Advantage Plus Release 3.55 - Maintenance Release * Neighboring Number Projection was showing an incorrect result in some rare cases. * Sub-charts of Chart B - Games Out View of History were incorrectly showing keno games. Larger views will now scroll to show all of the data. * Chart X Test Drive was not showing more than 10-number matches in keno games. If eleven or more numbers matched, no results were shown. Now if anything more than 10 numbers match, the results will show as 10 number matches. * Fixed a number of subtle overflow errors that could cause incorrect results on some charts with some data. For example: WI0636 lotto had a number repeat 8 times in a row. The program had a maximum set for 7 in a row. This caused a value to be written outside the array causing what would seem to be a random error. Now it will report repeats above seven as seven. A number of other similar errors were corrected. Release 3.54 - Maintenance Release * Chart B - Games Out View of History was showing mis-alligned or missing column headings for games with fewer than five numbers and whenever bonus numbers are turned on/off/only. The data was always correct and correctly alligned. * Neighboring Numbers Projection was stating that ONE neighboring number was present in a drawing when there were actually none. By definition, a neighboring number must have at least two numbers next to each other so ONE neighboring number is actually a contradiction in terms. This is just a technicallity but the code will now say NO neighboring numbers were present in this case. * Corrected Error when entering Drawings in Chart 2, program would not allow you to edit the date field if it was a new drawing. * Corrected Error that caused the program to ask if you want to save wheel anytime chart 2 is accessed, even if you don't change anything. * Changed the way Advantage Plus detects installed wheel programs. Wheel Programs formerly set a flag in GAIL.DEF to signal there presence. Now Advantage Plus will search for installed wheel programs on startup every time and set the flag if it finds them. Also added all existing or planned wheel libraries so that they will be seen by Advantage Plus if present. Advantage Plus - Keno Wheel installations were not able to access the F7-Wheel options in Charts W and X if no other wheel programs were installed. Release 3.53 - Maintenance Release * Corrected error when entering new lottery numbers wherein date projection was failing. Release 3.52 - Maintenance Release * Correction released in 3.51 created another subtle error that is hereby corrected. Release 3.51 - Maintenance Release * Chart B was showing 2-games out in second game of range instead of out 1. Out values in Charts 4, 6, 7, V and B would be off by one if the number had not yet hit in the selected range. Once it hits the counting was correct from then on in the file. Releaes 3.50 - Maintenance Release * PR32 revised to improve appearance and the amount of text that fits on one page. This corrected some of the problems with one line of data printing on a separate page. * Chart 4A Abbreviated Drawings Since Hit Chart was not inserting form feeds properly when more than one page report was needed. * When program is run from a location outside of its directory, it tries to switch directories to the directory which contains the executable program. This process was not working on XP because Microsoft changed the rules. Program was adjusted to compensate. * When the first range of drawings is deleted from a file, the saved FIRST and LAST DRAWING settings were not being adjusted and charts would thereby show all zeros if the old range was outside of the actual range of drawings in the file. Release 3.49 - Maintenance Release * Chart B41 Skips Due was not showing plus signs on numbers after a rollback if the lottery drawing size was greater than 7 numbers. It will now show but some numbers may not be visable if wider than the window. * Modified Menu Option 2 to correct display problems when editing Keno History files (or any other) which have reached maximum capacity. * Modified Print-to-File feature to incorporate form feeds and uses Big-Print settings. * Changed default printer to Windows-Only-Printer which will work on all printers. * Setup screen will no longer appear when program is first run. Screen and printer are set to proper defaults automatically. Changes to these settings can still be made by F9-Setup from main menu. * Modified Advantage Plus to properly detect the presence of Computer Wheel and Computer Wheel Five so that they show as F5-wFive and F6-wSix on the function key line. * Corrected Chart G - Last Digits Analysis. It was including one more game in analysis than specified. Release 3.48 - Maintenance Release * New version of PR32 prints better and works better on XP. * Copyright dates adjusted correctly. No functional changes in program. Release 3.47 - Maintenance Release * Fixes mistake in Skips Due Summary Chart which showed the wrong numbers out for a given games out value. This bug was also able to cause other data to be wrong in this chart. * Fixes problem with Smart Picks locking up if too many exclude numbers are set. Release 3.46 - Maintenance Release * Fixes incorrect display of serial numbers on Pentium III machines. Apparently they changed the way one of the computer instructions work. This is the only known ill effect of this and it applies to the serial numbers of all Smart Luck Programs. Release 3.45 - Maintenance Release * Fixes problem with Big Game Game-ball causing incorrect information due to number being out 320 games. Program built in limit is 300 games. * Fixes problem with Chart D, Neighboring pairs locking up in certain circumstances. * Added undocumented ALT-S to sort drawings in Chart 2 when not in editing mode. This is to easily correct a problem with some of our files that had gotten out of order over time. Release 3.44, our last DOS release, introduces the following new features: * Drawing History Filters - View all charts with selected subsets of data. * Extended ALT-B Filter - Bonus Numbers on/off or only. * Expanded Smart Pick Options - Three new selection methods. * "Big" Printing Added - Allows all charts to print in large type (10 cpi). * Windows-Only Printer Support (now print to any windows or dos capable printer). * Advantage Plus can tell if it is already running in windows and warns. * Zero can be set up as valid number to support 00-99 pick-4 games. * Skips Due Bias Summary from Lottery Master Guide added to chart B. * International Date Formats added. * Editable Recorded Keystroke Macros added. * Can now wheel Test Drive numbers (Chart X) with F7-Wheel same as Smart Picks. * Last DOS release - All known bugs corrected. * Free History Update Program * New, more compact format for Keno history files. DRAWING HISTORY FILTERS The most significant new feature is drawing history filters that allow you to temporarily discard portions of the history and use the remaining data in all charts (except 2) as if that were all of the data. The full file on disk would not be affected. This can be used, for example, to view only the data for a specific day of the week, date of the month, or a specific rotation/ballset and the filtered data can even be saved as a separate lottery file. EXTENDED ALT-B FILTER ALT-B which in previous releases switched the bonus numbers on or off, has been expanded to a third option that keeps the bonus number(s) but turns off the main drawing information. This lets you view data with bonus numbers, data without bonus numbers, or bonus numbers only. ALT-B toggles between these three options in a circular fashion. This is particularly useful in powerball type games. EXPANDED SMART PICK OPTIONS Three additional options have been added for Smart Picks. In addition to the existing method based on the Scoreboard, you can choose to select the numbers with balancing turned off (balancing caused the Smart Picks to skip numbers when more than half of the numbers already chosen were odd or high). Two new options have been added that allow balanced Smart Picks to be chosen randomly from a pool of numbers weighted by the Smart Picks or un-weighted. These allow you more options in generating lottery numbers. "BIG" PRINTING ADDED For easier viewing, printing has been expanded to support "Big" printing which is the new default printer mode. This option forces all charts to be printed in 80-column mode using as many pages as needed to complete the width of the data. WINDOWS-ONLY PRINTER SUPPORT Many new printers cannot print from DOS programs, so we have added a windows print program (pr32.exe), and extended all of our DOS programs to be able to print using this windows (95, 98, NT) program. This feature works just like the sideways program and the only requirement is to select the "Windows Only Printer" option from the list of available printers. ADVANTAGE PLUS CAN TELL This version can detect if the program is already running and so eliminate the problem with windows when you try to run more than one copy of the program at the same time. ZERO CAN BE SET UP AS VALID NUMBER SLH files have been expanded to allow 0's as valid lottery numbers in order to support the 00-99 pick-4 lotto games. A new option for this has been added to the game setup screen. SKIPS DUE BIAS SUMMARY Skips Due Bias Summary from pages 46 & 47 of Lottery Master Guide, has been added as a new sub-chart to chart B. INTERNATIONAL DATE FORMATS Advantage Plus now supports for three date formats, which can be specified by adding an additional command line switch to the program setup. All dates in the program will show in the selected format. The three formats are specified as: /d=1 for mm/dd/yy - the program's default setting /d=2 for dd/mm/yy /d=3 for yy/mm/dd So the equivalent of the normal command line would become: c:\gh\gail.exe /ns /d=1 EDITABLE, RECORDED KEYSTROKE MACROS From Advantage Plus Main Menu, you can create a keyboard capture that records each keystroke. Alt-P is the key sequence that begins and ends the recording. Alt-K stops the recording until you press ENTER and the playback stops at this point as well, again until you press ENTER. This allows you to enter drawing results, for example, when the macro pauses during playback. Once you have at least one program recorded, the initial Alt-P will show a list of available programs that could be played back at that point or you can press the function key to record a new program or to edit the highlighted program. The most typical intended use of this feature is to print your favorite charts with just a couple of keystrokes. This feature could also be used to automate the setting various game ranges, for example, and printing a small set of different charts with each range. CAN NOW WHEEL TEST DRIVE NUMBERS Chart X - Number Group Test Drive has been expanded so that you can press F7, the same as in the Smart Picks screen to wheel the selected numbers. This way you can fiddle with the numbers, running the test drive until you are satisfied with them and then you can wheel them with a single keystroke. LAST DOS RELEASE This is our last intended release of Advantage Plus for DOS other than maintenance corrections that may become necessary. Presently, all known bugs are corrected. Future development will focus on Windows versions of Smart Luck programs. Check our web site often for announcements and availability of these upgrades and patches to existing versions. FREE HISTORY UPDATE PROGRAM A free windows 95/98/NT program is available on our DOWNLOADS page, which will make it a snap to update any of the lottery files we track from our web site. The install program takes only a minute or two to download, and a minute or so to run. The first time you actually run the update program, it will go out to our site and get a list of all of the files available for download. You check the ones you want and from then on you click "Update" to get the selected files. We update our web site each Monday morning and you can update anytime after that during the week. The program is free and the updates are free. Note: This update program requires wininet.dll, which is automatically installed with Internet Explorer versions 3 or higher. NEW FORMAT FOR SLH FILES Smart Luck history file format has changed in some cases to require less disk space. All Keno files are stored in a new compressed format that allows the same data to be stored in 40% of it's former size. Older versions of Advantage Plus must be upgraded in order to read this new format.