B E N - The Clock
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     This is a little command that I conjured up one boring day in the Uni
holidays.  I was sick and tired of the Americanised date routine that gives
the month before the day and says it in a very non-user-friendly way,  so I
wrote BEN.  BEN is a DATE replacement program that got it's name from Big
Ben (you might say that this is Miniature Ben - as it is only about 4K when
crunched - Not bad for compiled Pascal).

     Included in this group of files are the following:-

               Ben     - The command
               Ben.p   - Source code
               Read.Me - This file

     This is shareware, and hence is freely distributable, as long as this
software is kept in the one group or archive and it is not bought or sold.
If you wish to write to me, use this address (donations will be more than
welcomed; they will be spent!) :-)

     By the way, iv'e change my address...

               Michael Glew
               Lot 61 Warrambool Road
               Tumbi Umbi
               NSW 2261
               Australia

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NB:  This is a new copy of the old archive which I discovered had a bug
only 10 minutes after I had placed in on Paragon BBS.  The bug is fixed in
this version, and please note that it would be a good idea to rename Ben as
Date in order for SetClock and other dependant commands to recognise it.
                                             25/01/91

     I found yet another <MAJOR> bug, so I have corrected that using a
recursive procedure and have made the resulting code a little smaller and
faster using Inc().  I will try to make it even smaller.
                              v1.3           30/01/91

     Now if BEN is used with a question mark in the command line, it will
give info.  I've taken out the IO test routines as it seems to work OK but
I would be more than pleased if you would send bug reports if any bugs are
found.  A couple of messy bits have been fixed with regards to MODs and a
variable has been eliminated.  I rewrote the CutBack procedure to cutback
the date by brute force.  This saves a bit of program space.  The run time
increase is negleble.  Does anyone want anything else done to it?
                              v1.4           09/03/91

     I've fixed some of the code to make it and the executable smaller.
                              v1.5           30/03/91

     I've merged 4 hunks into 3 so the executable is smaller than would
normally be output by PCQ.  I've merged the variables Day and clk into one
namely counter to save on variable space.  Exit() has been omitted to save
space, and the AM/FM 24 -> 12 hr time part has been re-written and is now
much smaller, and also other stuff has been moved around to make it neater.
                              v1.6           03/05/91

     Made it a tiny bit smaller by using short types instead of integers.
Re-compiled using PCQ 1.1d - The code is also slightly different due to the
include files being slightly different - The result, much smaller
executable.
                              v1.7           24/05/91

     PCQ 1.1d has a library which makes the code tiny and the executable
smaller.
                              v2.0           25/05/91

     I've re-compiled the code under PCQ 1.2b with the peep-hole optimiser
bringing the executable size down.  Further optimisations are under
development.  I got Pat Quaid to get the DateTools.i library working again.
                              v2.1           27/02/92

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     I have gained access to telnet and have an account on progbbs.  Anyone
who wants more info or wants to give any ideas can contact me on this bbs
by telneting to "anchovy.socs.uts.edu.au" or "yak.socs.uts.edu.au" and
logging in as "progbbs".  You can mail me under my name (Michael Glew), or
chat to me on IRC under the handle Redbeard.

     I will be getting an Internet mail account this year, so it will be
quoted in the next version...