Loadstar 128 #12/q12.d81/t.on deck

Text File | 1990-01-01 | 5.6 KB | 119 lines

                                O N    D E C K

                              by Barbara Schulak

     How many times have you heard someone moan, "Oh, if I had only saved my
old baseball cards!  I had a Carl Yasztremski with the bushy sideburns!"
Well, kids these days are smarter than we were, and they know how valuable a
classic baseball card can be.  Not only that, they know that their computer
can make keeping track of their cards much easier.

     Barbara's son has a pretty good collection of cards, and he, of course,
has a very good database program to keep them organized.  Now you too have
ON DECK, the database of the baseball stars.

     Barbara and Robert Cook are the premier databasers for LOADSTAR and
they've developed a program style that is so intuitive and natural that you
probably won't need the instructions that follow.  She originally had
instructions built into the program but I excised them so that larger card
files are possible.  One of the advantages of the C-128 over the C-64 is
that you can track huge collections of things because of the added memory.
ON DECK can handle files containing up to 450 cards.  If you have more, you
should split your files into smaller ones -- maybe National League and
American League?

     There's a sample file on the disk called "on deck sample" that you can
load to see what a typical file looks like.  Choose LOAD FILE from the main
menu and enter "on deck sample".  Then choose EDIT FILE and you'll see the
first entry.  For each card you can enter the following information:

  Card #         - The number of the card according to YOUR system.
  Player's Name  - Keep your names consistent.  If you prefer Last Name,
                   First and first letter capitalized, make them all
                   this way.
  Team           - Keep the teams' names consistent too.
  Special        - here you can enter comments.  It's recommended that
                   you standardize your comments, too.  For instance,
                   RC could mean "rookie card"
  Quantity       - How many of the card you have.
  Condition      - Mint, Good, Tattered, etc.
  Value          - This field is formatted for dollars and cents.

     Here are your options from the main menu.

* CREATE/EXTEND FILE - You'll be asked for the number of entries (cards) you
want to enter or add to your list.  If you don't have time to enter all of
them in one sitting, you can SAVE the file and come back to it later.

* SET DEFAULTS - Be careful with this one.  It allows you to save typing by
automatically entering a field for you.  For instance, if all of your cards
are in Mint condition, set the default for CONDITION to "Mint" and when
entering your cards, you can just press RETURN on the CONDITION field and
Mint will automatically be entered.  If you are working on your second file
of cards, you can set the starting number to one more than the last card in
your first file.  You cannot set the defaults until you have a file in
memory.  You need to be careful not to set the defaults for a field AFTER
you have enter different things for that field.  Your previous entries for
that field will be changed to the default.

* LOAD FILE - Enter the name the file was saved under.

* SAVE FILE - Any name will do, but it pays to be consistent and
descriptive.

* EDIT FILE - This is where you view the files as well as edit them.  Here
are your options:

     MENU - Return to the Main Menu.

     EDIT - The cursor will appear immediately to the right of a field.
Press RETURN if the field is okay and the cursor will go to the next field.
To change the field use the DELete key to move the cursor to the start of
the field and make your entry.  F1 exits.

     FLAG - This is very handy.  Press F and a checkmark will appear after
the Record #.  Use this flag for anything you want.  Later, you can list
only the flagged cards, print them, search for them, etc.  To unflag a card
just press F again.

     SEARCH - You can search by the following fields: Card #, Player, Team,
Special, or Flag.  Make sure you enter what you're searching for EXACTLY as
it appears in your file.  If you're looking for "Yankees", don't enter
"yankees".  However, you can enter "Yank" or even "Y" and it'll find the
Yankees.

     GOTO - Enter the Record # you want to jump to and you'll immediately go
there.  This can be quicker than using the F keys.

     F1/F2 - Move forward or backward through the list one at a time.

     F3/F4 - Move ten at a time.

     F5/F6 - Move one hundred at a time.

* PRINT FILE - You can print out all of your cards, or just certain ones
depending on the Team, Special, Flagged or Unflagged.  The printout will
show:

CARD #  PLAYER'S NAME  TEAM  SPECIAL INFO  QUANTITY  CONDITION  VALUE

across the page, nicely formatted and readable.

* DISK UTILITIES - You can see the directory, initialize the drive, rename a
file, scratch a file, format a disk (be careful!), change your drive number,
validate a disk, read the error channel,or select 1541 or 1571 mode.  ON
DECK will work with drives 8 through 12, and even 1581 disks.

* EXIT - Returns you to BASIC or LOADSTAR, depending on whether you have a
LOADSTAR disk in drive 8 or not.

     The look and feel of ON DECK is very similar to other dedicated
databases by Robert Cook and Barbara Schulak so once you learn one, you've
learned them all.  This program, which may be a youngster's first glimpse of
a database, should provide a good understanding of how record-keeping on a
computer is done.  Thanks, Barbara, for a neat idea and program.

FT
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