USE CURSOR KEYS TO SCROLL TEXT. USE CURSOR KEYS TO SCROLL TEXT. 8 BIT SOFTWARE Reactions Reactions ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K4D (Lorin Knight) Subject: Recommended PD Software Since joining 8BS a few months ago I have been sampling some of the goodies in the PD library and am perticularly pleased with the following: TBI-49(1) and TBI-49(2). POSTERS. Useful if you have an Epson (or compatible) 9-pin dot-matrix printer. It will produce posters up to A4 size but I have also found it excellent for smaller items such as labels, inserts for blank greeting cards, etc. TBI-49(1) contains 31 fonts on the drive-2 side and all the "works" on the drive-0 side. TBI-49(2) contains 62 more fonts. I found it helpful to create a single disc with the most useful fonts all together on drive 2 - especially as my DFS will accommodate more than 31 files per side. But any font files moved to drive 2 need to be put in directory F - otherwise the program won't find them. Each of the fonts can have its height, width and inter-character spacing varied. It is easy to move the text around, and to modify or change fonts, to get the most pleasing layout. If required you can surround your "poster" with one of the standard borders provided - or design a border of your own. TBI-54. MANDELBROT & JULIA. In my first encounters with Mandelbrot I used to leave the Beeb running overnight to produce a single picture. Now I can produce the basic "beetle" in 40 seconds, with explorations into the deeper recesses taking a little longer. I found the operating instructions somewhat sketchy and it took me a little while to discover how to manipulate fully all the various options - but it was well worth it. An amazing program! BBC-102. SPELLCHECK. I make considerable use of WORDWISE+ but have always been to mean to purchase a SPELLMASTER ROM, in the hope that one day somebody would give me a second-hand one. So I decided to try this SPELLCHECK disc. Although it lacks the speed of SPELLMASTER, I have found it adequate for my purpose and easy to use. The program runs through the required text file, ignoring any embedded commands, and lists the words which are not in its dictionary. You can then proceed through the list, word by word, taking one of the following actions: (a) add the word to the dictionary, (b) correct the spelling, (c) pass on with out doing either. Within the dictionary there is a fixed space allocated for each letter of the alphabet. As supplied there are around 5000 words and, on average, slightly more than 50% of each allocation is used up. It is easy to remove unwanted words and so I don't see myself ever running out of space. Glancing through the dictionary I can see many words I am unlikely to need - and some I don't even know the meaning of! The disc can also be used with VIEW and ASCII files. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS) Program: WORD POWER W/P PROGRAMME ======================================= What can I say about this programme?. After a struggle to get it on to a DFS disc and get it running I wish I had spent the time and effort painting the woodwork!. I think that the initial impression one gets of a program should be a good one if onlt to get you interestd and progress and use it further. I am afraid I switched off after getting through the information file and on to the Edit screen. Such a poor memory as well. Long live Interword, Wordwise, Wordwise + and View. I get more pleasure out of using the Kids excellent FOLIO package. Sorry, but this one gets 0 out of 10. ======================================= ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS) Program: THE COALMAN & THE PIES ======================================= As usual 3WW Fred Price, keeps us all amused with the excellent poems he submits. Please keep them coming in Fred. ======================================= ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS) Program: Dreamscapes by Shawty of DS ======================================= It is very nice to see a piece of programming of this quality written for the BBC, and I hope we see a lot more of Digital Solutions software in the near future. I was so impressed that I went out and bought the disc.......... (I couldn't afford the company!) ======================================= ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS) Program: EUROPHILE by GFX ======================================= This is a very interesting idea and will find a place in the Educational Section of my collection. The demo is filled with lots of information, and the map is nicely detailed. I can't wait to get TBI57 and have a good 'nosey' around Europe and expand my knowledge of it. Well done GFX ======================================= ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: 20G (Roy Dickens) Program: My Early Days ROBIN MOROM K4R gave us a good helping of early computers. Nearly right back to when counting was one, two, three, four, thumb. A fellow I know worked in a bank and bought himself a calculator,(this was many years ago and they were expensive then.) to help him do the sums. The bank stated that he must not use it because they did not believe in that way of reckoning so back to the books of tables he had to go! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: 20G (Roy Dickens) Program: Aleshuf (Alphabet Shuffle) Aleshuf by John Davis K2F got me doing a few anagrams. I changed the alphabet part to accept my own input word/letters. So EIGHTBITSOFTWARE then became We go after this bit, or It's before what? Git! or as Chris might say, Fab wee T'shirt I got. I'm now having a go at putting JOHN'S shuffle part in a program, (You will be in the listing credits John). Program will be named ANASHUF. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Program: Intro screens Great! What more can I say, except that I personally prefer Intro2. I think the benefits of the animation on Intro1 are outweighed by the appearance of the text on Intro1. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 & 4MD (Graham Gallagher) From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Subject: Puzzle solution Very clever! I got as far as the factors of 36 bit, but then I gave up. Any similar puzzles (with solutions to follow!) would be much appreciated. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Subject: K4R's "My Early Days" article I really enjoyed reading this - I hope we can look forward to at least one more "installment" about progress with the UK101. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Subject: K2O's language article Very interesting - I didn't actually know that there were languages available which could create code to run in ROM. I would find an article going into detail on how to do this with any of the languages mentioned very interesting - perhaps with an example ROM image to accompany it. If I remember the advertisements correctly, there were some restrictions on using code produced with BCPL - are these still in force and how would they affect public domain distribution of the code produced? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Program: Prime/perfect numbers A fascinating follow-up to the article in issue 35. One book I have seen mentions perfect numbers in passing and it calls numbers which are smaller than the sum of their factors 'abundant' rather than 'excessive'. Is one of these terms more correct that the other or are they equally acceptable? I have read that the Pythagoreans apparently also considered 10 a perfect number of a different type because it was the sum of 1, 2, 3 and 4. Can anyone confirm or deny this, simply as a matter of interest? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: CCC (all members) From: K2B (Colin Culpitt-Smith) Subject: 'Dreamscape' demo, issue 35 I was most impressed with the Dreamscape program which can be run from the Demos menu in Issue 35. The animated graphics move not only quickly, but oh, so s-m-o-o-t-h-l-y too! I also liked the accompanying music. A superb piece of writing, and it shows that the Beeb is still able to hold its own. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K2B (Colin Culpitt-Smith) Program: 'MAGIC3D' in Issue 35 Having used this very clever program, I must congratulate the programmer on the fascinating printouts of the associated files, 'Picture', 'Furrows' and 'Mex-Hat'. The seemingly pointless abstract patterns are transformed into amazing 3D shapes when held at close range before the eyes. I've shown the printouts to a number of people, and they were all totally fascinated by the hologram-like objects. Excellent program & highly recommended. Well done Lorin Knight (K4D)! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, BLAM! PRESS BREAK PRESS BREAK