>Well, as you said an "old" xBase engine... In the 80's I have once to dissasemble dBase II to fix a little problem it had to be used on a multiuser environment: it never closed the file handles it opened.

I did some work with CPM version (CCPM) in the 80's with a high performance SCUZ-80<g> (COMPUPRO) and the files closed. When IBM came out with their first SNI for DOS - I already had dBaseIII+ to use, so never I never really got to drive dBaseII on a DOS multiuser.

Still got the silver vinyl 3 ringed user guide and a Satin dBase Jacket that Ashton-Tate gave me.

I think our experience with those old 8-bit (CMD files) and 16 bit dBase (PRG files) instilled some discipline. I had a lot of fun with those guys!

>I have to confess that the code was quite sloppy. But I wasn't in a position to start working on MartinBase III at the time, so I simply patched it and reassembled. I could look for the code (Z80 assembler) if you want, although I'm not sure I still have it around.

I did some "computer lab" and "debug" assembly programs. I wrote a bunch of little COM files (back then) with debug to manage ports and hardware issues.

The copy of the PC-DOS (IBM) UG (I have one!) has 3 or 4 pages the BAL source for COMMAND.COM version 1.1 - it makes my eyes roll - George Ashton's source would make me sea sick. I leave looking at that code to guys like you with stronger constitutions:-)

>
>Cheers,