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5 By Paul Howard
4 Paul Howard
4 Lloyd Garland
4 ; DISABLE INTERRUPTS
3 Roy Benson
3 Robert Skene
3 Miles Kinloch
3 Mark Harris
3 By Graham Collier
3 Ben Douglas
3 Andy Davis
3 ; EX AF,AF'
2 |~~__OOGGCCAA
2 Wolfgang & Monika Haller
2 When using 'load bytes' for hackingpurposes, it may not be advisable to allowit to actually push the address ofSA/LD-RET onto the stack as the interruptsbeing enabled could cause problems.
2 Thomas Eberle
2 This short piece of code mimics exactlywhat the code of 'load bytes' does at thestart of the routine, but the address ofSA/LD-RETURN is not pushed onto the stack.The interrupts will still be disabled whena return is made, for any reason, to yourcalling routine.
2 The border colour will either be Blue orYellow and it is for you to decide whetheror not to do an out instruction to changeto some preferred colour.
2 Telephone: (0171) 476 5915
2 TRADING POST
2 SONG BY ST COMPILE
2 SILVERTOWN
2 Psi-co of United Minds
2 Paul Westlake
2 Patrick Morriss
2 NETHERLANDS
2 Justin Thorpe
2 Joyce Cook
2 John Elliot
2 James Waddington
2 J7:A?>A??>>BC
2 If you decide to change the border colour,remember to push the A register onto thestack so as to keep a record of thestate of the flags the loader returned.
2 I am now about to move into an areaconcerning the loader I have never seenrecorded anywhere, nor observed anyoneelse other than myself use.
2 Format Publications
2 Dave Fountain
2 Darren Randle
2 D3FE ; OUT (FE),A
2 Christian Aymard
2 Chic Computer Club
2 CD6205 ; CALL 'LOAD BYTES' AFTER THE(
2 By Paul Howard.
2 Brian Gaff
2 Bill Richardson
2 All I have told you so far is welldocumented and any serious m/c programmershould be well aware all of it.s
2 Albert Harper
2 ALCHEMIST SOFTWARE
2 ADDRESS WHICH PUSHES THE RET ONTO!
2 A common method used to prevent this isthe following:8
2 3E0F ; LOAD A,0F
2 36 Budges Road
2 11 CAMEL ROAD
1 wrong address.
1 would run on your machine, if it did'nt, it would'nt sell, because nobody is going to buy software that does not run on theirmachine.
1 with bugs in the 128k.
1 weekdays and anytime from the afternoon atthe weekends.7
1 was including too many and it violated&
1 vocabulary
1 variables.
1 usual address or via MGPD, AlchemistSoftware or Fountain PD.B
1 us your customers!)
1 two bytes for each and every$
1 to lick it all off.
1 through, was'nt it.
1 thought, n
1 this table is just two bytes in$
1 thinks you should...
1 think (im 6ft, and the posters bigger thanme!), lifesize photo quality poster ofP
1 these furry-bearded creatures as possible.*
1 then, maybe, PC programmers will be able to squeeze as much out of these 32 bitP
1 theestablishment of Alchemist Software, withit's multi media coverage and thousands oftitles. Having seen some of Prism's recentliterature and a poor excuse for acatalogue, it's not hard to understand whythey lost the trade that they did!
1 the number of '
1 supposed<italicised> to have lied to, misled,betrayed, snubbed or asked to give up aneutral stance.k
1 support? VERY sad!
1 still run.
1 standard (and even the 486 is being pushedof the top of a cliff, by intel in anO
1 squeeze quite a lot from the small 16 & 48k spectrums, and the programs wouldO
1 speed at which it can process it, 60 66 90 120 & 133 mhz.;
1 speccy software houses of the past, and where they were now.>
1 someillustrations to go with this saga but itdidn't work out, so you will have to putup with a lot of rambling text instead!
1 some EC directive.
1 solution for saving memory what!
1 software that uses 32 BITS (Windows 95 forexample) and PCs have been 32 bit since the 386DX was released in the mid 80s...|
1 software that requires bigger, and bigger PCs. It won't be long before the minimum software requirement IS a Pentium.v
1 software companies state the DX2 as the minimum needed to run their software.O
1 software companies insist on producing&
1 sixteen.Unfortunately, if ink is bright then somust paper be and vice versa, so there areonly ( 16 x 8 ) = 128 combinations. But,128 colours on the Spectrum! Maybe that'swhat 128K stands for, ho ho. Remember thatthis 128 includes all the normal colourstoo, ie when ink and paper are both cyan,a normal cyan block is produced. To seethe lot of 'em, try this (I hope it worksas I haven't tested it!) <I know becauseit had two line 20's. Ed>
1 should I say 'Bloatware', that won't run on anything less than a, realistically, over-powerful & under utilised machine.{
1 seems to be hard drive space and the$
1 risque photos was a bit dodgy, was'nt%
1 reviews some of his latest!
1 require the greater memory (of in this&
1 regular adventure column, by
1 re-categorised to show:
1 profitable PENTIUM (586) cpu the new entrylevel processor) is because a lot ofN
1 processors as the speccy programmers did out of their Z80 (8 bit) processors.N
1 processor (as apposed to the Z80 cpu whichis an 8 bit processor!), yet we are only just starting to see the arrival ofw
1 process information in lumps of 32 bits. <Except it's so big and so advanced halfof us, nay, 3/4 of us won't be able to useit Ed>
1 printutilities, ZX printer simulators for IF1 /128 / +D (which makes a full size Epsoncompatable printer behave like a ZXprinter), Spectrum ROMs for the SAM, pluslots of well programmed games andutilities.
1 points to address.
1 pockets...
1 payingextortionate amounts for software andthats just not how we trade.L
1 page, 0, 1, 3, 4 or 6 - not these$
1 overlooked!
1 on what you have, thanks to Paul
1 on the changes at Alchemist!
1 officerintermediate between an admiral and acaptain, or the senior captain in a fleetof merchantmen, or the president of ayachting club, or a commodore's ship.Since the Commodore computer is neither ahigh-ranking sailor nor an aquatic craft,the choice of name here is questionable -but then so is anyone who owns aCommodore! <It was carefully engineered sowe could call it Commode! Ed>
1 offerings.
1 object - for pages other than page 0$
1 no of parts+1 (ie: 1-38+pt 0=39)
1 next issues bumper Christmas!
1 namedinterestingly after their components andthe years in which they were marketed. Ihave no idea where the name Atari camefrom, but Olivetti was the maker of anearly typewriter and Amiga means "friend"(ain't no friend of mine!). <More like AMEAGRE machine! Commodore really do knowhow to put their foot in it! Ed>
1 naked body and then get somebody else%
1 mw>CFECFCEC?A>
1 mw>>CCFFEECCFFCCEECC>>==<<apHJKJKJ
1 mw<<??==>>apJKJNJQ
1 movements.Incidentally, pressing a key during theeffect makes it move down or up a bit,because the computer has to slow down asit checks your keypress, so the effectsuffers as a result. If you have a 128kSpectrum, try the program again but in128k mode this time. Spot the difference!Because the 128k runs at a faster speed,the colours all whirl into one another andturn into a technicolour blur, as we callit in the Biz. Do you know what? I'vecompletely run out of ideas. The rate I'mgoing, I might actually have to do theunthinkable and FINISH this article. No!Anything to fill up more space!
1 more advanced 64 bit architecture, just the SPEED of the PC, and 100mhz is simply just faster than 60mhz, hence the DX4 is faster than the P60.
1 melted chocolate over your entire!
1 master, Kevin Gurd.
1 manufacturers now make computers that run the software, the only reason that theP
1 mCCEECCAAA?>>aMOMOMK
1 m>>AA>><<apKJKJHJ
1 location - the byte 1F (inverted)$
1 line 8 - index
1 line 32 - side select
1 line 30 - read data
1 line 28 - write protect
1 line 26 - track 0
1 line 24 - write gate
1 line 22 - write data
1 line 20 - step pulse
1 line 18 - direction of step
1 line 16 - drive motor ON
1 line 12 - drive 2 select
1 line 10 - drive 1 select
1 l]X]XX]XX]X]XX]XX]X]XX]XX]X]XX]XX]X]XX]XX]X]XX]XX]X]XX]XX]hXl]hXX]XX
1 it's not taking advantage of the P60s%
1 it to people to try and win
1 isguaranteed.
1 isembarrassingly low-resolution (one ink andone paper colour per character square),but as I will explain in a minute, you canstill have non-square shapes with mixedcolours. Printing the new graphic with redink and yellow paper (INK 2 and PAPER 6)gives what the user guide describes as an"acceptable orange". Other useful coloursinclude:
1 is 'lewd conduct'?.
1 interest for some reason...
1 informationsuperhighway" on which one can "surf". Iread in the Sunday Times (intellectualthat I am!) that the original 'Net wasdesigned for the transfer of secretinformation. No doubt these people havenot yet realised that the Internet is forcommunication by the public. Tsk, tsk.These Americans, eh?
1 information being processed is 16 bit,&
1 i$$h$i$h$i$h$
1 humancounterpart. But if you rephrased thequestion as "My mother has two sons, oneof which is myself. Her other son is inLondon. Where is my brother?" the computerwould have to know that the son of thesame mother as the questioner is his orher brother. This could get yet morecomplex if you started asking aboutmothers-in-law's uncles' great-nephews'goldfish, not only for the computer butalso the human - who would answer first?And again, would they give the rightanswer?
1 his column this time, apparently he#
1 higher place in the issue!
1 had millions of colours like the
1 goesSkiing, Horizons, Jason's Gem, Kane,Matchpoint, Mcoder II, Milk Race, OpThunderbolt, Personal Banking Roadtoad,Rollaround,
1 gaffes of naming a computer.
1 g0f00g0f0g0f00g0f00g00f0g0f0g00f0g0f000g0f0
1 for objects.
1 flow of this article, or lack of it.$
1 fit a drive select switch on the!
1 file (loads B, D, F, H or J)
1 f0g0f000g0f0
1 f0g00f0g0f0
1 f00g0f00g0f0g0f00g0
1 f&&o//i+o+i)o)((
1 explains his
1 eight colour palette? Wish you
1 dq+&+&+&+&+&+&+&r+
1 dq&+&+&+&+&+&+&+r&
1 did'nt he, but nobody fell for it."
1 cyberspace
1 county has got rid of them!
1 contains two byte pointers for each$
1 confined to Pentium PCs, it applies to 386& 486 PCs, because all Win95 does (being a 32 bit operating system) is comunicate directly with the cpu (not via DOS) &
1 computers simulate intelligence.!
1 case, the SX33).
1 carryinformation to and from the disc drives.-
1 besubsequently savaged by people that couldhave written better (but didn't!).Snapfix- is the one you featured inAlc.N.15 (without listing) and I asked fora copy ,if you had one, as you didn't sendit I typed this out from "FORMAT" andenclose a copy for you.
1 beoperational BEFORE SEPTEMBER 18th soPLEASE do not write early expecting acatalogue by return of post. The cataloguewill be printed at the last possiblemoment (i.e. the 17th!) to include as muchstuff as I can cram in. I also need to buya printer!!
1 being the end of text termination$
1 beavailable from us.
1 available (to my knowledge) to run on yourPentiums, why buy one?, the real selling point of the Pentium, is not the amount ofinfo it can process (64 bits), but the
1 automatic tabelation
1 attempt to make the considerably more%
1 assemblers,
1 artificialintelligence. You may ask how I can saythis when AI itself is not clearlydefined. Or is it?p
1 article, "amends" it and sends
1 are scatteredthroughout the country as well as dishingout a hefty fine.J
1 anyone interested?
1 anunderstatement.
1 and to switch from 48 to 128
1 and ended up having a long informativechat with Bill Richardson at EEC, herealized that I was no expert andsuggested I buy one of his ex-MGT LifeTimedrives, complete with lead and internalpower supply. This is a good idea if youhave not got a stack of spare cables,cases and power supplies , and are richenough!
1 amount of RAM you have in your computer.(
1 according to Martyn Sherwood
1 `1 each (large box)
1 ZENOBI SOFTWARE
1 Z80 SOFTWARE
1 Yours Faithfully
1 Yourdedication to us has made our dedicationto the Spectrum even stronger!L
1 You'll also have to cater for twoconditions , insomuch as your routine mustbe aware of the exact reason a return wasmade to your code - from the first timethe loader was called to the second, ifthe flag byte in A was not what it shouldhave been when the loader was entered.
1 You would think that the holidays would be quite relaxed, but I am still finding things to do and have only just got round to reading AN16!.
1 You then XOR L, which sets the zero flagso the loader will actually commenceloading bytes, and then do a call toaddress 05B7, the address the programcounter would have continued to if theflag byte had been a match.
1 You should be aware that although there isa fair amount of time your extramonitoring part of the loader can take inmaking it's decisions, it is not infiniteas the next byte on the tape isn't too faraway and you must make a return to theloader in time or a loading error will bethe result.
1 You may well be asking yourselves, "What'sthe point. Why not just use the loaderfrom where it is in ROM?"m
1 You may care to know that just as the48K ROM can miss loading errors, so canthis approach, but it is reliable enoughto be relied upon to be almost as accurateas the basic interpreter.
1 You have just inherited a cottage in thecountry from one of your long lost aunts.Everything seems normal when you arriveapart from the absence of the lawyer. Yoursuspicions are further aroused by thewords of an old tramp who tells you of thecottages strange reputation. It is up toyou to explore the cottage and village andhopefully solve the mystery.
1 You do remember me telling you about theflag byte being compared to what the Aregister held, and if that compare faileda return to the call would be made, don'tyou?
1 You can see in his letter than Mr Sherwoodis PC orientated. When will he learn thatyou can't tar all PD with the same brush.NOTHING compares to Spectrum PD -anywhere.
1 You can actually see the SA/LD-RET addressis on the stack, pushed there by the 'savebytes' routine at address 04C2.s
1 Yes, it's the second (or maybe third)<try fifth. Ed> "Desert Island Tapes".Before I say which ones I would take withme, here are two minorly major flaws withthe whole thing (just to spoil theillusion!):
1 Wrong! Doesn't care to be merged at all. I'll load it to a safe part of memory andhave a look at what they're trying tohide.
1 Write this to address F000:
1 Would you pay one pound for a ten lineprogram which converted TaswordO
1 Wolfgang Haller
1 With this in mind, I have built a lightgun that requires the simplest of BASICprograms to operate it successfully.x
1 With this done, reset the machine becausewe are now going to combine the two savesof the m/c into one block.n
1 With most 16 bit libraries, programs aresold by EACH title, not in a group of15-20 like we do. The titles cost aroundONE POUND each, but that includes mediaand postage.
1 With an individual statement, all thesesavings might seem small. However, in thecase of a large program, especially onewhere complex expressions occur, asignificant reduction can often be made byobserving these points, over and abovethat achieved by just adding VALsindiscriminately. In other words, takecare of the bytes, and the K's look afterthemselves...
1 Will the Turing Test ever be passed? It'simpossible to say. Computer technology isexpanding rapidly in terms of power, soperhaps it could be done sooner than wethink, but somehow I don't think that aSpectrum will ever pass, not even a 128k!
1 Will Sherwood accept this? No way, hecontinues to harass him, oblivious to thefact that he's in the wrong with everyoneagainst him!
1 Who are dedicated to saving as many of&
1 When run, a kind of quad-stripe borderwill appear - the PAUSE influences thetiming and the border zeros centre theeffect, if I've put them in the rightplace. Experiment by changing the colours- more than four can be used, but too manyof them will affect the timing and causeflicker
1 When it has loaded, use your assembler toinspect address;
1 When building has finished, the light guncan be calibrated using the followingBasic lines:`
1 When I once used this by accident, I gotthe report "N Statement lost, 1:90".Firstly, I had no FOR-NEXT loop in myprogram and secondly, line 1 had only 2statements in it! (The maximum allowed is127). On the 48k, CLEAR makes the computerforget where RETURN should go back to, sothe more sensible message "7 RETURNwithout GOSUB" is given. Another errorreport, "1 NEXT without FOR", can beproduced by printing the expression VAL "1.2", a valid number but one containing aspace. In 48k mode, this returns the morerelevant "C Nonsense in BASIC". Strangelyenough, VAL "1. 2" with the space afterthe decimal point is perfectly acceptable!
1 Whatever happens, I've been a Spectrumfanatic since 1982 and every day I becomemore commited - Heres to the 21st century!~
1 What would a silence actually involve?Well, there would be no information aboutPrism at all in the magazine and it wouldhave been the first step to end it all.The step Sherwood would NEVER take.
1 What we now have to do is to load in themain block of code to inspect where a JUMPis made to once the block of code wasloaded in - remember, the machine wasn'tcleared by the basic loader so RAMTOP willbe FF57 by default - what the systemvariables told us from the code weinspected wouldn't affect that!
1 What use is this anyway. Well on many 48kprograms information used to be screendout by using control characters to makethe ink and paper the same so the listingwas invisible. If you try to edit theselines in +2 or +3 basic you can't re-enterthe line unless you take all the controlcodes out again. But now you can switch to48 mode ,edit to your hearts content andthen switch back again.
1 What do we find there instead of whatshould be there?:
1 What about moral and philosophical issuessuch as "Do you believe in God? Why not?"or "Why does racism exist?". For thelatter, the computer might answer "Becausehumans are..." thus almost proving that itisn't one! How could a computer beprogrammed to play a guessing game, or tounderstand jokes? How could it beinstructed when and how to use sarcasm orto change its mood? And what about itsbackground? If you asked the question"What is your mother's name?", the trueanswer from the computer would tell youthat it wasn't the human (or that it wasconceived in some rather strange way!).
1 What I'm going to do now is, is to load in4000 of these bytes to address 8000. Iwill then have a look around at the systemvariables to decide what action next needstaking.
1 What I'd do, is I wouldn't cheat like DaveFountain, and take a tape full ofutilities. Oh no, I'm not like that...z
1 What I discovered is not the completestory as I was only interested in the textside of things. Those of you who wish toinvestigate the graphics angle must do sounder your own steam. I will list whereall the system variables are to be found,both in the resident page, page 2, as wellas the switchable pages, 0 through to 6,which does not include pages 2, 5 or 7, asyour starter.
1 West Yorks LS22 4EN
1 Well, why not come to Blackpool for your holidays, and ride on our famous trams, and find out exactly why every otherx
1 Well, this article is supposed to tell youall what my favourite Five games are, thatI would like to be on a desert island with(+Solar power speccy+Tv!)
1 Well, if the flag is a match, the loaderwill continue to load in data untileither the end of the block is reached orthe DE pair is decremented to zero. Inwhich case all you have to do is todetermine the length of the block - and weall know how that's done now, don't we?
1 Well, being in RAM, you are able to modifythe code to turn it into a verycontrollable and selective loading system.~
1 Well, after many hours of begging andpleading, The Ed has fnally decided to letme back into Alchnews. That is, only if Idonated `50 into Alchemist Funds...
1 Well, I've covered quite a few more ofthose nasty bugs here, but doubtless thereare more. If you know some of them (ie youused to be a programmer for Amstrad!!) whynot write your own article about them?
1 Well, the values of the flags andregisters will tell you all you need toknow!Y
1 Well, providing your assembler has notdamaged any of the code from address 8000up to BFFF, we can save out some code totape.
1 Well that's about all this time round,next issue I hope to have a tips sectionwhere I'll try and answer some of yourproblems. Of course for this I'll needsome input from you, so please, if you'restuck in a game then please write and askme. Or to tell me which games to givesolutions for, or even just to send meyour comments, they would all be greatlyappreciated.
1 Well actually there is.
1 We shall load the last save we made toaddress 28762 (7000), so input LOAD""CODE 28762._
1 We quote part of the "HALL OF SHAME"article by Mr Davis from Alchnews 16listing[
1 We like to inform you, that we have notonly these older titles. These are alsosome new titles:d
1 We have discovered the start address ofthe game, no less. And look at the addressabove this and the next as well.u
1 We bet that Liar Sherwood (for thats whathe is) is sighing with relief that this isth last column. But, it won't be over by along shot. Just because we aren't aroundto tell the world abou his lies doesn'tmean he'll get off scot free. After twoyears of exposing his tricks and frauds,NOBODY is going to trust him any more.
1 WITH 128 COLOURS!
1 WHAT'S IN A NAME?
1 Victoria Road
1 Vic Bishop is something of a POWERPRINTexpert. Should you wish to drop him aline, send an SAE to:i
1 Vic Bishop
1 Various Spectrum and QL books, manuals andover 100 magazines from 1984 onwards.O
1 VIETNAM TEXAS
1 VALling the number on its own, stillrequires parentheses:-@
1 Utimately, the 386, 486 & Pentium CPUs areactually being underused, even with Win95 running on a Pentium, it is still a 32 bitprog underusing a 64 bit processor.
1 Under Mr Sherwood's structure, you'd haveto pay `15, and get each title on it's owndisk!Y
1 UPDATE TO MY FONTS ARTICLE
1 UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS
1 U=Unhappy Customer
1 Turbmow Esprit - Cruise the streets inyour sit-on mower!<
1 Trowbridge
1 Trevor Mossman & Lloyd Garland
1 Tony Jeenes
1 To make this clear, if you examine theaddress held by this variable, at FFD9,the address it in turn points to is thefirst two byte verb/noun entry for theresponse table (0101 would define * *,
1 To avoid the Remstore bug when using itfor fonts, make sure that your font has adummy byte of 255 at the end (eg the 769thbyte). Remstore searches backwards to findthe end of your code, but with fonts thelast byte can be zero (an empty bottomline on the copyright symbol). The onlyproblem with this method is that the fontsno longer load into Art Studio as they aretoo big... by one byte! The followingroutine should make your fonts safe forRemstore.
1 To ensure that the 'B' drive is thedefault drive at switch on, all that needsto be done is to cut a gap in the PCBtracks to both the 'A' and 'B' drives andthen, with soldered wire connections,divert the track intended for pin 23 ofthe 'A' drive to pin 23 of the 'B' drive,and vice-versa, the track intended for pin23 of the 'B' drive is taken to pin 23 ofthe 'A' drive.
1 Time now to sort out a tape onto which wewill manufacture a back-up copy from allthe saves we have so far made.r
1 Thomas Eberle, SUC
1 This would be easy to do if making a cableup, the big advantage being that with bothdrives set as drive 1, you dont have tofiddle about with the jumpers , and ifyour drive(s) already had leads, you couldfit a socket instead of a plug and justplug one cable into the other! Somethingto think about eh?
1 This worked perfectly. Odd, since all Idid was give the SCREEN$ input a separatevariable. I assume that, for some reason,SCREEN$ cannot be used in certain types ofexpression. I don't know if this bugoccurs in 48k mode, but knowing Alan Sugar(not personally, mind!) I'd guess itdoesn't.
1 This service is to supply programs forusers of the "Z80" or compatable emulatorson the PC. Our proudest collection isGREMIN GAMES, over 30 games by GremlinGraphics, including all MONTY titles and'new' ones like Lotus Turbo Challenge.
1 This service has been temporarilly removeddue to one or two complaints from readersabout cheques being cashed, but no goodssent. Enquiry letters and calls have beenignored.
1 This routine will load the block of codeto address 3000, in ROM. The last byte ofthe block will be loaded to address EFFF,and it will either attempt to load theblock in again if there was an error, orit will wait till a key is pressedbefore saving out the block we need.
1 This person (should they actualy exist),requested photocopies of the proof we haveagainst Martyn Sherwood, and that we wouldbe reimbursed any costs involved.
1 This parity byte is a means of determiningwhether or not there was a loading erroras it is checked against the H registerafter all the other bytes have been loadedin - H is a result of adding each loadedbyte to it (it is initiallized to zero atthe start of the block) and when the DEregister pair reach zero, the parity byteis fetched off the tape and the value Hholds is loaded to the A register, whichin turn is XORed with L (which holds theparity byte) and the result should be zeroif there was not a loading error.
1 This mode is convenient if you wish touse COPY "A:*.*" TO "B:" or COPY "A:" TO"B:" on, say, a 3.5" disc, if that is whatyou have fitted to the 'B' drive connectorof the +3.
1 This list is the definitive guide to UK PDand should cover all tastes.F
1 This is what made the 8-bit home computer scene so memorable, you could buy a home computer, a Speccy, Amstrad or Commode, ersorry, Commodore, and that was it.
1 This is the main problem with Format in myopinion, too little content, not enoughquality. A paper based magazine for such asmall readership however loyal justdoesn't cut it anymore if the aim is tomake it financially viable. Is there anyproof for this observation.
1 This is definitely a well written game,the locations and text are well thoughtout which makes the game more involving.There is a definite mysterious atmospherewhich helps keep your attention.
1 This column will be shorter and unfunnier than usual <No change there then - ED> as the deadline for this issues column has been moved forward to NOW! AAA
1 This article has nothing to do with theSwedish group, even though to date theystill rank as one of my favourite bands,it is, in fact, concerned with discdrives and the +3.
1 Think yourselves lucky! I had to teachmyself all I know - there was no-one likeme around when I began learning, to givea guiding hand.
1 Thinger,Breakaway, Chequered Flag, Chess, CluedoCodename Mat, Confuzion, Cyrus is Chess,Daley Thompson Decathlon, Digger Dan,Exodus, Fighter Pilot, Flight Simulator,Haunted Hedges, Highway Encounter, HobbitHorace and the Spiders, Horizons tape,Make a Chip, Mr Freeze, Kentilla, Komplex,Matchpoint, Personal Banking System,Planet of Death, Roadtoad, Snooker, Spawnof evil, Star Trader, Super Cycle,Survival, Tarzan, Travel with Trashman,Ugh!, Vakyrie 17, Viper III, Vu Calc, VuFile, Zig Zag, Spectrum + user tape, abcliftoff, Countabout,
1 They've followed this by a PRINT AT 22,0;:LOAD "" CODE.8
1 These games are: Mercenary! Top game! I'dhave hours of fun flying about on Targ andI could pretend that I was actually tryingto escape from the island. <Let me getthis straight - you're stuck on an islandand you take a game where you're stuck ona planet? Ed>
1 Theres also more proof that he's beenmisleading people, which two neutralparties can vouch for.j
1 There's no danger of things getting out ofhand as nothing of importance can beloaded over even if you let the tape runright till the end.
1 There's nothing to prevent it beingarranged as follows (and disposing of thebrackets in the process):-n
1 There you go! C000 bytes to be loaded toaddress 4000.7
1 There you are! The line number is correct,but the number of bytes for the line isFFOO - that's the anti-merge mod.!v
1 There is still a fair amount of magazinecoverage, although the majority iscombined with the SAM.j
1 There is not that much text to read inthis game. The room descriptions are shortas are the responses. This can be usefulas it is easy to see what objects must beinteracted with.
1 There is no need to alter any of the callsas a return to your loader will be madefrom the routines in the ROM - if you canput two and two together, you will realizeyour loader doesn't need to include thetwo routines in the ROM loader namedLD-EDGE-1 and LD-EDGE-2.
1 There is also an additional hidden byte inall blocks, which again isn't normallyloaded (more of this later) and this iscalled the parity byte and is the lastbyte of the block.
1 There are just a few programs I wouldlike, if you could oblige please Andy,I've listed them at the end of thisletter.
1 There are much more things to mentionabout this program, but believe me, it isthe best assembler ever programmed. Itknows all known and unknown instructions,such as XOR HX or INC LY... PROMETHEUScomes on tape with 48k and 128k versions,upgrades, some examples and Englishinstructions.
1 There have been many attempts bylinguistic programmers to write languageconvertors which translate not only thewords but also the grammar and allrecognised idioms. However, due to thehuge number of words and phrases in anylanguage, there has been little success asyet, as can be illustrated by this story.After hours of work on an English toRussian language program, it was run andgiven the phrase "Out of sight, out ofmind". The problem arose when the Russianwas translated back - all the computercould come up with was "Blind idiot"!
1 Theo Develegas
1 Then after I'd gotten fed up with LastNinja and Mercenary, I would play R-Type!This is another good game I have, whichinvolves mindlessly flying about andblowing things up! I like this sort ofgame, as it doesn't involve any effort toplay! You just fly about the screen, ehm,blowing things up!!
1 Then again, I doubt if anyone wouldprosecute you for producing a back-up copyof an original package you own for youruse alone.
1 Their catalogue contains thousands oftitles, all at very low prices. Besidesnew titles, he can also get some classicstoo. Theres even provision for +3,Microdrive, Opus and +D programs. For acatalogue, send an IRC. Also, seeelsewhere in this issue for moreinformation.
1 The way to do this is quite straight -forward. All you need do is push A ontothe stack and then use this register totest the IX pair. If IX is the same valueas when the loader was entered, then it isreasonable to assume the return wasbrought about by the A register notcontaining the correct flag reference andnot a load error - it is very unusual forthe first byte of a block to cause aloading error if the flag byte wascorrect.
1 The way Mr Sherwood suggests, he wouldmake Spectrum PD the same.D
1 The variables in all the switched pagesare identical and the first of these isthe start address of a table of two bytepointers for the response and processtables - this variable always points tothe response table as response is process0 - the number of these two byte pointerswill total the greatest numbered processtable used in the adventure, plus one,allowing for response (process 0).
1 The variable area starts at 9DCC and from experience, I'd say that what's there isa FOR variable loop (wonder what deleted lines made use of that - wonder why aCLEAR wasn't done to get rid of thevariables?).
1 The value A contains can be any numberfrom 0 to FF. However, A must always matchthe flag byte of the saved block from'save bytes' at address 04C2 - I willcover this routine at a later date.
1 The subject of cash is also questionable.Surely a fully registered business wouldnot be able to hand out free software,beacuse of their financial committments.The fact he states that hobbyists or theunemployed need to make customers pay infull suggests that Mr Sherwood is in itfor a little money on the side.
1 The screen pic after this text shows abasic mod for ensuring the 'B' driveis the default drive at switch on of the+3.
1 The routine you write should incorporate asimilar piece of code to the demo job afew pages ago. This is purely to do awaywith the delay SA/LD-RET takes before areturn is made to your routine.
1 The reason for this was because:
1 The question is WHY did he not mention theBETRAYED PROGRAMMERS and UNHAPPY CUSTOMERScatgories? The answer is because if hedid, a number of the names listed wouldhave been able to answer yes to one ofthem! Nice trick, but it didn't work!
1 The program here has found the phrase "IAM..." and merely tacks "WHAT MAKES YOUTHINK THAT" onto the beginning and changesit to the response for "I AM" which is"YOU ARE".
1 The problem with this sort of program isthat it is very limited - you couldn'treally use it as a psychiatrist, and itwould make a boring friend for anyone butJohn Major! Also, if you enter the samething twice, you will invariably get thesame reply or one which is very similar(if it picks random replies relating toyour key word).
1 The principle here, is that by including"1" inside an EXISTING VAL, we use onebyte less than a separate SGN PI wouldtake. (Similar comments apply to NOT PI,INT PI, and so on.)
1 The power connector at the back of thedrive has four pins with a locating tonguethat locks the plug into place , to removethe plug you need to gently lever thetongue away to release the plug as youpull it off. If you (like I did) need tofit a new one , then the power connectionsare as follows :-
1 The plug I got was in three pieces thatsnap together (can be a little sod to takeback apart, but it can be done!) - mindyou don't snap it together untill you aresure you have the cable and plugorientated correctly. If you lay thecentre bar on its back you will see thatit has grooves to locate the cable andholes to locate the self cuttingconnectors on the plug body.
1 The playing area is fairly large and evenhas the odd maze or two. Some locationdescriptions are long and rich with detailwhile others are fairly sparse. Even withthis the game still lacks atmosphere. Theobstacles are well thought out and ittakes time to work out some of thetrickier ones. But to me the game doesn'treally have any lasting appeal. If youlike making maps then you'll probablyenjoy this game but overall I find itpretty average.
1 The parity byte will also have been loadedand the IX pair will point to the nextaddress to where it was loaded to.v
1 The other sort of general knowledge, forwhich the computer's no doubt vast memorybanks would have to be constantly updated,is current affairs. If the questionerasked "How many numbers do you choose forthe UK National Lottery?" or "Who won theFA Cup last year?", the computer wouldhave to know the facts - these thingscannot be deduced by logic alone! Betterstill, you could ask "Who won theEurovision Song Contest in 1328?", knowingdamn well there wasn't one! The poorcomputer probably wouldn't know what theSong Contest was, and would probably givesome guessed answer like "Norway", perhapsa bit of a giveaway!
1 The only thing that seems not quite rightis that BOTH drive motors spin for everydisc operation, is this unavoidable?Anybody help me out on this one please?<Miles covered this previously, see a backissue. Ed>
1 The only problem we have now is if themachine is cleared to the address 23935,in any basic loader, no matter how frugalyou care to be, there won't be enough freespace for more than just a couple ofcommands, let alone lines! Therefore, weare going to have to think deviously andclear the machine to 65367, the defaultvalue at switch on, which if you remember,the old stack is still at that address inthe code of the game - you've got to be onthe ball all of the time in this hackinglark!
1 The only other test left is to load thegame in from the back-up copy we made, tosee if the machine being cleared to thewrong address has any adverse effect.
1 The next game would be Last Ninja 2 Remix.Then I cold run about beating people upand pretend they were the people who putme on the island!
1 The next bug in my growing list is onewhich me old mate Miles Kinloch informedme about. It doesn't quite hold with mytheme because it's machine code relatedand not BASIC, but it only occurs on the128k
1 The next address on the stack is 1B76 andit is the return address to be made to inthe 48K ROM ('STATEMENT-RET' SUBROUTINE)after the save routine finished saving outthe block of code.
1 The new FOUNTAIN PD address will be asfollows:2
1 The names Sherwood 'forgot' to add to thelist:/
1 The name Amstrad is an acronym of AlanMichael Sugar TRADing (he had to get hisname in!), but as he no longer supportshis 8-bit machines, I think the Amstradclubs (if they exist!) should rename theircomputers. How about Amsiab - Alan MichaelSugar is a b... sorry, it's a family magisn't it?!
1 The moral here is, is if you are not sureof the results you are getting then doublecheck by calling the loader with thevalues you obtained by the above method.If they are correct you will only see acarry returned by the loader.
1 The main use being that the IX pair can bemonitored and altered at will without theloading process being interrupted.v
1 The main purpose of this article, then, isto examine the use of VAL in compoundexpressions; an area which frequentlyoffers scope for greater economy, butwhich many programmers seem to overlook.
1 The list of people is reprinted. Besideeach name you will see a letter. Thisdenotes why they have been involed.w
1 The list goes on and on. What would happenif you repeatedly asked the same question?At best, the computer would keep saying"Don't repeat yourself" - at worst, itwould repeat its answer over and overagain!
1 The last game I would take, will have tobe Myth. This is by far, the best game onSpeccy that I've played. (Except forMercenary of course!) Myth is a funkygame, and I would spend many hours junpingabout, destroying excellently animatedskeletons and Vikings and things.
1 The improved speed and performance that Windows 95 is supposed to offer is notP
1 The game's plot is that you control twoagents whose mission is to recover acrystal from the planet of Marego. Thecrystal was brought to Marego by aninvading army from another planet.
1 The game must be loaded in either USR0 OR48K mode.3
1 The game itself is involving but it can bea bit off putting when you are stuck onsome of the harder problems. The text iswell written and the humour reallybrightens up the game.
1 The game begins with you sitting in yourbedroom after being wakened up by strangelights and voices. On closer inspectionyou discover a strange cloud outside yourfront door. You soon find out that JackFrost has messed up all the weather in theweather city of cloud 99. It is up to youto set the weather back the way it shouldbe.
1 The flag byte of any save made by theroutine at 04C2 can be determined byloading the A register with zero, the DEpair with a number greater than zero, theIX pair with an address of your choosing,setting the carry flag and then calling'load bytes'.
1 The first save is the screen and that isat address 8000. So do a SAVE "(NAME)"CODE 32768, 6912 to save the screen,followed by SAVE "(NAME)" CODE 40320,8832, which is the code of the game up toaddress BFFF that we loaded in - we don'tneed the basic as we know where themachine was cleared to.
1 The first problem I had was obtaining adrive ,the local computer shops had plentyof HD 3.5" drives , but no DD (1 meg)drives, and when I explained what I wantedit for nearly got frozen out of the shop !(WE ONLY DEAL WITH IBM COMPATIBLES -- SIR!what you want is obsolete, we would haveto fit it ourselves SIR - but that sort ofthing is too expensive even i we couldstill obtain them - How about a PROPER(IBM compatible) system?
1 The first part would detail setting up themap objects and moving a round as well asmanipulating objects (ooer missus) andprogress from there.
1 The first method uses three VALs; thesecond, only one, and is therefore sixbytes shorter. In other words, if insteadof VALling each number separately, weenclose the WHOLE EXPRESSION in a SINGLEVAL, this is less wasteful. (128K usersbeware: the 128K Editor changes any tokenswithin quotes to the individual lettersthat comprise them, so always use 48K modeto enter or edit such statements.)
1 The end of the line is at address 9DCB, ifyou loaded the basic to 9CCB.G
1 The connecting cable, if you open the caseof your existing drive, will probableyhave an identical plug fitted to each end,look at the cable carefuly, one edge maybe marked with a coloured stripe -this isuseful to make sure you have the plugs theright way round when you plug it into thedisc drive.
1 The column was written in just a day andin my rush to get it to Andy before thedeadline, perhaps I did not allow myselfenough time to check for errors andspelling mistakes.
1 The circuit diagrams shown includes allthe components to connect the light gun tothe Speccy. However, the light sensor (MEL12) needs to only see a small viewotherwise it would detect unwanted lightsources. This is why a Dirty Harry typebarrel is needed. A hollow plastic tubemeasuring 25cm long and 15mm diameterwould be ideal, allowing the light sensorto be enclosed at one end (fig3). In theSLR there was also a convex lens. By usingthis lens it was possible to make the gunmore accurate and increase it's range. Alens of this type would be almostimpossible to obtain, so we need to relyon the plastic tube instead.
1 The cheapest CP/M library ever seen.$
1 The catalogue was larger and the excellentAlchNews was always informative andentertaining.a
1 The article was written by Paul Howard, along with another article about theN
1 The answer to that is a simple, NO, I'mnot!.
1 The answer is quite simple because, again,the block of code will not be loaded toit's intended address but to somewhereelse.
1 The United Minds.
1 The United Minds Team
1 The Turing Test seems the best measure ofAI, and although it is harsh and will notbe passed for years, if at all, artificialintelligence is an area in which we havelittle skill. Critics of the Test say thatphysical skill should be involved, egplaying a game of catch or hitting atarget, but how could this be done so thatyou could see the ball/target but not theopponent?! I can't imagine the computerbeing put in a suit of armour to write thealphabet in handwriting (would all its A'sbe exactly the same?) or to play a game oftennis, but who knows?
1 The Spectrum is generally regarded as aneight-colour machine, but using the righttechniques, many more colours can beachieved. Some would call it cheating, butby making patterns and giving them ink andpaper colours, lots of subtle shades canbe created, and rather than blue, red andyellow, users of the humble Speccy cantalk of vermilion, ecru and aquamarine andmake 16-million-colour PC owners jealous!(The PCs have 16 million colours, not theowners!). <16.7 actually. Ed>
1 The STEP -1 ensures that the numbers goDOWN in steps of one - but what if youleave it out altogether? As expected, theloop is ignored. What actually happens isthat the BASIC interpreter finds a loopwithout a negative STEP and in which thestart value is higher than the end one. Ittherefore skips the loop, but this can dounusual things. Try this (be careful, itresets the computer!):
1 The Rectory
1 The Holidays are definitely here, and the weather has been HOT HOT HOT!, so I read with interest that a number of AN writers were going on holiday.
1 The Editor.
1 The DE pair are used as a counter for howmany bytes there are in the data block -decremented after every loaded byte.x
1 The CARRY flag is used to determine if theroutine is to be used for loading orverifying.^
1 The A register is the flag byte of thedata block - this flag byte is notactually loaded. It is the first byte ofthe block and it is compared to thereference flag byte A contained when theroutine was called.
1 The 80 byte marker of the expand tokensdictionary for compressed text is ataddress (944C)+1. The last letter of eachtoken has bit 7 set - while I'm on thesubject, it should be remembered that allother
1 The 'load bytes' routine in the ROM can bere-located to pretty well anywhere youchoose to put it in RAM. It only requiressome minor modifications to the code forit to run quite happily, either incontended or uncontended memory - I don'tcare what you have read elsewhere aboutthe timings being upset in a loadersituated in contended memory. I make therules up here ... if I say something willwork, then it will do!
1 The 'B' drive becomes the default driveand the 'A' drive is not mapped in (noconnection to pin 23).j
1 The 'B' drive becomes the default drive'A'. The 'A' drive becomes the 'B' drive.T
1 The 'A' drive is the default drive and the'B' drive is mapped in as such (normal).R
1 The 'A' drive is the default drive and the'B' drive is not mapped in as thereis no connection to pin 23 of itsdrive (even if it is fitted and poweredup).
1 The value of the IX pair determinesthe start address of where any blockto be loaded begins. The pair areincremented after every byte loaded.
1 The two agents you control are exactoppostites. One is the intellectual typewhile the other is strong but illiterate.The first thing to do is to help theagents meet up as they won't get very faron their own.
1 The subsequent verb/noun entry followsafter the previous condacts pointer, whichin turn is succeeded by the next condactpointer, and so on and so on until theterminal marker (
1 The program, anyway, will define asgraphic character A a rather nice patternwhich, on a TV set, looks like a weirdpinkish-brown, but, on a monitor, isrevealed as a pattern of little dots orPIXELS.
1 The main part of any file begins ataddress 9300 and occupies memory in pages2 and 0.\
1 The game plays fairly well really,featuring a large playing area, goodvocbulary, well thought out problems andatmospheric text. It features a good rangeof different locations which help holdyour intrest in the game. In fact once youget into this game it's hard just toleave.
1 The first op code instruction is F3(disable interrupts) so we can safely callthis address from basic!l
1 The best multi-computer magazine since"Your Computer", some 13 years ago! Manyhave tried and failed by 8BIT is a surewinner. Coverage is between Commodore, PCWand Spectrum, with more emphasis on thelatter.
1 The "A" in line 30 is the graphiccharacter, not the letter. Assuming thisworks, you'll see a rather nice effectwhich the more sentimental of you may wishto save for future use. There's oneproblem with this method of "new colours",however - due to ink and paper coloursfilling up the whole of any charactersquare to which they are applied, it wouldseem that only squares can be produced.What if you wanted an orange triangle, forexample?
1 The questioner is allowed to askabsolutely any question to try to fool thecomputer into giving a mechanical answer.Questions invariably include "tricky ones"which a computer would have greatdifficulty in answering realistically.These can be split into seven groups:
1 The diagram I have drawn of themodified circuit board of the +3 is notexact because the relative positions ofthe connectors to one another is offset.However, it is correct in respect to thelayout and pin numbering as viewed fromthe reverse side of the board (the sideyou need to work on) of the +3.
1 That's where the game begins. Once youmanage to get into the castle you'll getlumbered with even more problems.The gameis not too hard if you read the textcarefully. It is important to examineeverything. Most obstacles can be ovecomewith a bit of common sense.
1 That's that, then.
1 That's a fair enough question whichdeserves answering.=
1 That is one method of determining the flagbyte a block, which although only requiresyou do it just the once, isn't reallysatisfactory and I will later show a setup for an auto flag byte determiningloading routine.
1 That about wraps up all I think I need totell you about 'load bytes'. If anythingelse comes to mind about it I will updateyou in a later column.
1 That concludes the list of the systemvariables to be found in page 2 and itshould be noted these are available at alltimes to PAW, regardless whichever of thefive usable pages are switched in at thetop end of memory.
1 Thanks to: Albert Harper
1 Thanks for your thousands of letters andtelephone calls of@
1 Thanks for the great service,
1 Thanks for sending the other programs -Piano is cute!, are you the Andrew Davisthat wrote it? It seems to like to runbest from line 28!
1 Thank you for your letter dated 2/8/95. Iwill have one more try to resolve thematter regarding 'free' software (EVEN MrBrenchley wasn't successful despite hisyears of experience & knowledge!), then ifyou still prefer your view on the subject- so be it.
1 Tel: 01952 462135
1 Tel: 01625 617262
1 Tel: 01494 871319
1 Tel: 01353 777006
1 Tape & Disk magazines
1 Take, for instance:-
1 Take, for example, the statement:-"
1 TRADING POST. A mega big issue,!
1 TO FIT THE PLUGS ONTO THE CABLE
1 THORNTON CLEVELEYS,
1 THERE ARE 'BLU-TAC STAINS' ON THEM"
1 THE THING MAGAZINE
1 THE SECRET OF LITTLE HODCOME - This is oneof my favourite adventure games.It couldjust be the plot that appeals to me but Istill find this to be a good, well writtengame.
1 THE ROY BENSON SELF-INTEREST
1 THE PRICE OF ONE !
1 THE MISTAKES:
1 THE LAWNMOWER MAN
1 THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
1 THE LABOURS OF HERCULES - This is quite anold game and it shows. Although there isnothing especially wrong with it, itdoesn't really rise above average.
1 THE INTERNET - OR IS IT?
1 THE HALL OF SHAME
1 THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS
1 THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (DOMARK GAME)%
1 THE EIGHT COLOUR COMPUTER
1 THE ADVENTURE WORKSHOP
1 THE DOMES OF SHA - Ah, yes. Thetraditional fantasy adventure game, everycompilation should have at least one.Fortunately this one is actually quitegood.
1 TECHNICAL SECTION
1 TASMAN, creators of the excellent TASWORDwordprocessors still sell their three besttitles.[
1 TASMAN SOFTWARE
1 TAPE / DISC MAGAZINES
1 TANGO & MAGIC DICE is a small compilationof two strategic games . Both getting topratings in reviews of ZAT, Spectrum UK orchic Computer Club. In Tango you have tohelp your friend finding his home, but hecan only walk one time over the squares tohis home. MAGIC DICE is another TETRISclone, this time with cubes.
1 T.A.W. supply adventure games for a widevariety of computers, including CP/M andthe Spectrum. Most software is writtenwith PAW, GAC or QUILL and can be suppliedon tape or disk. The 22 page A4Spectrum catalogue goes into great detailof all their available titles, giving awell written scenario, game type, partsand prices. This catalogue details seven128k adventures and over 64
1 Sweevmow's World - Collect objects to mowdown the mad robots!>
1 Sutton-In-The-Isle
1 Suppose you have no idea how many bytesare in a block you want to load in.M
1 Suppose you have a block of code, as inthe straight through type of loader, whichis C000 bytes long, it is difficult if notimpossible to find the space to put itall.
1 Supplier of ZX Microdrives,!
1 Sub-Editor:
1 Str M. Kogalniceanu
1 Stockton-on-Tees,
1 Stefan Ballerstaller U
1 Stefan Ballerstaller
1 Star Micronics
1 Staffs. ST3 5BH
1 Staff Writers
1 South Wales
1 Sorry! But if you had let me finish thesentence, I would have added:-I
1 Sorry for all the work I've set you, butyou will undoubtebly find what I have toldyou of great use as a hacking aid.v
1 Something Rather Strange
1 Some of the above are pushing it a bit,but they look good in games nonetheless.(Another good UDG for shading is one whichhas BIN 10101010 all the way down likethin bars). Now, there are eight coloursas we know, but by using the BRIGHTcommand (except on certain monitors whichdon't show any difference) another eightcan be produced,
1 Some five years before the Magnum, therewas another offering for the avid Speccyshootist. It was called the STACK LIGHTRIFLE, and arguably the worst light gunever made. Never the less, most ownerswere pleasantly surprised when they openedthe box for the first time. Not only wasthere a pistol, but a wood effect stockextension, telescopic sights, and a barrelDirt Harry would have been proud of!
1 Solomon's Key, Rick Dangerous 2, Renegade3.,
1 Software companies wrote software that&
1 Softsell is the last remamining Spectrumsoftware hire library.A
1 So, with this in mind, we can determinewhat the letters of each file define andwhich saves are paired together.t
1 So, when the DOS selects the 'A' drive,pin 23 of that drive is taken low. If the'B' drive is selected then pin 23 of itsdrive is taken low.
1 So, what did he do? He comprised a letter,supposedly to the whole list of people inthe "Hall of Shame". It went like this:{
1 So, the pointer for the process 1 pointerwould be the address held at (FFD9)+2,process 2 (FFD9)+4 and so on - the moreastute of you will realize you double thenumber of the table you wish to look atand add that to the address held in FFD9to arrive at it's pointer address.
1 So, that means because he hasn't writtento certain people, he knows he is guiltyof the "crimes" he had caused with them!Talk about putting your foot in it!
1 So, settle back for a rather intense andprolonged tutorial. Fear not, I willdemonstrate all I promised to show youwithin this issue ... eventually!!!
1 So, now direct your attention to addressA167 (remember we've just loaded thecode 1000 lower in memory than it normallyresides at).
1 So, all I have to do now is to clear 32767and input LOAD"" CODE 32768 and wait acouple of minutes till I think enough datahas been loaded in.
1 So, Sherwood - going to print that in yourmagazine and show your readers what aliar and hipocrite you really are?!w
1 So, AlchNews continues, with more helpfrom some readers who have become verygood friends. However, I would like to domore writing inthe Spectrum field andit may be nice to see a new editor incharge. All contributions would go to themand it could be mastered and distributedby them, or by us as normal. The idealcandidate must be knowledgable of allwordprocessors used on the Spectrum andtextfile converters, plus a wide range ofmachines is probably needed, +D and +3(twin drive) essential. But, I'll leavethe details to anyone who requests furtherinformation.
1 So, why has he pestered? He got nosympathy from Brian Gaff who telephoned meimmediately to ask what he was up to. WhenI explained that I had ended the businessBEFORE Sherwood printed and sent theletters, it was obvious he was doing it tocontinue the problem. Brian is rightlyignoring his letter. He wanted to remainneutral. We honoured that. Sherwood doesso by pestering him AGAIN!
1 So, the easiest way to calculate thelength of the block is to push IX onto thestack and pop HL, followed by a decrementHL, to compensate for the parity bytehaving been loaded and the IX pair beingincremented once more than it should havebeen.
1 So think yourselves very fortunate, stopmoaning and groaning, sit up and takenotice for I will describe this to youonly once!
1 So much for that, then. Nothing more I canthink of to make use of the 'load bytes'in the ROM ...b
1 So having proved the flag byte in A wasincorrect, you then pop A off the stack(to balance it) and then load thisregister with the L register (this holdsthe actual flag byte) and then pokeagain the same address you poked with theA register just before you called theloader (again, so you know what the flagbyte of the block is later).
1 So having moved the loader to RAM, deletethe four bytes which push the SA/LD-RETaddress onto the stack and then the onlyother mod you need do for the loader tooperate is to change the only JUMP addressthere is in the loader ... In the ROM,this is at address 05D5. You will have tore-write the jump address in your loaderto the relevant place within it.
1 So after I'd be bored from R-Type, I wouldhave Arkanoid 2! Yep, I also like thatsort of Bats'N'Balls clone game, where allyou do, is control a bat to hit a ballabout the place! Actually, this type ofgame is not really amazing, but I find itreally good to play.
1 So here's where I bring on anotherSpectrum so as to hack ZOOT and writeabout what I'm doing at the same time.z
1 So consider yourself well and trulywarned!1
1 So Feedback please. Remember, althoughadventues created in Basic are morelimited in many ways they can be just asinteresting as any M/coded versions withthe added attraction that you know exactlyhow it all works together.
1 Sintech is possibly the world leader insupplying old and new Spectrum programs.All old titles are in stock and some newones are exclusively produced for Sintechby Alternative Software.
1 Silviu Stroie, RAMTOP magazine
1 Shropshire
1 Should the page contain any messages, thefirst byte will hold the first messagenumber to be found in that page.t
1 Sheepsoft PD
1 Set=LOAD. Reset=VERIFY.
1 Sergeant Seymower - Catch all thecriminals in the garden!B
1 Send blank disk and SAE for catalogue.Thousands of titles, with many differentemulators.^
1 Send an SAE for their comprehensive A5catalogue dealing with the Amiga, Amstrad,Atari, Commodore, PC and Spectrum. Lots ofSpectrum hardware and spares available atthe lowest prices.
1 Selanswei 25
1 See you on the 18th! Please send a SAE anda blank 3.5" +D disc or a cassette if youalso want the free Library mag (thisincludes the FONT LIBRARY in graphic formso you can see what fonts we actually haveon offer!)
1 See you in a few minutes if everythinggoes off okay, or three months time if itdoesn't!\
1 See SPECTRUM PROFI CLUB
1 Secondly, there is the fact he HAS NOTWRITTEN to some of the names on the list.Not surprisingly these people are who hehas had the most trouble with, and in thepast year, such as the United Minds, LloydGarland, Albert Harper, Miles Kinloch,Theo Develegas!
1 Save this basic to the tape, notforgetting to make line 10 the auto-runline.Y
1 SWITCHING THE DRIVES AS DRIVE
1 SWINDLER SHERWOOD'S
1 SUTTON IN ASHFIELD
1 SUPER PLANNER, TRANSFORM HISTOGRAM, MICROLSPREADSHEET,6
1 SUC-CESSION
1 SUBLIMINAL EXTACY - INCLUDES S.CLASSIC&
1 STUDIO CORNER
1 STOKE ON TRENT
1 STAR USERS CLUB: No change.
1 SPECTRUM to get to 48 mode (thats a newone).
1 SPECTRUM PROFI CLUB
1 SPECTRUM PD SHOULD *STILL*
1 SPECIAL REASONS
1 SOME DRIVES DO NOT HAVE THE LOCATING NOTCHFOR THE PLUG, OR COULD EVEN HAVE THE PINSUPSIDE DOWN TO ONES IN THE DRIVE YOU MIGHTALREADY HAVE.
1 SOFTWARE SERVICES
1 SOFTWARE HELP: The +D, +3 and MD/Opusutility collections will stillN
1 SOFT OPTIONS
1 SO FAR SO GOOD! That should have the +Dlinked to two drives, now there is justthe power supplies and switching thedrives to sort out, together with casingthe drives.
1 SJS2 AMSTRAD JOYSTICK (Seems to prefer&
1 SINCLAIR GEBRUIKERSGROUP GRONINGEN / ASSENJohan Koning6
1 SINCLAIR EXPRESS
1 SINCLAIR COMPUTERCLUB BENELUX
1 SIMPLE DIY LIGHTGUN
1 SHEEPSOFT PD
1 S.C. sells a wide range of Spectrum andSAm software, including an excellentwordprocessor,b
1 Roy has explained that he WAS an UnhappyCustomer, therefore his mention in theHall of Shame was a valid point, and hewill be making a report in AlchNews abouthow he wishes to remain neutral in thematter, but also stands by the article hewrote for AlchNews 10C complaining aboutthe poor quality software he ordered.
1 Route De Bel Air
1 Ronald Raaijen
1 Romantic Robot
1 Roger G41DE
1 Roelof Koning, SGG
1 Robert Skene &
1 Robert Skene, Joyce Cook, Roy Benson,Bradby Boys Club, Cattell, Chic ComputerClub, Alec Carswell, Ben Douglas, ThomasEberle, Craig Elder, Brian Gaff, BarbaraGibb, Lloyd Garland, Matt Beal, MarkHarris, Albert Harper, Johan Koning, MilesKinloch, Extacy-3, David Ledbury, PatrickMorriss, Marcus Prichard, Darren Randle,Garry Rowland, Michael Meyer, JamesWaddington, Theo Develegas."
1 Right, then. Here's where it begins to getcomplicated, so hang on to your hats!O
1 Right, that should do it for now - more"Miscellaneous Characters" next month.<Yes, I found it very interesting - Ed>.<<Oi - I didn't say that. Ed>>
1 Right, excuse me while I merge the basicto see if it has been tampered with ornot. I doubt very much it has as there'sreally no need to do so.
1 Right! I'm off to bed for a good, longsleep. It's now well into the 8th of Juneand I've been hard at this column allof yesterday and part of today!
1 Right! I'll make this as simple as I canfor you.2
1 Right thats enougth rambling from me fornow. Hope to see you in a future issueP
1 Richard Wilson
1 Richard Main.
1 Richard Coles
1 Realistically, most businesses are using 286/386 & in some cases 486 PCs, butN
1 Ray's Plus 3 Bit
1 RUN (to reset the system variables) then PRINT USR 233259
1 ROY BENSON,
1 ROBOCOP 2, LARGE poster, about 7-8ft I&
1 RETARDED CREATURES AND CAVERNS - Probablythe hardest game on the tape this one butalso one of the most enjoyable.s
1 RESTORE <= 5 OR % ., THEN * /d AT p= ROVER ^ ${ OR. ? PRINT OPEN # : j @ R LOADB! w FORMAT.`
1 REPLACE IT ! FIT TWO FOR
1 RBS-IS, then the address is as follows,'
1 RATHERNEGATIVE.
1 RANDOMIZE USR 23354 (the same restictionsas the +2)4
1 Quick P.S, Hello to all Speccy people! TheEd, L.a., Bogie, Vision, Kizzy, Agent-X,Pandagirl, FudgePacker, Demon Hacker, DaGangster, Dok and Psi-Co.
1 QL's,Spectrums, cartridges, keyboard membranes,disk drives, monitors and the Z88. Flyersusually go out with all letters toAlchemist Research, but send an SAE to theabove address for the latest catalogue &deals.
1 Prof. D.H. White PhD
1 Producing games for this unit is farlyeasy. Just make sure that the backgroundand objects are in dark colours. When itis required to shoot, let the whole screenappear white or inverse for the shortestof time needed to press the switch.
1 Press record and play and save just theheader of this save onto the tape.L
1 Powerprint is a program I've been tryingto get to grips with , the Helpfiles arebrilliant . The Tastutor and Star userssection are very helpful, even though Idon't have a Star printer there has been alot of generaly useful information aboutTas and printers.
1 Plus two C64's, five data recorders, Musicmaker hardware and software, lightgun and30 games.]
1 Please make cheques/PO out to D.Morris,please note that I cannot answer anythingthat arrives after the 30th untilChristmas - I'm going to Marburg Uni inGermany and will be totally Speccy less!!!- You have been warned
1 Please find on the enclosed discthe files "DRIVING 2" and "SNAPFIX" . Thestory of my drives was written like thatbecause I don't feel justified in writinga high-tec screed that would
1 Please add 12.00 DM (`5.58) per order forpostage, insurance and bank costs.L
1 Pleasant View
1 Place the cable on this bar, make sure youkeep it at right angles!, carefully andfirmly push the main plug body into place, fold the cable over the bar and fit thelocking strip.
1 Pin 23 is the DRIVE SELECT pin and is theonly connection not common to both drives.If either of these pins is disconnectedfrom a drive then that drive cannot beselected and therefore it will not bemapped in at switch on (this only works ifan actual drive is fitted, powered up andnot faulty).
1 Phil Glaves
1 Peter Weller in Robo outfit, standing in astudio. Not a scene from film.H
1 Peter Beardwood
1 Permanent PAPER 0, immediately followed bythe five byte number form (correct - nomore embedded colour items), then aseparator, a CLS, another separator andthen they poke DEFINE SIZE with 0 - so youcan't merge the basic and it'll crash outif you press break!
1 Perhaps , on a lighter note Mr. GaryRowland's programs "MR. GRUMPY" and"AUTOMUSE" could be adapted , using allthose favourite phrases , to carry thesaga on to the 25th. aniversary edition ofAlchnews! (Argh! No! Please don't cancelmy subscription!)
1 Pentium, other than lining INTELs!
1 Pentium (64 bit) specific software"
1 Pear Tree Cottage
1 Paul wannabe! <HELP! Ed>
1 Paul made the point that the programmers were pretty good, because they couldN
1 Paul Newman
1 Paul Fairman
1 Patrick Morris
1 Part of page 0 is reserved as it is aswitchable page and it has to contain itsown variables to indicate what iscontained within it, as does all the otherpages which can be switched into the topend of memory from address C000 upwards.
1 Paper magazines
1 Pairings : Page(s) :
1 PRISM PD - WHY WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL!%
1 PRINT USR 4867
1 POWER SUPPLIES
1 PLUS D PATTERNS!
1 PLEASE REMEMBER POSTERS HAVE BEEN USED, SO*
1 PETER DEANE would like a +D or Disciplefor his Spectrum +2.>
1 PD and Software services
1 PD LIBRARIES &
1 PCW+ Magazine
1 PC? Tough! But you can improve
1 PC, CP/M, PCW and CPC support
1 PC, CP/M, CPC, PCW support
1 PAPER MAGAZINES
1 P.S Bristol and Avon contacts more thanwelcome. Work to keep the speccy Alive!Q
1 P.M. Reynolds
1 P.A.W. SYSTEM VARIABLES
1 Overall this is a very good game, althoughI wouldn't recommend to beginners.L
1 Overall I would say DOMES OF SHA is a goodaddition to the compilation. It is a goodgame and I certainly enjoyed it.t
1 Overall I think that Cloud 99 is a goodgame with several neat touches whichimprove the gameplay greatly.q
1 Over 100 games, software on tapes, disksand microdrive cartridges for all abovemachines. Also availablel
1 Our free software service was NEVERabused. In fact, most people weretypically British and paid for them. Itwas upto me to give refunds on theirorders! Also, the new MDL, Fountain PD andIPD libraries are also going to be givingfree titles with EVERY order, so it can'tbe that silly if three other services aregoing to continue. They are also going tobe charging 10p per title and only 5p perfont!
1 Other variables can be set up from thebasic we use to load the code in later, ifnecessary.^
1 Other 8-bit computer names included ColourGenie, Superbrain (I like that one!),Tandy (probably someone's name) and thegood old ZX80
1 Orson Presents
1 Original Programming: Dominic Morris$
1 One way to 'VAL' it, would be as follows:-*
1 One way of tackling this, would be tochange it to either:-?
1 One thing that came to mind shortly afterI did all that work is, is that it shouldbe possible to alter a database from anExtern routine in an actual runningadventure to make it really difficult tosolve because those who own a copy of PAWwouldn't see the complete file should theyload it in to inspect what it held.
1 One problem that dealers have with peoplelike me is that they sell a piece of newequiptment, only to have it returned forrefund, as being faulty, or unsuitable,after being damaged by being wronglyfitted ,connected or having incorrectvoltages applied etc. These reservations Ican sympathise with, and as I was preparedto carry the can for my own blunderings(as long as the drive was known to besuitable) the deal was done and I got anuncased 1 meg 3.5" DSDD drive for about`30 (+p&p) !
1 One of the first things 'load bytes' doesis to push the address of the SAVE/LOADRETURN SUBROUTINE, at address 053F, ontothe stack - this routine resets the bordercolour back to the value held in thesystem variable BORDER COLOUR (5C48),checks to see if the BREAK key is beingpress, enables the interrupts, disabled by'load bytes', and then either returns tothe calling routine or jumps to an errorhandling routine if the BREAK key wasbeing pressed.
1 One of the best CP/M libraries in thecountry. Most of the titles will work onCP/M for the +3.d
1 One final bit. I am in the process ordoing a BASIC Adventure Creator for PD butI am also planning to do the whole thingas a series of articles if Andy will letme in future issues so that anyone canwrite an adventure game without the likesof Quill,PAW or GAC.
1 One of the drawbacks about the VALfunction, is that it's fairly slow, andshould therefore be avoided, if possible,in sections of a program where speed isimportant. Examples might be a loop with alarge number of iterations (where thecumulative effect could be considerable);or a keypress routine, where a dilatoryresponse would be undesirable...
1 Once the header is on the tape, press thestop button on the tape deck and break outof the save by pressing the break key.z
1 Once again, I'm really sorry to announcethese changes, but if they were not made,either standards would drop or I would diefrom exhaustion!
1 On the other hand you may want to putthese control codes in to spruce up yourtext in your own programs which you can'tdo in 128 k mode or you may be a deviousmiscreant who wants to hide your listingsfrom prying eyes. Be warned though. Thissort of thing is no protection against thelikes of GC (remember him from earlier? Bythe way GC; Hows the FD-1 I brought up andtell the lonies on the 3 wheeler to keepout of my way )
1 On the down side I did have a problem withthe vocabulary. In one location you arerequired to WAIT but when you try typingit anywhere else you are simply told youcan't. So I assumed that this commandwasn't available in this game.
1 On the +3 Then use
1 On return from the loader, if the carry isreset, the zero flag is set and A isnon-zero there was a loading error if DEis not zero.
1 Old Kilpatrick
1 Okay. No more to do but to have a look atthe header for the block of code - if youintend to do this, using the small loaderfrom the last column, then put a C9 (RET)just after the 30F1 the first time 'loadbytes' is called or the block will beloaded as well!
1 Okay. Let's see what can be done in theway of constructing and auto flag byte andlength of block sorter outer using the'load bytes' routine and a little m/c,which you will have to write foryourselves ... You're not going to learntoo much if I keep doing all the work foryou.
1 Okay,then! Where do we go from here.$
1 Okay, then, with all that out of the way.Am I about to get on with what you mayhave been looking forward to since June ornot?
1 Okay, then, here we go again!
1 Okay, that's my article almost over. I'dlike to thank my Producer, Make-up Artist,Lion Tamer, and my cat, for being verysupportive and eating lots of chicken!
1 Okay, then! I will describe where thevariable are found in page 2 and how theyare employed.a
1 Okay! Take a half hour break - could dowith a drink and a puff myself (yes, theword was PUFF)!c
1 Obviously, you'll need to set up IX, DE, Aand the carry flag as well before enteringthe loader, though, poke a spare addresswith what the A register holds as apossible reference.
1 Obviously, a little m/c is going to beneeded and I expect you're wondering whereit can be placed to also prevent that frombeing over-written.
1 OTHER THINGS
1 OTHER SERVICES
1 OK, hands up who's been watching all thosedocumentaries on the Internet recently?Yep, so have I! There seems to be oneproblem though. I always thought the aimof a documentary was to reveal facts aboutthe topic it covered, but whoever cobbledtogether these ones obviously overlookedthis. Invariably these programs consist ofboring professors and Financial Timesreaders trying to shroud the 'Net inmystery. WHY??? To you and I it's anetwork, but to these people it's a"virtual
1 O.K. Thats the history, so just where didI shove my new drive? What needsconnecting and how? This is what I foundout!
1 O.K. Finished!- Screw everything backtogether, hook up all the cables, plug in,power up, disc in drive one, boot upand
1 Nr Longton
1 Now, something about negative loops. Ifyou wanted to count backwards from 10 to0, you could use:e
1 Now, let's look at some more subtleinstances where bytes can be saved bycareful formulation of the expression.z
1 Now there is nothing wrong with this initself. Most of us may have looked at themanuals, read all there is to know aboutthe subject but there is always someonewho has not or who may be new to thescene, after all, not many people complainabout seein Elmer Fudd thwarted by BugsBunny for the zillionth time do they ?
1 Now that I have finished that LONG rant, time for some plugs!.?
1 Now load DE with the address the block wasloaded to, ensuring the carry is not setby doing an AND A instruction and subtractDE from HL. The value HL holds now is thelength of the block.
1 Now for a delve into the system variableto find out where the machine was clearedto when the save was made, at address 9CB2(normally 5CB2), and also check out if ERRSP, 9C3D (5C3D), has been tampered with.
1 Now either copy the screen code save wemade from address 8000, or load it back tothere again and save it once more, afterthe above basic.
1 Not strictly a computer related magazine,but an excellent read!@
1 Not only that but Alchnews really doeshave something of interest for allSpectrum "Format"'s be it +3 , +D , +2 ,or even the humble 48k rubber keyedoriginal.
1 Not only but also - Format costs a poundan issue to subscribe ( a whopping 1.50 ifyou don't ) for about 20 or so pages.y
1 North Deighton
1 No, nothing amiss there at all. Themachine was cleared to address 5D7F(23935) and ERR SP points to 5D7C, whichis 3 bytes less - remember me telling youthat?
1 No doubt you will all be wondering whereto get your programs from now thatAlchemist Software is phasing out. Don'tworry, you don't have to be ripped off orabused by Prism, there are FOUR libraiesto choose from! In this article, DaveFountain guides us through FPD:
1 No CLEAR (address) was done so the programexpects the machine to be cleared to theswitch on address - if it was cleared toany other address before you loaded in thebasic, the game would crash out eitherwhile loading the code in or just after.
1 Nice Pink (!)
1 Next issue will be a bumper christmasspecial with continuation of articlesbegun in issue 16, along with some greatnew ones.
1 Next issue : AlchNews 18, Dec. 1995$
1 Neon Publishing
1 Neither of these has any inherentadvantage over the other; but there is athird alternative, which is distinctlybetter:-
1 Neil Thompson
1 NOT BE ENCOURAGED
1 NO THANKS : Prism PD (Except for giving*
1 N.R.A. Cattell
1 N and O are respectively the lines andcolumns to be read from, but when Iprinted Z$ afterwards it always came outas the last character read, repeatedtwice. So if the last three characterswere BYE, Z$ would contain EE. I checkedmy routine thoroughly, and in the endtried a different method:
1 My first contact with the demo scene camelike most others from the Public Housesection in YS; my appetite whetted by theLyra 2 demo from Sinclair User. InitiallyI got demos and utilities from Prism PDuntil Garry Rowland pointed me in thedirection of Alchemist. <I'm not surprised- RAS titles a quid a throw from Prism,20p from Alchemist Software!>
1 My final bit is about border effects fromBASIC. Enter 48k mode (the 48k Spectrumhas a special feature which does thisautomatically!) and enter this program:
1 My advice therefore loyal reader is tostay with Alchnews for as long as it maycontinue and long may it continue as giveus a decent read.
1 My Spectrum +2 has been looking like avery strange thing for several days now,but I still haven't got used to it yet!I'd been having problems with my +Dfalling out of the I/O port when I noticedthat the reason was a missing rubber padfrom the bottom of the keyboard which madethe whole thing rock about when I touchedthe Datacorder keys. I do have another +2which I could have substituted, but forsome reason which I can't fathom, only thepadless one works with my Fidelitymonitor! (They're both the grey +2 with noapparent difference). To keep the +D insecurely, I could have bought an edgeconnector, but being a cheapskate I wentfor the Aluminium Vice! (Something Iinvented myself in the garage!). It'sbasically a length of aluminium folded at90 degrees at each end, like an "E"without the middle stroke. It lies on thedesk under the keyboard and keeps the +Dsecure! Next, I had to solve the missingpad problem. I decided to stand thekeyboard up ab
1 Multi-system
1 Mr V. Bishop
1 Mr Staniford
1 Mr Prichard replied to Sherwood's "Hall ofShame" letter (prev. page), stating thathe was both lied to / misled and snubbed,plus he would support Alchemist Researchin any legal action regarding the list.
1 Mr P. Deane
1 Mr J. Thompson
1 Mr F. Ridout
1 Mr A. Marshall
1 Most people will have come across VALconstructions and expressions like NOT PI,SGN PI etc. in BASIC programs; and many ofyou will know why these forms are used,i.e. to save memory. There are, however,some finer points which are worth bearingin mind, in order to make the most ofthese techniques and use them to theirfullest advantage.
1 More quick P.S's
1 More commercial software
1 Monika & Wolfgang Haller
1 Mine never did work properly, and aftertrying to enhance it's performance I foundit would only work if I sot it out of thewindow. This was probably due to the factthat the sensor used in the SLR wasactually used to detecting visible light(I'm surprised I didn't think of thatbefore).
1 Mind you, the block may only be one bytelong, though if this is so, it wouldn'twarrant all the trouble you're going toto determine the flag byte and the lengthof the block, would it?
1 Miles Kinloch offers a great new!
1 Miles Kinloch must be commended for hisservices, his latest piece in Alchnews16-came at just the right time as I wasstarting to tear the rest of my hair outafter trying to sort my +sys dos out. TheBetaDos, is there a Tasfile on how itsfiner details function, or is it stillavailable from BetaSoft? It could be worthfeaturing if it is all PD.
1 Mike Astbury, Beach Imaging
1 Michael Meyer
1 Metal Grey
1 Maybe not the most fascinating plot but atleast it's original. There is plenty to doin the first few locations, there are lotsof objects to be collected and places tobe searched. The thing that most impressedme about this game is the text. It hasbeen well written and helps provide a goodatmosphere for the game.
1 May I just remind anyone reading this%
1 Matt Beal, Fish
1 Mark Sturdy, Crashed
1 Marcus Prichard. He fell foul of Sherwoodon 12/3/94. Sherwood offered "freesoftware" in FORMAT. When Mr Prichard sentoff for them (with media and SAE), hisorder was not processed because he did notsend a copying fee! When Mr Prichardcomplained, he resented his contactingFORMAT about the wording of the advert andsaid he would have no further dealingswith him.
1 Marcus Prichard
1 Many people would change it to:-
1 Manic Mower - Can you escape from thelawns of Surbiton?!=
1 Malcolm Gent, MGPD
1 Malcolm Gent
1 Making use of all these variables, I wasable to delete an unwanted character setand transfer some location and messagetext from one page to another for someoneI knew who had spent some considerabletime writing a 128K adventure, but had runout of memory before having completed allthe work.
1 Magnum.Unfortunately, although it looked veryslick, the software tended to let it down.(Remember Robot Attack or Bullseye...perhaps not!)
1 MULTI-MATERIAL SPECCY!
1 MORE SMALLS
1 MILTON KEYNES
1 MGPD. Still operated under AlchemistResearch by Malcolm Gent. MGPD suppliescollections of programs on tape and +Ddisk. The prices are VERY cheap and themedia is even supplied!
1 MGPD comprises of a collections library,featuring utilities, demos, clipart andmuch more. Prices are very cheap and evenincludes media. No other service can matchthis.
1 MEET THE MAN: Dave fountain
1 MDL stands for Minds Demo Library and isrun by the demo group The United Minds.The libary will specialise in demos fromaround the world and will cover tape and+D disk.
1 MDL is the Minds Demo Library, run byScottish coders THE UNITED MINDS. MDLspecialises in demos and general A/Ventertainment with, once again, hundredsof ASW programs. Pricing policy is thesame as Fountain.
1 MATT BEAL: Matt used to run FISH magazinewith a Prism page inside. He was notaware at some of the lies Prism werecirculating in this section, which madehis magazine become criticised, resultingin a loss of support from some parties.
1 MACCLESFIELD
1 M Sherwood H.N.D.;C.G.(L.)I.
1 Luminous Blue, sort of
1 Lorton Road
1 Lookout for the latest productions fromThe United Minds! These are "The EvilDemo" "The Sucker Demo" "The Demo for E-3"a joint production with E-3 called "DoodyGei" (Doody Geee), and the latest one "TheChocolate Demo".
1 Looking also at VARS and E-LINE told methere was no basic program in the machineat the time of saving and that the savestatement was input as a direct command -check this out for yourselves and look at9CCB and beyond.
1 Look at the back of your +D interface, youwill see two multipin sockets, (assumingyou've unplugged the cables!) the largerone on the right hand side is for the discdrive, above the socket you should see anotch in the +D case, this matches a bump(or notch) on the cable plug - so you knowwhich way it goes in! The top row of pinsare odd numbers from 1 to 33 counting fromRIGHT TO LEFT and are all set to 0 volts;the lower row of pins are the even numbers,again reading RIGHT TO LEFT lines 2 to 34-these are the lines that
1 Logic 3 - learn BASIC programming - `4(very large + heavy)>
1 Locomowtion - Okay, I promise this is thelast one!3
1 Loads and loads of temporary INK 7 items! There's a normal BORDER 0, but where's thefive byte number form that should followthe character 0, there's just anotherbatch of temporary ink colour items?
1 Line 4 causes a crash to 48 BASIC (inwhich, incidentally, this effect alsooccurs). If this loop was executed at all,the program would STOP (test this with theSTEP -1), but because the start is higherthan the end and there's no negative STEP,the loop is skipped. So despite the STOPon its own line, line 4 is reached and theSpeccy is reset! Moral: make sure youinclude negative STEPs where needed (andleave them out where they're not!) just incase the next bit of the program isundesirable!
1 Likewise, the Pentium is a 64 bit!
1 Light guns have been available since thebirth of the Spectrum. The most commontype associated with the Speccy mustsurely be Sinclair's
1 Lie back, relax and watch the colourfulimages on your screen! Well, at the momentit's probably black and white text with alittle bit of colour at the bottom (ieAlchNews), but did you know that the +Dhas a hidden secret program to generatefascinating patterns? Of course youdidn't, because it doesn't.
1 Lets face it, if I was guilty, I certainlywouldn't need to write to you as I wouldknow why you were listed. I will beinterested to see what you have to say onthe matter. Just remember - it wasn't mewho created this mess.
1 Lets say you placed an order for 15programs from Alchemist Software. The costwould be `2. Don't forget your extra sixtitles free though. You send in your ownmedia and SAE, but lets say you wanted usto supply it on +D disk and post it foryou. The charge would be about `2.75 inall.
1 Let me assure those people outside the UK that this is not a dodgy, con job, wide boy cowboy outfit in the slightest.w
1 Lawnmow Islands - Save the inhabitantsfrom Baron von Mower!?
1 Later on in his letter, he claims thatthese pricing policies give a cultureshock when upgrading to a PC. (DOWNgradingto an Amiga!). The reason is because ofthe effort and quality put into theseprograms.
1 Later Programming:
1 Last, but not least:
1 LOOKING AT THE BACK OF THE DRIVE, (ROTATEDIF NEEDED) SO THAT THE PINS ARE ABOVE THETONGUE, THE LEFT HAND PIN IS FOR THE 12VOLT LINE, THE RIGHT HAND PIN IS THE 5VOLT LINE, BOTH CENTRE PINS ARE GROUND.
1 LIGHTGUN + 6 GAME DISK (+3) + 3 CASSETTE GAMES (ALL LIGHTGUN), one of the cassettesis JUNGLE WARFARE - better than OP WOLF (which is on the disk) - `6 the lot
1 LG. lewd conduct?, it's when you smear&
1 LG. Ah well
1 LEXICON OF LIES
1 LET a=VAL "PEEK 3
1 LET a=VAL "10*b+1"
1 LET a=VAL "10*b"+SGN PI
1 LET a=VAL "10"*b+SGN PI
1 LET a=PEEK VAL "3
1 LET a=PEEK 3
1 LET a=INT VAL "RND*20"
1 LET a=INT (RND*VAL "20")
1 LET a=INT (RND*20)
1 LET a=IN 191 is the address which the unituses, and all the values should be 254unless detectig a white screen with theswitch pressed. Then a reading of 255should be recorded.
1 LET a=10*b+1
1 LET a$=CHR$ VAL "a+32"
1 LET a$=CHR$ (a+VAL "32")
1 LET a$=CHR$ (a+32)
1 LET Z$="":FOR N=0 TO 21:FOR O=0 TO 31:LETZ$=Z$+SCREEN$ (N,O):NEXT O:NEXT N:PRINT Z$T
1 LET Z$="":FOR N=0 TO 21:FOR O=0 TO 31:LETY$=SCREEN$ (N,O):LET Z$=Z$+Y$:NEXT O:NEXTN:PRINT Z$^
1 LA LETTRE DU SPECTRUMANIC (French)"
1 L=Lied to / misled
1 Kobrahsoft
1 Knight Lawn - Rid yourself of thewerelawnmower curse!>
1 Kevin Gurd.
1 Kevin Gurd
1 Karen Moore
1 KOBRAHSOFT are suppliers of some of thebest software around for the Spectrum andSAM. Their biggest successes are the tapeto disk utilities, along with such +3applications like DICE, DB2 and so on.Send an SAE and a couple of stamps fortheir catalogue:
1 KOBRAHSOFT
1 Just another quick bit
1 July 24, 1995
1 Judging from the last few issues ofAlchNews (ie Roy Benson!) it seems thatlawnmowers have suddenly become reallyreally popular in Spectrum circles (andtriangles)! So here are a few alternativeSpeccy classic games:
1 Joyce Cook, Softsell
1 John Wilson
1 John Westhead
1 John Thompson would would any games andutilities for the Amstrad CPC, Dragon 32,ZX81 and Vic 20. He is also on the lookoutfor cartridges for the Commodore 64. He isselling off some Spectrum and Dragon 32games if anyone is interested. Write:
1 John Stowe
1 John Garner, Datasoft
1 John Blomley
1 Johan Koning, SGG
1 Johan Koning
1 JIM LEESON, makes and sells printer cablesfor the +2a / +3 to any Centronics printerfor `10 including P&P.j
1 J.C. Blomley
1 Its only now, that companies are going to produce 32 bit software, that the 3 & 486 PCs will be used to their fullest, andz
1 It's very funny that Sherwood once againhas to get someone else to do his dirtywork, just like he did with Susan Smith!He is just too gutless to write himself orface up to the matter, just like the timehe hid behind his answering machine when Itelephoned him!!! He acts so big in hisletters and 'magazine', but should anyonecontact him personally, he'd be scared todeath! He should just be thankful that thepeople he has upset live more than 50miles away from him!
1 It's such a far cry from today, the PC&
1 It's interesting because several of us satdown and discussed not featuring thissection in this issue. We were fullyprepared to leave out the pre-schooltricks and snide remarks he's made, butwhat was the point?
1 It's far too much for one man. Ok, I dohave the staff here to help, but theycan't do all the tasks which you have allcome to expect personally from myself.
1 It's another fantasy spoof, this time youtake on the role of Algernon who has beenroped into a spot of dungeoneering byBulbo. Off Algernon goes not quite to surewhat to do but safe in the knowledge itinvolves immense creatures and largecaverns. Mind you, it might be a help ifhe could actually get into the castle.
1 It was a quite interesting article though,up until the 2nd paragraph, 5th line, whenI spotted the words CHR$ 249+CHR$ 249+CHR$249+CHR... and then I suddenenly lost
1 It should be noted that no other registersshould be altered while testing theaddress of the IX pair or the loader maynot load as it would have done if the flagbyte were a match for the A register.
1 It should be remembered that pages 0, 1,3, 4 and 6 are restricted to the area ofmemory between C000 and n
1 It is set on the planet of Olaxas in thevalley of the Sha tribe. The Sha tribewere once a thriving community but are nowforced to live in a small valley. If anyof the tribe left the valley then theydied. No one knows why but it is up to youto find out. You must journey out of thevalley and try and save the dying planet.
1 It is possible to write your own games forthese devices, but some knowledge ofmachine code would be beneficial, or atleast an understanding of how the gunworks inconjunction with the TV scan.
1 It has been shown that a 486 DX4 100 is faster than a P60, despite the P60 being a64 bit processor, thats because thew
1 It goes without saying that we will be thelargest Speccy library in the UK -alongside MINDS DEMO LIBRARY, the cheapesttoo! Andys free titles offer has beenretained (the first six will ALWAYS befree) with subsequent titles costing just10p each (24 titles from PRISM would costyou `4 but only `1.60 from us!) We are nothere to make money, we probably won't evenbreak even but I don't give a flying f***.PD libraries should be run by enthusiastsfor enthusiasts and not to provide beermoney. I'll review the situation at Xmas,if I'm losing too much money then pricesmay have to go up to 12p or something.
1 It should be further noted you onlyre-call the loader if the flag byte wasn'tcorrect.\
1 Issue 16 of Alcnews was a humongous 600+Kilobytes <More actually, each section is16k of compressed text. Ed> for the priceof a disk and a stamp and even consideringthe former is monthly and the otherquarterly is just does not work out asvalue for money unless you have a Sam or a+D and even the Plus D stuff wasovershadowed by the sam articles in thelatest issue.
1 Incidentally, did you know that Sinclair's48k Spectrum was originally planned to bethe official BBC Micro? It's true! Thankgoodness our beloved machine was neverassociated with such boring programmes!(Better than the official Channel Fourmicro though!). Acorn's next computer wasthe Archimedes, named after the famousphilosopher whose name I've forgotten (haha).
1 In the next coming months I am certain youwill enjoy the changes and provide evengreater support for the Spectrum.u
1 In the news, there has been much talk of bringing back the long vanished trams and tramway systems, to help the environment and all.
1 In the latter, the brackets are dispensedwith, thereby saving a further two bytes.Instances like this occur quite commonlyin programs, where the 'enclosing' actionof VAL can be put to profitable effect inmaking brackets redundant.
1 In the last few days of July, I recieved aletter from someone claiming to be called"D.G. Sherwood", residing at the sameaddress of Prism PD.
1 In the game you play Hercules trying tocomplete twelve tasks as penance formurdering his wife and children. The gamessticks closely to the plot of Greeklegend. So if you get stuck it's a goodidea to go and have a look the theoriginal story.
1 In late July, he began writing to peopleabout our "Hall of Shame" in issue 16.Very strange, since the article was almosttwo months old, he uses this as an excuseto continue trouble causing, simplybecause he can not cope with it ending. Nodoubt he has so much free time without anyorders or customers to fulfil, not havingto write anti-Alchemist propaganda wouldleave him too much free time!
1 In his letter to Marcus, dated 9/8/95, hesaid, and we quote:=
1 In his end paragraph he therefore explainsthat he is guilty! It says:E
1 In early July, I (the editor) wrote toSherwood, telling him about my plan for asilence. After all, several neutralparties had suggested it, but he lied orsnubbed them all. He even claimed he'dthought of it and adopted it, misinformingthe neutral parties who never read his'comic'. Because when they found out henever ended the matter at all, it justproved to them he was the liar that we'dshown him to be. This matter has gone farbeyond dodgy software, it's his lies whichare the cause of the problems.
1 In a letter to Marcus Prichard he wrote ina PS at the bottom:=
1 In 1950, thirty years before the advent ofthe Spectrum, a very clever mathematiciannamed Turing devised an artificialintelligence test, known now as the TuringTest. <If he married a woman with thesurname Green, would she be Turning-Green?Ed>
1 Impossamow - Er, these are getting a bitunfunny, aren't they??
1 If, on the other hand, there isn't a carrybut the zero flag is set, the block wasloaded without an error if A is zero andthe DE pair are not zero.
1 If you put two and two together, with whatI have said, you should realise thepossibility of fitting a four way, twopole switch wired so as to obtain thefollowing combinations of mapped drives,though I will leave you to figure thewiring yourselves.
1 If you prefer you can buy new cable andloose plugs and make one up to suiteasily. The cable my local (friendly!)shop had in was 36 way, but you can peeloff the two outside lines very easily, Itcosts about `1 per metre. I bought a spareplug that fitted for less than `2, thelegend on the plug read "FC-34 P" (I thinkit stands for FEMALE CONNECTOR 34 PIN),this is cheaper than buying a dualconnector and extra drive lead, or aspecial dualing - up cable .
1 If you look carefully you should find onthe drives circuit board , a row of pairedpins marked either D3:2:1:0 or 3:2:1:0 DS( or somthing similar ) if you put thelittle jumper or bridging piece across thetwo pins at :0: ,this is then drive 1. Fordrive 2 use pins at :1: instead.
1 If you leave a gap between the block ofcode we last saved out and this one, thatwill be enable us to insert a header infront of this block we are about to saveout as a headerless block.
1 If you have any comments, questions, gamesto swap on +D disc or even a bit of sparecash lying about, please do not hesitateto send it to me! (Also, why not send meyour witty computer names while you're atit?!). My address is as follows:
1 If you have a look at this area of memory,9D70-ish, you will observe that at 9D7F(5D7F) there is a 3E Character (this byteis always placed at RAMTOP. The next bytedown is a zero and then comes the ERRORaddress 1301 (I also told you about thisas well).
1 If you care to look in your +3 manual,page 315, you will see the pinconfiguration of the connections for the'B' drive.
1 If you are selective with the op codesused in this extra routine, you shouldfind there's plenty of time to monitorquite a number of things happening andalso for taking the appropriate actions -don't forget both the stack and yourloader must be below address C000 if youintend switching pages.
1 If we have a statement like this:-"
1 If these pages are unused then both thevariables will be set to FF. However,should a page be in use then the second ofthe two bytes will be set to the pagenumber.
1 If there is a carry the value DE held whenthe load routine was called was correct soyou know the length.h
1 If the flag byte and the A register arenot the same, then 'load bytes' will notattempt to load the block in and a'return' is made to the calling routine.
1 If the above values were returned by theloader and DE is zero, then not all thebytes of the block were loaded and youmust therefore increase the value DE holdsbefore calling the load routine again.
1 If position 1 or 4 is selected at switchon, then you can switch between the twomodes without having to power down, thoughyou must CAT both of the drives afterre-selection to re-initialize the formatof both drives.
1 If needed, carefully take the aluminiumcover off the top of the disc drive, andexamine the circuit board close to thecable connector, you should find numbers1-33 or 2-34 on one side or the other - sonow you are sure which way to put the plugin!
1 If in doubt, double check before doing anywork!/
1 If anyone out there can supply details ofwhere to obtain a data sheet on the uPC765A, the processor used in the disc driveof the +3, I would be extremely grateful.
1 If any beautiful young women would like to enclose risque pictures of themselfs, then please feel free to do so. <But passthem via the normal A.R. address first.Well, it was worth a try! Ed>
1 If a machine passed this test, it could besaid to have artificial intelligence. Asyet, the Turing Test has never been passedby any computer - and people are stilltrying! The test itself involves aquestioner sat in front of terminal askingquestions via the keyboard to two peopleout of view of the first. Out of view, ofcourse, because one of them is actually acomputer!
1 If DE is returned with the same number itheld before you called the loader, thenthe A register will hold the flag byte ofthe block.
1 If DE has been decremented the flag byteis zero.2
1 If A does not match then your code mustdetermine if the return from the loaderwas caused by this or not.n
1 If you did want an orange triangle(goodness knows why, but if you did...)you could do it, either in an art programor by making two more graphics, aleft-facing right angle triangle and aright-facing one, not solid, but made ofthe same chessboard pattern. The onlyproblem is, unless you were willing toaccept red or yellow edges, the backgroundwould have to be red or yellow, and thesame brightness as the triangle. If thetriangle had white paper or ink, thatcould be the background, but red andyellow tend to look a trifle odd.
1 If it is your intention to use yourhacking skills to make unauthorized copiesof software to pass on to others, thenthat is when the powers that be may wellenter your home and remove all yourequipment and could also offer you an allexpenses paid holiday in one of the manyH.M. Prisons
1 IPD is Impact Software, run by our veryown Paul Howard. IPD will cover all thetitles Paul has written, and will alsospecialise in games. We have supplied Paulwith every game at ASW, both in and out ofthe catalogue.
1 IPD is run by Paul Howard and is anextension of his software house ImpactSoftware. IPD will stock all of Paul'sgreat new titles, plus specialise ingames, once again, many of which suppliedfrom Alchemist Software.
1 INNOCENT PARTIES SNUBBED
1 INK PAPER NEW COLOUR
1 INDIANA JONES & THE LAST CRUSADE (UK)%
1 IMPORTANT! We are leaving Nottingham atthe end of August and returning home toLondon. Our library will NOTx
1 II,STATISTICS II, PROJECTOR 1 and SPECFILE+.,
1 IF YOUR DRIVE IS LIKE MY NEW ONE - THENTHE 12 VOLT LINE IS NOT USED - BOTH LOGICAND MOTOR POWER ARE RUN ON THE 5 VOLTLINE. DISCONNECT THE 12VOLT LINE TO BESAFE, (ASK THE DRIVE SUPPLIER WHAT ITNEEDS TO POWER IT )
1 IF FITTING A SECOND DRIVE:-
1 I=Innocent Party - hassled
1 I've been sorting through my speccy stuffand in order to get some room in my room Ihave to sell the following, so please helpme keep my room sparce!!! BTW all pricesinclude UK postage
1 I'm sure you'll all agree when I say:Get out of the Spectrum scene Mr Sherwood,you don't know what you are doing.v
1 I'm sorry but I'll have to go onto thesubject of consoles. Who on earth (oranywhere else!) could possibly think ofsuch corny, American names as Megadrive,Mega CD, Super Nintendo...? They juststick Mega, Super, Cool or Radical on thebeginning and that gives it "street cred".<Oh, oh - beginning to sound likeCodemasters! Ed>
1 I'm not saying it was an easy task, thoughthe project was successful in that anextra few K of memory was made availableand the concluding programming could beentered into the database.
1 I'm going to have to load in the code ofmy assembler/disassembler again as thatlives at the top end of memory and hasbeen over-written.
1 I'm still shocked at his decision toretire from the PD distribution arm ofthings and I only hope I can take it fromhere with the same quality of personaldetail.
1 I'd take a +D and Solar powered diskdrive!! Then I would take only one disk,which would have my best games. <Sigh, whydoes everyone insist on breaking therules? Ed>
1 I'd like to draw your attention to a veryinformative book available (you may haveto order it) on the legal apects of publicdomain software and others such asshareware etc. Although mainly aimed at PCusers, the information is true for anycomputer user. The title of the book? Itis called
1 I'd also take a blank tape (or maybe onewith "Xecue" and "The Art Studio", myfavourite utilities, on it) for doing abit of BASIC programming in my spare time- you'd have quite a lot of spare time ona desert island, wouldn't you?
1 I was lucky, the power pack for the QLdrive was capable of providing enough (Ihope!) regulated 12v and 5v power to powerboth drives, and I still had the powerpack built into the original drive casing.I decided to keep that drive as it was andput the new drive into the QL drive case.Guess what! the *** didn't fit! The plugson the new drive prevented it from goingfar enough back in the case, and it left abig gap at the top (the new drive beingvery much thinner), so at the moment itsits on the worktop looking ugly, but itworks . The next thing is to make , ormodify a case to stack both drives overeach other. When fitting make sure youdon't foul any cables, or the motor discunder the drives!
1 I tried cleaning the drive, lubricatingwhat I thought I could dare, but eventhough it improved the performance it wasstill way short of being usable. This leftme in a dilemma, should I risk buyinganother second hand drive and chance on itbeing in perfect condition, or a new drive(100% Guaranteed) - but costing more thanI felt was justified on my spectrum setup, or chance fitting a new uncased driveinto the box the QL drive was in, this isthe course of action I took but it was notquite as straightforward as I thought itwould be!
1 I think you all would enjoy these newprograms.3
1 I suggest you alter the address in yourloader which coincides with the IX op codeof LD (IX+00),L - this loads to memory thebyte taken off the tape. You shouldreplace this with a call to an address ofyour choice, where you decide what actionsare to be undertaken.
1 I soon realised Andy was a kindred spiritfrom the Spectrum hardcore; idealistic,enthusiastic and above all, not interestedin making money. My software wants werealways returned with bells on; extratitles and a super fast service. On top ofthat, he replied with long friendlyletters, far beyond the call of simplyoffering a PD library 'service'.
1 I remember when Alchemist PD had only afew dozen titles. You can still see theoriginal contents in a back issue ofAlchNews.
1 I previously told you a file begins ataddress 9300, all memory from here up tothe first system variable, at 941C, isreserved for the resident font, as used byPAW.
1 I ordered every issue of of Alchnews fromissue 3 to 15, spent an entire eveningconvering them from +D format to +3 muchto the annoyance of my wife <Oops, youshould have asked for the +3 master copiesI have! Ed> and then several more nightsreading through them and one thing standsout clearly.
1 I must own up to actually watching theEurovision Song Contest this year - notonly that, but I also listened to it! Iknow that this is truly inexcusablebehaviour, but it gave me a great idea:the Euro-Speccy Song Contest! Each countrywould submit a 128k tune (probably inSoundtracker format to represent their)entry, and as in the real Contest, thewinner of last year's contest would hostthat year's show. Not host it in a bigbuilding like the real one, but thatcountry would write a demo including allthe entries and their marks (judged by allthe entered countries). The only problemis that lots of European countries don'thave a single demo coder in them! Poland,Scotland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Englandand Germany are OK, but how manyLithuanian coders do you know? (Apologiesto any who exist!). Oh dear, I've managedto squeeze two paragraphs out of thissilly little idea. At least it's probablygiven you something to laugh about! <Restassured reader
1 I mentioned in an earlier paragraph thatthe flag byte can be any value in therange of 0 to FF, though saves made in themore normal method of going via the basicinterpreter, the flag byte for a header isalways 0. Likewise, the flag byte for ablock is always FF.
1 I look forward to hearing from you. Thanksagain to Andy Davis for adding to myenjoyment of the Spectrum world, I for onewill miss his library badly.
1 I have seen tips many times to go from 128or +2 basic to 48 basic and then backagain reprinted for the umpteenth timeprobable below
1 I have loads of games snapshots to swapincluding Switchblade, Rainbow Islands,both Chase HQs and tons of other goodgames. (And a few useless ones if you likethat sort of thing!). Before this articlebecomes one giant ad for my softwarecollection I'll finish it so I can have anice glass of lemonade and a cheese andtomato sandwich for lunch. Bye!
1 I have had a Spectrum computer for over ten years, and the +D disc interface since1988, and since finding Alchemist PD lastyear my Spectrum very soon became aProgram Plonky , with the inevitableresult that the drive started to exhibitsymptoms of SECTORERROROSIS, mostly withdiscs that came back from Alchemist <Oi!Ed.>, but also on some I had compiledmyself, so somthing had to be done.
1 I have a multiface on my +3 which great asit is doesn't work with Genie unless youknow different.c
1 I have a few more things to clear out,&
1 I have only used this technique on acouple of old games like Manic Miner andJest Set willy etc. but you may be able toexperiment and report you findings to Andyin future issues.
1 I don't know to many details as of yet butyou might here from me again if Andy were to do a PC PD mag... <I'm doing bothSpectrum AND PC - hah! More work for you!Ed>
1 I discovered AlcNews with issue 16 aboutJuly time when my mate from the Bath, theright honourable Graham Colier (or GC as Irefer to him ) sent me a copy and W O W.To say I was impressed
1 I did, in fact, let the tape run rightthrough so as to ensure there wasn't atape loading error.g
1 I did send an amended version to Andy assoon as I picked up on the mistake acouple of days after the completion ofAlcNews, though, by that time some of youwill have been sent the issue.
1 I did plan to give Alchemist Research upcompletely, with the exception of the helpservice. I had a letter from Malcolm Gentwho wanted to close MGPD because hecouldn't compete with me, even though weweren't competing against each other. Itwas just people had come to know and loveus and were reluctant to change. Plus thefact that three new libraries wereplanning to open. It would give them moreof an opportunity to trade out of ourshadow.
1 I declined, for two main reasons:!
1 I could have produced working routines tothe specifications I have laid out to you,though had I done so it would not haveeducated your mind in the use of m/cprogramming and made you aware thatthis is the type of lateral thinkingneeded when you come up against suchspecialist loaders as Alcatraz andSpeedlock - you will need to disassemblethese, and others like them, to alsomodify the code so as to have totalcontrol over what they do while loading.Believe me, compared to them, the 'loadbytes' routine is an absolute push-over!
1 I certainly hope that you will hear from me again <yeah a bet you do, big mouth - ED>W
1 I can hardly wait to see what else I'll bewriting!!!4
1 I bought a second hand drive (ex QL), verycheaply, that was 100% compatible with the+D, but unfortunatly was even moresectorerrorised than my original drive.
1 I apologise that this issue was a littlesmaller than usual but that has been dueto changes in our operations. Manyarticles have not been written or editeddue to lack of time on my part.
1 I also had a look at the system variablePROG, at 9C53 (5C53) which tells me noInterface 1 was present as the addressgiven was 5CCB.
1 I also found the article on 'Funny"
1 I also advise you push the A register ontothe stack when a return from the loader ismade if you are likely to do any workbefore examining the flags.
1 I was already planning to launch aspecialised demo library in September,FOUNTAIN PD. This will now include many ofthe utilities from Alchemists archive.Utilities will be listed in catagories;+D, Audio etc for easier selection. I hopeto include as many titles as possible bythe September 18th launch date. Fans ofthe more obscure titles <Obscure? You makethem sound seedy! Ed> need not pine, I'llbe adding sections every three months tohopefully become as large and diverse asAlchemist was. <It will. Dave has beenoffered ALL the titles from AlchemistSoftware - FOR FREE! All he has to do isrevise the catalogues!>
1 I expect most of you at one time oranother have used 'load bytes' at address0556 in the 48K ROM, though I doubt manyof you, if any, have looked at it andthought there is so much more you can dowith it as an aid to making life that muchsimpler when hacking.
1 I definitely would not take "Elite",because I've only ever done the Lenslokonce and then it crashed because I wasusing a 128k, so I've never played it!(What a sad person, eh?!). <Get the normalunprotected version. Ed>
1 I can confirm I was successful inachieving what Ray was after, so ampassing this information on to all thosewho care to make use of it.
1 I believe these are the only linesconnected.4
1 Hulme Lane
1 However, to ensure this column is up toscratch, I'm beginning it now, 7th June,so as to give plenty of time to weed outany errors and spelling mistakes beforeit's sent in.
1 However, the reason for this article isbecause of some comments Mr Sherwood madeagainst the Spectrum PD scene. He's alwaysbeen in the lower ranks ever since he tookover Total PD, but his latest statementsjust confirm it
1 However, despite trying to fool Marcus bymisquoting the article (he's a subscriberfor God's sake, surely Sherwood would haveknown he could compare the originalarticle to Sherwood's fabrication!),Marcus confirmed that he had been misledand generally ripped off by Prism.
1 However, a better way would be:-
1 However it had an external power pack anda socket on the back of its case where Icould plug the original drive into, alsoregulated 12 and 5 volt outputs to poweranother drive if needed . I got brave anduncased it, to try to change it to work asdrive two, this was soon acomplished bymoving a little bridging piece onto adifferent set of pins. (Explained latterin TECHNICAL SECT.)
1 How can you also determine this without agreat deal of trial an error?G
1 How I approach it will not necessarily bethe way I would normally hack such a game.I will do it long hand, so to speak, soyou can follow with ease what I'm doing
1 Hopefully, we'll get some feedback fromthe new libraries, plus some other 8 bitlibraries in next issue. Please write inwith your comments on how YOU thinkSpectrum PD should be run, after all it isyour service.
1 Hopefully, some of you will have sent somequeries in I can get to grips with andanswer.[
1 Hobbyists such as Dave Fountain, UnitedMinds, Paul Howard, myself, plus also Paulfairman at Sheepsoft, CPC softwaere, PCWPD would not make inflated charges andoffer as much as possible for free. WhatMr Sherwood has claimed shows some extremedubiousness in his service and where themoney goes.
1 Hilton Court
1 Hi and welcome to the bit of the mag thatI and probably Andy as well thought I'never get around to !i
1 Here's the basic:
1 Here are all four mods it is possible todetermine with a suitably wired twopole, four way switch:j
1 Hello, welcome to the new adventures pagein Alchnews. You may have noticed thatadventure coverage has been a bit thin onthe ground lately. This is mainly due tothe lack of new titles being produced.
1 Headerless blocks, or even non-standardheaders in protected software, do not haveto adhere to these rules and more oftenthan not, don't.
1 Having saved the block, now rewind thetape to the end of the first block of codewe saved out and input SAVE "(NAME)" CODE32768,32768.
1 Having read Sub.Exty, (you know, the onethat should come in a plain brown wrapper)perhaphs you might / might not like topass on my Driving2 saga for them toinclude, (after AlcNews 17?) I leave itentirely to your discretion . They needsomthing to pad out the colourful verbagethey are so fond of! Anyway , if Prism canget away with including one of their stockarticles on copyright etc
1 Having been asked the other day by RaySmith, who had recently fitted a 3.5"drive as the second drive to his +3, if itwas possible to make this drive the 'A'drive from switch on and, being a hackerand an electronics repair engineer, Icouldn't resist the challenge of having alook to see what could be done.
1 Have fun investigating further.
1 Harrier,Surfchamp, Testmatch 128, Universal Hero,Vendetta, Spectrum + user tapeP
1 HOW REALISTIC IS IT?
1 HELPLINE: No change. However, my workinghours are now more demanding, so the besttime to telephone is between:q
1 HELLO, I AM A PSYCHIATRIST. WHAT IS YOURPROBLEM?2
1 HACKERS CORNER - PART TWO
1 H!. <Noit hasn't, you just haven't done any work.Ed>5
1 Grindleton
1 Greatful appreciation must go out to allwho helped in the production of this finepublication. Notable thanks must go to:{
1 Grant joke in, by the way Andy what#
1 Good luck.
1 Good this, innit? Enjoying it myself!Never knew I knew so much till I sat downto put it all on paper - sorry, thescreen.
1 Going back a few months, I had cause tolearn how PAW stored an adventure file inmemory and kept track of it all.t
1 Go to it, then, and use the loader/saver.)
1 George Imrie
1 Gastackerstrasse 33
1 Gastackerstrasse 23
1 Garry Rowland
1 Garland, Lloyd?
1 GO TO a*VAL "CODE INKEY$-48"
1 GO TO a*(CODE INKEY$-48)
1 GHOSTBUSTERS 2
1 GC as you will know is a goldmine ofinformation on all aspects of hackingwhile I like a lot of people resort tousing a Multiface 3 once my feebleattempts to transfer tapes onto diskfails.
1 From Alchemist Software or
1 Fountain PD now stocks the entireAlchemist Software collection. Programsare just 10p each, fonts 5p! See elsewherein this issue for more details.
1 For the record, the first IX load addressshould have been 7E00 and not 9CCB. Sorry!T
1 For the fourth tape, I'd cheat a bit andtake a magazine covertape with about tengames on it, probably the YS one with"Mission Omega" and "Astroball".
1 For some reason, there was a period whenfruit was popular for computer companies'names - Apple, Apricot and Acorn (thefruit of the oak tree, of course!). TheBBC Micro was named rather boringly afterits parent
1 For anyone interested in this kind ofthing on the humble Speccy, I'm sure Andyhas at least one "Eliza"-type program inhis PD <Software library. Ed> library,although I don't know where you'd find itin the catalogue - it's not a game, demoor utility! <It's an ED category, seeSHRINK or GRUMPY. Ed> Back to AI though. Imentioned earlier that no programmer yethas ever truly created
1 Firstly, I would like to apologize tothose of you who received copies of thiscolumn in the last issue with an error inthe load routine.
1 First of all, he has misled EVERYONE HEHAS SENT THE LETTER TO. For he has notlisted the CORRECT reasons why people wereon the list. They were:
1 First of all I'm going to look at whatwould have been the printer buffer areahad the code been loaded to it's correctaddress ... nothing there, all zero's sowe may be able to create a back-up copy ondisk.
1 First of all, while working on myjust-finished project "Notepad +D" I cameacross an odd bug involving the SCREEN$command. Apart from its common use infiling (eg SAVE "pic" SCREEN$), thiscommand can be used to read characters offthe screen in the same way ATTR readscolours - but graphics count as a nullstring "" when read via this function.Anyway, my routine was used to read thescreen contents (all text) into the stringvariable Z$. The line I used was somethinglike this:
1 Finally, consider the following:-!
1 Finally, a few paragraphs about specialcircumstances where the Spectrum canproduce lots of colours in a small space.Doubtless all readers of AlchNews willhave seen a raster or overscan effect in ademo or game (if not, order the NMI 2 demowhich has an excellent example in theborder and logo of one part). Put verysimply, rasters involve the TV's timingmechanism, the same thing that causesflicker in sprites. Because the screen isconstantly being scanned and updated, ifyou have a +D and press the snapshotbutton (or hold down the reset button),all the rasters are replaced by boringlow-res colours with flashing blobs in oraround them.
1 Finally, I'd have to take my sister's"Michael Jackson" tape. Why? To frightenoff the sharks!!!e
1 Finally, DAVID LEDBURY of Sam Prime has awide range of Spectrum software for saleranging from budgets to big boxedclassics. I've seen this collection and itis absolutely priceless! For more details,send an SAE to:
1 Filenames' interesting and it started me thinking, maybe I could include a 'funny filename' in my masterpiece of programming- Advanced Lawnmower sim, but then I
1 Ferry Groothedde, SCB
1 Ferry Groothedde
1 Familiar to you in some way?
1 FREE software means just that - it's free.If youhave to pay a copying / admincharge, how can that be free at all?Marcus has requested that Prism placeanother advert for their "free software",which will be then sent to TradingStandards to see what they have to say onthe matter.
1 FREE software does not mean that librarieswill provide titles at their own expense -espeically when they are run as a hobby, &sometimes by people out of work. AlchemistResearch may have been offering softwareexempt of charges, but no doubt Mr Davishas found out that people take advantageof silly offers. Also, it gives people thewrong idea, and they will have a cultureshock when they upgrade to a PC or Amiga -it's A case of adhere to their terms oftrading or go without."
1 FOUNTAIN PD
1 FOUNTAIN PD. Run by Dave "SinclairClassic" Fountain. The library was onlygoing to deal in A/V programs and fonts,but when Dave heard of the changes and wasoffered our entire collection, he couldn'trefuse! More details are given in Dave's"welcome" later on in AlchNews.
1 FOR USEFUL PSU'S AND OTHER NEFARIOUS CHEAPBITS (I've not tried them, but a friendrecommended_
1 FOR PLUGS , CABLE ETC - MAPLINS, LOCALELECTRICAL SHOPS ETC.?
1 FOR N=10 TO 0 STEP -1:PRINT N:NEXT N$
1 FOR DRIVES TRY EEC
1 FFFD Start address of file in current*
1 FFFC No. of process tables including*
1 FFFB No. of locations in current page&
1 FFFA Total No. of objects
1 FFF9 No. of system messages in current'
1 FFF8 No. of messages in current page%
1 FFF7 Unknown
1 FFF5 End of screen/pic data 2 (+1)#
1 FFF3 Points to screen/pics data 2"
1 FFF1 Points to screen/pics data 1*
1 FFEF Start of the variables file - this*
1 FFED End of the file + 1 in current*
1 FFEB Points to object weight
1 FFE9 Points to object words
1 FFE7 Points to the initially at table&
1 FFE5 Points to the beginning of the*
1 FFE3 Connection table pointers
1 FFE1 System messages table pointers - as*
1 FFDF Message text table pointers - as*
1 FFDD Location text table pointers - again*
1 FFDB Object text table pointers, which*
1 FELIXSTOWE
1 F032 C31AF0 ; JUMP KEY PRESS
1 F02E CDC204 ; CALL 'SAVE BYTES'!
1 F028 110080 ; LOAD DE, 8000
1 F014 CD6205 ; CALL LOADER IN ROM"
1 F008 1100C0 ; LOAD DE, WITH BLOCK LENGTHF00B 3EFF3
1 F004 DD210030 ; LOAD IX, 3000
1 F. Ridout is still selling an UNUSEDMultiface 128 with a copy of Lifeguard for`15. He is also looking for a completelist of EPSON Printer control codes andcommands if anyone can help. Please writeto:
1 Experiment and learn, that's the key toobtaining hacking skills. Never be afraidto try anything - after all, at the veryworse, all that can happen is you bringabout a machine crash!
1 Everyone else in the universe seems tohave complained about Martyn Sherwood, soI think it's time for me to do my bit. Imust point out that I was only in contactwith Prism for a short time - after Istarted writing to Andy, I soon made up mymind who would get my PD! (Note theAlchemist logo on all my programs).Anyway, here are some perfectly goodreasons why we should all BE GRATEFUL toMartyn Sherwood (!):
1 Ever since the first affordable homecomputers appeared, manufacturers havestrived not only for speed, graphics andsound improvements, but also to give theirproduct a decent name. The Spectrum, namedafter the seven colours of the rainbow, isgenerally regarded as a colour-deficientmachine, and I would agree with this to apoint since its closest rivals did havesuperior colour capabilities (the Spectrumcan only have two colours, one brightnessand one flash attribute per cell, unlessspecial techniques are used).
1 Even the early issues had as much contentback then as Format does now. <I'm notsure how to take that! Ed>n
1 Eskimow Eddie - Don't worry, I've nearlyfinished.3
1 Ernastrasse 33
1 Enough of my ramblings, enjoy your break -take the battery out of your mobile andget some peace! Letters are not intrusive,you can answer them when it is convenient,not like the phone which 99% of the timerudely interupts whatever else you mightbe doing.
1 East Sussex
1 EURO-SPECCY SONG CONTEST!
1 EMULATOR USERS: Since we have invested ina high quality multimedia PC, we are nowable to given unriavlled coverage forusers of the Z80 Emulator, ranging fromsoftware and hardware problems andqueries, right to snapshot collections,such as our new Gremlin Games package.
1 EF50 (the addressSA/LD-RET should occupy). Low and b9
1 ED. your right there, at least he cut down*
1 ED. oh, how come you know so much about it*
1 ED. oh yeah, well he tried it before$
1 ED. I don't know, i'll just ask Lloyd%
1 EACH PD title you buy? Somebody!
1 Drive Type Connection- "Shugart 400-type"<BBC compatable. Ed> See theN
1 Don't use LLIST , LPRINT or COPY or thecommand to get back to 128 mode againwon't work which isg
1 Don't really know what to hit you with inthe next issue, though whatever I come upwith it will not be as involved as it wasthis time - but then again!
1 Don't forget, functions like INKEY$ etc.also count as part of an expression, andcan be usefully VALled (taking intoaccount keyboard response time, ofcourse).
1 Dominic Morriss
1 Do not be put off by the amount ofknowledge you need to have at hand tobecome a successful hacker and just learna little at a time ... Don't try to runbefore you can walk!
1 Discovering what flag bytes were used andthe length of blocks may or may not beeasily obtained from the software you arehacking and can be a hindrance to a speedyhack being done if the authors have been alittle devious in concealing them.
1 Did I hear someone say, "Thank goodnessfor that," or something along those lines,though possibly not quite so politely put?~
1 Desmond Tyler
1 Desert Island Specs
1 Depressing isn't it? You could almostbelieve that the extra 90k in the 128kmachines is used completely for bugs! Thisarticle comes as a follow-up to myprevious collection of bugs, and thoughthere are less mentioned this time,they're all different and I'm sure thereare many I haven't come across yet.
1 Deep Purple
1 Dear Sir / Madam
1 Dear Andy,
1 David Ledbury
1 David Crookes
1 Dave Ledbury
1 Darren Randle. Was to be recruited bySherwood for legal action. When Darren sawthe evidence against Sherwood, he soondecided that he was not on the level.In his last telephone call to me, Darreninformed me that Sherwood would not beinvolved in any future projects.
1 DR WHIPLASH,
1 DOUBLE AGENT - This is one of Tom Forst'searlier games. It features his famoussplit screen interface.The game itself iswritten in basic and lacks the more userfriendly touch of PAWed games.It is stillquite playable and it take a while for thenovelty of the split screen to wear off.
1 DIE HARD (USA)
1 DH. that bit about young women sending him*
1 DH. Well that was a bit of a slog to read)
1 DH. Im suprised he did'nt slip a Hugh%
1 DESERT ISLAND TAPES
1 DB2 +3 DISC BACKUP UTILITY,KOBRASOFT - `5)
1 DAVE FOUNTAIN, 8th August 1995.
1 D. Ledbury
1 Craig Elder
1 Could it be possible that in some sort ofwierd way he gets an ego trip out of thepublicity and the attention that is paidto his arbitary deeds? I bet that he wouldbe really put-out if there was not amention of him ever again! (But who couldresist the temptation ?)
1 CompleteAN17.7: instructions by that hardware2
1 Coming Soon... Beyond Help (Honest!)$
1 Close Rantings of the Roy Kind
1 Clear the machine to address 23935 andload in the smaller of the two blocks, butremembering to input LOAD"" CODE 23936.Once this has loaded, load in the largerblock to address 32768. You must now saveall this code back out to the tape withthe basic program and the screen on it byinputting, save "" CODE 23936, 41600.
1 Class dismissed.
1 Chris Thomson
1 Chris Taylor, Triad
1 Chris Norfolk
1 Catalin Russen, MicroCRIFS
1 Can you believe his cheek? He begins bytrying to portray that he is farmore knowledgable than Bob Brenchley ofINDUG! Compare a man who has made asuccess of the SAM to a small timeunemployed person who only used hiscomputer for games and can't even put ina simple POKE to fix a progam!
1 CRASHED has recently had an editor changedue to editorial bias and some minorpersonal problems. Alan Clarkson is nowreported to be editor, although this maybe a nominal position.
1 CRAIG ELDER: Craig used to be the writerof the +3 section. He was amazed andrather disgusted to find out that theactual column he wrote was edited almostbeyond recognition and filled with unfunnyand un-necessary editorial remarks.
1 CPC Undercover
1 CPC UNDERCOVER (magazine)
1 CORRUPTER OF MO... oh, er, sorry,!
1 COPYRIGHTED - NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN!
1 COCKERMOUTH
1 CLOUD 99 - This game was a nice surprise.I didn't really expect anything from itbut after playing for short while I gotreally into the game. It is very userfriendly and the text is very wellwritten.
1 CLEVELAND TS17 9HR
1 CHRISTIAN AYMARD is on the lookout for thefollowing programs:=
1 CHESSINGTON
1 CHALFONT ST PETER
1 CCEECCAAA?>>MOMOMK
1 CAUTION-THIS IS WHERE IT CAN START TO GETTRICKY!1
1 CATALIN RUSSEN
1 CATALIN RUSSEN would like some Amigacontacts, wishing to swap tips, advice andsoftware for the Amiga. If you would likean Amiga penpal, please write to:
1 CANNON BC01 inkjet cartridges, `5 each o14 for `50.5
1 By today's standards Double Agent isn'tthat great a game but still manages tohold your intrest. It plays well but thereis a definite lack of atmosphere.
1 By the way, I'm currently looking for +Dsnapshots or whatever of the followinggames (and about 70 others, but let'sforget them for the moment!):
1 By controlling how the loader operates youcan make it idle (it looks at the bytes onthe tape but doesn't load them) until apoint on the tape is reached that you areinterested in and the loader is told to gointo load mode!
1 By Miles Kinloch
1 By Kevin Gurd
1 By J.C.Blomley
1 But, you weren't having any of it. Youwere upset and angry (very angry in thecase of one who telephoned and called me a"bastard" for retiring!). So, AlchemistResearch was repreived! But, there are tobe a couple of changes.
1 But, my full time occupacion has becomefar more demanding. Sure, the pay is greatand so is being in charge, but i'd give itall up to run Alchemist Research fulltime.
1 But the award for the most boring computername ever simply has to go to the PC. Imean, of course it's a bloody personalcomputer, but so's the Archimedes andthat's got a name!
1 But that needs money. You can't pay amortgage, food, heat, light and all theother daily bills from a Spectrum. Well,you could, but you'd
1 But if you hold down the snapshot buttonand repeatedly tap the X key, nicerepeating coloured squares appear all overthe screen. You can do a similar thingwith PRINT USR 480 - they both cause acolourful crash and make the ROM contentsinto pretty visual thingies!
1 But by VALling the whole CHR$ argument, wecan do away with them:-A
1 BritishBroadcasting Corporation, but then Isuppose they were paid to call it that!X
1 Bristol BS5
1 Brian Watson, 8-BIT
1 Brian Watson
1 Brian Gaff, BG Services
1 Brandlesholme
1 Bradby Boys Club
1 Both drives can be worked from one cable ,my original cable was long enough to reachboth drives as long as I kept them closeto each other and the spectrum. All Ineeded was to fit a second plug for thenew drive.
1 Bogie of Extacy-3 did write regarding hisgroups mentioning, but it appears he wasnot aware of a letter sent by his fellowmember "LA", condemning illegal softwarecopying and distribution Sherwood oncemade.
1 Bl: L11 Ap: 86
1 Bill Richardson, EEC
1 Bill Clark
1 Big supplier of Spectrum adventuresoftware, including?
1 Before doing so, I would care to point outthat making copies of any software may bean infringement of the copyright of thegame or utility in question.
1 Before describing the mod to you, I wouldcare to point out that unless you are bothconfident and adroit at using a solderingiron and other electrical tools, then Isuggest you do not attempt to modify your+3 as you could cause irreparable damage,which I take no responsibility forwhatsoever!
1 Basically, it's grown beyond my control.In the beginning it was easy to handle asI was a student with plenty of free timebetween my diploma. But, over the yearsas Alchemist Research began to expand, ittook an ounce more time each day.
1 Barbara Gibb
1 Back to the "Eliza" program. The reasonthat this is not true artificialintelligence is that the computer makes nological assumptions. In fact, the programpicks out recognised words and then makesa sentence from a stack of ready-madeones, replacing only the relevant word. Tomake this clearer, here's a typical"Eliza" program in a flowchart style:
1 BUT , if there is a need for these sort ofarticles anywhere why oh why do they haveto be so boring ? You can honestly getjust as much information by looking at thesystem variables from the manual andexperimenting for 5 minutes. Actually thearticles themselves seem to be just a copyof these pages anyway. If the writer ofthe article I am on about is reading thisthen honestly, I'm not runnig you downpersonaly, as I said; some people do wan'tto know this stuff but please, Spice it upa little eh! <The system variables are asold as the Spectrum and have changedlittle or not at all since 1982. Ed>
1 BULLELECTRICAL,250 PORTLAND RD.,HOVE SUSSEXBN3 5QT , tel 01273 203500H
1 BORN ON THE 4TH JULY
1 BITS 'N' PIECES
1 BG SERVICES
1 BETRAYED PROGRAMMERS
1 BEST OF THE INDIES - This is a compilationthat's well worth having. If you don'talready have some of these games then Iurge you to buy this. It contains some ofthe classic Spectrum adventures and isworth the price. Although some games mightseem a bit dated there is a good spread ofeverything in this compilation.
1 BEST OF THE INDIES costs `5.99 and isavailable from Zenobi software, 26Spotland Tops, Cutgate, Rochdale, Lancs.OL12 7NX.
1 B=Betrayed Programmer
1 At this point, with all the saving done weneed do, and with both the machine clearedto the correct address and the m/c inplace, we can see if all the work we didpays off or not by inputting, RANDOMIZEUSR 45415 ... and ... and ... YES!!!
1 At the moment there aren't enough hours ina day. Up at 5am, work until 6pm, quickwash and food and processing softwareorders and letters etc. until aftermidnight. Not just one night, but EVERYnight of the week. And in there I alsohave to find the time to compile AlchNews.
1 At the moment there are three phenominallygood lists of hardware, software and booksdoing the rounds. Should you want one,send an SAE to:
1 At present, 99% of PC software (including Windows 3.x) is 16 bit, so 16 bit sofware being processed by a 32 bit OS + PC will run a lot faster than on todays (16 bit OS) setups
1 As there is a displacement of the loadingaddress by 1000, the address we need tosave from is 7000.f
1 As promised in the last edition, I willset about showing you how to handleloaders which use extra long data blocksas a means of protection.
1 As my new drive needs only a 5v regulatedsupply, I adapted one from a junked 6 voltcassette player for when I re-case it alltidy , I've used a 7805A 5volt regulatortogether with a larger smoothing capacitor(4700 U-f 16v) the regulator connects asfollows, looking from the front at thenumbers, hole at the top, pins down , leftpin - to rectified out-put , centre pinground, right pin gives 5 volts regulatedoutput . Bolt through hole to case to useas the heat-sink (vital!)
1 As most readers of AlchNews will know,whenever a program or utility fromAlchemist PD is mentioned in an article inthe magazine, it's free to all thereaders. Well, here's my devious scheme.If I write an article on the history ofAlchemist Research which includes thewhole catalogue... !
1 As im a bit rushed, please forgive the&
1 As all 486s are 32 bit, will there really be that much difference in speed between the SXs & the DXs?f
1 As I said, the initial column in thisintended long running series was writtenin haste and in all probability, had Itaken more time to think it through, Imight have explained in some detail how toget the most out of the 'load bytes'routine in the 48K ROM, which I am nowabout to do.
1 As your name is on this list, whatcategory do you come under (if any) andwhy? If you have been mentioned withoutyour knowledge I would appreciate beingtold this, otherwise as it stands youappear to agree with Mr Davis and wouldbecome involved should I ever take legalaction against him.
1 Artificial intelligence, or AI, is thename given to a computer program whichgives the impression that it can "think"logically and respond to the user's inputin an intelligent way. Spectrum users maywell have come across programs like"Eliza" (the psychiatrist), in which thecomputer analyses sentences entered by theuser and gives a relevant response. As youcan imagine, something like this could beimplemented to a far greater extent on amore powerful computer - but even the mostadvanced computer in the world has yet toconquer the boundaries of AI.
1 Arnold Yates
1 Armeggeddon, Bubble Buster, ChequeredFlag, Chess,, Feud, Fighting Warrior,Finders Keepers, Fist, Flight Simulator,Gauntlet, Ghostbusters, Horace
1 Arkanoid: Revenge of Mow - Ha ha. Not.&
1 Apart from this small problem I found thisgame highly enjoyable and I'm sure youwill agree._
1 Anyway, why am I rambling on is this wayabout Format, Deserts and Alchnews. Wellhave you seen Format lately ? Their latestgems for non Sam / +D users is Spectrumsystem variables.
1 Anyway, thats off my chest so I will goonto another bit. <Ok, thats the tenner Ipromised you Ray. Ed>i
1 Anyway, that's just one angle on how youcould make use of this new found knowledgeyou now have regarding exactly where tofind everything within a PAWed adventurefile.
1 Anyway, my conclusions from what I've seentells me this:8
1 Anyway, let's assume I had to take fivetapes. The first one would have to be"Transylvanian Tower" - no, no, onlyjoking! I'd probably take "Firelord"because it's very addictive and colourful.
1 Anyway, just for those who have no ideathis routine exists, I will describe howto make use of it from your own m/c andhow the relevant register values effectwhat it loads in and to where.
1 Anyway, if you are new to the adventurescene then this is a good place to start.This month I am going to take a look a themother of all adventure compilations, TheBest of the Indies. This is a six gamecompilation, so plenty of fun forbeginners and experienced adventurersalike.
1 Anyway, he never replied to our letter(typical ignorance as usual), but wecarried on with the silence plan.u
1 Anyway GC sent me a copy. I immediatelysent a letter to Andy for more deatails ofsubscribing, sent of my postal order and afew weeks later after reciving some PDorders (quite a lot I must admit due to abit of over enthusiasm) hear that AlchNewswas to close down. AARRGGHH
1 Antony Purvis
1 Ant Attack, Avalon, Blue
1 Another bug, or rather a strange effect,occurs when you CLEAR the memory while ina GOSUB. I think this is mentioned in theuser guide, but anyway, try this routine:
1 Another one would have to be "RickDangerous", which I've never managed tocomplete despite playing it for about 12hours a day throughout 1993!
1 Andy Davis Bsc
1 Andrew Parish
1 And yet do we really need these high levelPCs?. The main requirement these daysO
1 And with this, maybe we will see an end to the current crop of software, orM
1 And then they might find a use for the&
1 And so on. The program understands that itmust return I as YOU, YOU as I (or ME), HEas HE, MY as YOUR, etc, so the followingrealistic exchange of views could takeplace:
1 And if you would like to buy any of the above items, or make a donation to theP
1 And finally, the Sam Coupe. If this namemeans anything, I'd love to know what itis! As far as I can see, it's just Frenchfor "Cut Sam"! Although, laughing at allthese names, what would YOU call a newcomputer if you wanted it to sell?!
1 And finally there is my writing career. Mybooks have been sadly neglected for toolong, accorinding to an axious publisherwho wants to see some results. If I wantto keep my contract, I have to work forit.
1 And I would argue that, as there is no&
1 An adult orientated Spectrum magazine witha difference. This excellently producedmagazine (NOT a fanzine) covers theSpectrum, world cinema and a wide range ofother topics. Although labelled as adult,it is not of a sexual content. First issuecosts `1.80 and is WELL worth it.
1 An alternative to VAL, is the CODE"<character>" function. This takes evenfewer bytes, and has the added bonus ofbeing almost as fast as the number form,so can be used much more liberally intime-critical loops. Being restricted tointegers in the range 0-255, however,makes it unable to act as a universalsubstitute for VAL.
1 Amy Pandagirl
1 Amstrad-made
1 Although I suppose that sort of name doesappeal to spotty rich kids with nothingbetter to do than spend fifty quid a weekon unchallenging, unoriginal games. Youcan see how much I like consoles! As forSega and Nintendo, they're just Japanesesurnames as far as I know.
1 Although there are utilities availableform PD libraries to get around anyrestictions it saves time to enter thesecommand direcly.
1 Although technicallly it is rathercrude,it does however allow anyone writinggames software to have an alternative tousing a joystick, and gives a true meaningto shoot'em ups.
1 Alternatively, you can examine the DEregister pair and switch in differentpages to load data to, or indeed, can useboth modifications at the same time.
1 Also remember the stack must be balancedif you push any registers onto it and thatthe state of the flags must be preserved.The B register can safely be used withouthaving to restore it's former value, ascan the L register once it has been usedto poke the address IX points to or not.
1 Alright! I make it easy for you just thisonce and I'll write the code to give you arest!Y
1 Allie Weston
1 All we need to do now is to rewind thetape and load in the block of code again. However, this time it will over-write notonly the system variables but also theprogram area as well.
1 All the componets in fig 1 should behoused with the light sensor and plastictube. They could even be fitted into a toygun and modified accordingly. Iterms infig 2 can be housed into a plastic boxincluding the edge connector, and the twounits connected with 5-8 feet of cable.The switch or trigger should be connectedbetween the output of fig 1, and the inputof fig 2. This could be a microswitch witha suitable trigger pressing on it. Mostimportantly, the switch shuld be a pressto make contact type.
1 All sizes are approximate.
1 All pages other than 2 and 0 contain justgraphic information plus messages (notsystem) and location text.n
1 All other data is located in pages 2 and 0and for this reason page 2 contains a setof its own unique system variables so thegame's interpreter knows exactly how manypages of data to load in and where to putit.
1 All customers we like to inform that theprices are all in Deuts che Mark. If youlike to pay in British Pounds, then theexchange rate is 2.15 DM for 1 Pounds,means you have to divide the price in DMwith 2,15 to get the amount in Pounds.Send a cheque with your order, to sendmoney could be dangerous.
1 All I have covered so far may take alittle time for you to completelyunderstand._
1 Alf Fairwheather
1 Alec Carswell
1 Alchnews16 just arrived as I was about toput this is the post and felt I must makesome comments, any of which you can put inAlchnews17 if you would like to use them(Ho, hum can't find the copyright symbolon my newly aquired +2! )
1 Alchemist Research address
1 Alchemist Research
1 Alchemist Software will no longer beundertaken at Alchemist Research, but bynew staff at a new location. All titleswill remain the same and they will tradein the same manner as before, but withmany changes. A good service
1 AlchNews Adventures
1 AlchNews 128k:
1 Ah! There it is, much further on in theline! It's correct, 0, and a separatorfollows this and then there's a permanentINK 0, but again, the number form isfurther on, and correct - and a separatorfollows this as well.
1 Again, we'll start with an example:-$
1 After two years of being is the computerworlds equivalent of a desert since YSceased to exist then finding somethingmuch better I then find I am going to bein the backwaters again because beleive meloyal Alchies ! ? Format is complete andutter dross unless you have a Sam.Thankfully a change in circumstances Ihave just found out this evening of 8thAugust '95 Alchnews is going to continue;Huzzah you shout in a Baldrick kind of way!
1 After the HALL OF SHAME in last issue,Martyn Sherwood began pestering MarcusPrichard again. In case you haven't readthe Prism section, he misquoted the entirearticle and requested Mr Prichard'ssupport should any legal action takeplace.
1 After a few variations on this theme fromseveral shops I decided to try mail order)U
1 After informing Dave Fountain of themaysterious D.G. Sherwood letter, he tellsus that it's Martyn's FATHER! I thinknothing much more can be said when you aresupposedly a grown man of 30+ years of ageand you have to have daddy to fight yourbattles for you! It certainly conjures upimages of Mr Sherwood resembling JohnMajor, thermos in hand, anoraked to thenines, sat on Coventry station noting downrolling stock prefixes!
1 Adrian Mole, Black Crystal, Cluedo,Doomsday Castle, Gyron, Head over Heels,The Hobbit, Pettigrew Diaries, Psytron,Valyrie 17 (no instr), The Sold a million,They sold a million 3, Tasword 2, LinkwordFrench, GAC, Dream (learn mc)
1 Adjust VR1 to detect a white TV sreen froma black one, placing the light gun arond5-8 feet from th TV. I have included anLED to help in adjusting the unit.
1 Address on page 1
1 Address TBA shortly.
1 Address 941C through to 9423 are two byteindicators to what messages, if any, areto be found in the relevant pages 1, 3, 4and 6, in that order.
1 According to the header, line 0 is thestart line.5
1 ASKED TO GIVE UP A NEUTRAL STANCE!
1 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
1 ANDREW MARSHALL has the following forsale:/
1 AN17.D
1 AN17.C
1 AN17.9: ROYS RANTINGS. My God, he's gotAN17.10: his article in early and ranked aT
1 AN17.9
1 AN17.8: MORE BUGS. Paul Howard continues*
1 AN17.8 \
1 AN17.7 9$
1 AN17.6: DIY
1 AN17.6 E
1 AN17.5 ?
1 AN17.4: PAULS BITS: Hot on the trail ofAN17.5: Roy and Ben, Paul does a "bits"T
1 AN17.4
1 AN17.3: LETTER. J.C. Blomley has some*
1 AN17.38: THE END. Credits, plus news of*
1 AN17.38
1 AN17.37: Smalls, user requests
1 AN17.37 9
1 AN17.36: Commerical software
1 AN17.36 d
1 AN17.35: Other magazines & services#
1 AN17.35
1 AN17.34: Paper magazines
1 AN17.34
1 AN17.33: SINTECH SOFTWARE. Thomas Eberle*
1 AN17.33 \
1 AN17.32 &
1 AN17.31: MORE FROM PAW. Graham CollierAN17.32: takes us through the PAW systemT
1 AN17.31
1 AN17.30: PD POWERLESS? Fancy paying `1 for*
1 AN17.30
1 AN17.3
1 AN17.2: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.#
1 AN17.29: ABBA. Graham Collier shows how to*
1 AN17.29 a
1 AN17.28: ADDING VALS AND TAKING BYTES.*
1 AN17.28 A
1 AN17.27
1 AN17.26 |
1 AN17.25
1 AN17.24 y
1 AN17.23: HACKERS CORNER. A very bigAN17.24: article this issue, coveringAN17.25: loading in extremely fine detail.AN17.26: By Graham Collier.
1 AN17.23
1 AN17.22: WHATS IM A NAME? The goofs and*
1 AN17.22 ;
1 AN17.21: DESERT ISLAND SPECS. Paul Howard.*
1 AN17.21 ;
1 AN17.20: FOUNTAIN PD. Dave
1 AN17.20
1 AN17.2 Q&
1 AN17.19: ALCHVENTURES. The return of a*
1 AN17.19
1 AN17.18: DESERT ISLAND SPECS: Orson of*
1 AN17.18
1 AN17.17 c
1 AN17.16: HARD DRIVING. J.C.Blomley onAN17.17: repairing and replacing +DT
1 AN17.16
1 AN17.15
1 AN17.14: PRISM PROBLEMS. What do you callAN17.15: a man who takes an AlchNewsT
1 AN17.14
1 AN17.13
1 AN17.12: RAY'S RANTINGS. No, not aAN17.13: misprint, but another Roy, Ben &T
1 AN17.12
1 AN17.11: COLOUR MIXING. Tired of that*
1 AN17.11
1 AN17.10
1 AN17.1 : THE END - OR IS IT? Full details*
1 AN17.1 :
1 AN17.0 : This section.
1 AN17.0
1 ALCHNEWS: Will continue. There are enoughcontributions and articles courtesy ofINPUT for many years to come. But, I feela limit will have to be made on it's size.The last issue was the equivalent of over250 pages of A4. Even if AlchNews becamemonthly, it would still be over 80 pagesper month! Far better value for money thanANY other magazine on the market! It wouldbe a deadly shame to abandon this.
1 ALCHNEWS17
1 ALCHEMIST SOFTWARE: This is what took upmost of the time. Giving this up gives thefree time needed, plus also gives theother groups a chance to trade.
1 ALCHEMIST SOFTWARE! In very late August,Lloyd Garland and a local associate havemade a request to carry on the service.Needless to say, I agreed! The name willbe the same, the software will be thesame, but there will be some changes init's operation. Details are very sketchyat this time, as we have lots to discuss,as well as the transfer of several hundreddisks for them to sort into a newcatalogue, but no doubt full details willbe given in the December issue (AN18).
1 ALCHEMIST RESEARCH
1 ALCHEMIST CP/M: The programs will besupplied by the new Alchemist Software.The CP/M programmer John Elliot is stillwriting some excellent +3 utilities.Coverage will still be given in AlchNewsand any help via the helpline.
1 ALBHAR PC SHAREWARE
1 AFTERTHOUGHTS ... If you don't want toalter the drive settings so one is set todrive1 and the other is set as drive2 ,leave them both set as drive1 and you cando the job instead by altering the cable.Trace the lines 10, 11 and 12 to the lastdrive plug on the cable, remove thelocking and retainer bars from the plug ,split out lines 10 ,11 and 12 together andturn them over so that 10 and 12 changepositions inthe plug ,refit the bits ofthe plug and that drive (set as a drive1 )will now work when the +D sends a signaldown the drive 2 select line(12)!
1 ADDING VALS AND TAKING AWAY BYTES!
1 A similar situation arises with the CHR$function. Here, brackets are needed whenthe argument consists of more than asingle unary expression.
1 A partial solution I have discovered ifyou have mons for the +3 is to load inmons and choose an area for it to runfrom, it only needs 160 bytes as the restof it is accessed by paging, and then toload your gamecode. If you then set yourmutiface to jump to the address of mons asoutlined in the instruction sheet afteryour game is running you can sometimesdissasemble the game and on selcting thereturn to basic option in mons you cancontinue the game where you left off.
1 A long established company in the Spectrumfield, also catering for the SAM. Lots ofuseful bits are available for theSpectrum, including leads and hardware. BGServices is also the official distributorof the Z80 Spectrum emulator for the PC.
1 A good pattern for colour mixing is the"tiny chessboard", as featured in the goodold User Guide. If you don't have thatfine publication to hand, here's a slightvariation on the program which will doexactly the same thing, but we don't wantto break any copyright rules do we?
1 A RANDOMIZE USR is not required becausethe code will load over the SA/LD-RETaddress pushed onto the stack!r
1 A FIENDISH PLOT
1 A Commodore, says the Chambers TwentiethCentury Dictionary, is anI
1 A 486 SX33 with 16 meg of RAM will run a lot faster than a 486 DX2 66 with 4 meg ofRAM, the DX2 is faster, but most progsz
1 A preferable rendering, however, wouldbe:-.
1 >>AA>><<KJKJHJ
1 <SERIOUS ANNOUNCMENT. Erm, I hope that youare also trading the original game tapewith the snapshots, since this feature ofthe +D should only be used to make back-upcopies of your own games. Ok, so nobodydoes, but I have to print it Ed>
1 <Put sellotape on the corners whichprevents the chemical colouring the paper.Ed>W
1 <Plea to all readers. If any of you have acopy of "Transilvanian Tower", you'd liketo sell. Please send it to Paul and sendthe bill to me. Ed>
1 <B- Theres a solar generator. Ed>!
1 <And very useful it was too. (Sounds ofchinese being eaten and beer slurped) Ed>S
1 <A- Why are you in a hurry to load? It'snot as if you'd have lots to do>J
1 <<??==>>JKJNJQ
1 <+2a/+3 PSUs seem to be popular choicesfor powering external drives on the +3.Ed>W
1 ;"Next, Prev, Index or Choose:"
1 ;"M to change Music":
1 ;"LOADING PART ";CNT
1 ; TRY AGAIN IF NO KEY PRESS F024 DD210070 ; LOAD IX, 70009
1 ; TRY AGAIN IF LOAD ERROR F01A AF#
1 ; SET THE CARRY FLAG
1 ; SET CARRY FLAG
1 ; OUT (FE),A
1 ; LOAD A, WITH FLAG BYTE
1 ; LOAD A, FF
1 ; LOAD A, 0F
1 ; IN A, (FE)
1 9866 TM LUTJEGAST
1 9537 to 9443 refer to the permanent screenand print colour set up.B
1 944C/D is the address, plus one byte, ofthe last byte of the insert characterset(s).[
1 944A/B holds the address of the first byteof any inserted character set(s).K
1 9449 holds the number of user insertedcharacter sets in the file - each setoccupies 0300 bytes of memory.r
1 9448 and once again for the processtables (response = process 0).H
1 9447 and again for system messages.#
1 9446 same again for messages.
1 9445 as above for locations.
1 9444 holds the total number of objects inthe adventure, plus one.B
1 9432 to 9438 again I could find no usefor..
1 942A through to 9431 are identical to the'page in use' variables above, but are forlocations.^
1 9424 through to 9429 I was unable to findany use for, though they could be used ina running adventure.h
1 9012CM RAERD
1 9 West View
1 9 STOP statement, 0:1
1 80p each (cased + instructions)
1 8000 bytes only are saved as we alreadytook care of 4000 of them earlier.M
1 78 Holtdale Avenue
1 70794 Filderstadt
1 70794 FILDERSTADT
1 7. Idioms. Foreigners have no end oftrouble with these - how would ourcomputer define "The dark horse of thefamily" or "Man's best friend"? Again,these are general knowledge, but languageis quite a different department.
1 7 Manor Drive
1 64 Roebuck Road
1 60 Queensfield
1 6. Slang. Would the computer know that"Mum" means "Mother"? What would it makeof the question "Is my Uncle Ned up theapples and pears?" with no knowledge ofCockney rhyming slang? (I'd love to try itout!). What about modern terms such as"gay" to mean homosexual or "mate" meaningfriend as opposed to sexual partner? Thehuman, of course, would understand theseterms and could put them into context.
1 6 Ravensmead
1 51069 KOLN
1 50p each (caseless)
1 50 BORDER 0 : BORDER 0 : PAUSE 1 : GOTO 40*
1 5. Misunderstandings. In English, andprobably every other language, many wordshave more than one meaning. "Fast" and"pitch" for example each have fivemeanings. It may be a problem for thecomputer if you say, "I pitched my tent ona football pitch but it got covered inpitch!". Also, if the computer does notunderstand, should it say so? It may bebest to hide the fact that it doesn't knowwhat you're talking about, but if you said"My sister's favourite colour is toilet.What is her favourite colour?", themachine would probably reply "Toilet". If"rose", "lime" and "velvet" can becolours, why not? The computer wouldn'tknow.
1 5 Various art packages
1 48kadventures, plus many compilations. Printand presentation quality of this companyis outstanding, which reflects the highstandard it's software is. The CP/Mcatalogue is just as impressive, goinginto greater detail of each adventure!
1 486DX2-66 is a minimum entry level"
1 46 High Road West
1 40 NEXT P : NEXT I : NEXT B
1 40 BORDER 0 : BORDER 2 : BORDER 6 : BORDER4 : BORDER 56
1 4. Time Factor. This applies to everythingI've mentioned. It's true that a computercan work out difficult calculations manytimes faster and more efficiently than ahuman, but in other cases it is muchslower. Even if the computer knew who wonthe last FA Cup, it would take anoticeable amount of time in searching itsmemory for the right piece of information.
1 4. Could we have a HELP PAGE (or a PleaPage ) I could do with a bit of HELPplease, what it is I bought a spectrum +(48K) together with a box of tapes andgoodies , because it had an AMX mouse withit, the mouse turned out to be a bit duff,one button would not work - this I tracedback to one of the chips in the interface-changed the chip and it now works OK with"THE ARTIST" but I can not get thesoftware that came with it to run throughthe +D,though it will function if the +Dis not connected - Does anybody have a wayof making these programs work with the +D,or does it look like I might have had morethan one duff chip? Is there a differentdriver program out there in PD land forthe AMX mouse? Any possibility of using itinstead of a jotstick?
1 4(H) or 6(J)
1 4 PRINT USR 0
1 4 Bethune Close
1 39 High Street
1 37 Trimingham Drive
1 36 Grasmere Road
1 34680 ST GEORGES
1 34 NORTH DRIVE,
1 32 Dursley Road
1 30 SAVE "name .fnt" CODE 32000,769"
1 30 REM What A Waste Of Time All These REMSAre!!/
1 30 GOTO 10
1 30 BRIGHT B : PRINT INK I;PAPER P;"A";&
1 3. This is the clever bit! Construct asentence including the relevant topic fromthe input. To put this into context,here's a sample run of the program, withcomments in brackets:
1 3. Martyn voluntarily opted out of theEssential Guides proposal; very kind ofhim since it allowed the rest of us to geton with creating a good, original seriesand saved him the humiliation of beingturned away! We should also respect MrSherwood deeply for his well-knownintelligence. He regularly turns outoriginal ideas (well, they were originalwhen Andy thought of them!!) and surelyanyone who thinks that 3 comes after 3must be very clever! Cancelling MilesKinloch's subscription also lessened hisincome and stopped another source of PD -what financial talent! Overall, MartynSherwood is a generous, intelligent personwho runs an excellent service (despite theoccasional inevitable two-year delay) ...and I'm the Wizard of Oz!
1 3. General Knowledge. Perhaps the hardesttest to overcome. If you asked "My brotheris in London. Where is my brother?", thecomputer would be able to answer "London"almost as quickly as
1 3. Content of Alchnews 15 & 16Magnificent! Stacks of entertaining (asidefrom the Prism Files), ineresting and veryusefull material that has helped me get amore use from my Spectrums than I thoughtpossible.
1 2textfiles to Tasword 128?
1 298 Holton Road
1 29 Barber Street
1 26 Spotland Tops
1 25-27 " wide, 38-40 " long
1 249 Dumbarton Road
1 23 Cleveland
1 20 inches across, 25-30 inches long (the posters that is!);
1 20 REM And All Sorts Of Other ProgramsIncluding This One.=
1 20 POKE 32769,255
1 20 IF a=255 THEN PRINT "BANG"
1 20 Greenill Drive
1 20 FOR B=0 TO 1 : FOR I=0 TO 7 : FOR P=0TO 7.
1 20 DATA BIN 10101010, BIN 1010101, BIN10101010, BIN 1010101, BIN 10101010, BIN1010101, BIN 10101010, BIN 1010101v
1 2. Scan text for known phrases (whichmight include FRIENDS, BROTHER, SISTER, DOYOU, YOU ARE, I AM, MY, etc, but notirrelevant "filler" words like THE, AND,AS and IS).
1 2. Prism Problems Sit back and total upthe amount of unproductive time, K-bytesof Alchnews and damage this wally hascaused , in my opinion it is not evenbalanced off by the not inconsiderableentertainment value to the readership ofAlchnews!
1 2. Most of us would be pleased if Martynleft the Spectrum scene, and to this endhe constantly pirates software and sellsillegal programs. Because of this he hasnow brought a police investigation uponhimself - thanks again Mr Sherwood!
1 2. Fallibility. If you asked the question"What is the square root of 834.57?" thecomputer could answer in a flash - butthat would give the game away. The machinemust wait before responding, or even givethe wrong answer. The problem here lies intelling the computer when to do so; a longpause for "What is 3 plus 1?" is hardlyappropriate!
1 2) In Sherwood's letter, he forgot toinclude the "UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS" reason, asstated earlier, so Roy had to answer theway he did. He was rather upset to findout the Sherwood had again been lying andthat he had been hassled by him once more,plus quoting extracts from his letters andnot producing it completely, as Royrequesed.
1 2) I am happy to supply any proof to thirdparties who are not connected withSherwood or the matter in any way. If Isent the information, it would be givingthem an advance look at some of the proofwe have against him, which would be veryvaluable should any court case arise! Whyshould he have advance warning over whatwe are going to hit him with?
1 2 North Hill Road
1 2 Microdrive units
1 2 Joysticks
1 2 Cromwell Close
1 2 "Twin" joystick / mouse interface#
1 19:00 - 22:00
1 1995 A.Davis & Alch. Research
1 19 Lyme Avenue
1 18 Tivoli Crescent
1 18 Clyde Grange
1 17 Le Mas Blanc
1 166 Valley Drive
1 14 De Verose Court
1 128K Music:
1 128K BUGS - THE REMIX
1 128 to 48 - POKE 23611 , 205 then#
1 126 Hayward Road
1 12 blank MD cartridges
1 12 Miller Avenue
1 12 Frederick Street
1 1000 CLEAR : RETURN
1 10 RESTORE : FOR N=0 TO 7 : READ Z : POKEUSR "A"+N,Z : NEXT N>
1 10 REM The Static Border Effect As Used InAnimator13
1 10 REM Make sure you've defined UDG A asshown earlier7
1 10 LOAD "name .fnt" CODE 32000
1 10 LET a= IN 191
1 10 BORDER 0 : PAPER 0 : INK 0 : CLEAR65367 : LOAD "" SCREEN$ : PRINT AT 0,0; :LOAD "" CODE`
1 1. Re. Changes Alchnews + Sam Please donot incorporate Sam totally, just use whatis compatible with Spectrum. Let Sam dosame , by all means take on Sam PD andgive them all access to Alchemist, mostwill run Spectrum emulators anyway- mightmake them wonder why they bothered buyingSAMS!
1 1. Input text from user.
1 1. His numerous mistakes always make uslaugh - after all, he can't count andthinks that idioms can go anywhere... ifthe cap fits! We should all thank him foramusing us so regularly.
1 1. Emotional. Questions in this groupinclude "What is love?" or "Comment onthis poem". The reason computers oftenfall down here is because they are notsupplied with the information on humanemotions, a formidable task for anyprogrammer.
1 1) WHO THE HELL IS D.G. SHERWOOD. Theyhave NOT been involved in the matter inany way, so what are they doing requestinginformation?
1 1) Roy had not read the article
1 1 Spectrum 128k
1 1 Spectrum +3
1 1 Rubber keyed 48k
1 1 QL computer and spare machine
1 1 Pelham Street
1 1 Interface one
1 1 GOSUB 1000 : STOP
1 1 FOR N=10 TO 0
1 1 DK Tronics keyboard
1 1 AND DRIVE 2
1 1 +D interface
1 1 +D 3.5" drive (780k DSDD)
1 0600 ROSIORI DE VEDE
1 ...As I was saying.
1 ... but it can be transferred to RAM andbe put to even more interesting usesthere!!!\
1 - SQ-TRACKER is the best sound-tracker forSpectrum. Made by czech musicans whowanted more than Sound-Tracker could do.SQ-Trac ker is used in most of the newerCzech-Demos and comes with Engl ishinstructions, so that everyone now canmake good sounds on Specci.
1 - PROMETHEUS is a real big assembler pack.Some features:8
1 - ORFEUS is a 3-channel 48k Sound program.With this program you could really makethe greatest tunes that are possible on48k Specci. English instructions.
1 - INFERNO is something like Cybernoid.Absolutely Megagame with endless levelsand more weapons than in Cybernoid.Something between stategic and action.Comes with 6 pages English instructionsand tips.
1 - ATOMIX is a strategic game. Your task isto complete chemical molecules from singleatoms. The problem is that the atoms aremoving as long as they hit an obstacle. Soit is not so easy to put them in the rightposition. English instructions.
1 - Int.Exe 128 is an utility to putpictures in Interlace Mode. For using inown demos.^
1 , tut ,tut,ever felt a right berk! I forgot that Ihad to re-configure the +SYS DOS for twodrives!!g
1 , though, ofthese four, only page 0 is not loaded intwo parts - well it is, but the lowerreaches of where it is loaded to iscombined with page 2 as a single load.
1 +Dconfiguration program to see what capacitydrive you can use !?
1 +D Support:
1 +3/+2A to grey +2) - `1
1 +3 & CP/M Support:
1 +256*PEEK 30001"
1 +256*PEEK 30001
1 +.532533226
1 + you can use up to 64 kB of memory for source text7
1 + with special 128k Version, means:#
1 + syntax control on every line when(
1 + source code: machine code ratio 3-4:1 (GENS has 8:1):
1 + scrolling and paging very fast
1 + possible to compile directly into pages on 128k3
1 + line oriented editor with
1 + full relocability
1 + could load in GENS source files!
1 + built in monitor
1 + assembly speed 2-3 kBytes/s
1 + allows string searching and replacing'
1 + allows block deleting and copying#
1 + D DISC DRIVE DUFF?
1 *=Special, see later
1 ) of the table isfound.
1 (two'scomplimented).
1 (quellesurprise!). When the NEW command is used(returning to the "opening menu"), certainaddresses in high memory are corrupted,even when they are above RAMTOP. Miles didsend me an article about this which gaveexamples of PEEKable addresses which werealtered, but it's buried under my mail forthe past five years upstairs somewhere soyou'll have to write to him as I'm notleaving my nice grey swivel chair!
1 (hopefully) on the INTERNET (there are a number of speccy sites I believe), of the great work done by the great char-a-dee{
1 (b) Do all desert islands have UK plugsockets?2
1 (a) I'd rather take a +D, 'cos it loadsthings faster.8
1 (User) YOU ARE STUPID.
1 (User) I AM STUPID.
1 (User input) NO
1 (User input) I HAVE NO FRIENDS!
1 (This is a personal saga, I do not claimto be technicaly correct, this is not aset of "How to Do It" instructions, it isthe story of how I sorted my drives outand got two for the price of one! If youtry it and make a muck-up, don't blame me!<Or us. Ed.> Should anyone like tocomment, write in to Andy Davis and wemight end up with a definitive texteventually. I tried to
1 (Scan sentence - words found are I andFRIENDS. The computer knows that the wordI must be replied to with YOU).s
1 (Scan sentence - because the programretains no memory of previous inputs, itanswers merely to the NO).n
1 (Save with dummy byte)
1 (Or Ray's Rantings - arrgh!)
1 (Oops, I've just realised that I spelt theword "programmes" the American way allthrough that passage. I just didn'trealize, erm, realise).
1 (Managing director - Multi 8 Bit UserGroup)0
1 (Load in font code)
1 (In case you were wondering, yes we didsupply all our Alchemist Software titlesto the above groups FREE OF CHARGE. Theonly group which did not get ANYTHING wasPrism!)
1 (I know I could have used decimals but Ican't work them out in my head and I don'thave one of those BIN > DEC calculators).}
1 (I did'nt have problems finding the `%
1 (Computer) WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT I AMSTUPID?1
1 (Computer) WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT YOUARE STUPID?5
1 (Computer reply) DO YOUR FRIENDS LIKE YOU?(This sentence would be stored referringto FRIENDS).`
1 (Computer reply) YOU SOUND
1 (Add dummy non-zero byte)
1 (10 times faster than GENS)
1 'Bye till the next issue.
1 ' he included in
1 &&o&+i+((&
1 & Big thanks:
1 "THE HALL OF SHAME: This list comprises ofpeople who have been connected in some waywith negative actions of Prism PD:v
1 "Roy Beson confirmed to me yesterday thathe had no knowledge of his name used inthe 'Hall of Shame' & that I had not liedto him, misled, snubbed or betrayed him."
1 "If I was guilty, I certainly wouldn'tneed to write to you as I would know whyyou were listed."e
1 "Enter Part:";cnt:
1 "Dear Mr Prichard,
1 "256"*PEEK VAL "30001"
1 " " " " " " " " " " " " (USA)&
1 to signal the table is not used). Thenext two bytes after the verb/noun entryis a further pointer for the condacts ofthat particular verb/noun entry, FF beingthe termination marker for each and everycondact entry.
1 THE CHANGES
1 SETUP PARAMS
1 LOAD PART
1 LOAD +D INDEX
1 CHOOSE PART
1 .DRIVE 2 WON'T WORK!! ... onscreen message WRONG DRIVE ;
1 did youthink M.S. was still trying to be asuperior pain with some of those obliquecomments? -or is it just the way I readthe inferances of what he didn't quitedare write?)
1 Page identifier - 0(B), 1(D), 3(F),%
1 'Software for Free'written by P. Bocij & published by KumaComputers - ISSN number 0-7457-0234-1.g
1 ; LOAD SP,
1 SEPTEMBER 1995