DBT for MS-DOS Product History

Version / Build Entered (Released)

10;2e* / 1999-8-17 (1999-9-15)

(* Note: The version number is shown as "10;2d" in the "About" box, although "10;2e" is shown in the "readme" and elsewhere; either designation, 10;2d or 10;2e, may be used in referring to this version.)

Support for print-to-braille translation in a number of new languages or variants has been added, viz. for: Afrikaans, English/South African, English/Unified (UBC) (Experimental!) Irish Gaelic, Nguni (Xhosa/Zulu), Sotho (Sesotho), Swedish/Uncontracted, Tsonga, Venda, and Welsh (Cymraeg). All, except as noted, are contracted braille systems. Special thanks to the South Africa Blind Workers and the Institute for the Blind, South Africa, who principally developed the Afrikaans, Nguni, Sotho, Tsonga and Venda tables. Please note also that the UBC tables are incorporated for experimental uses only; UBC is not yet an officially accepted code for general braille production.
We have improved the formatted view cursor placement so that the cursor may be viewed on blank lines.
Table imports from MS Word have been greatly improved, so that the outline form of braille tables are automated.
DBT now recognizes several of the most commonly used MS Word styles, and equates them with DBT styles. For instance, the Word style "Normal" imports as the DBT style "para."
DBT now supports the auto-numbered lists and auto-bulleted lists which MS Word creates. We do recommend using list styles in Word when creating lists, so as to enable DBT to import the formatting better.
DBT now recognizes bold and italic font changes, and automatically applies the braille symbols appropriately. Please note that this will not affect the print document, as DBT currently does not support font changes within a print document.
If text in a braille font is imported from another document, DBT will use "grade 0," which will leave the imported braille as-is through the import and translation processes.
The license file (AJGMW.DXR) is now by itself on a separate "license disk", for convenience. The license disk is still needed only at installation.
There have been minor updates to the American and British translation tables, and somewhat more extensive updates to the French translation tables.

10;2 / 1998-2-3 (1998-2-18)

A problem affecting the back/front margin calculation when embossing in interpoint mode was corrected. Also, form-feeds after the second and subsequent pages could be inappropriately omitted in some circumstances, affecting both interpoint and single-sided embossing. (Note: These problems were introduced as an inadvertent by-product of the graphic inclusion feature in earlier editions of version 10;2; they would not affect versions 10;1 and earlier.)

10;2 / 1998-1-23 (1998-1-26)

A direct import filter was added for Word 7 and Word 97 files. This filter should also work for most Word 6 files.
Support for mathematics and science notation according to American code (Nemeth Code) has been added. This involved addition of associated mathematical tagging (e.g. superscript start/end codes) and characters, and provision for the special handling of contractions in "math context" as well as actual math notation.
Support for inclusion of dot-graphic files, such as those produced by the TAG graphic composition program (.SIG files), Picture Braille and the ETGrafix and VPGRAPH screen capture programs (.BRG and .VIM files) has been added. This was done by adding a new "gd" (graphic data) command, which is generally similar in purpose to the former "pi" command, but is improved -notably in that the included file data is now actually incorporated into the DBT file at the time of reference, rather than relying upon access to the graphic file at embossing time.
Braille-to-print translation when using the Spanish tables was improved so that grade 1 Spanish should read normally.
Direct support for several new languages has been added on the Document/Translation menu. These new languages are: Dutch/Uncontracted, Finnish/Uncontracted, German/Uncontracted, Italian/Uncontracted, Kiswahili (Swahili), Latin/Uncontracted, and Portuguese/Brazilian.
The "help" documentation has been considerably updated, and now includes a "how-to" section covering special topics such as working with mathematics notation and mixed-language documents.
The "direct codes list" (from the Layout menu, or F5) has been improved to include a brief description and also selectable categories.
A problem that could cause the cursor to jump to a different position when switching between coded and formatted views has been corrected.
A memory allocation problem that could cause a crash in certain circumstances (experienced by only a few users in practice) has been corrected.

10;1 / 1997-4-2 (1997-4-7)

Several editing problems, notably one that could cause a crash when doing a "replace" backwards, were corrected.
A problem whereby other selected translation tables could appear to revert to "American" has been corrected.
The treatment of German language within the British tables was improved, that is there is now better "partial grade 2 German". Likewise, use of the specifically foreign-language punctuation and other indicators was restricted to grade 2. Both changes are for better conformity with British treatment of foreign languages embedded in English context.
Certain words were corrected in the French tables.
There was a minor correction to the WordPerfect import, for certain unusual kinds of quote marks in character set 4.

10;1 / 1997-1-27 (1997-1-28)

The ability to select contractions when using the American tables (by section from the LOC "Braille Instruction Manual") is now incorporated within DBT's menus. (This was previously accomplished by manual file manipulations, using a separate free supplement nicknamed "WeeBee Dots".)
The braille-to-print table selection is now automatically inferred from the print-to-braille choice.
The WordPerfect character-set mapping tables have been updated so that Greek and Cyrillic text should now be converted, at the point of import, to special print file codes that directly determine the braille. This will effect useful braille translation in both cases. For Greek, the code used is for "classical" Greek.
Foreign-language treatment within English has been both generalized and simplified by addition of the "[lng~..]" code for language switching. Older methods (based on the [fl-lifg] and [fl-span] codes) remain operative.
By default, grade 1 within English now observes the dot-4 convention for accented letters, instead of presuming that French or German conventions should be followed, unless either the [fl-lifg] or the [fl-span] code has been explicitly used. A new code, [fl-none], can be used to restore the default condition if one of the other [fl-...] codes has been used (but the new [lng~...] codes are simpler now preferred, in any case).
Support for the Maori language (via [lng~mao]) has been added, within the American tables.
New editing operations for style and line joining have been added.
The quick-reference document on codes has been reorganized and updated.
The braille-to-print translation has been updated slightly. The "religious" contractions will now be expanded only if the new "[vrn~rlg]" code is used; otherwise they will not be recognized. Also, we have discontinued the previous custom of using dot 4 to "quote" the next braille character, that is to assert that it has its "ASCII braille" meaning; instead, the BANA symbols using dot 4 prefix, such as the percent sign (dots 4, 2-5, 1-2-3-4) are recognized where appropriate. The former "quoting" behavior may be restored, if desired, using the new "[vrn~quo]" code.

10;1 / 1996-9-27 (1996-9-30)

An option to issue a banner page on embossed output was added.
A translation problem with certain capitalized accented letters was corrected.
The memory model was changed to use less "low DOS" memory.
Speed and other minor issues were improved in some imports, e.g. HTML files (via SGML/ICADD import).
The braille fonts and font generator program were updated to match the previous release of DBT Win (i.e. for newer Windows [e.g. Windows NT] requirements)
Imports from WordPerfect were improved for certain special characters (e.g. cent, degree).

10;1 / 1995-11-16 (1995-11-16)

(This update is mostly to bring DBT for MS-DOS back into general equivalence to DBT for Windows, as most of the items mentioned below have been true for DBT Win since its initial release in September.)
Spell-checking of English print text is now included.
Styles may now be "linear" as well as the general (nestable) styles formerly provided for. A linear style may not nest nor overlap with another linear style, which is a sensible restriction for certain basic and even hierarchial formatting elements such as headings and outlines. When used, as is entirely optional, linear styles prevent certain kinds of tagging errors and in general make style tagging easier because a linear style, when applied, automatically extends to the "hard returns" or equivalent "paragraph boundaries" on either side. Also, because only one linear style may be in effect at a given place in the document, the "current linear style", if any, corresponding to the current cursor, is displayed in the status line. General (nestable) styles may still nest with each other and/or with linear styles. In other words they work the same as before, and may be used for any purpose, e.g. for natural language declaration.
The standard templates have been updated to make good use of the new linear style facilities. Existing documents are not affected, as they already contain all the information (including style library) that was in effect at the time of creation, except of course for those items that have purposely been changed.
The SGML/ICADD import/export filter was changed for a better match to the new standard templates, with linear styles.
Operations, especially search & replace, have been speeded up.
Allow import suggestion logic to choose WordPerfect for WP 6.1 files.
New commands have been added for more convenient treatment of margin indentation and block protection within hierarchies ([hi], [hl], and [ki]), for page ejection only if not already at the top of a new page ([top]), and for skipping to a particular line, counting from the top ([st]).
In WPBRI (i.e. in WordPerfect imports generally), minor problems due to unecessary word-gathering (redundant [:] ... [;] codes) and in the treatment of certain outlines have been fixed. Certain post-WP-import DBT crashes have also been eliminated.

10;1 / 1995-7-27 (1995-8-14)

A bug has been fixed that could cause DBT to freeze upon applying a style containing $pg or equivalent.
A command, [svantN], has been added to permit running-headers or print page numbers to be "anticipatory", i.e. reflect changes on the page instead of the condition at the top of page.
The block protect commands have been extended with new parameters, allowing "linkage" of neighboring blocks and the last line of a paragraph with a following block (useful in multiple-header situations and letter closings, for example).
A new facility has been added in preliminary form (i.e. it is not yet on the menu nor is it documented anywhere else) that causes a "raised print" banner to be put onto the front of embossed output, for the benefit of sighted people who may need to handle the output but cannot read the braille. You must have an embosser that can go into graphics mode in the way that the Enabling Technology or VersaPoint embossers do, or the output will probably not be very good though it may still be usable. To activate the option, put any one of the lines:
.banner:et1 .banner:et2 .banner:vp .banner:none
anywhere after the "...101" line in your DXPRLS.DXR file, using DOS EDIT or any other simple text editor. "et1" should be used for Enabling Technology printers that are single-sided or set to act as such, "et2" for ET embossers running double-sided, and "vp" for VersaPoint or equivalent embossers. "none" is there for completeness, though you don't really need to add such a line because that is the default.

10;1 / 1995-6-6

DBT printing and embossing problems in some environments have been corrected. (DBT would sometimes fail to handshake on serial ports, or fail to drive simple text printers. Also, setting a "top margin" could cause later blank lines to be omitted.)
DBT's printer and embosser port selections have been augmented to include network queues.
A problem with exit from DBT when it was run in a Windows "DOS box" has been corrected. (The exit would cause Windows itself to crash.)
DBT "spawn process failure" on SGML/ICADD imports has been corrected.
Indents and tabs in WordPerfect files should now import directly into DBT correctly. (The proportion was being applied incorrectly, usually causing indented material to be placed at the left margin. When used outside DBT, WPBRI itself was not affected.)
DBT's export to TXT and BRU files was changed to use "hard space" ($' or |') for significant spaces beyond the first in a sequence -instead of the newly defined code 127, which has not yet been implemented for importing purposes.
DBT's temporary file allocation strategy has been improved, so they should now all be allocated one place, controllable by TMP, TEMP or DUXTEMP environment variables (or the local directory if none of these are set), and a warning is given if temporary files exist on startup.
DBT's editing cursor motion has been improved in a few areas, both as to speed and positioning.
The DBT failure that would occur with "dbt /p [filename]" or "dbt /b [filename]", when a translation was implied, has been corrected.
DBT's handling of invalid keystrokes has been improved, so that they are now ignored instead of possibly causing an excursion into a "menu mode". (The "menu mode" effect could appear as a freeze, as no actual menu would appear on screen and several keys might be ignored before a valid menu would appear and/or Escapes would dismiss the menu mode and bring things back to normal.)
DBT now simply "beeps" instead of crashing when F1 (help) is pressed with the F1 help screen already in view.
DBT will no longer hang when importing WordPerfect documents containing Hebrew characters. (But note that a special supplement to DBT is needed if Hebrew text is to be processed into Hebrew braille.)
A DBT conflict with certain memory managers, e.g. 386Max and "cloaking" generally (as in ScreenPower), has been removed.
DBT should now recover more gracefully from "hard BIOS errors" encountered on startup, such in the case where "dbt a:filename" is given as a command but there is no disk in drive A.

10;1 / 1995-4-14

This is a major update, bringing in wordprocessing functions, allowing all of DBT to be used via menus (as well as the traditional batch files), French and Spanish grade 2, and other improvements as discussed in newsletter 21 and those immediately preceding. DUXWP at this point is no longer part of DBT because DBT itself has all of DUXWP's capabilities and more -though DUXWP remains a separate product in its own right.

7;10 / 1994-2-14

WordPerfect v. 6.0 files are now accepted as input to the WordPerfect bridge (WPBRI) and menu system (DUXWP), as well as v. 5.x files.

7;9 / 1993-12-22

The American and British translating tables have been updated to accommodate a number of unusual words brought to our attention by a British customer. (Thanks also to RNIB for its assistance in working with that list.) Several other minor issues, such as improper sequencing in certain cases where "A" is not the indefinite article, were also addressed.

7;9 / 1993-11-10

A bug in the new $sc command was fixed; a line was not being skipped after running heads in cases such as $sc1:0. Because the WordPerfect bridge (WPBRI) issues those commands before centered lines, there should now be a skipped line between running heads and centered headings in braille generated via DUXWP.

7;9 / 1993-10-14

DUXWP has been fixed so it should no longer "lock up" when File Open is selected in a directory containing WordPerfect 6.0 files. Such files will not appear on the selection list, however; only WP 5.x files are accepted as of this date, which means that users of WP 6.0 should save in that format for DUXWP (i.e. WPBRI processing). (Note: We are still awaiting WP Corp. release of the third-party toolkit for WP 6.0, and expect to provide direct compatibility within a few months after it appears.)
A few obscure translation errors have been corrected.
In the formatter (TRANSF), the magazine paragraphing command ($pm) was corrected so that an indented right margin, if any, is respected.
WPBRI was updated so that dollar codes can be directly specified in the WP file itself, through the mechanism of the "Printer Control" command. (Note: This is still regarded as an experimental feature. If used, it is strongly recommended that it be used only through the "Styles" mechanism of WP -that is, that "Printer Control" sequences containing dollar codes appear only in style definitions, which are referenced from the text, and not directly in the text itself. Note that, if actual printing to a regular printer is required, then a parallel style library NOT containing any printer controls must also be set up -otherwise, the dollar codes will be sent to the printer.)
PIMBRI was updated so that it no longer considers "/" and ":" to be "ornamental" characters that may divide table columns in the print. That was occasionally causing rigidly aligned dates to be treated as three distinct table columns; aligned times could be similarly treated.

7;9 / 1993-8-4

Minor documentation updates: duxprint.txt file added to disk, to allow brailling if desired (as this document is no longer distributed in hard copy).

7;9 / 1993-7-29

Update translating tables, slightly in the case of the American tables (e.g. "autofocus" was corrected), more extensively in the case of the British tables (e.g. for better conformance to British letter-sign usage with certain letter-digit combinations).

7;9 / 1993-7-16

In formatting (TRANSF and associated format control tables), extend the block protection ("keeping on one page") formatting commands, and add a command for conditional line skipping, depending on the type of the previous line.
For output (COPYX or any of its associated batch files, e.g. BRFOUT), allow a larger left binding margin--mostly for improved support of narrow-format interpoint printing.

7;9 / 1993-3-26

Change DUXWP's tendency to call all drives "floppy" if (and only if) DUXDRVS environment variable was set.
Fix DUXWP problem whereby use of the End key in file lists (in the "open" operation) would have unexpected results.
For output to LPT ports (via COPYX), default to ignoring "offline" on LPT port even if the colon is left off the name.
Fix COPYX problem with long delay between pages when printing beyond page 128. (Actually, for simulated printouts on PostScript printers, delay has merely been cut in half; fixing this problem remains tbd.)
Fix COPYX tendency to ignore Escape key at paused transmission, contrary to on-screen instruction that Esc terminates.
In formatting (via TRANSF), extend $pi command to allow selection of "image number within file", and allow .BRG as well as .VIM file extension, for better compatibility with Enabling Technology's ETGRAPHX.
Improve TRANSF treatment of "line of dots" for print page change at braille page changes.
In TRANSF, implement variable bottom tolerance for showing external page break, including new field in $svles command.
Rework margin tracking for better treatment of tabs and indents when margin settings are in effect (WPBRI).
Fix WPBRI problem when block protect appears on first line in file.
Make SCRUB a "freeware" utility, and allow negative states wherein the default rule is to delete characters.

7;9 / 1993-2-23

DUXWP no longer hangs computer when accessing floppy disk drive that has no subdirectories.
WordPerfect Bridge now treats [L/R Margin] code in a more appropriate fashion.

7;9 / (TRANST) & DUXWP 1;5 / 1993-1-28 (1993-2-2) (changes since 1992-6)

Support for driving the HP DeskJet for simulated braille has been added.
An incompatibility that affected running DUXWP under Windows and with MasterTouch has been removed.
The problem with opening a non-local file (i.e. specifying a full path name) when running DUXWP from the command line has been corrected.
Conversion of WordPerfect files now correctly treats OZ (Australian English) and ES (Spanish) codes; formerly, both were treated as grade 1 French.
Conversion of "hard spaces" in WordPerfect files has been improved.
DUXWP now warns when an attempt is made to open a password-protected file.
Early DUXWP's always used dashes and hyphens for output word-breaking regardless of the hyphenation setting; that problem has been corrected.
A problem affecting the braille format, when a running footer is in use and braille page numbers (but no running head) are on the top line, has been corrected.
Several translation updates have been introduced, e.g. to correct some obscure problem words and to follow the new BANA rules regarding letter signs following hyphens following numbers.
The physical output process is now more tolerant of unusual "device ready" indications, and so is less likely to "lock up".
When putting out simulated braille to LaserJet, Pixelmaster or DeskJet printers, older versions would not actually allow interline spacing (skipped lines); that option is now permitted.
The dot size and other aspects of the simulated braille fonts may now be reconfigured by the user.
A problem affecting word breaking, when several hyphens or "$-" commands were used in the same word, or when active hyphenation (as in the French supplement) was in effect, has been corrected. (The symptom was that the word would be broken by unwanted spaces in the first part of the word, before the actual break at end of line.)
A new command to set paragraph style, $svprg, has been added; among other things this makes it easy to set up so paragraphing is done "outdented" instead of the usual "indented" style in braille.
Several potential problems with print-page breaks, such as their placement when running footers are also used, have been corrected.
A problem affecting guideword footers has been corrected; it could happen that an entry could be shown in the footer even though it did not begin until the next page.
The treatment of $slN in the absence of a preceding $l (which is not recommended) has been reset to act like the older TRANSF.
A potential problem with the $lps ... $lpr sequence, which could give rise to an unexpected space before the word following the $lpr, has been corrected.
In the $svrhp and $svrfp commands, the value 3 as well as 0 through 2 is now allowed.
To better support ETGRAPHX: In the $pi command, the "image number within file" may now be selected by adding a semicolon to the main file name, e.g. "$pic:myfile;3". The default image number is 1, i.e. the first image. The file extension .BRG is also now searched for, as well as .VIM, i.e. either MYFILE.VIM or MYFILE.BRG may be imported. Any of the four ETGRAPHX output file types may be imported.
A problem affecting the output of some BRF files containing braille graphics to the VersaPoint has been corrected.
PIMBRI now allows for "partitioned" treatment of wide tables, i.e. breaking up so that as many columns as will fit (with column 1 repeated each time) are put on successive pages.

(Older history not maintained. The DBT DOS product was first released in 1985.)