Memory

[Larry Tyree]

Last night, I spent some time focused on memory.

First off, I found a bonehead error on my part which was reducing the
memory available by 20 kilobytes.  This was caused when I made an
8088 version and forget to change one variable back.

Also, I had some range checking enabled to detect some TRP problems 
which can now be turned off, saving another 5K.

Secondly, if you run out of memory while the program is loading in the
name database - some strange things were occuring.  This is fixed for
the next release, which will probably now be releaesd this weekend.

The release will also compute beam headings between your grid square
and one that your are working, support European VHF contests where the
QSO points are computed based upon the distance between stations (as
computed by grid squares) AND support for F11 and F12 as memories.

It also has a bug fix with respect to how prefixes are shown in the 
editable log window during the SAC contest.

My wife no longer believes me when she hears me say: "After I get this
release out the program will done."  She has been hearing that for
about 6 years now.

Today's question - how many of you have had experience with the .CTY
file for CT version 9.  Should TR use that instead of the version 8 
.CTY files?  If not, how shall I get lat/lon of the different countries
so I can generate beam headings automatically.  I'll keep the old
beam heading file around because I know some people use that for
other things.

Another idea that is surfacing finally, is to expand the MASTER.DTA file
to include names.  This would allow infinite expandability on the number
of names AND also reduce the memory used by the program by a whopping
90K!!  There might be a small delay in getting the names, but I don't
see that as a problem (when sending the name on CW, this delay will all
occur while the callsign is being sent).


73 Tree N6TR
tree@contesting.com