!Lottery (History)
Read the !Help file for full instructions

v2.03 (23rd May 1997)
- Added validity checking on printer driver to make sure it's not corrupted, and hence lock up the print playslip routine.
- Fixed bug where you cannot register yourself after the 30 day evaulation period has expired.
- Added no. of days left to 'unregistered' Info window.
v2.02 (18th May 1997)
- Fixed random seed bug where changing choices reset the random seed, resulting in the same set of numbers being given if you changed day and then predicted some more numbers.
v2.01 (2nd May 1997)
- Big fix - Now correctly tests wins for less then four numbers when checking previous weeks.
- Changed references to "payslips" to "playslips". You can tell how much I read the official documentation! Thanks to John Davidson for pointing this out.
v2.00 (19th Mar 1997) *** MAJOR UPDATE ***
- Bug fix: Pressing up/down on ball entry with a blank entry no longer comes up with a file error.
- Added support for Wednesday's lottery results as well.
- Added support for the New Zealand (1-40) lottery.
- Changed registration procedure so that people can register their own copies, given the correct ID code.
- Added automatic date calculation when adding new results.
!Lottery will now automatically provide the next relevant date 1 week after the last entry in the file. This uses Julian to Gregorian date calculations and is not affected by the year 2000. The icon is still writable for those who want to manually enter other dates, although I wouldn't recommend it.
- Fixed a few rounding bugs in the 'Break even' graph, so that the display should be more accurate.
- Added number totals and percentage deviations to 'week by week analysis'.
- Bug fix: in 'Pattern' window where the incorrect date was sometimes given when you click on a ball.
- Speeded up memory management for storing draw results database. This is now kept in memory, cutting down disc access. The only downside is that !Lottery now takes approx an extra 40k.
- Re-implemented 'Frequent combinations' feature, now that results are stored in memory. It has slightly improved sorting as well. For users of slower machines, who may get fed up with this facility, there is the option of disabling certain aspects by editing the 'Messages' file. However, frequent combinations are only recalculated when new results are added, so reloading !Lottery is much faster the second time.
- Added 'multiple weeks' and 'selectable draw' to payslip options.
- Added feature whereby when a guesses file is dragged into !Lottery to check your winnings, all previous weeks are also scanned so that you can depress your self by seeing how much your set of numbers may have won in previous draws.
N.B. Wins are only calculated up to and including the week you are currently viewing in the main browser window.
- Several minor 'cosmetic' changes made, such as:
i) Some message wording changed.
ii) Week direction icons in main window changed and made auto-repeat.
iii) Pressing MENU on Lottery no longer turns the caret off.
iv) Interactive help messages tidied up a bit.
v) Menus updated to look tidier if running !Lottery on a pre-RISC OS 3.5 machine (ie. desktop font = system font)
- Printer management routine incorporated into main program rather than editing 'Messages' file. The payslip dimensions can now be adjusted within the printer margin setup window. Up to 5 different payslip configurations are available.
- Added seeding to allow predictions to be forced to fall within a user-defined percentage of the average number total for each week.
- Random seed icon now updated correctly in 'Seed' window.
- Changed output file to display the deviation from the average for each guess.
N.B. Version 2.00 is effectively a 'beta-test' version of Version 2, so please contact me if you find any bugs - although I have tested it fairly comprehensively.
v1.18 (11th Nov 1996)
- Fixed bug (which crept in in v1.17) which came up array subscript out of range when entering date.
- Fixed bug where all windows are closed if the main window is closed.
- Fixed bug (which crept in in v1.17) which displayed the frequency chart as all zero's when selected from the main menu. (It worked when selected from the 'statistics' window.
- Fixed bug where the 'break even' graph is not updated correctly.
v1.17 (31st Oct 1996)
- Amended printout routine to print on both 5 entry and 7 entry payslips. (Click SELECT on the payslip in the printer margins window to toggle between settings)
- Changed plot colour of values to reflect actual ball colours.
- Made frequency chart use slightly smaller ball sizes.
- 'Mode' display is correctly updated when the printer margins window is closed (minor bug fix).
- Made 'pattern' display half the previous size to allow for the greater number of results now available.
- Temporarily disabled 'Frequent Combinations' as the routine was rather slow to cope with the current number of draw results. A new improved Frequent Combinations (along with numerous new statistics) will be implemented in version 2 when I finish writing it.
- Added 'Mystic Madge' simulation, for witty predictions.
- Added interactive statistics commentary when adding new results.
- Added extra 'graph mode' menu to allow extra statistics to be displayed as a graph. eg.Weeks since a number came up, or maximum gaps between the same number coming up again.
- Amended status window to include graph type, when browsing.
- Speeded initialisation up.
- Made the background to the graph filled.
- Made the main window slightly bigger (ie. a full mode 28 screen)
- Added 'deviation from average' option to the graphs. This allows you to see how much each value varies in relation to the average.
v1.16a (13th Mar 1996)
- Swapped <=24, >=25 values round in the 'Stats' file, as they were inadvertantly swapped. The stats window in the program was correct though.
v1.16 (7th Feb 1996)
- Fixed small bug which resulted in 'array subscript out of range' when calculating multiple groupings (only showed up when this weeks results were entered)
While I was doing this bug fix, I thought I'd add the following features.
- Added grid lines to main display to illustrate frequency nos. and also added 'average frequency' line to main chart.
- Changed random seed to read from the real-time clock rather than just -TIME
- Fixed sprite in statistics window so that it looks correct in different screen modes.
- Changed up and down icons in statistics window to have opposite (and hence correct) actions depending upon whether SELECT or ADJUST was pressed.
v1.15 (28th Nov 1995)
- Adjusted Y axis labels so that they are correctly right justified.
- Moved whole (main) graph 1 pixel to the right (being a perfectionist!)
- Made week no. icon writable, to allow jumping to a specific weeks results, rather than stepping left and right through them.
v1.14a (19th Aug 1995)
- Amended loading sequence to give a status line and hourglass percentage during initialisation.
v1.14 (20th May 1995)
- Fixed potential bug (before it was noticed) in that the 'break-even' values might not be updated if the figures get to high (now ok)
v1.13 (12th May 1995)
- Speeded up calculation of block guesses by making it load previous results into RAM rather than spooling off disc.
v1.12 (26th Mar 1995)
- Added graph to break even analysis. Click on graph to display values.
v1.11 (15th Mar 1995)
- Fixed bug in print payslip routine, where the marks occasionally came out in the wrong colour (ie. white, invisible!)
- Added 'Block guess' routine (see !Help file)
- Added extra message to distinguish between getting 5 balls plus the bonus and six balls on automatic win checking. Previous versions just said six wins.
v1.10 (26th Feb 1995)
- Made a couple of minor changes to v1.09, but changed version to v1.10 because I had already given v1.09 to a couple of people. (Basically tuned mode selector a bit, to be slightly more intelligent when selecting wins window or print payslips options)
v1.09 (10th Feb 1995)
- Added 'Week by week pattern' to types of analysis.
- Added number entry window to aid lazy people who don't want to use the keyboard to add new results.
- Added 'Stats' bias to seed window. This will bias the prediction towards numbers favoured in the Stats window.
- Added facility to actually print payslips, via RISC OS printer drivers.
- Added 'vars' file to hold various system settings such as printer margins, grouping levels etc.
- Added facility to automatically re-scale the frequent numbers grouping in the statistics window. eg. when too many two number groups are found, !Lottery decides to only display three number groups, then four etc.
- Automatic saving of statistics as a text file (!Lottery.data.Stats)
- Added support for Acorns Interactive help.
- Tidied mode selection up a bit.
- Added extra error checking to import guesses routine and adjusted scaling of wins window.
v1.08 (21st Jan 1995)
- Automatic backup of last 'Guesses' file made as 'GuessesBAK'.
- Ability to re-load old 'guesses' files in order to check against results.
- Added grid to Week by Week display, to aid correlating results.
- Added extra y value (max/2) to main display
- Adjusted scaling size of Week by Week window slightly.
- Moved all the data files ('Guesses' and 'Results') into their own 'data' directory (within !Lottery).
v1.07 (19th Jan 1995)
- Added 'Statistics' window and also tidied up menu structure on 'Week by Week' and 'Frequency' windows.
- Prediction added to file when entry six is entered, rather than seven.
v1.06 (15th Jan 1995)
- Bug fix in 'Add results' routine. (Pointer now set correctly)
- 'Weighting' text in messages changed to 'Biased'.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional ideas for features.

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