because another site has changed its web pages. Thanks.