Dear Final Debug: Back in the glory days of PCs, before Windows ruined everything, I stored almost all information on my hard disk using a program called askSam. I wound up having to upgrade to Windows and got tired of waiting for ask Sam to come out for Windows. What’s happening with that program these days?–Ted Irwin, South Side. Final Debug Replies: Ted, I didn’t know there were other askSam enthusiasts still alive! Back in the days of weirdo DOS programs, such as Software Carousel and Magellan, askSam was one of the most deceptively simple — and deceptively powerful. Unlike dBase and its ilk, askSam was a free-form database. Using askSam there was never concern over keeping every piece of data in the right field and the right record, because it wasn’t necessary to create fields in records. (It was possible, but it wasn’t required.) The importing and exporting features of the DOS version were sometimes suspect, but askSam was an ideal way to store and retrieve information that didn’t quite fit anywhere else. Best of all, askSam was fast. No matter how large the file (this was in the days of the 640K limit), the information could be found almost instantaneously. Seaside Software, the program’s manufacturer, later redubbed askSam Systems, was slow to move to Windows (they finally made the shift in 1993), and by the time the company released a fine Windows version of askSam, much of the market had moved beyond the program. However, the company gradually improved its Windows version, which still runs on Windows 3.x machines. (Those nostalgic for the old days will notice a reference to “386 enhanced mode” on the splash screen.) Version 4, due later this year, is expected to run native on 95/NT systems. For Windows for the past few weeks, I’ve been testing version 3.0g of askSam. Unlike XyWrite, another DOS favorite that took its time climbing through Windows, the graphical version of askSam retains nearly all the best features of the original character-based program and adds more, such as a near-WYSIWYG editor. The importing feature is swift and loses no information. I imported several files from programs as diverse as Eudora and Word to formats as dissimilar as HTML and the proprietary Lexis/Nexis configuration. All information came through easily, although there is no opportunity to strip headers or unwanted formatting. The program is now available in sundry versions: a basic version, a professional version that allows full-text indexing across massive (hundreds of megabytes) files, a networked version and two high-end versions focused on publishing. I tested the askSam Web Publisher, which is geared toward making larger askSam databases available on the Web via browsers (the basic askSam can save files in HTML, which may be sufficient for smaller databases). askSam Systems also runs a side business managing the actual publishing and hosting of such databases and just released a test version of SurfSaver, a bookmark enhancer that only works with IE 4. I expect future versions of askSam will include more and more Internet features. Do you use askSam? Tell us about it.
A Java contest We have an extra copy of Symantec’s Visual Cafe for Java, Professional Development Edition, and we want you to have it. How do you get it? Answer this Java question: What does the Reflection API in Java 1.1 add to java.lang.reflecthe first correct answer (please keep it brief, folks) wins the software. Do you know? Tell us! If you want to submit a question, send it!
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