Re: Getting started with DOS Paradox 4.5...

On 19 Dec 2005 15:05:58 -0800, madcrow wrote:
>
> My victim machine is a Pentium 75 laptop with Win95 SR1 with 40 megs of
> RAM. Early Windows versions would probably work too, but nobody's
> giving those away... M$ Access (which I have lying around on old 3.5"
> disks) might also work, but yuck... I was even looking at DataPerfect,
> but nobody used that, even in the real DOS era...

I have *very* fond memories of PdoxDOS 4.5, but last programmed in it in
1993. I know from threads on this news server that it is amazingly common
even today. The PAL language is supremely easy to use and learn. I did some
medium sophisticated workload modeling with it -- police workloads spread
over 2-d space and 1-d of time, complete with queuing theory to predict
problem time-locales (when-where the emergency response system collapsed --
very accurate, it turned out). As I recall, DOS PAL is essentially a
BASIC-like macro language, and my biggest problem was predicting the
program's state (what's open, etc). But PAL allows procedures, and I wrote
a few that would stabilize the state and called one at the start of every
routine.

I hope the online help is at least minimally adequate. I am afraid that you
are stuck with it. PdoxDOS is long dead, despite its many virtues. I don't
even have a copy (my backups got mildew in a basement). It's a fun
environment, though.


--
Jim Hargan
Freelance Photographer and Writer
www.harganonline.com
.