QuickBASIC Applications

Back in the 1990s I wrote a lot of applications on the various computer platforms I was into, including the Apple II, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga, etc. When Commodore went under I had to switch my business to PC-based computers and subsequently I ported some applications over to the PC using QuickBASIC. The dates shown in the titles are the years the application was developed and updated.

XOR V2.0 (1992 – 1994)

XOR is a simple, but powerful program for encrypting any data whether it’s a text file, diary, document, program, etc. The program is based on and gets it’s name from the LOGICAL XOR FUNCTION. The concept is pretty simple. You are supplying a file to be processed and a password to use. The program will take the value of the first byte in the file and XOR it’s value with the first byte of the password. This will result in a character that is not like either the password or the original data and is most likely non-printable. The program will then get the next character from the file and from the password and continue until all bytes in the data have been altered. The neat thing here is that the same operation which is used to encrypt the data is used to decrypt it as well. Although the concept is quite simple, the fact that the password is rotated gives added protection. This is because the password has no detectable length and is, in a sense, infinite. This program was originally written on a Commodore Amiga. Credit goes to my former friend and mentor for the idea for doing this.

Crossword Helper (1993 – 1994)

Did you ever have some of the letters to a word and wanted to know what the word was? This program attempts to help you do just that. Designed for use in crossword puzzles, this program will accept the letters of a word you know and find words that match the known letters. Words can be between 3 and 16 letters. This program performs a pattern-match search on the specified letters you type in on the command line. You must enter the letter you know and replace those you don’t know with either an asterisk, a minus sign or a period. This command-line program will do a pattern-search on a dictionary file to find words that match letters you know from a word. Great for solving crossword puzzles.

Scramble Solver (1993 – 1994)

Solve those tough scramble / jumble puzzles easily with this powerful program. User definable configuration, upgradable
dictionary, many options, and a powerful multi-level search algorithm. Options for pattern-searching, generation, writing
results to file, and reading scrambled words from file. Output can be sent to the screen, disk file or printer and certain options are customizable and savable to a default file. This program has built-in code for high-speed comparison of words. It creates multiple sub-dictionaries for even faster access and unscrambling (capable of hundreds of words / sec). Credit goes to my former friend and mentor for the idea for doing this.

WKBBS (1994 – 1995)

WKBBS is a custom ASCII/ANSI bulletin board system with most features of commercial BBS packages, as well as some unique features. “TWK” commands allow you to use system variables in system message files and user variables in messages and system message files. Custom games, including two that you can play user vs SysOp. This software has been ported from the C=64 to the PC and is capable of running from a floppy disk, though a hard drive is recommended. Baud rates up to 9600 BPS supported. Sadly, I have the executable, but seem to have lost the source code to a bad floppy disk.

WKBBS.ZIP [N/A]

Calendar (1992 – 1996)

This neat little utility allows you to generate a quick little on-screen color calendar. This program will print a 1 month color calendar on your screen using the computer’s internal clock as a reference. It will print the current month as indicated by the internal clock, and will highlight the current day. The computer’s current time will also be shown next to the date. Optionally, the program will print a 1 month calendar for a specific date, which you supply on the command-line in the form MM-DD-YYYY. If you want a calendar for January 1, 1996, then you would type CAL 01-01-1996. Output can also be sent to the printer or a file using DOS redirection command. For example, if you wanted to send the calendar for the current month to the printer, you would type: CAL > PRN Note, the calendar will not be in color, nor will the current day be highlighted, even if you own a color printer. To send the output to a file, simply replace PRN with a PATH/FILENAME, such as, “CAL > C:\TEXT\CALENDAR.TXT”.

Area Code (1993 – 1997)

This neat little utility allows you to find out what major areas belong to a specific area code and also what area codes belong to some cities / states. Output can be re-directed to the printer or a file. This program will, given a 3-digit area-code, display the names of any major areas which that area-code serves…For example…

C:\>AREACODE 518

Area Code 518 belongs to Albany, New York
Area Code 518 belongs to Glens Falls, New York
Area Code 518 belongs to Hudson, New York
Area Code 518 belongs to Plattsburgh, New York
Area Code 518 belongs to Saratoga Springs, New York
Area Code 518 belongs to Schenectady, New York
Area Code 518 belongs to Troy, New York

Found 7 area(s) in area code 518

Replacing the 3-digit area-code with either a city, state, or either one, will display any corresponding area codes for that city / state (if it’s in the database). You only need 4 characters of the name, for example, typing: “AREACODE Albany, New York” is the same as typing: “AREACODE Alba” (Note that any input over 3 characters is assumed to be a place, not an area code).

State (1993 – 1997)

Simple DOS utility to find the state abbreviation given the name or the state name given the abbreviation. Originally written as a companion to the area code application.

Music Base II (1994 – 1998)

This program was written for all those people who have more money in their music collection than they do in their computer! As a former DJ, I’ve had people ask me more times than I can count if I had this song or that album…often I was sure I had a particular song or album, but had no idea where it was located in my collection of over 1000 CDs, cassettes and LPs. At one point I sorted my collection by artists’ last name and wrote all the song names in a notebook, but it was a pain trying to search through it, especially when adding new albums.

This program solves most of the problems. It stores all the important information about your albums, no matter what format the media. Up to 32,767 entries can be accommodated. Each entry contains the artist, title, copyright date, recording label, media format, price, date added, comments, keywords, source and order number. Compilations actually take up two entries to store the names of each artist on the album. For double-sided media such as cassettes and LPs, the program stores 15 songs / artists per side. On single-sided media such as CDs, the program stores 30 songs / artists. This is also true for unspecified media (N/A) when you don’t know what format you will get an album on, but wish to store data for it. More information is available in the built-in help system.

Resources

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