Date   : Thu, 27 Oct 1983 08:43:00 PDT
From   : DGilbert.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: QBAX Program Disappointing

I purchased the QBAX file backup program from 'AMANUENSIS', Ver. 1.4
fully expecting a good program based on the Microsystems magazine review.
FORGET IT!  Use the public domain program Archive by Kelly Smith.  The
problems I found with QBAX are as follows:

To provide incremental backup (only those files modified), I assumed that QBAX
would use the CPM 'T3' bit in the directory, the so called archive bit.  NO!
For some reason, QBAX chose to fiddle with byte 'S2' of the directory entry.
Why?  This byte is defined as the EXTENT NUMBER for extents over 31.
Thus to mark a file as 'backed up', the MSB of byte S2 is set.  The side effect
of this is that some directory programs are hopelessly confused.  My system
was set up with SD-71.  When marked as backed up, a 4K file magically
becomes a 132K file.  When all files in the directory as backed up,
I suddenly have over 4 megabytes of used space on my 482k floppy disk!

Another problem with QBAX is its 'flakely'.  By this I mean commands are
NOT user friendly, with unsymetrical operation.  For example.  To mark
all DOC files on drive B as backed up, type QBAX -BB:*.DOC  I had 3
DOC files on the drive, all were marked as backed up as described above.
However, to mark all DOC files as unbacked up, I typed QBAX -UB:*.DOC
and only 1 of the DOC files were changed!  The program may not 
understand the double density directory structure I'm using.  I have 2
logical 16K extents per directory entry.  This is perfectly acceptable and
standard practice.  But some of the early public domain programs were
blown away by this, expecting always to find a '0' numbered extent
as the first directory entry.  These programs were written by persons not
fully understanding the CP/M directory structure.  The first extent of
a long file is always 1 in my case.

When marking files as backed up, the QBAX program seems to mark all
extents of a long file.  But reversing the process, marking the same long
file as unbacked up, only the first extent was reset.  This really caused
problems when trying to fix the directory to eliminate the effects of QBAX.

Lastly, an extensively modified BDOS comes with QBAX, so that it knows
to mark updated files as needing backup.  Archive requires only a simple
patch to use the archive bit in the directory.

In short, the $30 price tag is a rip off!

Doug