USE CURSOR KEYS TO SCROLL TEXT. USE CURSOR KEYS TO SCROLL TEXT. 8 Bit GENERAL MESSAGES 1 GENERAL MESSAGES 1 To: 999 (all members) From: 19F (Theo Gray) Subject: TO ALL PC USERS OUT THERE A few weeks ago I finished writing a brillant (or so I think anyway), version of Tetris. Its name is Tetish. If you own a PC, then this game is for you. It should run on any PC 286 or higher (maybe lower, I don't know), with EGA or higher resolution monitor. 1Mb of memory is plenty. It may work with less, although I don't know. It should work with any version of DOS (apart from 1.x probably), and was written in Turbo Pascal. I would like to release it as shareware, so if anyone is interesed, please send me 1 disk (3.5" only) +60p+p&p, or `1.40+p&p. I only have HD disks, but I can convert them to DD if you want me to. Please send any money and disks to: Theo Gray 'OAKINS' Eaton Bray Road, Northall, Dunstable, Beds, LU6 2EU ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K3U (Lol Simmonds) Subject: Messaging System Why is it that some messages come up like this * [*@ odd characters rubbish etc +*? [[[ bleah. ? UPDATE.....19/APRIL/94 I've just received iss 34 and I couldn't read the editorial, so I ran the disk repair program from the disk user I sent Chris and low and behold it ran....ish. So maybe it's the crappy BT disks I'm using. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K5N (Stan Doran) Subject: PRISM MODEM (Micro Net) I have an old modem that I have not used since Prestel closed down Micro Net a few years ago. Does anyone know of any BBs that can be contacted using this type of modem? I think the rate used is 75/1200. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 2J3 (Chris Richardson) Subject: Notepad article Issue 35 K2O apologises for a slight slip in the notepad comparison article in issue 35. He stated that the NC100 has a 128K rom whereas it in fact has 256K rom. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K2F (John Davis) Subject: Anagrams Can you solve all these anagrams, using all the letters of the word in red to make the blank word(s) in each sentence. And can you do it without the aid of technology, using only your little grey cells? The SENATOR was charged with ------- . Who's that RUFFIAN disturbing this ------- ? That -------- can GENERATE a lot of energy. They ------- to parenthood, and PRAISED the clinic when the baby came, but all those ------- soon had them in ------- . It's an exotic new shade of nail polish, called TOENAIL ------- ! The gardener was MEASURING the --------- . And finally, a very famous anagram: Get that CARTHORSE out of this --------- ! Answers next time. For a future competition, Chris, how about anagrams of "Eight Bit Software" such as: Two Bite Gearshift , or Ghostwrite Fab Tie , or The Wet Frog's Tibia , or even Frostbite With Age . Well, maybe not. Yours faithfully, Figwort B. Hesitate. P.S. An anagram of Chris Richardson is, rather appropriately, H.R.H. Sir Acorn Disc . Is this the hand of fate at work? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K2F (John Davis) Subject: Hmmm... My local library is selling off all its books on the Beeb. Do you think they're trying to tell us something..? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: K4V + 999 From: K2F (John Davis) Subject: Postal Chess Following your message in the last issue, why not get another 8BS member to do battle, chess-wise, in the 999 pages of 8BS, one move per issue. I'm just a chess watcher, not a player, but it would be interesting to watch the struggle unfold. Also, 8BS would then have to exist until the end of the game - at least six years, I reckon... ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K4V (Trevor Crapper) Subject: POSTAL CHESS My thanks to Graham Gallagher, forgot your ident silly me! If anyone else wants some addresses to write to for further information then please try these gentlemen:- Barry Darkin E Reg Gillman Ask Reg about correspondence chess in general, he is the President of the British Postal Chess Federation which is the main body representing most of the C.C. clubs in Britain. Stephen Ruthen Quince House 79 St. Neots Road Sandy Beds SG19 1LQ There are quite a few more but if you ak nicely Reg will probably name them, he may not of course! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K2H (Ron Boyce) Subject: Alphabetical sorting Re my request for HELP! (in issue 34) on alphabetically sorting nine school registers, I am most grateful to those 8BS members who telephoned me (especially the caller from Holland) offering assistance. Stephan Richardson has kindly offered to do the sorting (WHEN I have finished typing in the thousands of names etc.) This just shows how valuable 8BS membership can be, and how helpful 8BS people can be! EDITOR... Well done everyone! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin) Subject: ACORN RISC 600 Series SORRY. THOUGHT I WOULD BE FIRST WITH THE NEWS BUT LOOKS LIKE I HAVE COME 'FOURTH'. It would appear that the rumours of a new Acorn Personal Computer are correct as details have appeared in at least one of the mags I have seen on the news stand. All you need to purchase one of these is some `1250 + VAT + whatever else they decide to charge for the bits and pieces they forgot to put on in the first place. Now dont all rush!!!!! unless you know where there is an A5000 going for about `200 being sold off by a dealer.If so let me know. ......... S T O P P R E S S ......... New Machine Features Graphics manipulation 6 times faster than a 486 DX2-66 Low cost processor upgrades RISC-OS powerful multi-tasking op sys Low cost access to DOS and WINDOWS appilcations Lightening fast manipulation of still and moving images 24 bit colour supported as standard Dual processor slots Up to 256 Megabytes of RAM 3 Basic Options Available 2Mb HD210 @ `1249 + VAT 5Mb HD210 @ `1399 + VAT 9Mb HD420 @ `1699 + VAT Processor 30MhzARM610 Main Memory 2,4 or 8 Megabytes Video Memory 0,1 or 1 Megabyte Expandable to 2,2 or 2Megabytes Hard Disc 210,210 or 420 MB 3.5" Floppy 1.6 MB Std Monitor 14" SVGA to 1024x768 Warranty 12 months on site I expect that this only applies to Micropower Ltd who solicited my custom via the Postal Authorities. Trade UP options A3000 `140 `3010 `160 A3020 FD `250 A3020 HD `310 A4000 `300 The above prices are 'With Monitor' 'Without Monitor' reduce by `30 These are 'Trade UP' offers by Micropower Ltd. Northwood House North Street Leeds LS7 2AA Tele 0532 458800 The above information is for those of you that wish to dash off and place an order before the offer is withdrawn due to demand exceeding supply as it is thought that there will be as usual insufficient machines to meet normal demand until late Autumn. Seems like we have heard this tale before which if it runs true to course will no doubt mean a new operating system by the end of the year which will iron out all of the bugs in the one they have rushed onto the market. Now I wonder what all that makes a Master 3 years old worth ??? Any ideas Watch this space for future developements unless I am beaten to the post again. Thats all for now folks Cheers All the best Fred ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K2U (DAVID BROWN) Subject: GENERAL I THOUGHT THAT ALL THE PROGRAMS ON ISSUE 35 WERE BRILLIANT. AS A NOVICE TO THE BBC COMPUTER ALL YOU BEEB PROGRAMERS ARE A MUST AND OF COURSE WITHOUT THE BOSS HIMSELF CHRIS RICHADSON WHERE WOULD WE ALL BEEB EXCUSE THE PUN. LASTLY ALSO MY THANKS GO TO ALL WHO HELPED CHRIS PROMOTE THE BBC 8 BIT CLUB. AT THE COMPUTER SHOW THE MORE MEMBERS THE BETTER FOR ALL OF US. DAVID BROWN. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K2K (Peter Davy) Subject: Palindromic Numbers The following points refer to the piece in Program Documentation in the Magazine Disk issue no.35. (1) I made a careless mistake in the sentence which says "It took my Master-128 about 19 hours to generate all the palindromes between 11 and 99999999." The figure "99999999" should be "999999999" i.e. 9 9's not 8 9's! (2) Thank you Chris for inserting a MODE7 into my program LAPPY. It is one of my bad habits to rely on the computer switching on in MODE7 rather than including a MODE statement. I get away with it in my educational programs as they are all loaded through a MENU program which does include a MODE7. (3) Chris's mention of the use of a piece of Sellotape to hold down the SHIFT key has prompted me to reveal that I use a stapler. It is a rather heavy one with a little catch to allow it to be opened up straight. I open up the stapler to form an inverted V and rest the base of the stapler on the table and the business end on the SHIFT key. It is quite stable and has never fallen off. A SHIFT weight working on this principle could be made from a piece of flat metal strip, bent to form an inverted V with a weight fixed near the end of one of the limbs. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K2K (Peter Davy) Subject: Flippy Disks Chris asked in issue no.35 if anyone knew of a source of low cost "flippies" otherwise known as reversible disks. I have used these for many years to supply copies of my Adult Basic Education programs. The disks have two write-protect notches enabling both sides of the disk to be 0 sides so that a user with a single sided disk drive can use both sides of the disk. My most recent supplier has been Aardvark Computer Services, Ilkley but they can no longer find a source of supply. Un-branded flippies used to cost rather less than 50p each including postage and packing compared with ordinary disks at rather under 30p each. Reluctantly I have given up any hope of using flippies in the future. Users very often have no idea whether their drives are double-sided or single-sided. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K5A (Robin Moffatt) Subject: Northern Ireland This has nothing to do with Computers!! I am studying GCSE history at school, and I am researching Northern Ireland for two of my assignments. One of which is a piece of Empathy, and the other is an Essay. For the Empathy piece, I have to express opinions of i) the british soldiers there, and ii) the people living there. If anyone has any experience of either of these, or any information you might think useful, I would be very, very, very (etc) grateful. If you do have anything then PLEASE write to me at: 6 Kenbourne Grove Sheffield S7 1NH ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K5N (STAN DORAN) Subject: Blackpool Computer Club Caters for BBCs Masters and Arcs stillgoing but declining but will go on while funds (also declining) allow; a few more years. Meets every other Monday at Staining Scout Centre not far from the Blackpool North turnoff from the M55. Ring Blackpool (Evenings) 0253 301015 the first meetings in August will be 1st, 15th and most likely 29th B/Hol. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 8J4 (Charles Spender) Subject: General and help I completely agree with KB4 Geo Lynch in approach to those who for various reasons do not or can not contribute on a learned scale technically. Accordingly a premium should be implemeted. I did just after Christmas propose that such members might consider subscribing a ten pound note with the January/February issue. Plus SAE etc. If our earnest mentor can reel out some 8 or more issues a year there is a small surplus for the kitty. Chris will receive this upfront and enable him to budget accordingly.( Only a small mental reservation here, it does of course increase his admin work somewhat,which he can well do without) HELP. EDITOR........ Thanks for the comments Charles. This discussion will go on for ever I suppose. The funds tend to bounce up and down close to the bottom most of the time and any voluntary donations are greatfully accepted. A lot of members give donations of hardware or cash. Some try to buy up the library. I would like to keep it this way so that the people that cannot afford to pay higher prices, and cannot write machine code interrupts to answer the front door can still benefit from 8BS. More comments invited! When scrolling through the program with the arrowed keys these will at times after a few pressings simply crash and no other further movement apart from a restart when the same thing will happen again. I cannot think this is the keyboard for Chris developed a program that was implemented in some previous issues using named letter keys instead but alas this only produced the same result. Consulting with any local repair shop has only resulted im my contributing to his welfare with negative results. As any other member suffered anything similar? Wanted. Has any member access to a user manual for a Star FR-1- printer any help would be appreciated. inter any help would be appreciated. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 20G (Roy Dickens) Subject: TV and Radio programs Most probably a lot of the members have been viewing THE NET on Thursdays about eight pm.-June 23rd was the final programme in the series. There is now a Radio programme that is very interesting THE NETWORK this is on Tuesdays at 8.30pm.(Have a listen as you bash the keys). I also find the Sunday morning (11.00am) TV programme title COMPUTING FOR THE LESS TERRIFIED worth a look. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, PRESS BREAK