If he's determined to stay in the dark ages, it sounds to me like a simple
elimination of Win98 would improve things. A simple addition to the
autoexec.bat file would start the program immediately and eliminate the overhead
of Win98.

My bigger concern would be the age of the hardware. And, I'd guess, he's
running on a single disk with no backups. Something as simple as a new whitebox
PC with DOS 6.whatever on it would likely be an improvement over what he's got
now. It's been a while, but I suspect the autoexec file could also
automagically write a backup of the database to a floppy on shutdown of the
application. Of course, that would make the owner the weakest link coz he'd
have to take the backup off site every day.

If you can convince him to move into the modern age, the biggest single reason
to connect to the web would be for an automated backup to a web-based backup
service. That would require, of course, a hardware firewall between his PC and
the web - but that'd be a small price to pay for not losing his business due to
a PC problem.

Connecting him to the internet in any way would be like expecting me to walk on
water he's totally paranoid. I like your thoughts on DOS. Like you it's been
awhile. Going to have to draft a friend who is still a DOS master. He still
loves Dos but has an XP machine I built him and is willing to learn at 70+years.

it is not apparent that your friend is experiencing any
problems that need fixing. Unless your friend has asked for your help in
solving a problem, then my advice would be to leave this situation alone. If
you get involved, you will own any and all software/hardware problems your
friend encounters any time in the future.

Use a printout as the backup. Once a week, or whatever, have him printout the
data as a backup and store it in a fire-proof safe. He can't possibally have
that many storage units. That way when the system crashes he will only be a week
behind.

>small Linux distro that will do a better job for him and be able to
>read his old files. they are built in basic, yes that's right the
>original BASIC.

If it works and he is happy with it, why change, its doing everything
that he wants to do with it.


>The man is eccentric he will not connect to the internet he thinks
>that if the phone line is connected to his PC anyone can get in even
>if it's off line and shut down.

They Can't?? I'll put my line plug back in then.

That would be a good reason to give him DOS access to the Internet
with a text browser like Lynx and let him develop on his existing
platform. He would likely be quite comfortable with just unplugging
an external modem or powering it down or just a simple switch in the
telephone wire, to provide him with the confidence that he is trying
to maintain. He could visually verify that he is disconnected in any
of the three manners, guaranteed. What he really needs is a reason to
connect to the Internet. Could you supply that? Backup, Info, whatever etc.

>I wouldn't be surprised if he thought Bill Gates worked for the CIA.

He doesn't?? Damm it, after all these years! Nobody was in a
better position.


>He's strange but all in all a nice guy.

And completely confident in what he is now doing, don't push the
envelope too far, just enough to let him evolve confidently.
Eventually he will evolve, maybe not, but with your help maybe.

I was interested in your problem, as I make a lot of use of DOS and BASIC.

You didn't say which type of BASIC your friend uses ie. GWBASIC, QBASIC
or any of the other dialects of the language. IIRC the very early PCs
had BASIC installed in a ROM chip, then there was BASICA which was on
disk. How did it get transferred to Win98? Is the program being run in
interpreted or compiled mode?

Why make any changes if the existing system is working OK?

There isn't much support for BASIC running under Linux, although there
are one or two versions available. Most Linux programs are written in C.

I can strongly recommend BBC BASIC for Windows, available from
www.rtrussell.co.uk Its a very powerful, yet easy to use language,
with excellent support from the author. I use it for all new programs,
and it is one of the reasons why I still use Windows...

BTW I still use native DOS on an older PC, for a couple of office type
applications. This dual boots with an older version of Ubuntu.