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# Version 1.00    Date: 1998/02/10 09:26:44
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* Initial revision


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# Version 1.01    Date: 1998/02/10 09:40:40
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* Minor documentation changes


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# Version 1.02    Date: 1998/04/16 14:10:16
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* Fixed minor typos and corrected example in documentation.


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# Version 1.03   Date: 1999/01/19 15:57:43
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* Incorporated patches from Andreas Koenig to inline calculation of 
  $instance variable.  This results in a speedup of around 35%.

* Added _new_instance() constructor which is called the first time
  _instance() is called.  This can be overloaded in derived classes 
  to provide more specific object initialisation.

* Updated documentation accordingly.