Q–I used to like to write my own programs on MS-DOS-based computers using the QBasic programming language built into the operating system. I did this for the challenge rather than because I needed custom software.
I am getting the itch again, but QBasic is not on my new computer. I have the old DOS disks. Can I copy some files to make it work on my present Windows 98 computer?
Tony Giorango, Oak Park
A–Let me try the old bait and switch gambit to answer your question, Mr. G.: Don’t even give QBasic a thought; go to Visual Basic instead. Even utter neophytes can produce usable custom software with a $99 version of Microsoft Visual Basic Learning Edition, and the result is far more professional-looking than what poor old QB for DOS ever offered.
In addition to making the process of writing code a simple matter of dragging and dropping icons, Visual Basic turns out software that uses the same slick graphical user interface used by Windows 98. By contrast, QBasic programs, at their very best, ran in far cruder text-based displays.
The software you turn out in VB can be as simple as a personal calendar or as complex as a relational database, and the process of turning out one’s own software is, as you note, a real kick for us computer hobbyists.
P.S. As an experiment, I tried to run QBasic in the MS-DOS Window of Windows 98. It just didn’t work.
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Q–Jim, please help me! All this talk about digital video has got me drooling, but no one seems to know whether the Sony FireWire can be used on IBM compatible computers. I need you, Jim! Don’t let me down!
Mike Hearn, Chicago
A–Dab your chin and give me a listen, Mr. H.: The news isn’t merely good; it’s superb. Numerous products already are in stores allowing FireWire-type desktop video in Windows machines, and more are on the way. Already available are Windows DV products from Dazzle Multimedia and Pinnacle Systems.
DV (digital video or desktop video) is a system where digital camcorders connect directly to personal computers allowing one to download movies onto the hard drive and use editing software to enhance them before sending the finished films back to the camcorder using the same connection.
Like you, a great many people tend to think there is little going on in the Windows side of things with digital video because Apple Computer Inc. has dived headfirst into desktop digital video in cahoots with Sony America Inc.
We’re saturated with ads featuring iMac computers running Apple’s iMovie software using Sony digital camcorders connected together with FireWire. But FireWire is merely Apple’s word for the universal IEEE 1394 high-speed connection standard that also works on the Windows side by installing expansion cards with FireWire connectors into a PCI slot. Users then plug their digital camcorders into the cards, just as DV iMac owners do with that computer’s built-in FireWire IEEE 1394 port.
Q–Maybe you can solve a problem I am having where I get an error message that says the program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.
When I click on details, it shows that a page fault occurred in kernel32.dll.
I suspect that I need to replace that driver. However, I have two problems. No. 1, I don’t know where to get a good copy of kernel32.dll, and second, I don’t know how to install it if I had a good copy.
Can you help? Thanks millions.
Charlie Rowden, Huntsville, Ala.
A–Speaking of millions, that’s probably how many people have had a Windows program fail to run and then been told in one of those utterly useless explanatory boxes that there was an error in Kernel32. That’s like shooting the messenger for bringing you bad news.
Kernel32 is the module of Windows 95/98 that kicks in when any program is run. Kernel32 is supposed to load the executable code (.exe) and dynamic link libraries (.dll’s) needed for that program. When Kernel32 encounters a glitch in a program, the operating system kicks out that “fault in Kernel32” message, making it sound like there is a file called Kernel32 that needs to be replaced. Not so. Kernel32 is not the problem; it’s merely the messenger telling you there is a problem.
Your best hope is to reload whatever program is burping each time it gets run rather than fretting over Kernel32.
Q–A couple of weeks back you had a question about moving a large file to floppy disks. You recommended WinZip. I don’t disagree with you, but I want to suggest a very powerful alternative solution for people who need to use 1.4 megabyte floppy disks to move files that are 5 and even 10 megabytes long. Freeware from PC World called File Splitter takes huge files and cuts them into smaller files that can be saved on single floppy disks. This gem of a program will take virtually any size file and split it for a multitude of formats.
You can use SuperDisks, Zip disks, whatever. The utility calculates how many disks you need, splits the file to that many disks and produces a batch file that will restore the original file. This is a great utility, and the best part, it’s FREE!
Joe Stern, Cupertino, Calif.
A–You’re hardly the first guy from Cupertino (home of Apple Computer Inc.) to tell the world about something great in personal computing, but your idea about File Splitter is first rate, indeed, Mr. S.
Readers should log on to www.pcworld.com/fileworld/file-descripti on/0,1458,6938,00
.html to download file splitter, which is free. WinZip (www.winzip.com) can be downloaded without paying but is shareware that nags users to send in a check every time it runs.
WinZip, though, offers far more than just the ability to save huge files by spanning them out among several floppies. It lets users convert their own files into highly compressed .zip files for sending over the Internet, and it also decompresses the .zip files that are almost universally used with software, like File Splitter itself, that is available for download.
Since you need WinZip to decode File Splitter, I didn’t include it in the original answer; but as you note, it is better than WinZip in the one area of dispersing huge files over a stack of floppies.
Q–I recently bought a new Gateway computer and am using Word, Excel, Access, etc. On my old computer I had PFS:WindowWorks which was a good word processor, spreadsheet, and database program.
The word processing files in that program are in .wpd format, the spreadsheet files are in .wpl format, and the database files are in .wdf format. I would like to convert all of these to .doc, .xls, etc., so as to use them in Word, Excel, etc. There must be a program out there that will change them. Someone told me just to open them in Word, but when I do there is just gibberish on the screen.
Don Campbell, Lewiston, Idaho
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A–You can shell out $60 to Inso Inc. for its software called QuickView Plus 5 (www.jasc.com) and that software will let you view your documents and then copy them for pasting into your new programs. This works OK for word processing documents, but doesn’t carry over the formulas you create in many spreadsheets and database files.
My preference is to go back to your old computer and use the “Save As” command in each program to save all of the PFS files in ordinary ASCII (or .txt) onto floppy disks. You can then import them into the various Microsoft programs (Word, Excel and Access).
You will still need to redo the formulas in spreadsheets, etc., and you will lose all the fonts and special formatting, but you will have the core data available that will make the changeover possible if not altogether easy.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. If you think you’ve got a better answer to any of these questions, add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/go/askjim.