Tools by Softspecialists

[Vortex]

This site contains code, tools, library, applications, documents, information and others things relates to the software development, data and computer management.

https://www.softspecialists.com/

https://www.softspecialists.com/utilities/smallutilities/list

[jj2007]

Quite a collection, but not everything is extremely useful:

MsgBox
MsgBox display text in a pop-up dialog box from batch. Displays a modal dialog box that contains a set of buttons, and a brief text message.
Download the MsgBox.zip file (42.5 KB) or open the help.

TxtRowCount
Count the lines contained in a given text file. It supports both ASCII and UNICODE text file formats.

I wonder which programming language they use

[NoCforMe]

MsgBox
MsgBox display text in a pop-up dialog box from batch. Displays a modal dialog box that contains a set of buttons, and a brief text message.

Oh, you mean like MessageBox() which we already have built into Win32? How not very useful.
And what does "from batch" mean? Do I have to re-learn how to write JCL?

[TimoVJL]

Quite a collection, but not everything is extremely useful:

MsgBox
MsgBox display text in a pop-up dialog box from batch. Displays a modal dialog box that contains a set of buttons, and a brief text message.
Download the MsgBox.zip file (42.5 KB) or open the help.

TxtRowCount
Count the lines contained in a given text file. It supports both ASCII and UNICODE text file formats.

I wonder which programming language they use

PowerBASIC ?

[jj2007]

Oh, you mean like MessageBox() which we already have built into Win32? How not very useful.

Typical, this would be the command of a language, as in Masm32 MsgBox, not a separate tool.

PowerBASIC ?

Could be, yes. The smallest of these tools have about 24...40kBytes (Beep, ByteCopy, MsgBox). What is the overhead of a PowerBasic Hello World? MasmBasic needs 29kB.

[Vortex]

Hi Jochen,

I think there is no any serious size issues. Extracting the contents of MsgBox.zip :

Code Select Expand

03.08.2013  08:02             38096 MsgBox.chm
03.08.2013  08:02             23552 MsgBox.exe

[jj2007]

Hi Erol,

There is no size issue at all! Of course, we are all proud if we can squeeze that MsgBox into 1,024 bytes, but we also know that the smallest sector size of a harddisk is 4,096 bytes, and that reading one MB from disk costs around half a millisecond. Whatever we produce in this forum, it will never be bloatware. Same for PowerBasic and a few other dialects that produce executables well below 100kB (i.e. 0.05 milliseconds to read)

P.S., just for fun: How to get the size of a sector on disk

[adeyblue]

PowerBASIC ?

Could be, yes.

It is, the startup code you see at the entrypoint is the same. It's a good job the Powerbasic guy is dead, I heard he was an avid enforcer of his license and the license expressly forbids doing this

you may not export a wrapper for any PowerBASIC command which allows that command to be used in other programming languages. For example, you may write and publish your own target program to sort data in an array. But you may not publish a target program which exports the PowerBASIC ARRAY SORT Command for use with a programming language other than PowerBASIC.

I know this because I've been through every page in the PB help file because I'm lazily creating a clone compiler for it. Mainly to see if I can release one from scratch before the people that are very adamant that they are definitely still working on it, honest guv it'll be real soon now, can with all the code to it in hand.

I'm sure this is even more against the license, but I'll just call it Flowerbasic and they'll never know, so shhh!

Anyway, I'm sure you all wanted to know that. I'll go away again now and only return when I am replete and laden with trademark and maybe copyright infringing code. Remember, you're all accessories now so if I go to jail for this, you're all coming too.

[jj2007]

if I go to jail for this

... I'll bring you oranges

[HSE]

PowerBASIC ?

No.

They (Roberto Bianchi indeed) use MB86 (Minnow Bear BASIC) and CB(32/64 bit C BASIC).

Look like CB is similar to FreeBasic and others: the BASIC code is translate to C. 

[TimoVJL]

hutch's cpudat.exe

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pFile Data Description Value
00000098 010B Magic PE32
0000009A 02 MajorLinkerVersion 2
0000009B 34 MinorLinkerVersion 52
0000009C 0000254C SizeOfCode 9548
000000A0 00000A00 SizeOfInitializedData 2560
000000A0 000008B8 SizeOfUninitializedData 2232
000000A8 000015D8 AddressOfEntryPoint
000000AC 00001000 BaseOfCode
000000B0 00004000 BaseOfData
000000B4 00200000 ImageBase
000000B8 00001000 SectionAlignment 4096
000000BC 00000200 FileAlignment 512
000000C0 0001 MajorOperatingSystemVersion 1
000000C2 0000 MinorOperatingSystemVersion 0
000000C4 0000 MajorImageVersion 0
000000C6 0000 MinorImageVersion 0
000000C8 0004 MajorSubsystemVersion 4
000000CA 0000 MinorSubsystemVersion 0
000000CC 00000000 Win32VersionValue 0
MsgBox.exe

Code Select Expand

pFile Data Description Value
00000098 010B Magic PE32
0000009A 02 MajorLinkerVersion 2
0000009B 34 MinorLinkerVersion 52
0000009C 00003D14 SizeOfCode 15636
000000A0 00001A00 SizeOfInitializedData 6656
000000A0 00000854 SizeOfUninitializedData 2132
000000A8 00002270 AddressOfEntryPoint
000000AC 00001000 BaseOfCode
000000B0 00005000 BaseOfData
000000B4 00200000 ImageBase
000000B8 00001000 SectionAlignment 4096
000000BC 00000200 FileAlignment 512
000000C0 0001 MajorOperatingSystemVersion 1
000000C2 0000 MinorOperatingSystemVersion 0
000000C4 0000 MajorImageVersion 0
000000C6 0000 MinorImageVersion 0
000000C8 0004 MajorSubsystemVersion 4
000000CA 0000 MinorSubsystemVersion 0
000000CC 00000000 Win32VersionValue 0
see differences ?

[jj2007]

They (Roberto Bianchi indeed) use MB86 (Minnow Bear BASIC) and CB(32/64 bit C BASIC).

Look like CB is similar to FreeBasic and others: the BASIC code is translate to C.

List of commands

About 400 commands. The choice of commands looks a bit old-fashioned, lots of console and printer stuff. Also, many thin wrappers such as

Code Select Expand

CB.GUI.CloseWindow% Closes a given window
CB.GUI.DestroyWindow% Destroy a given window
CB.GUI.MessageBox% Display Windows standard message box dialog
CB.GUI.MoveWindow% Changes the position and dimensions of the specified window
CB.GUI.SendMessage% Sends a message to a given window
CB.GUI.SetWindowPos% Changes the size, position, and Z order of a child, pop-up, or top-level window.

[TimoVJL]

if I go to jail for this

... I'll bring you oranges

Sisilian oranges are quite tasty 

[HSE]

see differences ?

At least PowerBasic 9.0 have that linker signature (from my own builds  )

[daydreamer]

Hi Erol,

There is no size issue at all! Of course, we are all proud if we can squeeze that MsgBox into 1,024 bytes, but we also know that the smallest sector size of a harddisk is 4,096 bytes, and that reading one MB from disk costs around half a millisecond. Whatever we produce in this forum, it will never be bloatware. Same for PowerBasic and a few other dialects that produce executables well below 100kB (i.e. 0.05 milliseconds to read)

Vc++ switch to one small. Ico file you come down from 120kb to 20 kb,the compiler Switch smallest code instead of fastest do almost nothing
Faster ssd drives makes me question initial code that creates LUT vs few extra kb LUT loaded from disk instead
Probably asm programmer Pride/fun in producing tiny . Exe keep us always choose not to load LUT from disk