;;02-23-85

                          GTXT.DOC v1.1
                            06/18/85

Eric Gans
French Department UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Version 1.1 update:
No  longer  messes up margin of tabbed files (v1.0  confused  the 
BDOS  column  count - thanks to Irvin Block of Sea Cliff  NY  for 
catching this.)


     TXT.COM  is one of those great ideas every programmer wishes 
he  had found for himself.  The idea of making a textfile into  a 
COM file that requires just one command to print it on the screen 
is both practical and elegant.

 The enclosed files GTXT11.COM, GTXT11.000, 0.DAT and COM.SUB are 
more  tributes to the ingenuity of TXT than attempts  to  surpass 
it. They nevertheless offer a couple of improvements.


1.  GTXT11.COM is my version of TXT.COM. It accepts the following 
improvements of recent versions over the original: 

- exit via ^C (I didn't bother to offer other exit  options;  who
needs them?)

- zeroes high bit to read (say) WS doc mode files

- allows  printing  of  control  characters using  "^"  (thus  ^Z 
entered  in the text will blank the screen when the COM  file  is 
run.)

- page breaks can be forced with "~"

In addition,  it takes the trouble to count the lines and issue a 
"[More]"  every  23 lines without your having to add "~"  to  the 
text;  when  you type a character the [More] is blanked  out  and 
doesn't  waste a line on the screen.  Version 1.1 backspaces over 
the [More] rather than doing a CR, which disturbs the BDOS column 
count and puts tabs in the wrong column.  (This is more a bug  in 
CP/M than in GTXT, but we have to work with CP/M, right?)

                              *****

2.  GTXT11.000 is just GTXT11.COM with the 0 (=end) byte missing. 
It  can be used like (G)TXT.COM:  you read it into the text  file 
with  something  like ^KR in WS and find some way  of  putting  a 
binary  0  at  the  end.  But its real purpose is  for  use  with 
COM.SUB,  which  allows  you  to create a COM file  from  a  pre-
existing text file with no editing whatsoever.  COM.SUB  contains 
only one line:

     pip $1.com=gtxt.000,$1.$2,0.dat

The point of renaming GTXT is that since it is not a COM file PIP 
will  cut it off after the EOF marker (1AH) and not put extra  (0 
or other) bytes between it and the textfile you are COMing.   The 
parameters $1 and $2 are, respectively, the filename and filetype 
of your textfile.  They must be separated by a space.  0.DAT is a 
2-byte text file that contains a binary 0 followed by 1AH;  the 0 
serves to mark the end of the read for the COM file you create. 

Example:  suppose you have a little textfile called BLRK.TXT that 
you want to transform into a COM file.  Just enter:

     submit (GSUB is faster) com blrk txt

and  you  will  have  an executable  file  BLRK.COM  while  still 
retaining the original BLRK.TXT.

All the features of GTXT.COM will be implemented. Just be careful 
that you have no (apparent) control characters in your  text.  In 
WS,  for instance, if you underline with ^PS an ^S will remain in 
your  text.  This won't show up in the COM file (in  fact,  it'll 
remove  the unsightly ^S's),  but what if it were ^Z or ^P (which 
would toggle your printer)?