PowerBatch
Computing Systems Design, Inc.
P.O. Box 566484
Atlanta, GA 30356-6009
There are 13 files on your installation disk. The two files SMLMODEL.MDL and
POWERMAK.EXE will be placed in a directory on your DOS search path. The
remainder of the files may be placed in any directory you desire. The
POWERBAT.DOC file is the documentation and may be viewed with any text editor
or printed to your printer with the DOS print command (ie print POWERBAT.DOC
). The files with an extension of .PWR are PowerBatch source files and
the text should be printed and studied. You should compile these example
files and run the resulting programs to help familiarize yourself with
PowerBatch. The file DEMO1.PWR uses all the commands with a couple of
exceptions.

To install PowerBatch run the install program located on the source disk. If
the source in on a floppy drive enter A:PBINSTAL (or B:PBINSTAL). If the source
is on a hard drive, change directory to the directory containing PBINSTAL and
enter

PBINSTALL

[More on the next page]

If you have purchased a registered copy of PowerBatch, the install program will
recognize this by the presence of REGISTER.EXE on your diskette. When this
program is present, the copy of PowerBatch you have just installed will be
registered in your name.

Your name and serial number will be imbedded in the software by the
registration program. If you give anyone an evaluation copy of PowerBatch, DO
NOT PROVIDE THE REGISTRATION PROGRAM WITH THE EVALUATION COPY. Simply copy all
of the files but REGISTER.EXE. Better still, compile the two PowerBatch source
files PBCLONE.PWR and MOVESUB.PWR and use these to create a clone of
PowerBatch. PBCLONE uses MOVESUB as a subroutine and is an example of the use
of subroutines in PowerBatch. Anyone who uses the registration program
REGISTER.EXE will imbed your name and serial number within their software.

QUICK LOOK

If you wish to take a quick look at the capabilities of PowerBatch:
1) Copy all PowerBatch files to a single directory (ie PBTEST)
2) Generate example files... ---> EXAMPLES
3) Compile DEMO2... ---> POWERMAK DEMO2
4) Run DEMO2... ---> DEMO2

Change Record
V1.0-1.3 were alpha and beta test versions not available to the public.
V1.4 Added BreakOn, BreakOff, and ?EnvStr commands.

Fixed bug in keyboard input routine which was incorrectly handling a
single keystroke.

Changed execution of DOS commands to prevent loading of another copy of
command processor.

Changed beep command to default to 1 repetition.

V1.4a Added SetPath, Prompt, and SetEnv commands to allow changing of
environment variables in the master and current environment.

V1.4b Rewrote the routine which gets another output file name if the default
name is not acceptable.

V1.4c Fixed bug in SetVar command which was damaging the path environment
variable in the current environment area.

Added error messages to commands which set environment variables in
both current and master environment areas if the environment area was
not found or the change or addition exceeded the amount of free space
available in the environment area.

Fixed bug which was truncating the POWERBAT.ERR file if fatal compile
errors existed.

Enabled stdout redirection from within PowerBatch. ie Pgmname > nul

V1.4d Added special character indicator to READKEY command.

Added ADD and SUBTRACT commands. Provides a means to loop N times.

V1.4e Added ability to escape from routine which prompts user for valid input
source file name if none is given or an error is detected.

Characters which are not on the keyboard may be defined using the
decimal value of the character ie "Variable Enter,2,#17#217"

Added the ability to define color changes within a stream of text. The
trigger character is Ctrl-A and this is followed by the THREE digit
color attribute. Ctrl-A may usually be generated in your editor by
pressing Alt-1 (the 1 on the keypad). These colors may be imbedded in
variables or literals. (@=Ctrl-A for the example).
Variable CmdLine,75,"@[email protected] @[email protected]"
WriteAt 5,3,"@[email protected] @[email protected]"

Fixed bug in stdout redirection. Previously only > nul was correct.

V1.4f Corrected bug in parser which was not properly handling lines of source
that were empty.

Added +D2 switch to insure DOS 2.0 compatability.

V1.4g Corrected incompatability with DOS 4.01 with share active.

Made CD a synonym of CHDIR.

Deleted POWERBAT.ERR if no errors and no map

Opened output .EXE with filemode=readonly. Some virus checkers were
reporting possible virus because of open with read/write on .EXE file.

Deletes POWERBAT.ERR if no errors and no map

V1.4h Added a new box type BOX4. This box is a single line border with a
shadow. The syntax is the same as for other boxes.

The description of the BOOT command was inadvertantly omitted from the
documentation. The syntax of the command is simply BOOT (with no
operands). This will cause the system to perform a warm boot.

V1.4j Corrected several bugs introduced in 1.4h. Version number wrong on
title line, external program execution flawed, compare command caused
program to loop to beginning. Released in haste...

A new demo file has been added to the program disk as well as
some additional utilities. In order to accomodate these extra files,
the utilities and the examples have been compressed into two
self-extracting files, BONUS.EXE and EXAMPLES.EXE. To create the
individual files, run these two programs and they will create the files
for you. The new demo file (DEMO2.PWR) shows how to create professional
pop-up type menus, using key letters to make the selections. The key
letters are shown with contrasting colors imbedded in the text string.

Current Wish List

-Add Echo On and Echo Off
-Check to see if a key has been pressed (?KEYWAIT maybe)
-Ability to flush the keyboard
-Subroutines
-Turn the cursor on and off
-Read and write files
-Report file sizes
-Make shortnames for commands ie VAR