ZX classroom - Italic Fonts for the ZX Spectrum and a Text Adventure Word Dictionary

ZX Spectrum Font Modification: Italic and Bold Italic / Word Dictionary for Text Adventures

Italic Letters for the Printer

The program modifies italic letters in two ways. It is ideal for hackers whose printers do not have this option, but others can use it too, since the letters look better than the Spectrum’s ROM characters. You can use italics or bold italics.

For the first method, remove the RRA instruction at the BOLD label. For the second, enter the entire listing. The program is written in machine code for Gens.

ORG 50000
CALL RAZV
LD   HL,49000
LD   BC,96
CHRS PUSH BC
LD   B,3
LOOP LD   A,(HL)
SRA  A
LD   (HL),A
INC  HL
DJNZ LOOP
LD   B,2
LOPP INC  HL
DJNZ LOPP
LD   B,3
LLOP LD   A,(HL)
SLA  A
LD   (HL),A
INC  HL
DJNZ LLOP
POP  BC
DEC  BC
LD   A,B
OR   C
JR   NZ,CHRS
RET
RAZV LD   HL,15616
LD   DE,49000
PUSH DE
LD   BC,768
PETL LD   A,(HL)
BOLD RRA
OR   (HL)
LD   (DE),A
INC  HL
INC  DE
DEC  BC
LD   A,B
OR   C
JR   NZ,PETL
POP  DE
DEC  D
LD   (23606),DE
RET

Bold Letters

This short program lets you print messages in BASIC in bold letters.

10 FOR N=50000 TO 50027:
   READ A:POKE N,A:NEXT N
20 RANDOMIZE USR 50000
30 DATA 17,0,252,213,33,0

Adventure Dictionary

Since most people do not buy original games, they also do not have the instructions for adventures containing a dictionary of all the words the program understands. The easiest way is to list the program in CHR$ code. First, prevent the program from starting automatically. Then enter:

10 FOR N=65000 TO 65023:
   READ A:POKE N,A:NEXT N
   DATA 33,168,97,126,254

A similar program in machine code is much faster:

ORG 65000
LD   HL,25000
LL   LD   A,(HL)
CP   32
JRC  LOOP
CP   128
JR NC,LOOP
RST  16
LOOP INC  HL
LD   DE,65000
PUSH HL
SBC  HL,DE
POP  HL
JRC  ,LL
RET

In this section, ZX Revija has decided to present the preceding programs in this issue, which will probably help many readers. These interesting programs were taken from older issues of Mog Mikra and were written by various authors.