DollarLink News -- November 30, 1996

Enhancements Added

Dow-Jones Industrials over 6553

The exception was Dow-Jones Industrials ($INDU) which was already over 1600 then. Special handling was programmed into DollarLink to be able to process $INDU (and $DJ) and still fit its prices into two-byte numbers. This special handling works only if the incoming price number is less than 6553. Ten years ago that seemed like science fiction, but today we are seeing these numbers.

In order to be able to process numbers higher than 6553 correctly, we have now modified DollarLink's special treatment of $INDU and $DJ. The original approach still works, but DollarLink now subtracts a user-input number (called offset ) from an incoming $INDU and $DJ price and then stores the result as a two-byte number. To use this stored number, the two-byte number is converted back into a floating point number and the offset is added.

The file called ACCURATE contains the offset to use. It is a small text file and you can modify it with any text editor or word processor. DollarLink reads this file at startup. If it finds 2 lines of the form

INDU,3000 
DJ,3000

then it processes the $INDU and $DJ numbers in the new manner. If it does not find such a line, it processes the $INDU and $DJ numbers without offsetting the internal numbers.

We supply this ACCURATE file with the updates.

After you upgrade, one step remains. The upgrade will affect all historical charts of $INDU and $DJ. All the $INDU and $DJ prices that were stored prior to this new way of storing did not have the offset number subtracted from them. All old prices will appear too big (by the offset amount).

To correct the historical data for $INDU and $DJ we have written a special utility call DJADJUST. To use after you upgrade, from the DollarLink directory execute

DJADJUST date1 date2 [enter]

where date1 is the starting date (inclusive) and date2 is the ending date (inclusive) of the data to be adjusted.

To adjust all data enter

DJADJUST  0  0 [enter]

To adjust all data prior to, say, 12/1/96, enter

DJADJUST  0   12-1-96

In this example, DJADJUST will go through all your historical files up to and not including data on 12-1-96 and save the $INDU and $DJ data in the new way. It will retain the original files with the same name, except for the last letter which is replaced by B , e.g., 07-07-94.CLS will be the new modified file and the original is still there but called 07-07-94.CLB.

Since DJADJUST does a careful check of the data files, allow plenty of time (a few hours) for DJADJUST to complete its work. Also, make sure you have plenty of free space on your hard disk. DJADJUST will check hard disk availability before proceeding.

After a few days of verification, you should delete all these historical files that end with a B from the disk because they take up room. To do that, from the DollarLink directory execute the following 5 commands:

del cls\*.clb [enter] 
del 05m\*.05b [enter] 
del 15m\*.15b [enter] 
del 30m\*.30b [enter] 
del 60m\*.60b [enter]

Back up your historical data before running DJADJUST. Simply copy all your historical data to some temporary directory on your hard disk. We have included a batch file that you can use to back up all historical data to a directory called TMPDATA . To use it, from the DollarLink directory execute the command

BACKDATA  TMPDATA [enter]

Again, after a few days of verification, you can delete all these back-up files with the command

del \TMPDATA [enter]

The PC will ask you Are you sure? Say yes.

To modify the Dow-Jones, you can request an update from us. All updates are free to currently active customers.

Active customers include all renters, all those on a six-month lease, all purchasers within the last 12 months, or purchasers who have paid the $300 support fee within the last 12 months. Contact us if you wish to check or change your status.

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