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REX 6000 Help Page News Archive

July 1 - 15, 2001

July 15, 2001

Update to REXKeys on the way. (From Paul)

"REXKEYS - the REX keyboard and font modifier - makes good success. I think in some days I can release the new version. My REX got already a German keyboard layout, and my umlauts (äöü) are shifted into the correct position. You can see this on my page http://www.lenz-online.de/rex6000

But I think, also americans may find my program useful. Maybe you find the bold slash "/" too thin. Or you think the transverse line of the "t" and the "f" should be a little bit longer on the left side. REXKEYS can change everything.

Developing REXKEYS, I had to re-invent the wheel some times because there are things many developers seem to know, but nobody writes them down. So I did this job. On my page you find knowledge about REX S records and how to calculate the check sum, about pictures and about fonts.

There is only one miracle which I can not solve: if I assign some characters to the blanc keys on the numeric keyboard, these keys still don't work at all. Has somebody an idea how it could be possible to activate these keys?

BTW: I could not find the serial number 1.1.2.7 in the firmware code. So I wonder how the number is stored."

Sourcecode for four add-ins released! (From Bertus)

"I just released the sourcecode to all of my addins on my website under GPL conditions.

I'm taking it easier with Rex development, so with releasing the source hopefully others will take the opportunity to improve my addins, or just use them as examples.

Three (not too harsh?) conditions on using source:
- publish the enhanced code if you publish the addin
- keep the addin icons the same if you make a new version
- I'd appreciate credit when you use any of my code"

Find the sourcecode at http://www.geocities.com/bertusrex6k/rex.html.

July 14, 2001

Happy Bastille Day to our French friends and Francophiles.

See here for more information on Bastille Day.

Rexpense v1.0 released! Optimized and featurized for you - now supporting up to five lists!! (From Bertus)

"I optimised the code some more and managed to squeeze a nice feature in: Rexpense now has the ability to manage 5 lists instead of 1!"

See http://www.geocities.com/bertusrex6k/rex.html for Bertus' REX add-ins, including Rexpense, Tennis, Guitar Chords, and Tasklean. All excellent add-ins, and updated over the past weeks. If you are using any of his add-ins and have any comments or suggestions for Bertus, he'd like to hear from you!!

Thanks, Bertus, for all your efforts on our behalf!

GolfCard v1.3 released! New options for score totals. (From Dave)

"Well, I didn't remove the save feature from GolfCard, just hid it. After a lot of troubleshooting, I can't seem to preserve whatever is happening to the variable space which is causing the Reset error. And once reset, the memo and REX appear fine. So what I've done is implemented Rory's request to hide totals. There is now a checkbox where the save button used to be. Turn if off, and totals aren't displayed. It really is simple, so, if you want you final score, click it again to turn it on before entering your last score.

I retested the scoring to make sure it still works. As well as powering off and on the REX.

The select button can still be used to save a card. You may get an error and asked to reset your REX using the button on the back of the unit, but the REX and memo both appear to be fine after resetting. I've added notes about the caveats to both the website and documentation.

Hopefully, this puts GolfCard on a back burner for a while and gives me time to play games, or better yet write on."

Go Asteroids!! <g>

July 13, 2001

Important update to Rexpense released. (From Bertus)

"Users of Rexpense v0.8 should upgrade to v0.9, the former has a bug that may cause you to lose Rexpense items."

See http://www.geocities.com/bertusrex6k/rex.html.

A happy (and safe!) Friday the 13th to all! Be careful out there. . . <g>

Eight Add-in limit may soon be removed! (From Chris)

A recent exchange from the REX Developers list that should be of great interest to users chafing with the 8 add-in limit of the REX 6000.

"Hello list, is anybody currently working on so called "addin launcher?" I mean some solution to have more than 8 addins at time. Regards, Di "

"Di: Funny you should ask! I am right now wrapping up for beta release such an application, should be ready by the end of the day. Currently it is quite stripped down, allows for loading just 11 more addins into flash memory, for a total of 18 addins (since the "launcher" app counts as one addin). Chris"

Version 1.2 of GolfCard released. (From Dave)

Although a somewhat random problem persists (in some cases your REX may require a reset if you try to open a saved score memo), Dave has released the next version of GolfCard - ver 1.2, with fixes, including the ability to score nines on all holes restored. (If you've been anxious for this capability you probably are spending too much time with your REX and not enough time on the greens. <g>)

You can avoid the potential reset issue entirely by either not saving your scores, or moving the score memos from the REX to your PC using REX Tools and not trying to open them on the REX. A reset is a simple and quick thing to do, so really no harm either way. Chris is working with the REX developer community to iron out this final bug.

"Here is the deal: Found the problem with the limit to entering strokes. Between beta and v1.0 I cleaned up some hard-coded references to players and their scores and included it directly in the refresh subroutine. This turned out to be the problem, so I've separated into separate subroutines and can get four players to 162 without problem. So, I thought it at least worth re-releasing.

The files, with and without source, are on http://www.geocities.com/irish_iiiii ."

July 12, 2001

Update to Rexpense from Bertus! (Does he ever sleep!)

"Some news:

http://www.geocities.com/bertusrex6k/rex.html"

July 11, 2001

Updates of the Tennis and Tasklean add-ins from Bertus.

"Tennis: (v1.1), for those finding the game too hard to play and/or too hard to see the moving graphics.

Tasklean. (v0.7.)

-deletes Rexpenses from the Rexpense addin (with older-than date selection)
-faster deletion
-fixed sync problems when quicksyncing with Intellisync
-added choice to either delete tasks from the PC as well or to leave them (eg. leave them in outlook).
-now updates all task databasetables in Rex (4 of them!)"

Bertus is the author of several add-ins, all of which may be found at http://www.geocities.com/bertusrex6k/rex.html. Please use the email link on his site to let him know if you have any feedback on his add-ins!

July 10, 2001

Oops - Updated GolfCard taken "off-line." (From Dave)

"Sorry all, but, GolfCard is offline for now. Since changes to the SDK between Beta and V1.0, player scores are limited for some reason. I was checking a bug reported by Dana and others, and discovered v1.1 no longer would accept a single player with all 9's (which worked in Beta). I'll advise once I get it checked out. "

Udpdated GolfCard with working save and view on REX!! (From Dave)

"GolfCard v1.1 is now available. With some changes to the Small C SDK and how the memo database was being updated, the memo files now read fine from REX or RexTools. Zip files with source, for those needing a good laugh, and without source for those who just like to Golf! Just remember to drink and extra one for me on the 19th hole :D"

Download from http://www.geocities.com/irish_iiiii

Thanks Dave, for breaking new ground (along with Myles) on the memo save functionality!

Programmer's calculator add-in available. (From Di)

"Hello, I put programmers calculator addin "ProCalc" to http://www.dimitriy.com/REX6000/main.htm -> Addins (source code and Rex addin). It is a remake of DS2 SDK example."

Di was one of the very early pioneers in REX 6000 technical investigation, and maintains a web-based REX SDK on his site. His site is well worth a look-see!

French-to-English dictionary files available. (From Mojo)

"It's not an addin, but I hope it will be usefull anyway. I have put together my first dictionary files to use with my REX. If you are interrested in trying them, you are welcome. The first one is from French to English and it is as simple as 27 memos with titles like "F-E xxx" where xxx is the first word in that memo. A good thing is to put your memos under categories since 27 memos more will make you scroll quite a lot. I'm planning to put more of them together but it will only be between english and some other languages. FYI these memos takes 29% of my memory...

You can download it from: http://friman.home.cern.ch/friman/rex/dicts.html then drag-drop them into notes in outlook and sync... If someone would develop a search add if that could search these memos then..."

July 8, 2001

New add-in from Di.

"I put memo game addin "MemoRex" :-) to http://www.dimitriy.com/REX6000/main.htm -> Addins. I wrote it using online SDK ( telnet+ftp ). See more on Setup SDK page."

Di's add-in is a fun matching game where you turn over tiles and try to match duplicates.

More positive OS news - REX 6000 and Windows XP/Office XP working together. (From Thomas)

"Just an update on using the Rex 6000 with Windows XP. I am using RC1 release with the USB cradle and have no problems with it like I did with Beta 2. I am also using Office XP and Outlook (2002) works fine with the Rex."

REX Keyboard modifier - change the characters on your REX keyboard! (From Paul)

"After all yout help, my Keyboard Layout Modiefier finished it's first step. It can modify the meaning of each key. Unfortunately it does not change the keyboard picture on the Rex screen - this will be the second step.

You can download the program (QuickBASIC source included) here: http://www.lenz-online.de/rex6000/"

You can use Paul's program to modify the REX.BIN firmware file and then update the firmware on your REX using REX Tools. This is a great development for REX users who want characters on their REX that aren't supported by the current, US-centric firmware. Note - it's probably best that you play with this only if you're comfortable mucking about with computers and understand about firmware updates!

REX.BIN (the REX firmware file) can be found in our Software Updates section.

July 7, 2001

Warning on Golfcard 1.0 update. (From Dave)

"Just an FYI. First chance I got to sync REX with Outlook, and memos appear all wacked!

Haven't got to the bottom of this, but, just to give everyone fair warning."

Update! Dave completed more testing and things appear to be "safe."

"The problem with the syncing was probably from previous tests trying to get GolfCard working. I initialized it, saved a scorecard and syncronized without problem. However, I don't believe Outlook likes the created item any better than REX. And yet, RexTools reads and deletes the item fine."

To avoid any issues until the "save" functionality is worked out, it is probably best to avoid using the "Save" feature if you are using Golfcard.

July 5, 2001

Updated Golf Card add-in with save capability released! (From Dave)

"Well, thanks to Myles I finally GOT GolfCard to write to memo, but, there are still caveats. However, I thought the changes as a whole deserved to be finally released.

Improvements:
1) The website. I was all embarassed wearing the same website as Bertus ;-) soI had to redesign the site with future addins in mind!
2) The "XXXXX" junk with the keyboard is gone. Nothing comes up when a new player is entered, but, allows editing on an existing player. Actually I did away with the "XXXXX" thing all together since spaces were easier to work with moving NULL terminated strings around.
3) Saving. Basically, it only writes for players who have been defined. The problem here is that REX6k freaks trying to read the memo, but, RexTools does fine. Thought maybe Chris may have run across this. REX6k just stays as an hourglass when opening the memo. But, like I said, RexTools works great. And I saved the text file from RexTools and opened it in Excel. Works well for all those statistics freaks out there. Also, to Chris, I ended up ending lines with just newline, not carriage return. Seemed like when save from RexTools, memos were single spaced, but double-spaced when lines were terminated with both 0x0D and 0x0A. (:?)

The addin alone, as well as with source, are both on the site.

May take a few days off after this! From there, I don't know if I feel like working out a game or starting right into a small spreadsheet app. Based on working with the database so far, a simple game seems pretty appealing (and you have to have SOMETHING to do sitting in the airport :D). Enjoy."

Caution for users of the Tasklean add-in. (From Bertus)

"Well there you have it: beta software isn't perfect. Bottom line: Tasklean v0.5 deletes tasks, but not quite the right way. My advise would be to stop using Tasklean for now until I fix it. Your Rex won't blow up if you keep using it, but quicksync will probably fail until you initialise with rextools.

When the Tasklean v0.5 addin deletes completed tasks, it removes records from the task database table (id=3000). It now appears there's a second table (id=3003) with the same taskrecords (although with less fields) in use by the Rex or the sync process. I disregard this second table in Tasklean v0.5, so that the two tables get out of sync. This is what probably chokes intellisync when doing a quicksync.

Sorry about this bug. Rex developers like myself have to find out many things by trial and error, because there's no documentation on the inner workings of the standard applications on the Rex, and only very minimal documentation on developing software."

REX 6000's at Jandr.com. (From Ken)

"By the way www.jandr.com has the Rex 6000/Serial for $89 + $5 shipping... Sounds like a better deal then buying from Xircom. And I purchase a couple of Rex 5000's for $35 shipped from Ubid a few days ago..."

July 4, 2001

Happy July 4th (Independence Day) to all Americans!

New REX icon and graphic drawing program for REX developers. (From Jaroslaw)

"I have written a little program for drawing icons for Rex. Would you be so kind and take a look at it and tell me what you think? If you think it is worth it, maybe you could advise me on a Rex-related WWW page from which the program might be downloaded, so others might be able to test it and send me their opinions?

As this is preliminary version, no installation software is included. The program requires VB runtime libraries and two ocxes specified in the readme.txt.

The prog is not only for icons, one can also prepare any graphic for Rex with it.

Myles was kind enough and provided space on his page www.mirix.net, for my application"

Praise from Myles!

"An excellent new application is available in beta by Jaroslaw Michalak . Called "Reksio" it is a bitmap editor that delivers asm code that can simply be copied and pasted into your source files. I've previously been using a full featured graphics editor and then bmp2gp but this has plenty of features for 2 colour bitmaps and is very easy to use."

New Add-in released. (From Alan)

"I have posted an addin, SokoRex, with source, in my homepage - http://siulung.com/rex

It is the Sokoban game orginated from Japan. Inside are 52 small but interesting maps. Feel free to play and/or give comments. (Developer note: During the development I discovered that we can add at most 40 events at a time. (and my addin has used exactly 40)"

July 2, 2001

Add-in to help you keep your REX neat and clean! (From Bertus)

"New addin:

Changed addins:

Add-in for fun and programmer's information. (From Myles)

"I put a new addin on www.mirix.net. Its a vertically scrolling driving game in a narrowing road.

Shows the VScrollArea function in action and the use of DsTouchDataGet so that you can check the screen without causing code execution."

Update to REX SDK available. (From Myles)

"A new version of SDK is on www.mirix.net. This has sysclln, syscll4d and syscllex implemented. It compiles cdemo11, randtest, datetime and controls.

The comments on syscallex below may help those working on libraries for better compilers.

Let me know how you get on....I'm going to play with the new functions.... VScrollArea has potential....driving game? Space invaders? Whatever."

Other SDK options coming? (From Damjan)

"Hi people!

I am working on z88dk support for REX. For now I have working all SYSCALLX functions compatible with original dataslim.h file and now I am writing database support. I done those functions:

DbOpen
DbClose
DbFindRecord
DbNextRecord
DbGetRecordCount
DbReadField
DbNextRecord

I will publish those file to z88dk CVS very soon.

I think tak z88dk have many advantages for developing REX apps ( like lomg int support, linkable libraries, and more.)"

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