Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!linus!linus!mwunix.mitre.org!jcmorris From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: Norton Guides... How to create databases for it... Message-ID: Date: 8 Mar 91 21:31:59 GMT References: <1991Mar8.140725.4723@odin.diku.dk> Sender: news@linus.mitre.org (News Service) Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA Lines: 26 Nntp-Posting-Host: mwunix.mitre.org ballerup@diku.dk (Per Goetterup) writes: >I was wondering about this. A lot of companies not associated with Peter >Norton in any way has released databases (.NG files) for use with Norton >Guides in support of their products. Recently I came across the QEDIT.NG >package and started to wonder... >Is the database compiler (decompiler?) part of the standard NG package or is >it a stand alone product? - Maybe part of the NG program itself? The original Norton Guides packages (C, Assembler, PASCAL) all came with the compiler and linker for the guide packages so anyone who wanted to could make their own guides. There have been two new commercial releases of the product (Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect), but I haven't bought them (and have no use for what they support anyway), so I don't know if the compiler is still bundled. There is a decompiler listed in the Programmer's Shop catalog ($40 or so), and one reader of this newsgroup was passing around copies of a decompiler he wrote. It isn't part of the Norton package. The status of the Guides themselves isn't clear, especially to the reps of the companies involved. The Symantec rep I talked to earlier this week sez that "Symantec owns the name, but that the product belongs to Simon & Schuster...but that doesn't explain why Brady's name is on the boxes I see on dealers' shelves.