#004
07 января 1987 |
|
Outletters
December, 1987 Page Reply JOE SOUTHALL..........02 05 BRIAN GAFF............06 10 NORMAN UNITT..........12 15 KELVIN MCWHA..........16 18 BERNARD EARP..........22 24 DON WEERASINGHE.......26 27 G.A. JENNER...........28 29 ANDREW CLAPHAM........30 35 IAN BEEBY.............37 40 FROM: JOE SOUTHALL Dear Ron & Ray, [Who? - B.C.] How nice of you to send me OUTLET 3 before I had sent a cartridge.I had made the mistake of thinking that it had to be DURING November, not BEFORE November. I am also indebted to you for renewing OUTLET 1 which I feared I had spoiled by my own carelessness. I'm pleased to hear that this was not so as I am beset with hardware troubles - so much so that I cannot even load OUTLET 3! My faith in the microdrive is sagging! Hence my need to resort to Tasword to contact you. Most of my cartridges are "once- used" from various sources, but the supply has virtually dried up. I don't know your own stock position, but I know that I shall soon be short unless I find some more. I realise that I can rely on you for the OUTLET cartridges, but I need more - assuming that my MD eventually works properly! I have found one stockist with a great many left, but he will sell a minimum of 100 @ 50p each plus VAT plus pp. This means a minimum outlay of about `67 - a little too hot for the likes of me! It occurred to me that you may be prepared to act as a sort of agent for your members - at your terms of course! I feel that most of us would find such a service a great help to obtain 10 or so at a time. You probably know this already and have enough for your needs. If not, the stockist is "Applied Technology" of Royston, Herts. (Tel. 0763 41754). To finish I would like to say how much I enjoy & also appreciate your trouble in providing OUTLET and look forward to the future. Your very satisfied client & friend, Joe Southall P.S. I have sent you two cartridges to square me for your December issue. With this ruddy keyboard it would have been quicker to use pen and ink! TO: JOE SOUTHALL FROM RON+BRIAN We're both always glad to hear that people are enjoying OUTLET- it's worth all the effort! We like your idea of supplying cartridges to our readers but we couldn't offer the used ones at a fair price due to overheads, handling costs, etc. and they'll probably not be available much longer.Reluctantly we gave up on that.Even for new cartridges,the best we can do is `1.85 each. Let's try it and see. From: Brian Gaff Hi, just received Issue 3 [бth November - B.C.]. It all loads OK. I have decided to send my letter this way for a change! [By Prestel Mailbox 014703943 - B.C.]. You crammed a lot in this time! By the way I guess you realised that the program by Mr. Sedgwick has already been up on our SPECTACULAR area! (He He) [bulletin board area on Prestel - B.C.] DISCOVERY: I have a Spectrados which is a Discovery with no drive fitted. I am looking for a 3.5" drive actuallly! You will have to be careful as the BASIC, though compatible with Mdrive, has some extensions that can cause trouble. 2 DRIVE OUTLET: I agree its a good idea, but perhaps it may be better to plan these a month ahead so that a list could be published in the previous iss. So we could omit a month, say with an adventure we didn't want MDRIVE CARTS: The WOMPER or ICL OPD is still produced using Mdrives & indeed I have seen the four packs with ICL on 'em in office supply shops. COMMS: Well, I admit I don't know all the answers, but if there are any specific queries I will be glad to help. The chap you had on this month's issue [Nov.issue- B.C.], I think was using the VTX711. This is the worst interface I know of! My only advice is, get rid of it! If he must use a separate modem & I/Face then the SPECTRE is the best. As an alternative, join PRESTEL, get their free VTX5O00 & then buy a Comms Rom from Spectre. This has very good facilities. I use it for most things. Of course if folk want to access 300 Baud BBs then a "real" modem & a Spectre Comms Pack is all there is that is reliable. Note though that the VTX5O00 even with a Comms Rom may not work with a 128K of any sort! 128K: You can get some funnies if you do EDIT on a 48K program while in 128K! Take the line: LET poke = PEEK val. Now this is fine till you add a bit, or do any change. As soon as you do the variables poke & val get seen as Speccy keywords & it won't enter as it is not valid syntax! Oh well that's enough waffle, will send cart soon (wot happened to my prog?) - Brian To Brian Gaff from Brian Cavers Yes, I saw Gary Sedgwick's great program:- "MULTICOLS" up on SPECTACULAR. He agreed to let us put it in OUTLET. I'd like to do a high-res picture using that multi-colour technique - I'm sure it's not just a gimmick. You'll have seen from the editorial that OUTLET will be a twin cartridge mag. from January and we'll give brief details of what's in the following issue in our GETOUT section. It's a good place and time for me to apologize to other readers for the omission of your program COMPEXPAND,the screen compressor from Issue 3 (as promised in GETOUT in Issue 2). This was due to an intermittent bug in the program that I only discovered in the last few days of testing before duplication. [I've been in touch with Brian Gaff by mailbox and hope he can sort out the problem for a future issue]. - Brian Cavers From: Mr N.H.Unitt Dear Ron & Brian, I've had a go with your second offering and have managed to mess up the cartridge by trying to save Zip onto the same one instead of my own! It seems that I have corrupted "HUH" as it now gives me "file not found" although most of it is loaded. Your plug on Micronet was the immediate cause of my sending for issue one. I had got so fed up with buying magazines that seemed to be nothing but games and oft repeated strange words such as "BRILL" and very little of serious nature that I decided to splash out on OUTLET. It was the best move that I've made for some time. My Spectrum + is used for amusement only but not for games (except Scrabble). My bank account, household expenses, Christmas lists and, most recently, my daughter's wedding present list have been held in its bowels. That last paragraph has given away my age, hasn't it? One of the things that I wrote to amuse myself and family was the program DAYCALC. It will name the day for any date from March 1901 to February 2100. But is the year 2000 a leap year? I think it is but 1900 was not. From that program came the simple one JANCALC which calculates 1st January for the same years and finally came CALENDAR. This one produces a calendar for any of those years and also has printer options for the brother HR-5. Perhaps they will amuse you or if you wish other subscribers to OUTLET. Finally perhaps you could put HUH onto my cartridge before you return it. Yours sincerely, (Norman Unitt) To: Mr. N.H. Unitt from Brian I'll pass another note to Ron to make sure but I think you should have already received the fresh copy of HUH? by now. Many thanks for the programs which are in this issue. I couldn't quite get JANCALC in on its own (with added QUIT options etc.) so rather than not include it at all I compressed it a bit and merged it in at line 5000 in DAYCALC. I particularly liked the full CALENDAR print-out. It's most likely I'll be sticking that on this year's calendar's picture come the new year! - Brian From: Kelvin McWha Dear Ron, Thank you for your letter about the problem with my order for the October issue of OUTLET. It is nice to see in this day and age that you have taken the trouble to sort out my order after the Post Office had almost destroyed it. My contribution was not much unfortunately. Just a letter saying what a great new cartridge-magazine you have brought out. Plus a couple of requests for information. My first Request is for information regarding Artist 2. I wondered if anyone had been able to get Artist 2 and Pagemaker to print out via Interface 1-RS232 to a Brother HRS Printer. I have the latest edition of Artist 2, and Softec do not seem to be able to help me. Also you mentioned you have found a method which increases the reliability of microdrives. Is there any chance of letting us in on the secret. Thanks once more for your trouble. Yours sincerely, Kelvin McWha To: Kelvin McWha from Brian The nucleus of our routine to improve microdrive reliablity is to detect any dubious sectors on a cartridge and isolate them by saving a 500 byte file called: CHR$ 0+"PATCH" on to them. To do this we use some modified routines from MDOCTOR. This does not seem to be available anymore unfortunately and, since it is copyright of course, we can't include it in OUTLET. However, there are other similar utilities which presumably have the capacity to write directly to a sector. Perhaps another reader may have information on that. Some versions of Artist II have a fault in the bit-image coding. If you load Pagemaker and break in and PEEK 64034 = 7 then POKE 64034,1 and then run the program and load a screen or something and try the printer. However, as I understand it, the same fault is present in the main program but you don't mention whether you can get dumps O.K. from Artist II itself. If not, the POKES are: 65180,1 & 65186,1. I have not yet tried these last 2 POKES but I did try the one in Pagemaker and it worked O.K. If the above works alright on your system then you will, of course, need to re-save the code to form a customised copy of the program or you'll have to POKE the values in each time loaded. SAVE "ARTISTII" LINE 1 SAVE "SCREEN$" SCREEN$ SAVE "artCODE" CODE 26000,39536 SAVE "pagemaker"LINE 15 SAVE "fonts" CODE 29696,3072 SAVE "scrcode" CODE 47000,1275 SAVE "scrdump"CODE 64000,107 SAVE "writeload" CODE 39700,45. I can't guarantee all these values of course as your version may be slightly different so if you have a header reader to check the code lengths and start lines then I suggest you use it. Now, it may well be that all the above is of no use to you! The real problem may be that the HRS is not quite Epson-compatible in which case I am doubtful that anything can be done short of re-writing the code. We do have one or two other HRS owners amongst our readers who may be able to advise. In any event I'd be interested to hear how you get on. I'd also be interested to hear if anyone knows of a POKE to disable the automatic mouse detection in ARTIST II. It seems that it detects my MULTIFACE 1 - thinks it's a mouse and locks up the keyboard! That's my theory anyway! (No cheesy jokes please) - Brian From: Bernard Earp Dear Chezron, Another attempt at getting this set up to put together a letter without crashing or locking solid. I have enclosed 002 and 2 carts as 002 seems to have locked solid in its case, if this is a fault in my set up please duplicate it (002 NOT the fault) on one cart and send it back with the next issue. If you think the fault's at your end (it was a new cart I sent) well, then I am one cart in credit. Your news about a possible 2 cart OUTLET is great news for me, if not for my bank balance, you could advertise the coming main features and let the readers decide whether to send on one or two carts though I realise the mess this would make of your bookkeeping. I believe that it IS possible to return to 48k mode from within 128k mode and still access the discdrive. It is starting out in 48k that shuts you out of the drive. Bernard Earp TO BERNARD FROM RON Dear Bernard, By the time you see this in OUTLET you will have received a replacement for 002. As I explained, we had a bad batch of cartridges and, whilst we managed to eliminate a lot of these during our Format/Test/ Duplication/Test routines, a few slipped out carrying the October issue. We do try to ensure that the same cartridges go back to the Users that sent them but, as you can imagine, it is pretty horrendous trying to keep track of them all (some days, I feel like I'm juggling soot!) so apologies for swapping your good cartridge for a duff one. Also by this time you will have seen from the new order form that we will be continuing with the single cartridge option as well as introducing the new, two-cartridge OUTLET. Thanks for info about the +3 we're more and more puzzled by this... -Ron FROM DON WEERASINGHE Dear Ron & Brian, Really enjoyed your OUTLET 2 and look forward to the November issue. Sorry for the delay, my son and I were trying to solve your JIG! BLOX but found it too tough. Managed to pick up another microdrive for `15 (including postage and packing) so I now have 2. Also picked up about 30 carts at about 50p each - also a number of microdrive books. Having fun! If any one is interested there is a chap selling an I/F 1 and 2 mdrives for `40 (see below) With best wishes. Hope to meet you at the ZX MICROFAIR on 12th December. Yours sincerely, Don -------------------------------- FOR SALE: I/F 1 + 2 DRIVES - `40 FROM: MR. ROBIN ABBOTT 11 TWYNHAM COURT, TWYNHAM ROAD SOUTHBOURNE, DORSET (0202 420216 HOME) (0202 486344 OFFICE) -------------------------------- TO DON WEERASINGHE FROM RON+BRI Thanks Don. Sorry about the JIG! BLOX - try this month's - just as tough but the prettiest one yet! Looking forward to seeing you at the ZXM! Dear R & BC, You now contemplate a second cartridge! This may make the cost to many prohibitive. What about a cassette that will take both cartridge contents with a suitably split tape-to-cartridge program to allow the use of temporary cartridge loading with OUTLET remaining on the cassette for permanent retention? This opens up the possibility of even longer programs with a microdrive facility for fast loading and a satisfaction to subscribers. G.A. JENNER TO: MR. G.A. JENNER FROM BRIAN Remember, you will still be able to obtain the single cartridge of OUTLET at the present price and all the topical material like letters, the editorial, important messages, will all be on the first cartridge. The 2nd cartridge will be optional. However, I like your idea of SUPPLYING the magazine on cassette with a built in transfer to microdrive and we'll certainly keep thinking on this as a future possibility. - Brian FROM: ANDREW CLAPHAM Hello, I was mightily surprised to see TWO of my letters in Issue 3 and the detail of your replies. Thank you. In connection with Outlet and the Plus 3, referring back to P.C.W. 3-9 July last,in their LETTERS,one headed Spectrum disc limitations has, as the last sentence of P.C.W.'s reply,the following- "The disc system on the Plus 3 can be used in both 48k and 128k mode." Assuming that this is correct and the word 'not' has not been omitted,then there is hope for Outlet on the Plus 3 yet. Also in P.C.W. this time 23-29 Oct was a small ad from- V.I.Jenkinson, Beausite House, Meadow Lane, Over, Cambridge. СВЧ SNF. advertising MDV cartridges at `2.25 for four. Yes! four.I chanced my arm and ordered 16. They came in QL wallets and only needed some sellotape sticking over where the write protect lug should be. I have previously bought these for `1 each,being once used. Now the point is a slip came with them saying, further supplies are available at between `2.50 and `2.75 per four, but are only `2.50 for existing customers until 1Sth Dec.-So as a short term goodie the lowest price yet! I have not so far seen any mention of the MAX and VISION WIMP systems perhaps you could provide more info on them in the near future. Since you have the two cartridge issue pretty well taped! how about an occasional double issue to test the water so to speak. Or better still how about a Grand Double Issue Christmas Special to give us some respite from the Festivities- or have you already thought of this but it's too short notice? Congrats on your imaginative cover pages for each issue, I look forward to the next in anticipation. It must be becoming a full-time job assembling each issue not to mention the transferring onto each individual cartridge. A little note of just what goes into the production of each issue together with the attendant file administration for each subscriber would serve to show us just what value we get for each `1. I know this is rather long-it shows what you can do with two fingers and the cursor keys, I really must learn how to use Tasword properly! Regards, Andrew. P.S.I almost forgot. I recently bought a copy of BLAST-YOUR BASIC and had only one success in compiling a program through it.However it made Absolutely no difference to the running speed of the program in question. Then I read in the Spectrum section of Everyday Electronics 'that Blast promises so much and gives so little!' Does any Outlet subscriber know of a MDV compatible compiler that actually works?. TO: ANDREW CLAPHAM FROM BRIAN So there may be hope yet for the +3 version of OUTLET! Thanks for info about cartridges as it may reassure some readers who also saw the ad but weren't too sure whether to risk it! I've not heard any more about the VISION desktop but I have seen recent confirmation that the MAX is genuinely waiting only for the documentation to be printed. We'll advise as soon as we know that either is on sale. Glad you like the OUTLET cover pages - I really enjoy doing them! Yes - a tremendous amount of effort goes into each issue of OUTLET and I'd been thinking of doing a short article of just how OUTLET is produced so your comment prompts me to get on with this. I'd seen BLAST YOUR BASIC blasted in many reviews and letters pages! However, the HISOFT BASIC compiler is getting good things said about it. Brian Gaff has that compiler. How about a short review, Brian? - Brian From: Ian Beeby Dear Sir, Thanks for sending me a copy of OUTLET 002. I was very impressed with the quality of production of the magazine, and with the integrity of the data, it loaded first time every time! I have as a result placed an order. Suggestions for possible future inclusions? How about a screen COPY routine to the RS232 port so that I can use Masterfile mf. on my Brother HRS printer? Or a utility for loading corrupted Microdrive files for correction? Also I would be very happy if anyone could provide me with an algorithm in Basic for adding together two or more sets of times in mins secs and tenths of secs for a scoreboard program I am attempting to write!!! I would be happy to contribute something for the magazine if I had the required programming skill, but in the circumstances, I rely on others to do that. Yours sincerely, Ian Beeby P.S. think how much more you could cram on a screen if you used 40/50/64 characters per line? P.P.S. I have a microdrive version of Your Spectrum's MEGABASIC 0.4 a truly amazing BASIC implementation, do any of your other readers have this program? Have you seen it yourselves? Cheers! I.B. To: Ian Beeby from Brian Thanks - glad you like the mag. I think MASTERFILE uses the Spectrum ROM COPY command to the ZX printer - certainly the early versions. The only way I can see that might work is to alter the CALL instruction in the MASTER- FILE code to call your own COPY software. Anybody feel like hacking? I could use this myself actually as I spent some time hacking into the BASIC string variable which holds the data so that I could print it out only to realize that it is not STORED in alphabetical order - it's only DISPLAYED ON SCREEN in order. Here's a simple algorithm for adding two different times (for more than two just keep adding!) If your accumulated time is, say 20 mins 45.8 secs. and you wish to add 6 mins 30.2 secs then:- MINUTES SECONDS TENTHS LET m1=20 LET s1=45 LET t1=8 LET m2=6 LET s2=30 LET t2=2 10 LET t1=t1+t2: IF t1>=10 THEN LET s1=s1+1: LET t1=t1-10 20 LET s1=s1+s2: IF s1>=60 THEN LET m1=m1+1: LET s1=s1-60 30 LET m1=m1+m2 If you don't particularly need to store the tenths of seconds separately then forget the t1 and t2 variables just:- LET s1=45.8: LET s2=30.2 then omit line 10 completely. Yes, I think 64 characters a line is not comfortable reading on the Spectrum but 40 to 50 would be nice. No reason why we haven't implemented it that I can think of other than finding time to develop the routines. Reviews I've read of MEGABASIC make me envious. I wish we could see some of your programs but I think MEGABASIC needs to be present to use them doesn't it? Is your scoreboard program in MEGABASIC or Sinclair BASIC? If normal Sinclair BASIC, why not send it in when finished? This is the purpose of OUTLET. We're not simply looking for highly professional programs. If you don't feel confident in your programming then your writing ability is clearly good enough to do an article. How about a review of MEGABASIC? All you do is just kid yourself you're writing a letter, ramble on a bit longer than normal and stick to one subject - dead easy - and it gets you a free double issue of OUTLET. So would your score- board program. Anyway, we don't push anyone in OUTLET - enjoy the magazine - that's what it's all about! - Brian.
Другие статьи номера:
Editorial |
Outletters |
Outstrech |
Drivechat |
Outboard |
Lookout |
Outclass - PRINTING IN AND CLEARING THE "INPUT ZONE" |
Shoutburst - program structure |
Daycalc |
Calendar |
Mega-message |
Jotter |
ZXM Demo |
Getout |
Похожие статьи:
В этот день... 13 ноября