DALE IS BACK!

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daleadmin
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DALE IS BACK!

Post by daleadmin » Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:42 pm

It has been a really long time since I was here.

Things have been happening and not happening. The main thing that has not been happening is updates to the Cash Register program. This is due to the fact that the POS.EXE file reached the limit of DOS memory and in fact it will no longer even compile. So 7.1J will be the last update of the DOS version.

However I retired on 8-1-16 and since then I have been working with a new language, QB64. This is almost compatible with the QuickBASIC 7.1 which I used to write DHPOS. So far I have converted several of my non-DHPOS programs using QB64 just to learn the new language and so far every one that I have tried has worked out. However DHPOS is a whole other ball of wax. It is far larger and far more complex than any of my other programs but so far things are looking good.

So, what will be different with a QB64 version of DHPOS? Well first let me tell you what will be the same. The QB64 version will look the same, run the same, and be able to use the same data files as the DOS version. However there is no practical memory limit to QB64. This means that there will no longer be a 26,000 different item limit in the stock table and there will be lots of memory to add new features. QB64 programs will run under both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows without requiring DOSBox. It will print to the Windows default printer without the use of APRINT6. So far the downsides I have found is that the QB64 will require Windows versions XP or later. The file size of each .EXE program will be HUGE, however with the lack of a memory limit I will be able to combine several currently separate .EXE files into one. Printing seems to be kind of slow.

However while I am just beginning to work on the QB64 version I am going to finish something else first, if it is possible. The DOS version is done and I will never do another version. So I am going to make a "Hex Editor" for it to allow anyone to change the text in the DHPOS program. Specifically it will allow anyone to replace the English text with text in any other language as long as that language uses the Latin alphabet. You will also be able to use the same extra characters that the "Receipt language" feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program does. An additional constraint is that the new text cannot be even one character longer than the English text however a new shorter text can be padded with spaces. The reason this requires a version of the program that will not change is that there will be no new versions so you will not have to do the language conversion ever again, do it once and you are done.

Other things of note is that Jon has uploaded a new version of the forum software so new folks can join. There is (as of 1-5-17) a Facebook page for DHPOS, I am disturbed about this as you are. It is located at https://www.facebook.com/Dale-Harris-Ca ... 050929811/ You can go there and make fun of me since I have no idea what I am doing there.

So over the next few days I will be going to the other post here that I never replied to and reply. It might take a while.

Dale

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Re: DALE IS BACK!

Post by daleadmin » Tue Feb 07, 2017 12:30 am

THANK YOU BRUCE!

I just wanted to thank Bruce for filling in and answering questions (and finding bugs) while I was gone. I did not ask him to do this, he did it on his own and I just want to thank him for it.

Dale

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Re: DALE IS BACK!

Post by daleadmin » Tue Feb 07, 2017 12:36 am

By the way. I have spent the last month updating the DHPOS.COM website. It is something else that I have long neglected. It really needed to be done as it had scads of dead links and out-dated information. For example do you know that there is a newer version of Windows than XP? My site did not know.

So it pretty much looks the same and not much is "new" but a lot of it is "new-er."

And it all works now and that is a plus.

Dale

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Re: DALE IS BACK!

Post by Dukane » Sun Mar 05, 2017 10:08 am

Happy to have you back Dale!!

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