Top 10k strings from Alchemist News - Issue 22 (1997)(Alchemist Research)[a].tap in <root> / bin / z80 / software / Sinclair Spectrum Collection TOSEC.exe / Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Magazines / Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Magazines - [TAP] (TOSEC-v2007-01-01) /
Back to the directory listing
4 EGBBGEEEBBB 2 |~~__OOGGCCAA 2 J7:A?>A??>>BC 1 no of parts+1 (ie: 1-38+pt 0=39) 1 n()+-/024579;<>@ACEQ 1 n$m$n$m$n$m$n$m$n$m$ 1 mwCCCCBBAAaMH 1 mw>CFECFCEC?A> 1 mw>>CCFFEECCFFCCEECC>>==<<apHJKJKJ 1 mw<<??==>>apJKJNJQ 1 mCCEECCAAA?>>aMOMOMK 1 m>>AA>><<apKJKJHJ 1 m$n$m$n$m$n$m$n$m$n$m$n$m$n$m$n$ 1 f&&o//i+o+i)o)(( 1 dq+&+&+&+&+&+&+&r+ 1 dq&+&+&+&+&+&+&+r& 1 bEQFRHTJVCOEQFRHT@LAMCOEQAM@L=I>J 1 bCCCCBBAAMH 1 b@L>J@LAMCOEQCOAM@L>J@LAMCOEQCOAM 1 b++++00002222&&&&((++--**++++7777 1 SONG BY ST COMPILEJ 1 SONG BY ST COMPILE 1 Once this pointer has been copied into thDE register, it is PUSHed back onto thestack, because it will be needed againlater. But this POP and PUSH does leavethe value of the pointer in the DEregister as well as on the stack. The carry flag is cleared again with theand A, and the value of the pointer issubtracted from the value of ELINE. Thisgives the number of bytes left in theprogram and variables area after the tapeinstruction has been dealt with. Thevariables as well as the program are goingto be shifted up in memory. The SBC HL,BC puts the result of thesubtraction in the HL register. The resultis then stored in the BC register. Thishas to be done a byte at a time with thetwo instructions LD B,H and LC C,L becausethere is no LD BC,HL instruction. Well,you can't have everything! The pointer EL 1 Next on the list would be DEFLEKTOR, ancompletely original abstract puzzle game.Based around a very simple concept,DEFLEKTOR like all great puzzle games hasan enormous depth of gameplay that provesextremely addictive. It was inspired by ascience program that Costa had seen aboutlasers. DEFLEKTOR was published by GremlinGraphics who also converted the game tothe 16-bit Atari ST and Commodore Amiga.However, those conversions simply did notstand up against the original Spectrumversion. Costa's last adventure into gamesprogramming would be HOSTILE ALIEN TERRAINENCOUNTER or H.A.T.E for short. Aremarkable piece of programming, H.A.T.E.pushed the Spectrum to limit - asmooth-scrolling diagonal play area withlots of aliens to fight. Another greatgame that was well received butunfortunately did not receive the successit should have. The next two years would be quiet time forVORTEX -- Cost 1 I thought I would include some of thehighlights :- ANTHEA TURNERS NATIONAL LOTTERY SIMULATOR ========================================= Nuff said. DARK ROOM SIMULATOR =================== Now you can experience the realism andthrill of a real dark room via thiscutting edge virtual reality dark roomsimulator - which ever direction you tryto move in, you bump into something. CANTONA FOOTBALL! ================= You play Eric Cantona - the greatestfootballer who has ever lived - yourobjective is to kung-fu kick and stamp on,any of the opposition (and in the process,get sent off) 1 COPYRIGHTED - NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN! 1 CCEECCAAA?>>MOMOMK 1 CC77AA>>@@<<>>>>CCCCOOOOHHHHHHHH 1 Another Speccy celeb at the NSSS was MattWestcott, aka demo coder The Gasman. Heturned up fairly late, but had a disc witha couple of new programs on it. One ofthem was a very neat interlace effect incolour, which should be good when morepictures are converted. Matt's only abouttwelve (that's a guess), making it all themore annoying that he can programconfidently in machine code and I can't.Too clever by 'arf, these coders... Carl Murray (EWGF), of Snapread semi-fame,appeared from nowhere just before lunch (Ibought a Coke and two Mars bars from theon-site kitchen!) and gave me some gamesdiscs, all three of which worked. This isvery rare, because Carl's postman seems tolike playing with magnets and causingendless disc errors. Mike Mee came alongas well, although I wasn't sure who he wasuntil he gave me one of his leaflets. The Minds sparked off a furore ofcontroversy (a 1 AN22.D 1 AN22.C 1 AN22.9 1 AN22.8 m+ 1 AN22.7 1 AN22.6 1 AN22.5 1 AN22.44 1 AN22.43 1 AN22.42 1 AN22.41 a- 1 AN22.40 1 AN22.4 Y1 1 AN22.39 Y 1 AN22.38 1 AN22.37 = 1 AN22.36 1 AN22.35 m+ 1 AN22.34 1 AN22.33 Y 1 AN22.32 1 AN22.31 1$ 1 AN22.30 1$ 1 AN22.3 1 AN22.29 1 AN22.28 1 AN22.27 1 AN22.26 M 1 AN22.25 1 AN22.24 1 AN22.23 1 AN22.22 u) 1 AN22.21 1 AN22.20 1 AN22.2 1 AN22.19 1 AN22.18 Y 1 AN22.17 1 AN22.16 1 AN22.15 u) 1 AN22.14 1 AN22.13 = 1 AN22.12 1 AN22.11 m 1 AN22.10 1 AN22.1 1 AN22.0 1 ALCHNEWS22 1 @D INDEX (1) AN22.0 : This file. AN22.1 : THIS ISSUES GAMES. Details and loading instructions. AN22.2: NEWS. Round up of happeningsAN22.3: around the Spectrum community. AN22.4: Z80 3.04. Review of the latest version of Gerton Lunter's emulator. AN22.5: THE SPECTRUM AND SAM SHOW. The 'on-line' report. AN22.6: AFTER THE SHOW. Mad Spectrum types loose in Wetherby! AN22.7: TV HEAVEN. The Speccy lover's ideal TV schedule. AN22.8: ALC 1 >>AA>><<KJKJHJ 1 <<??==>>JKJNJQ 1 <<>>@@77<<>>@@77AA@@AACC<<0077++ 1 <<77CC>><>@ACC77EECCAA>>@@>><<00 1 ;"LOADING PART ";CNT 1 ;"LOADING INDEX": 1 1996 A.Davis & Alch. Research 1 00000000`00 1 -.+-.02-+)&() 1 &&o&+i+((& 1 &&--+)(&$&()+ 1 "Enter Part:";cnt: 1 SETUP PARAMS 1 LOAD PART 1 LOAD +D INDEX 1 CHOOSE PART 1 DECEMBER 1996 1 Hi everyone. Deffstar (Dave Forrest) atthe KEYB again. By the time you read this,I will probably have moved into my newhouse. <He hasn't. Ed> Anyhow, the reasonfor writing is a new story entitled Computer Heaven. It is the year 2000 and there is only onecomputer left on the planet Earth. Thiscomputer is the ZX Supra. Up here inheaven though, we get all sorts ofcomputers trying to live happily everafter in our abode. Why, I remember theother day a 486 DX4 100 PC came in. <Whatabout the P500, made in 1998? That lastedall of three weeks before it was obsolete.Ed> "Hoi" he said, "I wanna room, now!" "Willyou wait there Sir, and fill that form inplease?" I asked. When I arrived back, hewas on the flo 1 SPECTRUM MICRODRIVE / DISK CONVERTER Andy Davis If you've upgraded from tape to a disksystem which supports Microdrive syntax,you have the daunting task of modifyingall filing commands for your disk system.This can be even more difficult if youhave a long program with filing commandsmixed deep inside it. So, why not let thecomputer do it for you? The program SYNTAX, available for sometime from leading software libraries, willmodify many BASIC programs for use withthe Microdrive. SYNTAX2 is the sameprogram, but adds the +D 'd*' syntax, andis generally more compatable with +D DOS,and was adapted by Miles Kinloch. So, obtain a copy from your favouritelibrary, perform a disassembly of thelisting, and read the following article tosee how it wor 1 The History of VORTEX Software Mark Haigh-Hutchinson Like many software houses in the 1980s,VORTEX began as a hobby. Costa Panayifirst got interested in computing back in1982. Whilst working as a mechanicalengineer for British Aerospace he broughthome a Sinclair ZX81, played around for abit, then starting writing programs forit. After learning BASIC, Costa and his friendPaul Canter wrote a number of programsthat they then sent to Michael Orwin, ofOrwin Software. "It was a collection ofprograms, Mastermind, Pontoon, Othello,and Awari. We were quite chuffed. Youwouldn't believe it, he's still sending usmoney!" Costa would recall in 1984. "The1K machine was really useful for learninghow to be efficient. To begin with it wasquite difficult to see how you could writegames." 1 GET DOWN TO LOW LEVEL LANGUAGES Malcolm Harrison Faster action and smoother movement acrossthe screen are just two of the advantagesyou get from machine code in gamesprogramming. First, though, you need toknow how machine code actually affectsyour computer. Most users will find BASIC more thanadequate for all their programming needs.It can be, and has been, used to writesimple games, business and householdprograms. What's more, it is fairly easyto learn. It is also flexible, simple touse and easy to adapt for differentmachines, as Paul Howard has demonstrateda few issues ago. The problem is that it is slow andcumbersome. BASIC programs eat up a lot ofmemory. The computer finds these wodges ofprogramming un 1 ALCHEMIST RESEARCH INFORMATION Preliminary AR / AN details AN1 How AR is run AN4,p110APD Launch AN4,p120APD update AN5,p110APD grows AN7,p110Changes to AR AN9 History of AlchNews, issues 1-9 AN9 How new AlchNews logo was made AN9 Frequently asked questions AN9 AlchNews price breakdown AN9 AR quits the IEBA AN11,0 SAM arrives and is binned! AN12,1 How APD is run AN13,6 Demon Hacker's holiday at AR AN13,14 AR launches Star Users Club AN14,1 AR gets permission for INPUT AN14,14 AR on Internet AN15,1 AR takes over SCB AN16,1 AR changes AN17,1 New staff to run ASW AN17,1 AR granted rights to GREMLIN AN17,1 Guest visitors 1 SPECIAL PROJECT: ALCHNEWS 128 Alchemist Research relies on your input toguide the direction of the service. Thesurvey has showed that, without a doubt,you are all happy with our quality ofservice, but we are always keen to hearsuggestions on areas to improve on. One topic always under scrutiny isAlchNews. The magazine is now the largestanywhere. After every release, we getletters of praise and telling us how manydays it took to read! We know that anumber of you would like it to be onpaper, so it can be read anywhere, at anytime. This would be very nice, but thereare the following points to consider: 1) Printing. Print quality would have tobe of the highest standard. This could beachieved with the help of AlchemistSoftware's excellent DTP facillities, butwould require 1 PERSPECTIVE DRAWING: Part Two Peter Reilly DIMINISHING SIZES The rules of perspective apply to objectsas well as lines on a grid. All objectsappear smaller and closer together in thedistance. The tops and bottoms of a lineof equally sized trees, for instance, lieon a pair of parallel lines which convergeon the vanishing point. The trick here is that the brain relatessize to distance. If you see two objectswhich are known to be of similar size, butone appears to be half the size of theother, then the brain assumes that one istwice as far away. So by drawing objectsdiminishing in size, they can be made toappear to recede. If you think about the distances betweenobjects, you w 1 TOP TIPS TO TIME TRAVELLERS Justin Thorpe Time travel is a very serious business.It's sought by many for evil purposes.Only an elightened few wish to use it tostudy history, find out great mysteries,or to be a part of history. The othermembers of the 'Time Travel Society', ofwhich I'm a member, enjoy trying to get inon photographs and newsreels of manyevents, and then tracking them down in thepresent. We'll begin this series with a look attime. The 24 hour day, seven day week, 52week year has not been in existence for,well, all of time. So, take the followinginto account before you time travel. Ifyou're using a series 1000 time machine,you may find that jumping beyond a certainyear will affect your timekeepingcircuits. I'd like to thank the Reader'sDigest associa 1 THE FIRST NORTHERN SPECTRUM AMD SAM SHOW On-Line report Saturday 21st September 1996, 7am: Awakeat Alchemist Research. Picked Paul Howardup from Sheffield station the nightbefore. 7.45: Car loaded with PC, tapes, disks,games and Paul Howard (in the boot againso he can relive his 'car boot nightmare') 8.30: Arrive Wetherby. Took far soonerthan anticipated. Show is not signpostedwhatsoever, but I have a photographicmemory (very horrible when you've just metthe United Minds!) and knew the layout.Found the hall down a side road. Appear to be the first to arrive. MetAllan and his helpers setting up thetables. Get ro 1 STAFF CHANGES & LOCAL NEWS It gives me great pleasure to announcethat DESMOND TYLER has temporarilly takenover the position of Assistant Editor forAlchNews. The reason is because Lloyd Garland'sworkload has increased tremendously sincetaking over Alchemist Software. Not onlydoes he have to deal with Spectrum orders,but also Amiga and PC titles, too. Plus, Lloyd's distant position fromAlchemist Research in Sheffield made itdifficult for him to have a fully activerole. However, Lloyd will still be thesecond in command of Alchemist Researchand an 'elder' of our steering committee,along with Miles Kinloch, Dave Fountain,and Paul Howard, all of which help directAlchemist Research, along with you, thereader. 1 ON TRIAL: SECOND HEARING BEACH IMAGING Way back in AlchNews 16 (still the biggestissue to date), we did a feature on BeachImaging, distributors of the MAXIPRINTribbon re-inking system, praised by MilesKinloch for years. It's now been well over eighteen monthssince our purchase of the system and wehave been more than impressed with it'slevel of quality and reliability. Beach Imaging still stock the Maxiprintsystem, for both black and colour ribbons,and still supply the electronic version,but now also cater for re-inking a vastrange of inkjet printers. Amongst the printers covered are: APPLESTYLEWRITER, CANON BJ / BCJ, EPSON STYLUS,HEWLETT PACKARD DESKJET AND OTHERS. 1 IF ONLY WE KNEW THEN.... I was lucky enough to pick up a smallbundle of computer magazines from1986-1987 a short time ago. The storageroom above the Alchemist Research officehas hundreds of magazines, dating backfrom 1981. I don't know why I love collecting them,it's just one of those things. Seeing someof the articles, news, adverts and detailsof forthcoming releases is probably thenext best thing to going back in time. Youknow whats going to happen, but it stillintrigues you. I suppose it's akin to anold film that's constantly re-run, orperhaps even the new trend to re-packageold football matches. But now that thereare so many emulators for the PC, I'm notjust restricted to Spectrum reviews, newsand programs. I can now make use of theprograms for Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC,BBC, Dragon an 1 BETTER DIGITISING: PART 2 *************************** By Paul "Sesquipedalianism" Howard. In case you missed last issue's article,this is the continuation of my series ondigitising. Unless you have a RomanticRobot Videoface digitiser, you may as wellskip this article - unless of course youlove my writing style so much that youhave to read every word. Or something. Well, where was I? We'd already coveredhow to set up and use the digitiser, andthe shortcomings of the accompanyingsoftware. This time, I'll be telling youhow to colour in your masterpieces, andwhat techniques can be used to get thebest out of your art package when workingwith digitised screens. If you want your digitised pics to lookthat little bi 1 ALCHNEWS PC TO DUMP Z80? Certainly not! But, a rival has emergedwhich could possibly see Z80 replaced. Most PC software services stock theCommodore and Spectrum emulators. With theCommodore, there's only one version -C64S. But, on the Spectrum, there arearound a dozen different ones, eachrequiring different machinespecifications, and offer varying levelsof support and emulation. However,services usually only distribute thepopular Z80 emulator. Alchemist Research stocks the widest rangeof emulators anywhere, and Roy Benson isslowly working his way through reviewingthem all! But, I thought I'd save him thebother and take a look at SPECTRUM, or, touse it's alternative title, UKV. 1 A Team 2, author unknown. Have you noticed how the second game in atrilogy is always the best? Just think:Renegade, Popeye and Horace, not tomention countless adventure games. Anyway,there isn't an A Team 3, but if there was,and this game was the best in the trilogy,the other two would have to be absoluterubbish. That long-winded intro was just away of saying that this game isn'tparticularly good! A Team 2 is a forward view shoot 'em up inthe Operation Wolf vein (how did it get inthere?!). As usual, the graphics areboring yellow monochrome (I think I'dprefer black on black!) but they aren'teven very well drawn. The game consists ofblasting lots of soldiers, all of whomlook very similar. That's it as far asI've played, and I did give it a chance!Sound is extremely limited with the oddspeaker effect 1 Computers in Industry *********************** Ray Smith Q: What is small black and has 128K memory A: Well , it's not just a 128k Spectrum In fact a little black box smaller thanthe size of a cigarette packet containsalmost as much computing power as a smallpalmtop. Many of you will rely on buses to go towork or for any type of commuting but whathas this got to do with computing ? ( Apoet & I didn't know it ) Well in the last few years you may haveseen a change in the way you obtain yourtickets and passes that allow you totravel. 1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION The .SNA snapshot format The SNA format is a very common type, usedby the Mirage Microdriver (primitivesnapshot system for the Microdrive). It'salso used by Peter MacGavin's Spectrumemulator for the Amiga, and the JPPSpectrum emulator for the PC. Z80 willalso load this type, and it is thisformat, on a PC disk, which the +D programSNAPREAD uses. Notice, that in Intel CPUs the leastsignificant byte goes first. When theregisters have been loaded, a RETN commandis required to start the program. IFF2 isshort for interrupt flip-flop 2, and forall practical purposes is theinterrupt-enabled flag. Set means enabled. Offset : 0 Size : 1 Desc : db I 1 THE SPECCY LOVER'S TV GUIDE ***************************** By Paul Howard. 06:00 OPEN # University. Advanced 8 syntax for the microdrive. 06:40 Breakfast News. Includes an interview with Alan Sugar. 07:00 Ready, Steady, Code. Z80 programming against the clock! 07:30 Top Gear. The C5 versus the milk float. 08:00 Playdays. First steps with the Z80 emulator. 08:20 Serve You Right. Bad companies investigated and condemned! <Ed's alternative schedule: WATCHDOG - find out 1 CALLING MACHINE CODE By Malcolm Goodman The following methods should all work in48k mode without add-ons although the +Dis ok for most examples that will bedescribed, and most work in 128k modealso. The usual way of calling a machine codeprogram from basic is by using theargument USR nnn which can be preceded byPRINT, RANDOMIZE, RUN, LET X=, etc etc. There are, however, a number of 'devious'methods which can be used that do notinvolve the USR argument. Probably thebest known method is to find where theerror stack pointer AT 23613 / 23614 is,looking at, and POKE these locations withthe address of the start of your code, sothat as soon as you return to basiccommand mode the code will start. 1 THE ALCHNEWS INDEX Covers issues 1-21 To help you find your favourite articleseasier, or make a preferred choice of backissues, this index gives details of allprimary articles in AlchNews. There aremany extra articles and snippets of newsin the magazIne, not listed here. Articlesare classified into the followingcategories: ADVENTURES: Games, tips, hints, adventurecreator technical advice. MULTIFACE: Reviews, tips, programming forthis add-on. HARDWARE: All aspects of Spectrumhardware, inc. DIY projects. GENERAL PROG: Computer programming,hacking etc. 1 PASSWORD PROTECTION Securing your programs John Thomson / Andy Davis There are many ways to protect yourprograms. The most common one is the POKEto disable the break key - 23659,0. But,it can be by-passed in many ways.Mergeproofing your program can also bedone thanks to a program in ASW and FPD,but this too can be bypassed. The main culprit is the Multiface. Sure,it may be our best friend when crackingother people's software, but when thetables are turned, you want to employevery method in the book! If your program is in BASIC, then theeasiest thing to do is add these lines atthe start: 10 INPUT "ENTE 1 ON THE 'OTHER SIDE' A look at other machines and their supporters No.1: WACCI magazine Although we rarely acknowledge them, talkto them or even say 'hello', there areother users of the Z80 chip aside from theSpectrum. It just goes to show how goodPCs are when they make and sell Z80processor kits! One such machine using theZ80 is the Amstrad CPC. Despite ourfeelings towards Amstrad, the CPC is quitea good machine. It came out some timebefore Alan Sugar 'modified' the Spectrumto something resembling the CPCs. Ifyou've ever used a +3, then apart from theterrible picture and PSU connector, it's avery nice self contained system. This ishow the CPC is. There were three versions of the CPC. The464, which had 1 ME AND MY SHADOW? Although AlchNews considers itself to be atrend setter, theres no excuse for blatantcopying. I refer to another magazinejumping on our bandwagon and copying thevarious series that we've launched. Ourmicrodrive, machine code, languages andadventures sections have all recently beenintroduced by another magazine, all ofwhich contain less than 10% of theinformation which the AlchNews articlesdo! Whilst imitiation is regarded as thehighest form of flattery, remember thatthere's no substitute for the original andreal thing! ZX RAINBOW RELEASE Emulator users will probably be aware of afantastic program called SPECCPIC, whichallows you to view the screen, memory,variables, sys 1 EURO GAME REVIEWS ******************* By Paul Howard. Andy recently sent me a discful of gamesfrom the continent, and apparently I'msupposed to review all of them! CheersAndy! Anyway, what I've done is to look ateach game separately in a series ofmini-reviews. Nearly al l of the games arefrom Europe, and many have only just setfoot on British turf, in the guise ofsnapshots on the Speccy emulator CD-ROM. Acme Glass Cube by Iolo Davidson. A game which is entirely written in BASICexcept for the UDGs, Acme Glass Cube isprobably a British game (although I'dnever heard the name "Iolo" before!).Sound is limited to some random beeps asthe computer a 1 ESSENTIAL GUIDES No.1: THE SPECTRUM +3 This is the beginning of a series of briefbut essential guides to popular aspects ofSpectrum computing. We begin with theSpectrum +3, namely because I've had a lotof new readers with problems. WHAT IS IT? The Spectrum +3 is the second machinemanufactured by Amstrad, but on the basisof a 48k machine, but with 128k pagedmemory, improved keyboard and ports andan internal 3" disk drive. Thearchitecture was similar to the popularAMSTRAD CPC machines. COMMON PROBLEMS. The most commo 1 A DAY AT WETHERBY ******************* (And a LONG night at Derby station!) By Paul Howard. The pages of this issue of AlchNews willno doubt be filled with various people'saccounts of the Northern Sam & Speccy Show(NSSS to its friends), so here's mine... The much-publicised NSSS took place onSaturday 21st September, in Wetherby,Leeds. Being one of the few Speccy loversto live down south, I had to make a longtrain journey on Friday, but fortunately Iwas staying overnight at Andy's house inSheffield - home of the Alchemist empire! The train journey involved a lot ofstanding up (within view of the emptyfirst class seats, which none of us coulduse due to 1 ROY'S RANTINGS Can I just start by apologizing for thefrequent use of the word 'Fool', in lastissues column, this was a euphemism(substituted by the ED) for for myoriginal, more colourful, phrases. In particular, I referred to actor BobHoskins, as a 'fool'. It was not my intention to refer to him inthis manner - my original choice of word,-<CENSORED>-, was far more offensive!. JULY 2nd - it climbed out of bed JULY 3rd - it broke wind JULY 4th - it thought of something interesting to write about -- 1 CRANE INTERFACE Kevin Gurd. Some weeks before last Christmas Ifinished building a relay board to operatea model crane for my seven year old son.It has stood up to so much punishment overthe past year that it has shown just howreliable the design has been. It alsofills the gap where building the modelitself represents more of a problem thanwiring up the interface. The model in question is a 24 inch hightower crane which can be purchased fromany INDEX store (page 433, Item 18). Itneeds no moddification to connect it tothe Speccy except to disconnect the remotecontrol box and connect the four wires tothe relay board. The power to operate the relay board andthe crane comes from any Speccy 9v PSU. Soif you already 1 AFTER THE SHOW: Loose in Downtown Wetherby We packed up our stalls, threw thecomputer equipment in the AlchMobile andstepped out onto the streets. Like a scenefrom RESERVOIR DOGS, the Spectrum Dogs(Paul Howard, Robert Skene, PatrickMorris, Mike Mee, Carl Murray and AndyDavis) dominated the tiny pavements andstreets of this historic market town,causing mayhem as they went. Ok, not quite. But we did dominate thestreets as we went to The Brunswick Hotel,crashing joint of the UM for the weekend. In the pub, Mike made straight for thepool table, offering challenges to bethrashed! Patrick looked at the pitfulhandful of change in his pocket, wonderingit if could stretch to a pint. Robertrescued him and bought him one! Carl gothis pint of ci 1 TYLERS TATTLE Desmond Tyler DON'T ATTACK MY FRIENDS, BUDDY! I've been told that another Spectrummagazine has run an article on howcomputer technology can combat the Aliens. Aliens? Which ones? The fossilised onesfrom Mars it goes on about in the samesentence? How about technology like a ROCKHAMMER! How are they so sure that we should COMBATor fight the aliens? God almighty, theytravel billions of miles to Earth and allthey get is a war! Why should we just restrict this toaliens? Tell you what, why don't you starta group to 'combat' tourists to your town?Aliens are 1 TRADING POST ************** Please note, it is common courtesy toenclose a SAE with your enquiry to allservices. If purchasing from a privateindividual, make confirmation the articleis still for sale and try not to send cashunless a premium delivery service is used. The services and contacts here are allin regular communication with AlchemistResearch and are considered reliable andtrustworthy. The listing has also beenscaled down vastly due to the increasingamount of space taken. THIS SECTION IS NOW LISTED IN ALPHABETICALORDER, WITH DETAILS OF WHAT THE SERVICEPROVIDES UNDERNEATH. * * * * * ADVENTURE WORK 1 DEMO REVIEWS ************** By Paul Howard. Hi everyone. Here I am to do some demoreviews which will probably seem reallyold by the time they get into AlchNews!Anyway, I won't bore you by ranting onabout nothing for ages, so here goes... Ecstasy Megademo by Dream Makers Software. A recent import from ex-Russia (butluckily with English texts), thisunoriginally titled 128k megademo takes upapproximately half of a +D disc. It'scleverly coded, with plenty of originaleffects, including a few which you won'thave seen before on the Speccy.Annoyingly, the one multicolour partrequires a Russian Speccy clone called aPentagon, so w 1 DAVE'S RANTS <Scream. Ed> Hi Speccy Fans! Yep, Deffstar at thekeyboard again. I hope that you are all alright, with theexception of a company in Scotland which Ihad a few bad problems with, the briefstory is as follows: (How do you delete aline? I can't do it!!!!!!!!) <Hold SHIFT &CTRL until the status line at the bottomflashes, then press DELETE. Ed.> One day in July, there was a PC fair,which myself and Andy attended. My PC hada problem displaying colours with certaingames when the sound was turned on, so Ithought that I might ask someone there whomight know what the problem was and maybehelp me with my dilemma. I took my PC withme, by the way! <And left it in anunlocked car for 3/4 of an hour. Ed> 1 BACK IN TIME Arnold Yates Let's take a look at themicrodrive,judging by the ads at the timethey were a great boon to the speccy. The first prototype was shown in April1982 after a lot of rumours about a minidisc and credit type media,the microdriveturns out to be a very fast continuos tapeloop system. The microdrive dose not work on its ownhowever - it requires a special interface. The ZX Interface 1, previously known asthe expansion module, is a wedge shapedbox that plugs into the back of thespectrum and sits underneath it <That is,the original Spectrum, as that is what itwas designed for. But, fits equally aswell on the Spectrum+ Ed.> ,tilting thekeyboard up at 1 ON TRIAL: Z80 Emulator, V3.04 Registered Judge A.J.Davis presiding Being in the public position that I am, Ihave a duty to act legally andprofessionally. Failure to do so wouldlead a bad example. So, I obey the speedlimits, I throw litter into a bin, and Iregister for software. In this case it is the latest version ofZ80. It's been years (1.66 to be precise)since the popular version 3.03 wasreleased, and everyone was looking forwardto, what we though would be, version 4 andwere expecting big things of it. The shareware version of 3.04 is asdisabled as 3.03, but also has a countdowntimer at the beginning, saying thatworking functions will run for fiveminutes. What 1 ON TRIAL Second sitting THE SPECTRUM SENSATIONS 1996 CD-ROM Ever been sent a +D disk full of goodiesfrom one of your friends? When you run aPD library, like I did, this happened on adaily basis! Well, you know that it takessome time to go through them all! On a normal +D disk, there's only 80 filesand one directory. On the CD, there are11,030 files in 565 directories! So,taking directories into account, it's likebeing given 565 +D disks and having toreview them all! So, you can probably appreciate thatreviewing a 540Mb disk will take sometime. But, when we've covered this CD,we've got Mike Mee's "Emulator Heaven" CDto test! <Large groan. Ed> 1 CREDITS Greatful appreciation must go out to allwho helped in the production of this finepublication. Notable thanks must go to: Editor: Andy Davis Bsc Sub-Editor: Desmond Tyler Sam AlchNews: Ferry Groothedde Original Programming: Dominic Morris Later Programming: Andy Davis United Minds Paul Howard Compiling Software: Miles Kinloch Dominic Morris Special Xmas Music: Paul Howard 1 APOLOGY Although not really necessary and I wouldhave preferred to let the matter drop,Mark Sturdy, ex-editor of CRASHEDmagazine, has asked for this article byhim to be printed. THE EDITOR Apology To Miles Kinloch and Andy Davis In June 1995, when I was the editor ofCRASHED fanzine, Andy Davis sent me a copyof issue 16 of ALCHNEWS. At the time, myknowledge of the Prism/Alchemist situationwas virtually nil, and I felt that thehigh proportion of Prism-related articleswas uncalled-for and unjustified. I wroteAndy what was in retrospect a needlesslystrong letter, in which I stated that ifPrism-related articles were to continue toappear in AL 1 NEWS Latest happenings in the Spectrum World ALCHEMIST AQUIRES NEW TITLES Even more non-PD games have come back intothe distribution market recently. Theyinclude programs by the SHAW BROTHERS, whoworked for Atlantis software and codedgames for magazine covertapes. Also nowavailable is the entire MIKRO GENcatalogue, and the GARGOYLE GAMEScollection, including the Celtic classicTIR NA NOG. Contact your favouriteSpectrum software distributor for theseprograms. A complete list of all games iselsewhere in this issue. Sam ownerscontact PERSONA SOFTWARE, who haveexclusive distribution rights on thismachine. Negotiations are also being made with aleading Amstra 1 THIS ISSUE'S GAMES GAME LOCATIONS TAPE: Space permitting, you will find yourgames on side B after the final part ofAlchNews (AN22.44). If AlchNews occupiesthe entire tape, send blank tape and SAEfor a free copy. Or, request the gamesfrom FPD or ASW when you make an order. +D DISK: You'll find the programs atapproximately position P48 onwards afterthe AlchNews parts. EMULATOR DISKS: The programs will be indirectory A:/AN22PGS and will be SNA typesnapshots. * * * * * EXTRA PROGRAMS FOR EMULATOR USERS