General/Education Software
GREAT CIRCLE DISTANCES : EARTH.EXE can
take files of GPS (global position system) latitude and longitude in degrees,
minutes, seconds and convert these to distance on the surface of the earth
between two such points, or from a central point to many surrounding. Nearest
neighbors can be determined as well as distances sorted. 143 World cities can
also be compared for 10153 combinations of distances between. Download: EARTH.EXE 146K
| Computer Image Conversion: | |
 *.PCX to QuickBASIC - Comput. Appl. Biosci. (1996) 12:185-189. Download: PCX.ZIP 70K | |
CZ-SOUND.EXE - some insect and bird sounds plus rain
dripping and wind whistling. The sounds are continuous and are used to either
fool a relative or friend (crickets) or to relax with (crickets, frog, sparrow,
rain drops, wind). All sounds are made with QuickBASIC so no sound card is
needed. Download:
CZ-SOUND.ZIP 46K
MUSAK.EXE (Sound Blaster): - Ok, so you aren't
impressed with the BASIC sounds above? MUSAK.EXE will play some random music on
your Sound Blaster compatible card (if you have one). There are two versions of
what I call "good music" that is sometimes pleasant to listen to, 2 versions of
"bonker/chime" music, and one radiowave wierdo sounds - all accompanied with
some visually stimulating random-moving line art, which together give quite an
effect (if I don't say so myself). Download: MUSAK.ZIP 34K ...
Test ? 
Reminder of important date:
REMIND.EXE is a reminder that
shows large text about some past or future date, as seen at left in the 50%
reduced image of the computer VGA screen. The Day of the week is shown along
with the current time - this is to let you verify that your computer's clock and
calendar are correct (you must check this independantly). I have found that one
of my computers loses time and finally reports the wrong date if left off for
over a week. This is serious if I make changes to a file on this computer and
the file is given an older, incorrect date which is older than a copy of the
file on another computer. Then if I try to update both copies with a program
(e.g. Laplink) that always copies the newest file to the older file, the
actually newer copy with the current changes, but older date, will be
overwritten by the older copy, but newer date. The number of days until the
event are shown, or the number of days after the event, whichever is
appropriate. The event is also shown, and this can be edited at any time. Put
the path to REMIND.EXE, e.g., c:\basic\remind.exe in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and
the program will be run in DOS or Windows 95/98 on start up. Download: REMIND.ZIP 39K 
Speed-Test your Computer: SPEED.EXE -
This program will test the speed of your video card, math coprocessor, and main
processor. The speeds can be compared to those I've found on a 386-33 MHz,
486-100 MHz, and Pentium-233 MHz. Also, in 1996, INTEL shipped some Pentium
chips that had a bug in the math coprocessor. If you have an older computer with
a Pentium chip, then you might want to check this. In practice, this bug is
almost never a problem, unless you do millions of math calculations such as in
simulations. Download:
SPEED.ZIP 49K 
Fractal Screen Saver -
SS.EXE - Any of 11 screen saver programs are run at random: 6 are
random fractals types, one is a line-kalidoscope, another pretends to list BASIC
code "ad infinitum", one shows Lorenze attractors, and still another Lissajou
geometric designs. The main function, however, is to let you have a password as
many screen savers do (you choose password, so don't forget, but you can erase
file that stores the password). A readme file is included to explain where the
password is stored. Anyone who presses a key while the screen saver is running
will be asked for the password, but if they fail within 30 seconds, then this
failure is recorded by date and time to let you know that someone attempted to
tamper with your computer while you were out. When the correct password is
finally entered by you, for example after you return to your desk, then any
attempted intrusions are displayed - this is for those of you who are worried
about snooping people and want to know if your paranoia is justified. Download: SS.ZIP 57K
"Screen Saver" -
NEW-YORK.EXE - Running this program shows a VGA picture (640x480)
of New York City at night, and lights blink on and off in the distance - looks
pretty nice in a dark room - You don't have to have a penthouse window! -
although that would be better (believe it or not). The image is self-contained
in the program. Download:
NEW-YORK.ZIP 149K 
Norwegian fjord opening image in
Windows 95: - Unzip WINLOGO.ZIP and put LOGO.SYS in
your root directory (usually C:) to start up with this picture in Windows 95. No
difference in startup times. Uninstall if you want by simply removing LOGO.SYS
from the root directory. This is just a bitmapped image so it can not do
anything but be loaded. Or you can use LOGOSYS.EXE and 9 nature images (Norway,
Sweden, USA, France) that will rotate and show one of the nine each time you
start Windows. Download:
WINLOGO.ZIP 818K
| Software for DOS/Windows 3.1 or 95. The ZIP files must be
unzipped before use. To uncompress *.ZIP files you must have PKUNZIP.EXE or UNZIP.EXE. After downloading you must be in DOS and type: pkunzip geo-card.zip or whatever the name is. Download: PKUNZIP.EXE 29K - or you may download my general setup program JB-SETUP.EXE 50K which will install any of the program systems here. |
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