Mail - letter from Dmitry Petrov (Volzhsky).

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 So, friends, we are glad to welcome you again -
appear on the pages of our magazine. And also
We welcome our new readers, who
which we, so to speak, acquired with the help
Moscow companyMAGIC SOFTwhich
involves distributing the software throughout the CIS.
                                          
 Here is one of the first letters that came to us
to the editor shortly after the release of the fourth
numbers.  The letter is so big that we
decided to give it in its entirety, and all comments
after.                                    
                                          
Petrov Dmitry. (Volzhsky):   
>   
I would like to immediately congratulate you on your clearly successful
number "SPECTROPHOBY" (we are talking about N4). In
In general, your magazine is rapidly changing in
the best side. Compare the fourth number with
the first is simply impossible.                 
 The theme of the magazine looks much better,
in particular, you opened the "ARCHIVE" section on-
following his publication of an old strategic
games "FALKLANDS'82".                      
 Not only is this one of my favorites
sections in "SPECTROFONe", and even for a long time
the game I'm looking for...                
 In short, you blew me away.
But I hasten to disappoint you, I still have something...
I still don’t like it in your magazine
le.                                       
 Firstly, this is the style of the text. Of course
I understand - none of you have graduated from the Faculty of Journalism.
I thought, and so did I, by the way, but in the same
There are also good places in the last issue. So
you can.                                   
 Secondly: because of your excessive, in my opinion
opinion, efficiency, such times suffer
cases like “Expertise” and “Debut”. Therefore
my advice to you: approach these sections
a little more serious. I’ll give you yours as an example.
samedevelopment on the theme "CARRIER COMMAND".
Not bad and on time, but not enough. Judging by
By the way, some of you have played this game a lot -
ru, let him share his impressions
yami from her. Of course you shouldn't do this
in the form of hints, or something similar,
look how it's done in the same
"SPECTROFONe"!  "Sudo-" would look good
howl magazine "CARRIER COMMAND".            
 The third drawback of your magazine in my opinion
the look was and remains graphics. Of course
after you have started working with
WEE-ART things started to move forward with
dead center - he is a very good artist.
But unfortunately there are few pictures of his subjects
correspond to the topics of the sections.  Well there you go
like all the comments to the magazine.          
 Now I want to write about some controversial
moments.  Firstly, this is your reaction to
messages on the so-called "video process"
sorry."  To put it mildly, she is incomprehensible to me.
You are too categorical.  Not everything for me either
I like this concept, but not so much
to some degree.  Of course the price works out
considerable, probably comparable to the price of
"Pentagon-128", but no one forced
You can't buy it by force. Yes, I used
The 6502 assembly language is not very tempting, but
It's not that difficult - write inhim
small driver.  Using toys
Few people need “Dendy”, I personally don’t need it at all
I haven’t seen a single good game on “Dendy”,
but as a potential opportunity - why-
why not? But the use of the seventh
bit in the attributes file - of course it will reduce
Spectrum compatibility with video process
rubbish' and without it. Just look at
cursor in BASIC-48 mode. Well, even more so
“cancellation” of BORDER as such is generally not enough
suitable idea.  I don't know if these will see
remarks from the author of the “video processor” himself,
unlikely, but I see only one way out -
Add the option to disable "video pro-
tsessora".  Manual, same as ONOFF button
to "PROFI", or even better software.
Well, it will be absolutely good if such a possibility
There will be both software and hardware options.
 There are other comments on this matter, namely
these are not comments, but wishes to everyone
to the developers of new peripherals for Spectrum
- do a complete decryption of control ports
lension with its extensions.  Price for your
development will raise it slightly, and
This will solve many problems. You look
latest issues of "ZX-REVIEW" - problems with
there is practically no ROM compatibility anymore,
port #FF problem only for some models
parts of SPECTRUM-compatible machines, with INT
the disputes have also subsided, but the incomplete interpretation
the walkie-talkie came to the fore. Okay, I
I understand - this should have been done onbranded
Mr. "SPECTRUM" in England in the early 80s
Dov, but we now have this little thing of weather in
the cost of expansion cannot be done in any way
bark.  Moreover, it is impossible to decipher the bits
only the low byte of the address, how can this be done?
lal author of the "video processor" (#7F).       
 Now a few words about another device -
new development - "video port". About him
They wrote a lot in "ZX-REVIEW". I've seen several
pictures made using this
devices and I liked it. But here and there
vertical stripes are clearly visible.
Is this a defect in your device or not?
the sufficiency of the scheme as a whole? I recently heard
news that one of our local
craftsmen developed a video port circuit
better than the one distributed by "IN-
FORKOM".  It would be interesting to see in-
interview with him in your magazine. Moreover,
that I have a few questions for him.
 Firstly: I heard that your scheme
connects to the computer via the system
connector, but wouldn't it be better to do this
via parallel port based
KPS8OBB55A?                               
 Secondly: I would like to know more about
technical characteristics of your circuit.  
 And thirdly: is it possible to do something similar?device for additional graphics
modes of such computers as "PROFI",
"ATM"... After all, the resolution there is higher and
The image quality should be better.    
 Well, at the end of my letter I would like
find out your opinion on this matter.
Some time ago we collaborated with TV
SOFT conducted a small experiment and wrote
put a small adventurka in ABS, that's it
I would like to know how you look at this.
This concludes my letter.         
                                          
"S": All your comments and wishes regarding
regarding the magazine, we will take into account and take into account
Denia.  By the way, a shell to this
(fifth) number was rewritten,
practically from scratch. Since the shell in
the first issues was my first big one
program and was written very poorly.   
 As for the graphics in the fourth issue,
then not everything was drawn by WEE-ART. Those sprites
where the title of the section is written directly to me
I had to draw it myself, because WEE-ART
by that time I had not yet drawn them.       
 And also, the description on CARRIER COMMAND
several people worked and mostly it was
Smirnov Igor,who was seriously engaged
research in this game, and later
his description was supplemented by Sharmanov
Alexey. I wrote there maybe only 5%
from the entire text.                          
                                          
                                          
                                          
 But everything that concerns “video-pro-
tsessora", I already said earlier, and I will say
now: there is no need to force us to see
o-processor is also a command processor
6502, but still, if you really want to use
the command processor is chained, then they would hang
Z80.  Next, the memory controller needs to be made
or on 5b5RU5 or 5b5RU7, but about that -
what no one is forcing us to buy
this video processor is already a utopia,
then there is no need for an AU, and 512 kilobytes of memory
I want them, but they are not implemented that way, etc. A
here regarding compatibility you are absolutely
you are absolutely right, everything is so ill-thought out,
which simply distracts from the potential
powerful development.                        
 Next, as for the “video port”, then
there really is only one in our city
the craftsman improved the "vi-
deo-port", distributed by the company "IN-
FORK." Here are its advantages: memory is made
Lana on 4 5b5RU5 chips instead of 3
5b5RU17 (6264);the size of the board has been reduced almost
you twice.                            
 After listening to your questions regarding video
port, we contacted the author of the local version
this and this is what he told us.           
 The board is connected via the system connector
I eat for one good reason - speed.
Yes yes, it is the image scanning speed
defeat and throwing it into memory
computer.  The circuit is designed in such a way that it is possible
do something like animation, i.e. for example-
measures to throw into memory sequentially de-
seven screens at maximum speed. But
in general, in principle, it can be done through
m/cx BBSS, but then copying the buffer from
VP to the computer will occur slowly
her.                                      
 Regarding CP/M screens, this is the idea
was, but due to the small number of such
computers, from a commercial point of view it is
risky, and why would a simple Pentagon
pay the worker for the extra weight he doesn't
will be able to use.                      
 About all technical characteristics you
You can find out from the author himself.            
                                          
 Now, regarding programsfor public
cation in the magazine. For publication we accepted
We can only use programs of type FREEWARE
(SHAREWARE), that is, without any statements
tion to pay the money. But if you want
sell us your development, then we can
just buy a license from you for reproducing
but it was published in the magazine then
there won't be. But still, to those who send something...
or for publication in a magazine, be it
big thing or program, we highly respect them
we bark the latest issue of the magazine containing these
programs or texts.  So gentlemen, what
the more you send, the faster it will come out
next issue of the magazine. If our mail
again you will not be up to par, again you will be
wait for the next issue for 3-4 months.      
                                          
 And now, they finally began to arrive to us
letters from other cities. One of them is
from Cherkassy from Boris Kuritsin, where he
thought something extraordinary - a new language
programming. Read about this in the section
le "PROJECT".                              
 They also responded well to our magazine
from Samara - M.M.A SOFT and MAX SOFT, and more
gave us several of their programs and
alterations.  In this issue we considered it possible
nompublish their desired development under
named "ST PLAYER" and "ST BLOCKMAKER" with
descriptions, as well as a disk version of the program
frames DAF v7.09 Moscow programmer
EDA SOFT.                                 
 I can recommend reading the section about them
"SYSTEM", where in addition to the sprite generator
ra from Volgodonsk SCG v4.2 and are
descriptions of ST PLAYER and ST BLOCKMAKER.       
                                          
 That's all for now with mail, for now
ment.                                     
                                          
 But this is not the end of this section, here I am
I want to tell you some of my thoughts from-
regarding some hardware developments
current.                                      
 And immediately about the video processor. In addition
to everything I said earlier, I want
say this. It was mentioned in the ZX-REVIEW that
it will be possible to download games from DENDY to it
and store it on our floppy disks. So, ta-
in which way you can translate the most
high andsimple games that don't take
more than 32K.  Why?  Yes, one simple one at a time
reason, on DENDY additional loading occurs from
cartridge, which is nothing more
like ROM, and therefore the read speed is
speed of working with simple memory. If so
you are planning to transfer the game to disk, then here
you will encounter several problems:
firstly you have to go into the program
and change the load, secondly the loading speed
loading from a floppy disk just like that, 100 times slower
than from memory. Well? Feeling sick yet?
Yes to me already. And in connection with all this, here you go
my resolution is a GLITCH!                     
 MOUSE. KEMPSTON and AU. As we have already read,
according to technical specifications
AYMOUSE works faster and better, but
There are not enough programs for it. KEMPSTON-MOUSE
developed in the West, and for it more
there will be a program, and even in St. Petersburg they write programs -
frames for it, but according to technical characteristics
for the rists it is worse. Further, since so far
most don't have any mouse, but there is
port #FF (for example on PROFI), then many
auto-determiners begin to “limp”, and
that's putting it mildly.  Example: ZXZIP,
ZX-FORMAT 1 glitches mercilessly, FORMAT UTILITY
v2 (FUT 2) crashes sometimes.  But here in
ZX-FORMAT 2 has already been made better, it is veryThey will rarely determine that you “have” a mouse.  
 Well, the most ideal way is done in
magazine ZX-FORMAT from the 3rd issue and UFO-2.
There they simply made a forced shutdown
mouse if there is none. So let it be
Everyone else does too.                   
 And again I “want to hit” KSA SOFTWARE.
MASM v1.1 - GLITCH! CODE CRUNCHER v3.11 -
GLITCH!  But if everyone has already heard about MASMe,
then CODE CRUNCHER we got here is completely un-
have long been disappointed in him. What is written
in the INFORCOM price list? 20-30% better
than LPC!!!  But in reality?  At 20-30
bytes... And even packaging time - a file of 150
We packed the sectors for about 5 minutes!!!         
                                          
 Well, at the end of my story I want to talk about
reach out to other electronic creators
magazines - let's cooperate. The most
I think these are cool magazines
ZX-FORMAT and SPECTROFON, WELCOME PRESS on-
the end the first issue was released.  But with ka-
some funny shade. About 3-4 times-
files contain the following information:        
"Here, we open a section, and you write into it
sew."  But there is nothing of their own in them yet.
Plus, there’s also digital Mouzon in the zag-
they inserted the ruzka, why did hestarted to limp
on ATM-TURBO and SCORPION... And also for me
I liked the ADVENTURER magazine, from Rybinsk.
It can be seen that the work in the magazine is not the same
arrogant like in ZX-FORMAT and SPECTROFON. And
the content and the application leave a pleasant
impression.                          
 Then I heard rumors that the hacked
version of UFO 2, not damaged by hackers, but
unfinished by Slava himself, so we were told
the guys who allegedly called Slava Med himself
Nonogov.  So we are waiting for the normal version
games, I hope it’s normal in INFOCOM. 
 Here we announce the end of this
affairs. Wait for the next number, which is likely
It will probably come out without such a delay as this one.