I don't know if anyone can help me on this but it's worth a try. It started when I saw all the versions of the DT going and thought that just perhaps a true cross platform Java version may be a good idea - something that could be downloaded and run locally in ANY Java enabled browser rather than worrying about Windows, Mac, DOS versions, etc.Anyway, rather than try and work out the ins and outs of AskSam, I tried to ask about the Ascii version in case I could do anything with it but twice got no response to the question as to why the link does not work/ when it will be in the help forum.
I decided a couple of days ago that I was going to have to work from the ask file or the Donkey work file.
I've already got some form of the data into Microsoft Access and also got a text file conversion program written but they are incomplete as I can't fully work out the AskSam format - most worrying is I get a different record count to DonkeyWork (although working from that file gives me the same results as Donkey work). Hex sequence: 1B 02 is one end of record marker but there must be another one. Also there are a few other codes I can't figure - anyone got any ideas?
(START RANT) Anyway I guess I'll get there in the end - just seem to be on a downer at the moment - try to suggest and even write something that would allow the unanswerd permathread to be pretty near user driven and got about 2 responses, try to see if it's feasable to produce a cross platform version of the DT (and if I'm capable of - I'm no expert...) - no help in the help forum - I'm beging to thing usefullness to all is not a factor - it is who does it - Mudcat great - Jon Freeman - even if the idea is better or adds new options - no - he's not Mudcat - maybe treading on toes or pride rather than usefullness... a backwards philosophy when what I come up with I would always GIVE back to Mudcat (RANT OVER - and maybe I am just feeling paraniod)
For anyone who wants to try the text conversion as it stands, and maybe could tell me whre I am going wrong, it is at: http://members.tripod.co.uk/jonbanjo/DTText.exe. It works fine on my PC and may work on all Win32 versions. My worry concerns the stack size I use to read and work on the file in one go - I'm not sure how PCs with less than 48Mb RAM would cope.
Jon
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