A Text File Utility - Version 1.2 - December 1991



LOOK Software is distributed "AS IS", without warranty as to performance,
merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose, the entire risk as to
the selection, results, and performance of the Software. Should this Software
product prove to be defective, you assume the entire cost of all necessary
service, repairs or corrections. Nantahala Software Associates, Inc. and Rick
Saunooke will in no way be liable for any damages allegedly incurred through
the use of this software. Nantahala Software & Rick Saunooke hereby grant you
the opportunity to use this software for a trial period. After which time you
have the option of Registering the Product and continue your use of it. Upon
Registration you will receive the latest version of the Software and be
informed of any upgrades as they may occur in the future.

Nantahala Software & Rick Saunooke hereby grant you the right to
distribute this Software Product under the following conditions...

1.) All files contained within the archive are distributed
without modification.

2.) No Fee is charged, other than for the service of the
distribution & media cost.

3.) This User's Guide MUST BE DISTRIBUTED !!!

4.) All shareware houses/distribution firms must make EXPLICITLY
clear that the diskette purchase containing the Software Product
has NOT been registered with Nantahala Software Associates, Inc.

LOOK may NOT be modified in any respect, for any reason, including but not
limited to, de-compiling, disassembling, or reverse engineering the Software
Product. All program output must never be altered, or modified by any means.


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The previous agreement does NOT apply to the registered version of the
Software Product. The registered Software Product is protected under the
United States Copyright and Trademark Laws. It must be treated just like a
book with certain exceptions as follows ...

A. - Nantahala Software Associates, Inc. and Rick Saunooke authorizes
the making of archival copies of the registered Software Product
for the sole purpose of backing-up your software and protecting
your investment from possible loss. Nantahala Software and Rick
Saunooke encourage you to do this.


B. - The medium on which the registered Software Product is recorded is
transferred to the customer, but not the title to the Product.

C. - The customer may resell or distribute unmodified copies of the
Software Product provided that the customer has purchased from
Nantahala Software Associates, Inc. and Rick Saunooke one copy
of the Software Product for each one sold or distributed. The
provisions of this software license shall also be applicable to
third parties receiving copies of the registered Software Product
from the customer.

D. - By saying, "just like a book", Nantahala Software Associates, Inc.
and Rick Saunooke means that the registered Software Product may be
used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one
computer location to another so long as there is ABSOLUTELY NO
POSSIBILITY of it being used at one location while being used at
another. Since a book cannot be read by two different people in two
different locations at the same time, this software can NOT be used
by two different people at the same time.


If you have a problem with the Software Product please feel free to write
and describe the situation in as much detail as possible. Also feel free to
offer any constructive criticism, or just suggestions, on improving the
program and its development. Please be sure to include a return address or
an E-mail ID.



Nantahala Software Associates, Inc.
P.O. Box 1835 - Acquoni Road
Cherokee, NC - 28719

Or send E-Mail to Compuserve ID 70421,1164.

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Look is your basic ASCII file viewer with some extra features. The
best place for the program to reside is somewhere along your DOS search path.
Refer to your DOS manuals for details.

To start the program, just type LOOK and follow the prompts as they
occur. You will be asked for a file name, if you do not know the actual name
then just press . If a file name was not specified you will then
be asked for a directory to search for the file in. Please include the drive
letter and directory names as needed. If the current directory is to be
searched then just press . You will then be asked for a file mask to
use in the search process. By default *.txt is used, if you want to use
something else just backspace over that and insert what you want to use.
Refer to your DOS manuals for more information about file masks.

LOOK was written in Turbo Pascal 6.0 with some portions in Assembly
Language for speed. LOOK can handle files of any length; however, the maximum
width is 250 columns. If the column width limit is a problem, let me know.
LOOK has been tested with files reaching up to almost 11 Megabytes in size
and did not crash. You may notice a delay when using large files, LOOK uses
an indexing scheme for file access. The delay at the beginning is well worth
the speed gain later. Try LOOK with a large file, press the key to go
to the last line, then press the key to go back to the beginning of
the file. You have just witnessed awesome speed !!!

For those of you who may be interested, LOOK uses direct video memory
manipulation and makes no attempt at being Desqview or Windows compliant. If
this is a problem, let me know. LOOK also leaves the file you are using open
until you quit. This can be potentially dangerous in the event of a power
failure, however the speed gain is fantastic.




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The commands in LOOK are fairly self-explanatory, however I will give
some brief explanation here.

ump - Jump to line number. This will prompt you for a line number and
move the to the appropriate position in the file.

rint - Print a specified range of lines to file or device. You will be
asked for a starting and ending line number to print. You will then be asked
where to print to. This can be to a file, so use valid filenames and include
a path if you do not want the file in the current directory. WARNING - If the
file name already exists the file will be overwritten. You can also direct
the output to a legal DOS device; the PRN device is the default.

oad - Load a new file. This is the same process as described above.

elp - This will display a brief command summary.

nfo - This will display the version number, programmer, and a Compuserve
address for commentary.

ile - This option will give information on the currently loaded file. The
name, size, and number of lines is displayed.

ys - System Information will give a fairly detailed listing of a variety
of things about your computer. This is one area which I am not to confident
of it working under many differant systems. Once again let me know how
accurate I have been. I am not rich enough to afford an assortment of
systems to test on.

- This will exit the program to the Operating System.


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1. User definable color schemes.

2. 43 and 50 screen line support, possibly 132 columns.

3. Expand tabs into spaces.

4. Strip the high-order bit, for Wordstar files.

5. More system information.

6. File Utilities - Copy, Delete, Rename, etc.

7. ANSI filtering.

8. ZIP archive viewing.

9. ARC archive viewing.

10. LZH archive viewing.

And of course corrections to any problems drawn to my attention.


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In closing, I hope that will be of some use to people. I really am
not naive enough to expect to get rich from this, but any and all donations
will be excepted. If you believe this program was a worth while effort,
please let me know about it. I am only asking a fee of five dollars for
usage, but any incentive to continue would not hurt.

Watch for new and improved versions about every 3 to 4 weeks. The
file will always be called LOOK_VXX.ZIP, XX being the version number. This
program can be found on Compuserve in the new users forum, and under the IBM
system utilities forum. You can also find the current version on the
Programmer's Corner BBS, 301-596-1180. It is also available on the Nashville
Exchange BBS, 615-383-0727.

Your questions, comments, suggestions, criticisms, and above all
registrations and donations are welcome. I will try to respond to you all
by E-Mail whenever possible. Be aware that I check my CIS mail box only about
once a week, it's a long distance call for me. If you call the BBS's above
leave your messages to Rick Saunooke, those locations are also checked once
a week. If you decide to register or make a donation please send it to the
following address . . .

NANTAHALA SOFTWARE ASSOCIATES, INC.
P.O. BOX 1835 - ACQUONI ROAD
CHEROKEE, NC - 28719

Please make your checks payable to NANTAHALA SOFTWARE ASSOCIATES, INC.


See Ya !!!
Mr. Rick