Not much has been said of VU-CALC for a few years. After all, what can you do with a spread sheet that uses print-out on a 2040 printer? And who needs 50 column by 50 lines of data? I found a good use for it for keeping a better record of my retirement income.
Jack Dohany’s revision of VU-CALC got me started on this income record project as it now fits my needs of a suitable print-out at any time. And VU-CALC has the calculating ability for running sums and totals. He has added several nice features -full size printer (standard and wide bed), save to cassette/A&J Microdrive/disk (Oliger, Larken, Aerco). The major changes in the actual operating system provide for QUIT, SAVE, PRINT, and LOAD by menu.
In the Q-mode I can QUIT, BACKUP (copy VU-CALC), ERASE (file in memory), & RESUME. THE P-mode is very interesting as I can define the range of rows/column to print. It will print a single row (as many as 19 columns wide) and a single column (limit of 50 lines plus top titles plus top and bottom column numbers and markers). The maximum for a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper is 19 columns in compressed print mode.
In S-mode the data file is saved according to your storage system. I find that a press of a S key brings up the disk catalog (Oliger) so I can use a prior name to overwrite or a new name, all without BREAKing. All files are of the same length (VU-CALC system) and the top titles and comment lines are not saved.
In L-mode the program asks for the name of the data file to load. If it is necessary to change disk drive numbers it can be done in the Q-mode and then recover with RESUME.
Printer size is set by a program line change as mostly printers are either about 137 or 272 compressed columns. a simple LET pc=137, etc does it. The wide bed with 272 columns figures at about 38 cell columns.
All very nice, but can the ordinary computer user have use for it? For some time I have been looking for a data base program that permits a convenient way to display my retirement monthly income (source and amounts), monthly totals of each, monthly total, totals to date, and the same for a few investments, Social Security, savings accounts, pension, and any other that must be reported to IRS. The annual totals are easy to come by but when quarterly estimated income must be projected, with penalties for being too low, and with variables with every investment, it becomes increasingly painful to work out such projections.
VU-CALC files can be revised at will and calculations run at any time. Now I can work with hard copies for record keeping, and making any necessary notes. I found that with some abbreviating I can get along with 3 cells (21 characters), have some columns for such as costs, dates, value, etc. With organization I can get it all in 19 cells, including a totals column, for 12 months of data. The bottom 2 lines provide a monthly income from all investments and a total to date of all investments.
Thus the above provides a running income from certain investments. There are 31 columns left so allowing for a few for separation, a second record is set up for non-investment income. This is arranged in a similar manner as the first. This one also has a line for the total arrived at with the first spread sheet. Thus a monthly income can be calculated and displayed at any time.
Due to the ability to select lines/columns to be printed, I print out the monthly income sheet first (the section beyond column 19) as it is the sumation, and then the investment record sheet is printed last. In my case there is room for both.
The frosting on the cake is the ability to add as many title/reference lines as one desires to the top of each chart. However, these are not a part of data that is saved so I keep these to a minimum and put in abbreviated notes within the 4-cells (28 characters) permitted. Such text could extend across the sheet if necessary. I think the 4-cell limit is due to the space at the bottom of the screen used for input of data for text.
Jack’s modified VU-CALC includes a printer driver that supports only LPRINT. However it is very nice as it can be used for printer graphics as it supports my Panasonic printer in graphic mode for all numbers 0 thru 255 without a misstep.
You must be a owner of the 2068 VU-CALC to get this up-date. Jack’s documentation only covers his changes so don’t expect to learn how to use VU-CALC from him. The price is $10.00 plus a $5.00 P&H charge for a complete order. So write to Jack Dahony, [address omitted], Redwood City, CA, 94061 for his FAIRWARE catalog and price list for other programs of interest that can be lumped into one order. His prices are very reasonable. He programs for various storage systems, cassette, Larken DOS, A&J wafer drive, Oliger DOS (version 2.5 that supports the much wanted ERASE file, RESTORE for changing disk names, and shows the file starting address besides the current byte size in the directory), and Aerco DOS. Add for drives ranging from 3.5″ SSDD, DSDD, & DSQD, thru 5 1/4″ SSDD, DSDD, & DSQD, plus most of the printer interfaces. I doubt that there is another programmer or soft ware supplier who provides such a wide range of equipment support for individual programs.