The files that will appear on this page for downloading will come in a variety of different formats. The file's extension will usually give you a clue as to what to expect when you download it. Smaller files can be downloaded to a floppy diskette -- make certain you have room for the file on your floppy. For larger files, you may need access to a fixed disk.

If the file has an extension of EXE, it is an executable program. This means that, after you download the file, you need to run it. At least 3 ways to do this come to mind:

1. Click on the Windows Task Bar Start button. Choose Run. Then either enter the downloaded file's name and location or select Browse to search for it. And, finally, click Okay to execute the program.
   
   
2. Click on the Windows task Bar Start button. Choose Programs. Then choose Windows Explorer. Navigate through your files until you locate the file you downloaded. Double click on this file to execute it.
   
   
3. Click on the Windows task Bar Start button. Choose Programs. Choose MS DOS Prompt. Change to the drive and directory containing the file you downloaded. Then enter the name of the downloaded file to execute it.

In this course, I anticipate downloading two different types of executable files:

• Executable versions of Visual Basic projects. These will have been created by choosing File then Make from the Visual Basic menu. Such programs may be executed on any PC running Windows 95.
  
  
• Zipped versions of Visual Basic projects. As you know (or will learn), each Visual Basic project is composed of several files. In order to facilitate distribution of such files (and to save a little space), all the files in the Visual Basic project are combined in one executable self-extracting Zip file. When you execute that file, the original files are extracted to your disk. Once they have been extracted, you should be able to load the project into Visual Basic Version 5.0 so you may examine it and/or make changes to it.

  By the way, if you are interested in acquiring PKZip for yourself, you may visit the PKWARE,Inc. home page at http://www.pkware.com/ to obtain a shareware copy. I have found this to be a great product in a variety of situations and recommend it without hesitation.

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  Download material

  Character Set Program (34KB) This is a self-extracting PKZip file. Download it to a disk and execute the program. After expansion, you should have the following files on your disk:

  • CharSet.exe (44KB) The complied program
  • CharSet.frm (94KB) The form for this project
  • CharSet.vbp (1KB) The project file.
  • CharSet.vbw (1KB) The project "work file."
  • CharSet.hlp (2KB) The "help file" that displays when the help button is clicked.
  You can run the compiled version of the program simply by clicking on it from Windows Explorer. Or, the project can be loaded into Visual basic so you can examine/modify the code if you wish. However you do it, try the program out to get a feel for what can be accomplished using different screen fonts in Visual basic.

  If you load the program into the Visual Basic development environment, the first time you run it you will be prompted to locate the help file. Simply click your way to the drive/directory where the above files are located.

  A TicTacToe game (32K byte compiled VB program). This game allows you to choose a board that is between 3 by 3 and 12 by 12. You play it against yourself or another person. As written, the form has a control array of command buttons. During the form's design, Command1(0) was placed onto the form. During the program's execution, the VB Load statement is used to add command buttons as needed to the game while the Unload statement is used to remove buttons from the game when they are no longer needed. This method of dynamically adding/deleting control array objects to/from a running project can be used with any control array. And, as we will see, provides a great deal of flexibility during program exection.

  A simple calculator (40K byte complied VB program). This is the calculator that was (will be) demonstrated in class. It allows you to do arithmetic use the VB type Long. Vaules can be entered/displayed as binary, octal, decimal or hexadecimal numbers. Try it out. Make sure it functions as promised in class. Think about what it's doing. The next homework will be to write a version of this program that performs decimal arithmetic using values of type Long. Needless to say, the calculator you put together should not die with runtime errors such as Overflow, Division by Zero, etc. for overflow, etc.

  PowerPoint File of the slides on disk physical and logical disk formats. This is a Powerpoint 97 file that may be loaded, printed, etc.

  Display the PowerPoint show in your web browser. Clicking here will allow you to use your browser to view the PowerPoint show covering logical and physical disk formats.