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From: lowey@f43.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Kevin Lowey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: TopSpeed and returning an Exit() code?
Message-ID: <812.26E7391E@weyr.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 5 Sep 90 23:24:27 GMT
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 > I am working for Oakland University as a student programmer for Academic 
 > Computing Services.  My first project is to write a menu program for our
 > PC's so the user doesn't have to learn DOS.  Due to constraints, I cannot
 > have my program write to any disk, so I need to somehow put my menu 
 > program in the middle of a .bat file. 

I work for the Department of Computing Services at the University of
Saskatchewan.  I wrote a similar program in Turbo Pascal (sorry).  I
originally wrote it for the same reasons you did, to provide a menu
program for your PC's so the user doesn't have to learn DOS immediately.

Take my advice.  Instead of doing this, invest the training time to
TEACH people how to use DOS correctly.  I installed my silly menu
program on machines all over campus.  People then bought WordPerfect,
and didn't even know what a Directory was, so they had to call ME to
install WordPerfect.  Then they did an update to WordPerfect.  Guess who
they called again?  Eventually I took the program off the machines.  Now
they have learned DOS and can do the things themselves without having to
call me all the time.

The idea of providing a menu driven front end to DOS so that people can
use the computer immediately seemed to have merit.  The idea was that
they would then be able to learn MS-DOS when they have time.  The
problem is, they never have time until you force them to need to make
the time.

We still use the menu program in our micrcomputer laboratory to launch
applications, etc.  I did it by having the menu program EXEC a
subprocess that would run the program.  When the subprocess finished, it
would return to the Menu program and continue from there.  This ate up
about 4K of memory.

I recently updated this using the HALT command in Turbo Pascal to return
an errorlevel.  That way the menus could be displayed, the error level
is returned, then the batch file tests the error level to see which
program to run.  Check your Modula-2 manual for a HALT or EXIT command
that lets you return the errorlevel.

If you want to get my program, you can download it from the University
of Saskatchewan Fidonet BBS at (306) 966-4857 (2400 baud).  The file is
called SYSMENU4.ZIP (a PKZIP archive).  There are much fancier menu
programs available which are also on the BBS.  

- Kevin Lowey

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