WORDFIND

WORDFIND is a system to assist you in finding words for crossword puzzles and
for other types of word puzzles such as acrostics. The system consists of
this file, WORDFIND.DOC, the executable program WORDFIND.EXE and 19 word
files: X2, X3, X4, . . . X20. The file X2 contains 2 letter words, X3
contains 3 letter words, etc. The executable program is an MS-DOS program and
will run on MS-DOS computers, even ones which are not fully IBM PC compatible.

WORDFIND (Copyright 1989, Castle Oaks Computer Services) is a shareware
program which has been distributed for trial use only. If you wish to
continue to use the program, you must send in a registration fee in the amount
of $15.00. Send your registration fee to:

Castle Oaks Computer Services
P. O. Box 36082
Indianapolis, IN 46236-0082

Include in your registration letter, your name, address and telephone number.
After your registration fee is received, a registered copy of the program will
be sent to you and your name will be placed on our list of users. You will be
notified of any updates to the software or word files and any other type of
programs being offered by Castle Oaks.

The word files have been abstracted from a dictionary of words provided by
Public Brand Software.

INSTALLATION

The files needed for the system total nearly 600,000 bytes. You may have
received these files in archived form on a single floppy disk. If you have a
hard disk, you may de-archive the files all into a sub-directory. If you do
not have a hard disk, the files must be de-archived on to two floppy disks.
For example, you could put WORDFIND.EXE and W2 through W8 on a bootable floppy
and the remaining files, W9 through W20 on a second floppy.

USAGE

At the system prompt, enter WORDFIND. The program will prompt you for a
template word consisting of letters and ?'s. Suppose the puzzle definition
given is "riddles" and you know it is a seven letter word with the 2nd, 4th,
and 7th letters being N, G, and S, respectively. The template word you would
enter would be: ?n?g??s (Note: either upper or lower case may be used.) The
program will return the list:

ENIGMAS
KNIGHTS
ONAGERS

you must then decide which of these words best fits the puzzle definition.
The fewer known letters you have the more possible words will be found. These
words may appear on your screen too fast for you to read. The display may be
stopped by pressing the control key and the 's' key at the same time. Output
may be resumed by pressing any other key. Another alternative is to press the
control key and the 'p' key at the same time but before you enter the template
word. This will direct your printer to print what is appearing on the
console. To shut off printing, press the control key and the 'p' key again.

If you have a floppy based system, a slightly different procedure may be
necessary. In the above example, it was assumed that the executable program
and all the files were on the drive and in the sub-directory that is currently
logged to. Suppose you are logged to the A: drive and it contains the
executable file and the files X2 through X8. In the above example, there
would be no change. But supposing that the word needed is a 10 letter word.
You could put the disk containing the files X9 through X20 in the B: drive,
log to the B: drive and give the command A:WORDFIND. The computer will load
the executable file from the A: drive but the B: drive will be searched for
the necessary word file.

Whenever a search is made, an appropriate file is opened and the entire file
is read. In the worst case, (a 4.77 megahertz, 360K floppy based computer
searching the file X8), the search will require a little over a minute. If
you have a faster computer and/or a hard disk or faster floppy drives, the
search will take less time. If the search reveals the desired word before
reading the entire file, you may abort the search by pressing the control key
and the 'c' key at the same time.

MODIFICATIONS

The word files have been condensed in order to save space. The
condensing method used is a simple one which will allow a user to modify these
files if needed. The first word in a file is a full length word. Any
subsequent words may be shorter. If any characters at the beginning of a word
are the same as those in the previous word, they are not repeated. For
example, in the 20 character word file, X20, the first word is
ANTIENVIRONMENTALISM, the second word is ANTIENVIRONMENTALIST. Since the
first 19 characters of each word agree, only the T of the second word appears
in the second record. The third word is ANTIINSTITUTIONALISM. Only the first
4 characters of words 2 and 3 agree, therefore the third record contains
INSTITUTIONALISM. Furthermore, to save space, each record is terminated with
a line feed only. Various text editors and word processors may be used to
edit these files. If, for example, you wish to add a word to a file, it may
be added immediately before any full length word in the file. Although the
files are now alphabetical, that is not a requirement for the search. The
word need not be condensed unless the user desires to do so. If it is
condensed, then it must be preceded by words that will provide the correct
leading characters.
esires to do so. If it is
condensed, then it must be preceded by words that will provide the correct