Older ones are preferable. For PCs more with than a 200Mhz clock the sound signals become inaudible.
Why is this program still using DOS?This is a keyboard intensive program . There are many alternatives for getting data in . Scanner based programs are amazing but not always applicable. So if you have to use a keyboard based data entry program then a mouse really just occupies so much desk space. This program is meant for the use of a touch typist . If he/she never looks at the screen then most Windows features just slow things down .
What is FILE.FMT ?This is a text file which contains the format of all the data files you have to enter. This really is the main point of confusion for people with an Access Oracle or other DBMs background. In Database Management packages the structure or format of the data file is kept at the beginning of the datafile itself. Not only that a single file can only have a single format.
Here it is kept separately in the file FILE.FMT. In fact the formats of many files are kept in this single file (FILE.FMT) which should be in the data entry directory. Keeping the structure/format separate from the main file makes the datafile suitable for reading through COBOL filehandling methods. Understanding creation of FILE.FMT is crucial to using this package. You must use a Text editor for viewing/creating this file. Notepad is fine even Wordpad if you save the file as Text. We would suggest the DOS basedEDIT since this is most easily available in the DOS Box. This file also contains instructions / examples of format creation. Do read through this a few times , then these lines can be deleted.
Any References ?Some off our oldest users are ADPS - Parliament Street New Delhi, Service Aid Faridabad , Daurala Sugar Works - A unit of DCM , Beetal Financial Services Chiragh Delhi, Indian Oil Corp EDP centre, Green Park. We may have a user in your region - do contact us for that.
Will it create variable length records?No . That is not possible.
How much time does it take to decide whether this does make a difference to the whole operation?Perhaps a week .
Is it worthwhile taking time to learn this package ?This has been the experience of all our customers. Remember software pirated or otherwise is available all over the world , and our customers had used almost all before dumping them in favour of SPEEDATA.
Describe a typical set-up using the package.The name of this firm is shown in our main web page it is 'SERVICE AID' . The entry is done in SPEEDATA. Then read into Foxbase and validated . Multiformat records are a little more difficult to validate , they are read in as a string and validated using string handling functions . Typically very few records need to be corrected . These are corrected using an ordinary Text Editor even EDIT which comes with DOS does the job of searching and correcting very well . Care has to be taken to see that record length is not changed .
Isn't keyboard data entry dead ?That is the dream but it seems there are miles to go before the keyboard is completely eliminated. There are however many other alternatives, you would be already aware of the alternative for your particular application. If not then Keyboard data entry is the only way out.
All is not well with OCR though. Many small firms get documents in Tiff format here in India and these are then keyed using keyboard data entry, these tiff images were meant to be read by OCR readers, and that somehow did not work.