USE CURSOR KEYS TO SCROLL TEXT. USE CURSOR KEYS TO SCROLL TEXT. 8 BIT SOFTWARE Reactions Reactions ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K6X (Cluke) Subject: p yr amid Patience I found this to be a well-written game, with good graphics, requiring a certain amount of strategy to be used to uncover some of the necessary cards on the way up to the top. However, I did soon tire of the boops and beeps that accompany the game, and upon listing the program to hunt down the offending noises, found a message at the end of the listing which goes a long way towards explaining why I have never managed to finish the game. Has anybody else, I wonder? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 3PM Subject: OSMAP by K3T Lines 200 to 260 are a bag of worms! It works but bad practice to jump out of FOR/NEXT loops. Fortunately this is a simple case. Firstly 230-260 just divides N by 26 and adds 1 to get C and exits with N set to the remainder. So no need for a loop :-) 230 C=N DIV26+1 240 N=N MOD26 Delete 250 & 260 Try it. Lines 200-220: BBC Basic has a much better way :-) 200 N=INSTR(A$,C$) :IF N=0 P."Invalid Map Reference":END Delete 210 & 220 Try it. Line 200 searches A$ for the 2 chars. (contiguous) of C$ and returns the N value of the first character. Add :P.N :STOP after ..,C$) to see this. And lastly, 40 PROCnc 80 PROCnc 140 END 190 DEF PROCnc 270 ENDPROC Nothing wrong with GOSUB but PROCnc is identifiable as a subroutine to find nc or whatever you like to call it. You can also jump out of a DEF PROC by including IF.(condition).ENDPROC in one of its lines so no need to bother about a GOTO line number.(not needed anyway). A nice idea Neil.Now how about a PROC to check that the right no. of Map Ref digits have been input? And journey time? And carbon monoxide emission? And depreciation increment? And scrap value ...well I suppose the distances will be about the same on my bike, and I know it will be quicker..intellectually! PS How about a little picture on the OS Map to tell mobile female drivers what that dial on the fascia is for? 'Baby on Board', 'Granny on Plank' a myopic blur as they rocket away like weasel s**t off a shovel. Anyone want a mucky bike? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K7T (D. Ambrose) Subject: MERGE I thought I should try my own program, and I find that on my copy of the disc for the 39th issue (and presumably, therefore, on all other copies) the progam MERGE already has PROCovly appended. I do not know how it arose, but this is a mistake and it should be deleted. If the program is run as it stands and ESCAPE is pressed when it first stops LIST will show that PROCovly now appears twice, which was not intended. However, the duplication does not interfere with the operation of the program. It will be noted that MERGE and OVLY both include a DEF FNN where N is the name. This is recommended on page K.3-2 of the Master Reference Manual, Part 2, and allows the program to saved by the command SA.FNN. I invariaby use this method as it avoids the possibility of making a mistake and overwriting the wrong file when saving to disc. The method applies to the Master but appears not to be applicable to the BBC B. EDITOR..... I always put FNS at the start of my own programs. Something like: 10 DEFFNS="Wonderful" Typing SA.FNS will then save the program. I used to also use TIME$ to directly poke the date and time into a REM line at the end of FNS, but this occasionally caused me to lose programs for various reasons, such as when TIME$ became corrupted with low battery backup putting garbage into the line causing a bad save. The SA.FNS function will work on both Master and BBC. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: 20G (Roy Dickens) Subject: ISSUE 39 (DEC.) The Christmas Disc by the ED. A disc full of good cheer and just right for Christmas. We had falling snow, snowmen, sleighs plus all singing, bells an'all. Well done our ED. Chris, and all the contributors. Short Story by Robin M. K4R A very entertaining story from Robin about how a computer can take over your life! .....and one from K2B Colin C-S's other half. This was a good laugh, a bit saucy but true. We have had many a member with a little cry for help saying that his wife cannot understand their love and affection for the Beeb! Pyramid Patience by L.FOWL I love these card games. We've had some good ones on different issue discs. The display was very good. I have spent many a tense game on this one but it beats me every time! REM Programming Tip. by MICK P. K3G A nice little tip from Mick to jazz- up your listings. All these tips help the new uns and remind the old uns. Congratulations on your first Mick let's see some more. Lottery.(Select no's)by JOHN D. K2F John's way of using the Beeb to get those lottery numbers instead of birthday, anniversary dates etc. is an attractive idea. But I must be unlucky because even with this when it asked for and I gave my lucky number it never did show up! Modems. by John I. 27N I was pleased with this information and John explained it well. The trouble is I still would like to know more such as....If a SYSOP is one 'in charge' do they do it for free or is there a charge/sub? Are you a'SYSOP'and would we use that number you gave us? Is the phone used for very long and is it a local charge? Is a system operator like CHRIS, an editor but the phone line used instead of post? The radio 5 prog.BIG BYTE Sunday 12.15pm use E.MAIL:big-byte@bbcnc.org.uk can you give us a bit of info. on this type of system? Thanks JOHN. OS-Map. by Neil T. K3T I had a go with this one quite a lot just to see how close the miles from 'A' to 'B' compared to my atlas. It was very good. But I'm no good at maths. so I couldn't understand the 'RANGE IS x TO y MILES' bit. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 20G (Roy Dickens) Subject: Lottery Game (issue 39) The cheat revealed. It will let you know what the first random number will be. Before you mark your playslip a blue dot (full stop) will appear above the line... . JACKPOT WINNER...IT COULD BE YOU. the code is... 123456789 So if the dot is over the I then the first of the four random numbers will be 1. If it is over the T then it will be number 2. If it is over the space before C then it will be 3 etc. If you mark all three boards with this number you can now bamboozle anyone looking over your shoulder and they will say, "How do you do that?". Congratulations to all of you that solved the cheat (issue 39) without listing the program. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 20G (Roy Dickens) Subject: My Lottery Game (Lotter2) in last issue (39) A BUG SOMETIMES CREEPS IN! (Don't moan even INTEL have them!!) Unfortunately the 'points scored' will show weird results if the program picks up certain variables left over by some other programs. To stop the bugs creeping in we must set these variables to zero at the beginning of the program. If you wish to do this and not quite sure how to then here are the instructions. 1, Load and list the program (LOTTER2) (list the program to the end) You will see that line 2320 shows A%=0:Z%=0:X%=0 We must create another line like this at the beginning of the program so... 2, Type 125 A%=0:Z%=0:X%=0 3, *ACCESS the program as it may be locked 4, SAVE "LOTTER2" then if you have ADFS disc... 5a, Type *ACCESS LOTTER2 LWR or if you have DFS disc... 5b, Type *ACCESS LOTTER2 L that should do the trick. EDITOR....... Thanks for this Roy. Anyone receiving issue 39 after 17.1.95 will not need to worry about this error as I have corrected it on the master copies. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Subject: Roy Dickens' Lottery program I thought this was very enjoyable, but I have two suggestions which would improve it slightly in my opinion. Firstly, I think it would be better to go straight back to the 'choose your numbers' screen on each new go, rather than having the instructions redisplayed. This is largely a personal preference, but at first I thought it simply started again each time and didn't keep a running count of your winnings (which it does, of course). Secondly, I found it was possible to choose the same number more than once on a playslip (so, for instance, you could choose 4,4,6,3). This might be intentional, but I don't think so. I particularly liked the 'secret dot' - printing this in blue was the master stroke, in my opinion, as this colour doesn't stand out too much when there is only a small amount of it. I didn't notice it until I read the instructions! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Article: John Ilsley's modem article I can't comment on most of this article as I have no experience of using modems, but I can't help feeling that the prices mentioned are a bit too high. A quick look in a recent MicroMart shows that a new US Robotics modem (model not specified) capable of 14400 baud costs about #150-160 new, inclusive of VAT and postage. I presume this would work with a BBC, although I don't know if it would be possible to run it any faster than 9600 baud. I also came across similar speed modems (but not BABT approved) for around #90, although using one of these is illegal. Incidentally, how important is it that a modem is BABT approved? - I read somewhere that it was not important because even an unapproved modem was no risk to the telphone system, but I read somewhere else that it is vital to get an approved modem... ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K4D (Lorin Knight) Subject: Thanks Modems have always been something of a mystery to me and I found John Isley's little article very helpful. Thank you John. - And Melvyn Wright's snowmen were a sheer delight. They gave my family a lot of amusement. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, From: K2F (John Davis) Program: Magic Eye x 2 Having just recently finally cracked the problem of seeing Magic Eye type pictures properly, it was entertaining to go back to the programs in issues 35 and 38 which create and print these pictures. Worked very well. As an experiment, I simply changed the words printed out by the issue 38 program to a name and address, glued it to a large envelope, and posted it with a little note written on the edge inviting the post office to figure it out. It never got there. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: K5K (David Robinson) Subject: BBC Emulators This was intended for issue 39 but my submissions disc got corrupted in the post. I was interested to see the list of BBC Emulators in Issue 38. My understanding of an emulator is that it is a program to run machine code intended for one microprocessor on a completely different one. This is done by calling machine code routines which perform the equivalent function, in place of each opcode, in a way compatible with the hardware of the host processor. Not everyone has the same understanding of the term "emulator" though, because "Wave Electronics" were recently advertising a range of emulators for the PC. The BBC Emulator I bought turned out to be another dialect of BBC Basic for the PC (MS-DOS BBC BASIC Version 3.03 by Jon Welch). It is not bad value at `5.00 if all you want is something to run BASIC programs on a PC (although not as good as BBCBASIC 86), but it is not an emulator! Incidentally, once you have written an appropriate microprocessor emulator, the logical way to develop a microcomputer emulator is to use the target microcomputer's operating system (at least as a basis). I have been told that some emulators have been withdrawn from sale for infringing copyright in this way. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, BLAM! PRESS BREAK PRESS BREAK