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AN ORIGINAL STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM PAGE 1 WRITTEN BY: Charles L. Pack 25303 La Loma Drive Los Altos Hills, CA. 94022 Phone: (415) 949-0887 The purpose of this system is to draw and/or print volume-high-low-close bar charts for any stock. Bonds, commodities, or other securities that have high-low-close prices, can also be charted. Short- and long-term moving average lines can optionally be included on each chart. Whenever a new stock is added to the system, the user may specify daily or weekly updating of price and volume data, and may also specify the number (up to 90) of days or weeks of data to be retained for that individual stock. A double-sided diskette, formatted with DOS version 2, can hold 90 days or weeks of data for each of 110 different stocks. Volume and high, low and closing prices are typed in by the user from data published in Barrons (for weekly updating) or the Wall Street Journal or other daily paper. Short- and/or long-term moving average periods can optionally be specified or changed at will for each indiv- idual stock. Moving averages can be computed and charted temporarily on a "what-if" basis, or stored permanently on diskette. The system does not make buy/hold/sell recommendations. Per-share annual earnings and dividends are maintained to permit compu- tation of the price/earnings ratio and yield for each stock. Also, high and low estimated 5-year prices can be entered, to permit computation of total annual return. This information may be obtained from Value Line or another advisory service. The stock charting system, which contains several programs and associa- ted text files, is menu-driven, allowing the user to easily select all options without memorizing commands. All menus have a "Help" function; when invoked by pressing the "H" key, the directions applicable to that part of the system will appear on the screen. The hardware requirements are an IBM Personal Computer with at least 128K of memory and one floppy disk drive and/or a hard disk. The stock charting system will operate with either the IBM monochrome or graphics adapter, or both, but the graphics adapter is required for drawing charts. The system will run on some (but not all) "compatible" computers using DOS version 1 or 2. Stock charts may be printed on an Epson FX-80 or equivalent graphics printer. The program modules are written in interpreted BASIC with embedded machine-language subroutines. The stock charting system is "user-supported" software. You are encour- aged to copy and share the programs. If you are using these programs and find them to be of value, please send $25 directly to the author. (California residents please include appropriate sales tax.) This will make you a registered owner, and you will be notified of later versions of this and other related software as it is released. In addition, you will receive additional program documentation. Suggestions and comments are welcome and may be addressed directly to the author. No warranties, express or implied, are made by the author. AN ORIGINAL STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM PAGE 2 HOW TO GET THE STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM RUNNING, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE The first and most important thing for you to do is to MAKE A BACKUP COPY. I suggest you make a couple of working copies of the stock chart- ing system diskette and then put the master copy in a safe place other than where your computer is - such as a safe deposit box. The next page has details on how to copy your disk if you don't know how. Now you're ready to get the stock charting programs running. Your diskette contains some sample data files which may be used to observe how things work. The sample data files do not constitute recommenda- tions to buy, sell or hold any security. Make sure your DOS diskette is in drive A (usually the left-hand drive if you have more than one) and the prompt A> is present. The DOS disk- ette must contain the file BASICA.COM. You can enter the command DIR to look at all the names of files on drive A to see if BASICA.COM exists. Note: If you are using a "compatible" non-IBM computer and you can't find BASICA.COM, it may have another name such as GWBASIC.COM or just BASIC.COM. If you are using an IBM computer, you want BASICA.COM and not BASIC.COM; the latter will not work correctly with the stock chart- ing system. If you are using DOS version 2.x (where x is any digit), you also need a program called GRAPHICS which should be on your DOS diskette. Type the command GRAPHICS and press the ENTER key. This loads into memory the graphics program which is required for proper printing of stock charts. If you have DOS version 1.1, skip this step; chart printing is done by the stock charting program itself. Now type in the command BASICA and press the ENTER key. (You don't have to type the .COM). After a few seconds, a copyright message will appear, followed by the prompt OK. BASICA is the interpreter program which will interpret and execute all the instructions in the stock charting pro- grams. Remove the DOS diskette from drive A:, and insert a working copy of the stock charting program diskette. (Never use the original except to restore a working copy). Now enter the following command, just as it appears: RUN "SMADDEL2" Note the double quote marks surrounding SMADDEL2. The space right after RUN is optional. The ending quote mark can be left off and the command will still work. Also, the command will work in lowercase (small) letters. In just a moment, the initial screen for the stock charting system should appear! Once the stock charting system is running, all instructions on how to operate it are available within the individual programs themselves (the system consists of several individual programs, each of which performs specific functions). When the disk drive option screen comes up, select option C to use the sample files on the program disk. Refer to the information on the screen. Note that you can press the H (for Help) key to get instructions. AN ORIGINAL STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM PAGE 3 HOW TO COPY THE STOCK CHARTING PROGRAM DISKETTE There are two ways to copy a diskette: one using the DISKCOPY program; and the other using the COPY command. The DISKCOPY program is a separ- ate program on your DOS diskette. DISKCOPY copies the entire diskette all at once without regard to contents, and is fast. COPY copies indi- vidual files one at a time and is slower, but it is a "resident" com- mand (it is in memory all the time) so you don't have to have your DOS diskette in the disk drive to run it. There is a significant disadvantage with DISKCOPY. Both the source and target diskettes must be the same number of sides. Sometimes software is shipped on single-sided diskettes, but most people today use double- sided diskettes. Therefore, for greatest reliability, you should make your first copy using the COPY command. COPY can transfer files from one type of diskette to another (or to a hard disk). First, make sure your DOS diskette is in drive A and you have the DOS prompt A>. Insert in drive B a new diskette, or a diskette which does not contain any programs or data which you wish to keep. Type the fol- lowing command: FORMAT B: and press ENTER. WARNING: All data on the disk in drive B is about to be erased! After the formatting is completed and you are back to the A> prompt, remove the DOS diskette from drive A and insert the original copy of the stock charting diskette in drive A. Now type the following command and press the ENTER key: COPY *.* B: /V This will copy all files from the diskette in drive A to the diskette in drive B. The two diskettes may have different numbers of sides and different recording densities. The /V parameter causes the computer to read back and verify everything it writes. The diskette in drive B now contains a working copy of the stock charting system. Unless you are charting only a few stocks, you should keep stock charting data on a diskette separate from the stock charting programs. To do this, first format another blank diskette in drive B and then start the stock charting system. When the setup screen (the screen that defines disk drive options) comes up, select option B and drive B for data. The add/delete stocks program will then automatically recognize the empty diskette and prompt you for information about the first stock to be entered. All of this information assumes you have two floppy disk drives, A and B. If you have only one disk drive, or if you are using a hard disk drive, setup information is beyond the scope of this document. There are so many different configurations of hard disk drives that it would take a very lengthy document to try to cover and explain most of them. The stock charting system will, however, support a hard disk drive. AN ORIGINAL STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM PAGE 4 ABOUT THE DATA FILES The data diskette for the stock charting system contains its own index file plus one file for each stock for which volume and prices are main- tained. The maximum number of stocks for which data can be kept on one diskette is limited to 110 for a double-sided diskette; that number will be less if the diskette is formatted with DOS version 1, or if there are programs or other files on the same diskette. On a single-sided disk- ette, the maximum number of stocks is limited to 62. You can have data and programs on the same disk, or on different disks. This is determined by the disk drive option (setup) screen which comes up when the program is started. That screen prompts you to choose option A, B or C. Note that programs (with extension .BAS), the control file SMSETUP2.CTL, and the Help screens (with extensions HS1, HS2, HS3) must always reside on the system (default) drive. This is usually drive A unless you are using a hard disk, in which case it is usually drive C. If you have programs and data together on the same diskette or on a hard disk, choose option C. If you are using a PC Jr. with only one disk drive, you can choose A or C. Option A will expect programs and data on separate diskettes and will prompt you when to switch; that is more cumbersome but will allow more data. If you have two floppy disk drives, choose option B with data on drive B. In order to use a hard disk, the stock charting programs must first be installed on it. The procedure to do this will vary widely with the individual installation and is beyond the scope of this document. If you have two floppy disk drives and no hard disk, it is recommended to choose option B and have the programs on drive A and data on drive B. When you are prompted to enter the drive letter, type B and insert your data disk in drive B. If you have no data disk yet, insert a freshly formatted blank diskette in drive B. The program will recognize this, and will automatically prompt you to enter the name of the first stock. You can get more stock data on a blank diskette than you can get on your program diskette. Each time the data for a stock is updated or changed, the associated files are over-written on the data diskette. Therefore it is very im- portant to KEEP BACKUP COPIES! I suggest the following diskette backup scheme: Use three diskettes and label the three envelopes C (for current, or child), F (for Father), and G (for Grandfather). The envelope labelled C is of course the cur- rent, or working diskette. When a copy of the current diskette is made, copy onto the Grandfather diskette, which then becomes the new Current diskette. The old Current diskette becomes the new Father; the old Father becomes the new Grandfather. The diskettes are simply switched in their envelopes. The advantage to this scheme is that each diskette is always used in rotation so one diskette does not tend to wear out faster than the others. Also, there are always three generations of data. AN ORIGINAL STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM PAGE 5 COPYING THE STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM FOR A FRIEND If you wish to share the stock charting system with a friend, you are encouraged to do so, but please make a copy of THE ORIGINAL stock chart- ing program diskette, rather than any working copy which may have other programs on it. The reason for this is to avoid infringement of the copyrights on the disk operating system, BASIC interpreter and other copyrighted programs. Also, they might not work on someone else's machine, even though the stock charting programs might. And, it is important that the recipient gets all of the modules in the system. DESCRIPTION OF THE STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM FILES RELv_r is the version/release number of the master diskette. The file itself has no purpose except to identify the diskette. SMSETUP2.CTL is a control file which contains a program identifier plus the drive letter for the drive which is to be used for data files. SMADDEL2.BAS is the add/delete/change program. It creates and/or modi- fies the index file, and initializes stock data files. A separate stock data file is created for each stock (or other security) for which data is to be maintained. The name of a stock data file is the stock symbol preceeded by D or W (daily or weekly). The extension is .SMP. For ex- ample, a weekly stock data file for IBM on drive B will have the file specification B:WIBM.SMP. This program is the one to run when first starting the stock charting system. It also contains the setup screens which determine individual disk drive configuration and other parameters. SMADDEL2.HS1 contains the initial Help screens for the stock charting system. SMADDEL2.HS2 contains the Help screens for SMADDEL2.BAS. SMENTRY2.BAS is the data entry and bar graph program. In this program, volume and prices are entered, moving averages are compu- ted, bar graphs are drawn and data is stored on disk. SMENTRY2.HS1 contains the Help screens for SMENTRY2.BAS when in stock select mode. SMENTRY2.HS2 contains the Help screens for SMENTRY2.BAS when in data entry mode. SMENTRY2.HS3 contains the Help screens for SMENTRY2.BAS when in graphic display/print mode. AN ORIGINAL STOCK CHARTING SYSTEM PAGE 6 INDEXFIL.SMX is the system index file. It contains - for each stock for which volume and price data are maintained - the name, symbol, exchange, number of days/weeks of information, ear- nings, dividends and price goals. If this file is missing, the system will automatically create it and ask for data on the first stock. xxxx.SMP (where xxx is a stock symbol preceeded by D or W) - these are the files which contain volume, prices and moving aver- ages. There is one of these files for each stock, plus a corresponding entry in the index file. All files with the extension .BAS are BASIC program files stored in an internal compressed format useable by the BASICA.COM interpreter pro- gram. All files with the entension .HS1, .HS2, etc., are standard text files. If required, all files with extensions .HS1, .HS2, etc., can be deleted if that disk space is needed for other things. The consequence is that when the Help function is invoked, the message "Help screen not on program disk" will flash on the bottom line of the screen. But the program is still working; just press any valid key to get rid of the message. A NOTE FOR USERS OF THE CORONA COMPUTER When a stock chart is drawn on the Corona computer, it will occupy only the upper left quarter of the screen. This is because the Corona is not graphics-compatible with IBM (actually, the Corona has twice the resolu- tion both vertically and horizontally). In order to get a correct stock chart, you will need to install an IBM-compatible graphics card and use a separate monitor with it.