ware device.  But I also want to apologize that it is   
   taking longer than a commercial project would take.  But hey, relax, it's   
   all just a hobby, right?  ;-)   
      
      
      
   *************************************   
          GROWING PAINS PART SIV   
     Where I Learned To Code In Style   
            By Lenard R. Roach   
   *************************************   
      
   Out of all the things we can do with our Commodore brand of computers,   
   nothing seems to be more important to me than word processing and   
   budgeting, and out of those two I put budgeting on top.  Usually a good   
   rule of thumb when it comes to budgeting on the Commodore is having a very   
   good to excellent budgeting piece of software, and I found that piece of   
   software in "Run" magazine's type in program, "Money Manager With E-Z   
   Budget" coded by Rex Day and published around 1989.  This Commodore Redneck   
   owes a great deal of his coding knowledge to Mr.  Day when it comes to my   
   making the packages I did for helping users to budget on the Commodore via   
   various software aforementioned in previous articles.  With the exception   
   of my best friend and Commodore guru, Carl, Mr.  Day has taught me the most   
   about programming on the Commodore.  The funny part about this whole   
   educational department for me is that Mr.  Day and I have never met.  In   
   fact, Mr.  Day doesn't even know I exist, but his coding of "Money Manager"   
   deserves to be read by every serious Commodore coder who wants to learn a   
   near perfect balance of BASIC, BASIC machine, and algebraic expressions.   
   I've been using Mr.  Day's "Money Manager" program for over 25 years and it   
   has kept a great eye on my spending habits and has shown me in more than   
   one instance "leaks" in my spending that needed to be "plugged." But, even   
   great pieces of software have flaws and "Money Manager" was no exception.   
      
   It was February 2000, when I sat down at my Commodore 128 and started to   
   work on the first of the month bills.  Usually, "Money Manager" asked if   
   this is a new month, and upon pressing "Y" the computer transposes the data   
   from the previous month (like check book balances and etc.) to the new   
   month, Not so this time!  The program asked, "Is this the first input to   
   the program?" Odd.  That's a beginning of the year function.  Upon pressing   
   "N" the program balked and demanded a valid month then sent me back to   
   start up.  I entered the same screen again and, to make a long story short,   
   I had to set up for February like I did January inputting data all over   
   again.  Upon investigation of the program text, it seemed that "Money   
   Manager" was suffering from a "Y2K" malady and needed to be fixed.  I must   
   admit I was a little nervous to go into the BASIC of the program and start   
   working on the problem.  Mr.  Day had the maximum amount of functions   
   settled into a minimal amount of code.  Any tinkering of that code may set   
   an unbalance and cause the program to crash upon every boot with possibly   
   no hope of recovery.  I studied every line of the 71 block long program   
   before zeroing in on the first 25 lines and deciphering that the date stamp   
   lives in these lines.  It took me a couple of hours of trial and error and   
   several reboots before I finally got "Money Manager" to cooperate with the   
   new date stamp I installed.  What I did in short was change the "mm/yy"   
   stamp into a "mm/yyyy" stamp, then going through the program and change any   
   GOTO or GOSUB references to the old date stamp to agree with my changes.   
   There was a numerical expression of "100" which told the program to stop   
   working in a year stamp past 99 to "10000" so the program would totally   
   agree with years starting from 2000 and beyond.   
      
   After making a program like "Money Manager," written by a great master of   
   Commodore code like Rex Day to work beyond it's intended life expectancy, I   
   wanted some cussing credit for my effort.  At the beginning of "Money   
   Manager" is the introduction screen which was coded at the beginning of the   
   program (stands to reason).  Before I put in the necessary PRINT statements   
   I thought it best to write in Mr.  Day as the primary coder and myself for   
   just adding the "Y2K" updates.  Also, for anything I wrote or was a   
   contributor to, I included the name of my local Commodore user group, and   
   yet, when all this was done, the intro screen still lacked the necessary   
   information I felt was necessary, so I changed the name of the work from   
   "Money Manager" to "Money Manager 2K," signifying that this work was now   
   compatible with the year 2000 and beyond.  Also, as a side bar, I added   
   that "Run" magazine published the original code.   
      
   "Money Manager" itself is a great tool with features like an electric   
   checkbook, checkbook analyzer, and department keeper.  In the "E-Z Budget"   
   half there is a budget calculator, a future forecaster (you input the   
   numbers and "E-Z Budget" calculates them down), and a break down by   
   department.  The setup is simple:  At first input you create your own   
   department heads where each input into the electric checkbook *must* go   
   under a heading.  As the year progresses you can add departments as you go   
   up to 16 extra inputs, or you can change a department head that is inert   
   into a new active department.  The computer saves all your departments to   
   disk and will access all your departments and load them into your   
   Commodore.  In "Budget Analysis" all your departments are calculated for   
   the month thus far and printed onto screen or printer.  "E-Z Budget" also   
   does an analysis from projected (your guess) to actual (what really went   
   down) to give you an idea on where yours was planned to go and where it   
   actually went.  Mr.  Day also added handy "Help" messages that refer to the   
   screen currently displayed.  Simply go to the screen in question and press   
   "H" and a box in reverse field will appear at the bottom guiding the user   
   as to what to do.   
      
   After using "Money Manager With E-Z Budget" for over two decades I've found   
   only two quirks in the work that I personally blame on the publisher of the   
   code text and not on Mr.  Day himself:  One is that the computer will   
   syntax and crash at one of the "Help" messages, but I don't use the help   
   messages anymore so this is not a cumbersome issue, but for the beginning   
   user of the program it can be a problem.  When this happens just type in   
   RUN at the flashing cursor and the program will restart, but any unsaved   
   input will be lost.  This brings me to the second problem:  If too much   
   data is entered in one sitting without an occasional dump to disk, "Money   
   Manager" will lock up and not even the pressing of RUN/STOP-RESTORE will   
   break the program loop.  Here the user must turn off, then turn on the   
   computer and reboot the program.  All unsaved data is definitely lost.   
   I've found a way around this is to SAVE after every third or fourth input.   
   It's tedious, it's long, but it is a big headache saver in the end.   
      
   As you probably guessed, I would like to call my programs for Commodore the   
   "best written works" available, but with such great Commodore programmers   
   like Mr.  Day, Carl, and others past and present, I will have to take a   
   seat in the back of the room.   
      
   If you would like a copy of "Money Manager With E-Z Budget" I'm sure an   
   image of it can be found on many Commodore archive websites for free   
   download, but those copies will not have my "Y2K" updates.  Then again, we   
   are well past the first decade of the new century so Mr.  Day's original   
   code should work fine; but if you want the program with my updates then   
   please send me a self addressed stamped envelope big enough to hold a 5   
   1/4" disk to the address found on my website elomaster.wix.com/lenardroach   
   along with $1 USD (to cover the cost of the disk) and I will get a copy to   
   you.  There's no way I can give "Money Manager" due justice in one short   
   article, but if you've been looking for a great, affordable financial piece   
   of Commodore software then Rex Day's "Money Manager With E-Z Budget" should   
   be what you've been seeking.   
      
      
      
   *************************************   
              REVIEW: DUBCRT   
      Commodore 64 Limited Cartridge   
                (PAL only)   
   *************************************   
      
   Stand aside X factor wannabies, droning on and on with the same old vocals   
   as last year's entrants, singing the same songs looking all alike and auto   
   tuned to death, surely it's time for a change isn't it?   
      
   Could this be the future of electronic music?  Certainly in this format the   
   device is unique!  I used to play Jeff Minter's psycadellia to death with   
   various albums on and the lights powered off.  Just me and the C64 and a   
   visual light show, flickering and dancing around my bedroom, I mean the   
   lights - not my good self.   
      
   DUBCRT is released as a music album interactive light synthesizer and remix   
   gadget, the device is for PAL only Commodore 64 and comes in the form of a   
   cartridge.  On the cartridge we have music and visuals from (as the website   
   states) "some of the most prolific experimentalists of the 8-bit scenes",   
   If you're a "throbbing gristle www.throbbing-gristle.com/ or industrial   
   music fan this is definitely the device for you" Genesis Breyer P-Orridge   
   says that you don't need talent or instruments but you do have to create   
   something new and not reproduce what has been done before, hundreds of   
   people can sing but it takes a special magic to create something that   
   hasn't been done before.  (not taking anything away from the music on this,   
   its unique and pushes the Commodore in a different direction than just   
   chiptunes)   
      
   If your expecting Rob hubbard riffs you will be surprised/disappointed   
   depending on your outlook, the websites links have the music you can listen   
   to and get an idea of the music styles.   
      
   DUBCRT features are :   
      
   * Eight songs ranging from ambient to IDM and drum n' bass   
      
   * Visualisers that react to the music, and that are user-controllable   
      
   * A secret remix module that allows you to re-interpret all the music   
     on the cartridge   
      
   With the Commodore 64 standard cartridges only holding 64 kilobytes - which   
   the website says is the "equivalent to 1.5 seconds of MP3-audio".  making   
   all the graphics in PETSCII art certainly make colourful and quirky variant   
   on the Commodore 64.   
      
   The box and cartridge really look the part, the dub cart logo is truly a   
   work of art and I would definitely love a poster of this in my man cave.   
   The lights on the cartridge and the clear case add to the low-tech retro   
   feel.  If you love the Commodore 64 you can't fail to want one of these   
   devices.   
      
   The basic idea is this:  you boot your machine and select what I call   
   Element.  This is a number from 1 to 8 that will play music and feed back a   
   visiual effect of petscii art.  You can use various keys as outlined in the   
   manual to manipulate the art in different ways.  Changing the colour and   
   the way the art moves are just two such elements.  Pressing  takes   
   you back to the main menu.  If you watch/listen to the tunes in a specific   
   way you can enter a remix section of the cartridge.   
      
   The final musical element is a petscii game where you control a ball using   
   the joystick - it's all very interesting stuff and the music is very   
   evolving.  Some may call it non-music but it all depends on your view of   
   art.   
      
   There is also an audio version of the Commodore64 cartridge will all of the   
   tracks that have been recorded from an actual MOS 6581 and MOS 8580 SID   
   chips from authentic hardware - This has a stereo mix combining both of the   
   SID models into one waveform.  Also included in the audio version are   
   eleven remixes from artists such as Datasette, Julien Mier and Mesak.   
      
   SCORES   
      
   Hardware design: 10/10   
   Sounds: 10/10   
   Graphics: 10/10   
   Features: 10/10   
   Packaging: 10/10   
   Overall: 10/10   
      
   SUMMARY   
      
   I don't have any comments how could you make comments on perfection, other   
   than we need another batch of these and a follow up concept!  Maybe more   
   control over the music and effects?   
      
   NOTES   
      
   Goto80 (audio, Sweden) was one of three nominees for best C64-composer at   
   Commodore's 25 year anniversary, the band regularly perform live around the   
   world.  They also do academic research on text mode graphics   
      
   --- MBSE BBS v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux-x86_64)   
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