DragonUser42_Oct86.pdf

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Q i

October 1986

1 ;

C -

Letters

Contents

Concealing Data

News Extra

Mode 24

Quick CLS

Arcade Arena

Mission Impossible 1 2

1 7

11"1-11

717

11"71

The independent Dragon magazine

)

mill

)

Last months bargain cards have been

Editorial

Amateur radio — voice overs on tape — ran-

dom numbers a n y Delta DOS users? — a

lost Bridge cartridge — easy deletions

corrections and suggestions.

David Berry sets out the targets and leaves

you to line up the sights.

Extra security is derived from encoding text

so that it can't be read without a key. Done

Bebbington unscrambles the principles

New utility from Ha rris Micro Software —

anti static devices.

True lower case, underline, inverse text, hi

res pixels, courtesy of Paul Wicks.

A short mic routine fo r clearing graphics

quickly

The Expert ﬂies the coop for a secret hot' —

the only clue we have is a ma p of Copta-

Snatch (part 1)...

News

Dragon p o we r su p p lie s — mo re ch e a p

spares— adventure from Maridian — utility

from P a mco mms — NDUG — n e w D U

delivery date.

People's Chart

This months top ﬁve games and an oppor-

tunity to win £25 worth of software.

Dragonsoft

Communication

Smithson Co mp u t in g 's n e w w o rd p ro -

cessor — ﬁ lly games dear at the price.

Printer problemsare popular in this months

readers question corner_ Do you have the

answers?

Disc Rescue

Dragon Answers

Adventure Trial

Competition

Managing Editor

PETER WORLOCK

Publishing Director

JENNY IRELAND

Pam D'Arcy shows how to rescue undamag-

ed sectors from a corrupted disc by saving

to a second disc.

Bauds and bits — a loose connection

music f ro m b e e p s — wh e re i s t h e C C

The secrets of Juxtaposition unlocked.

Add up letters to make a number and win a

copy of Boulder Crash.

Fault Line Graphics

Peter Whittaker demonstrates hidden line

removal with a program which generates

complex landscape graphics.

Telephone n u mb e r

(All departments)

01-437 4343

s tripped as if by locusts, and dealers

with c heap hardware r epor t that i t s

going fast. We have so many questions

to answer that we're running a page of

Communic ation t h i s m o n t h . N e w

s ubs c riptions are s till ﬂ owing in. and

we get plenty of s ugges tions as well.

Sometimes we can pull out of the hat

the v e r y a r t ic le w h i c h s c o r e s o f

readers h a v e b e e n r e q u e s t i n g ;

s ometimes we c an't but we keep try-

ing. We would like to do that round up

of pr int er s , b u t w e w o n ' t p u b lis h

any thing which hasn't been tested by a

Dragon User s o if you have recently

ins talled a new printer, get in touc h.

You may be able to help DU.

Do y ou wr ite? As w ell a s or iginal

ideas from contributors, we often have

a p ile o f s ugges tions look ing f o r a

mic ro-wright. Tell me who you are and

what you can do. and I'll send you the

next requests lis t.

I'll be setting aside a page for program-

ming tips s oon, s o w e want t o hear

from anyone who thinks their s olution

is neater and mor e elegant ( or jus t

more us eful) than the run of the mill.

This can be planning and des igning as

well as routines. The Dragon Can Do,

so tell us what it's doing for you.

How to s ubmit articles

The qualit y of t he material we c an publis h in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great ex-

Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG

tent depend on the quality of the discoveries that

you c an mak e wit h y our Dragon. The Dragon

computer was launched on to the market with a

powerful version of Basic, but wit h very poor

documentation.

Articles which are submitted to Dragon User

for publication s hould not be more t han 3000

words long. All submissions should be typed.

Please leave wide margins and a double space

between each line. Programs should. whenever

possible. be c omput er print ed on plain whit e

paper and be ac c ompanied by a t ape of t he

program.

We cannot guarantee to return every submit-

Production Editor

Associate Editor

JOHN COOK

BAR BORA HAJEK

Subs c ript ions

UK 0 4 for 12 issues

Overseas (surface) E20 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265-177 Telex: 296275

Dragon User, 12/13 Little Newport Street,

London WC2H 7PP

Editorial Secretary

ANNE MARIE O'DWYER

Published by Scot Press Ltd.

Scott Press 1986

Typesetting and Production by Artext Limited.

London NW1.

Printed by Headley Brothers Ltd As hf ord, Kent

Registered at the Post Ofﬁce as a newspaper.

Dragon and its logo are trademarks of

Eurohard Ltd.

Advertisement Manager

SIMON LANGSTON

Administration

GERALDINE SMYTH

ted article or program, so please keep a copy_ If

you want to have your program returned you must

include a stamped addressed envelope.

Letters

Seeing is

deleting

I HA V E d isco ve re d th a t t h e

Dragon in EDIT-mode saves the

rest o f the text in th e cu rso r

position whenever you hit the

"I'

mode.

This gives you the facility of

deleting unwanted characters

by using the left arrow key in-

stead of counting n characters

for nD. You simp ly mo ve th e

cursor lathe ﬁrst character you

wish t o r e t a i n a f t e r t h e

characters to be deleted, then

enter INPUT-mode and ﬁnally

i the left arrow key until the

hit

ﬁrst character to be retained is

reached. This gives you visible

control of what you're deleting.

Tommy Strand

Hammerveien 130

N-8600 MO I RANA

Norway

when u s in g t h e ' A ND 2 5 5 '

technique at the top of the page.

For u n sig n e d d o u b le b y t e

values that may exceed 32767,

the least signiﬁcant byte of, say,

variable N can be obtained by:

POKE P 2 + 1 . N — ( I N T

(N/256)256)

Signed v a lu e s -1 t o - 3 2 7 6 8

will suffer a similar fate so

POKE P 2 + 1 . T E M P —

(INT(TEMP/256)•256

will be needed. Th is was the

technique I h a d always used

until adopting the shorter AND

255 statement!

Pam DArcy

21 Wycombe Lane

Woodburn Green

High Wycombe

seconds; 1 t o 2 0 5 0 0 = 3 0

seconds.

A far-next loop must be used

if the timer has already been set

as part of the program. If the

pause i s se t slig h tly lo n g e r

than the instructions then the

MOTOR O F F : AUDIO O F F

command can be followed by a

tone to indicate when to start

the game (just like those horri-

ble t e l e p h o n e a n s w e r i n g

machines). O f c o u r s e .

reminders t o swit ch o f f t h e

'play* button o n the recorder

would be a good idea as well.

Using this method, perhaps

some 'real' sounds could be in-

corporated into g a me s (with -

out t h e p a u se ). I rig g e d a

cassette w i t h a co n tin u o u s

loop t o p la y so me recorded

galloping noises fo r a horse-

race game. the possibilities for

adding s o u n d s , m u s i c o r

speech into programs are only

limited b y t h e le n g th o f t h e

cassette t a p e u s i n g t h i s

method, unless a continuous

loop i s rig g e d in a separate

cassette.

Stuart Beardwood

1West Bottom

Hob Lane

Norland

Sowerby Bridge

tilk.st Yorks

had p ictu re s o f t h e Pro fe s-

sional ma n y months ago, but

we never saw a live one. If any

did make it on the market, they

will be in private hands by now.

Does anyone know more about

the Professional?

Lack of

data

IN T H E Au g u st e d itio n yo u

featured Screen Designer b y

Dennis Rile y. A n interesting

and rewarding program. There

was one snag, however. Those

of us who do not possess an

Alldream assembler and had to

POKE in the data found that the

'Shifting Scre e n ' featured in

Listing 4 w o u l d n o t w o r k

because of insufﬁcient data.

On close close examination I

ﬁnd that the following appears

to have been omitted!

06BB 73 63 72 65 656E

06CC 00

06D2 62 61 72 80 74 6F

In the main assembler listing

(2), two items appear to have

been lost*.

7B6E 32

7BD4 72

I wish yo u a n d Dragon Use r

every success and I hope that

you o b ta in t h e su p p o rt yo u

deserve, n o t o n l y f r o m

subscribers, b u t f ro m adver-

tisers as well.

Ray Smith

5 Glen Road

Parkstone

Poole

Dorset

Ideas for

Israel?

I AM the head manager of the

Israeli Dragon Users Club. Our

club is a youth club; we wanted

tojoinailadultclub, butthere is

no such clu b in Israel, so we

decided to build our own club.

We would like to hear from our

Dragon users with ideas on how

to run a club.

ltamar Sagey

Hersel 11/7

Klar-Saba 44455

Israel

Line feed

switch

MY interest wa s aroused b y

New Line" in Dragon Answers,

August 1986. T h e Se iko sh a

GP100A Mark 2, which I used.

has four small switches inside

the cover. Wh e n t h e p rin te r

leaves the factory, all four swit-

ches are in the OFF position.

The third switch controls line

feed, and is put in the ON posi-

tion to obtain line feed. Th is is

dealt w i t h i n t h e ma k e r' s

manual, and mentioned in an

article i n D U J u l y 1 9 8 3 ,

page 17.

Eric Troop

25 Antield Road

Bolton

Lancs 8L3 3DA

Helpful

sounds

IN THE course of writing some

simple B a s ic p ro g ra ms f o r

children with mental handicaps.

a recurring problem was the in-

ability to read instructions on the

screen b y children wh o were

well a b le to follow verbal in -

structions. A solution was found

in re co rd in g t h e instructions

verbally on the tape directly after

the program, timing the speech

with a stop-watch. Then all that

is needed i s a MOTOR O N:

AUDIO O N co mma n d in th e

program, f o l l o w e d b y a

suitable pause. provided by the

Dragon's inbuilt timer, or a tour-

next lo o p . A f t e r s o m e e x -

perimentation the lengths of the

loops were adjusted as follows:

1 to 1500 = 2 seconds; 1 to

3550 = 5 seconds; 1 to 7050 =

10 seconds; 1 to 10600 = 15

seconds; 1 t o 14150 = 2 0

Elusive

computer

IN T H E e d i t o r i a l f r o m

September 1985 you mention-

ed that Eurohard were trying to

produce a 128K Dragon with

hard d isks and Flex. Do you

have a n y mo re information?

Also, wa y b a ck in Ju ly 1 9 8

GEC b ro u g h t O u t a n e w

Dragon, c a lle d t h e P ro f e s-

sional, and a couple of people

were advertising it for E699 inc.

VAT Wh e n I ra n g Co tswo ld

Computers last year they told

me t h e Pro fe ssio n a l n e v e r

made it to the open market. Is

this true or is there any chance

of obtaining one?

C.C. Bailey

9 Draycote House

Birch Hall Lane

Longsight

Manchester

EUROHARD have not produc-

ed a n y n e w mo d e ls that we

know o f i n t h e la s t t we lve

months; the only effective way

of getting a 128K Dragon i s

with a hardware add-on. We

Change of

address

THANK YOU for publishing my

article f o r t h e Touchmaster

GraphicsTablet. As I have mov-

ed. the address in the article is

no longer correct.

Forthosewhostillwritetoask.

I can supply anyof my programs

from Dragon userat the original

price of £3.00 each. These in-

clude the Wordprocessor (disc/

tape). machine code monitor,

Graftext and the graphics tablet

program.

Peter Whittaker

c/a 126 Coventry Road

Nuneaton

Warwickshire

CV10 7A0

FC error

found

THERE is nothing quite like us-

ing information from one's own

article and ﬁnding it to be in

error . I wa s se ttin g u p a

numeric POKE value in a BASIC

program for use in a machine

code routine as per the techni-

que on page 21 o f the March

1986 DU, and four values larger

than 32767 an FC error occurs

2 Dragon User October 1986

This is the chance to air your views — send yourtips, compliments and complaints to Letters

Page, Dragon User, 12-13 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7PP.

Cult

status

MANY thanks for your mention

in the August edition of DU of

the efforts land my colleagues

putinaltheOssetshowwiththe

amateur radio demo,

Comments made in DU about

the Dra g o n b e in g a lmo st a

'cult' rritc amongst h a ms a re

certainlytrue. I have cometore-

ly on my three Dragons quite

considerably i n m y a ma te u r

radio activities as have others I

know of. S o me time ago DU

carried a letter from (or an article

about) the very large group of

hams in the Nottingham/Derby

area, who regularly every Sun-

day operate on a frequency of

144.525 MHz F M with news.

graphics and general data being

sent all over the place, well they

are still going strong and I hope.

subscribing to the ma il o rd e r

DU.

Keep up the good work. In-

cidentally, we have already had

several enquiries from hams,

one in South Africa, as a result of

the August issue. Did you know

that Ro mme ls Revenge f ro m

Design Design was written by a

ham? If you think this isall coin-

cidence, h a ve a lo o k a t t h e

American Co -Co ma g . Ra in -

bow. Over the last three years

virtually every edition ca rrie s

articles and programs concer-

ning amateur radio applications.

Knowing s o me t h in g a b o u t

electronics, you see, we all know

that the 6809 is superior to the

Z80, and all the rest. That is why

we bought ' e m, n o t t o p la y

games.

Finally, talking of Rainbow,

an ad. appeared in there some

years ago for an add-on board

(with Z80) to enable the Co-Co

to run CP/M80. Interesting, eh?

PJ. Read G6ZZE

7 Fairview Avenue

Whetstone

Leicester LE8 110

Sulking

designer

I THA NK yo u f o r publishing

my p r o g r a m " S C R E E N

DESIGNER", in the August edi-

tion; however, a n e rro r h a s

been pointed out to me that will

cause th e p ro g ra m to 'Ha n g

Up',orsulk' duringOption 5, ila

program title of 8 characters is

used.

This is because of the pro-

gram. instead of being sent to

the ROM subroutine 8H8006, it

is sent to the routine COLINK,

and therefore because of the

following instruction, A cannot

meet the condition to allow the

program to continue.

To re ctify th is then, in th e

Machine C o d e Da t a list in g

&HOBEF sh o u ld b e ' 8 0 a n d

&HOBFOshould be '06'.

The Assembler listing should

read:

7B0C 0D8006 G I NMW2 JSR

68006

I apologise for any confusion

and inconvience this error may

have caused.

May I also through this page

extend my apologies to anyone

who had to wait for a copy of the

program, or a reply. due to my

spending a lo t o f t ime a wa y

during the August-September

period.

Dennis Riley

21 Co/more Road

Wortley

Leeds LS12 e1DF

Random

numbers

OVER t h e p a s t c o u p le o f

months a lo t h a s been sa id

about random numbers, most-

ly in the competition. Very little

information is provided in the

manual a b o u t u s in g R N D :

however. I re c e n t ly c a m e

across a 16 bit random number

generator i n a m a c h i n e

language package. M y ﬁ rst

question wa s, wh y not use a

ROM call la the RND function.

my second was bow does the

Basic RND function work?

The ﬁrst answer was easy.

The B a s i c R N D f u n c t io n

returnsa random numberin the

Floating Point Accumulator as

a real number (hence in theory

it can have any value 1E-37 to

1E+38). Th is is naturally not

easy to handle in machinecode

except b y using th e INTCNV

routine

i n

B a s i c

(58B2D).

The se co n d a n s we r w a s

more interesting. Fro m what I

gleaned from the ROM the RND

function se e ms t o b e based

on a 3 2 -b it ra n d o m n u mb e r

generator linked with Floating

Point mathematics. Fo r so me

time I h a v e u s e d " A N D

(-TI ME R)" t o scra mb le t h e

AND function for games pro-

grams e tc. wit h o u t kn o win g

why it worked. Looking at the

RND function it becomes ob-

Routine solution

In response to Brian Cadge's request (DU. AuguSt 86). I have work-

ed out a few CUMANA 2.0 DOS POKEs and the addresses of the

sector READ/WRITE routines in ROM, and here they are:

00EB

number of active DRIVE.

0 0 E E : 0 0 E F buffer address (for sector read/write),

0 0 F6

if nonzero-decrement 0605 in each IRO,

0605

when reaches ze ro — tu rn o ff th e d isk

motors.

0609

VERIFY ﬂag: 0=off, nonzero =on.

060A

DRIVE number

0697:0698

AUTO current line number.

AUTO increment.

0699:069A

069B

AUTO ﬂag: 0 = off, nonzero=on.

ERROR GOTO line number.

069C:069D

069E

ERROR GOTO ﬂag: 0 =o ff, nonzero= on.

069F:06A0

[AL.

06A1

ERR.

E56D

sector read routine.

E643

sector write routine.

ENTRY forboth routines: IX HI=track, IX 1_0= S E CTOR-1 ,0 0 E O

and 0 0 EE set to the relevant values before calling these routines.

After using these routines, remember to POKE a nonzero value

to location 0605, because if you don't, the motor won't stop (it is

stopped Only when this location REACHES zero, not when it

already is zero).

Danny Halamish

Ophra 90906

Israel,

vious t h a t t h i s h a s t h re e

separate functions.

In the manual RND is said to

return a number between la n d

the number speciﬁed. In actual

fact RND(X) gives a whole ran-

dom number between 1 and X if

X is greater than 0, a fractional

random number between 0 and

1if X=Oandif X isgreaterthan0

the value of the new seed (this

will also be between 0 and 1). It

appears t h a t t h e s e e d i s

generated fro m a function o f

the number 1088834987.

This me a n s that a se t se -

quence o f ra n d o m n u mb e rs

can be repeatedly reproduced

by u s in g t h e s a m e s e e d .

without having to store them in

an array and could be useful for

statistical studies:

10 A = R N D ( - 1 ) 2 0 F O R X

= OT09:PRINTRND(10):NEX-

TX.

This program will always pro-

duce the sa me sequence a s

the sa me seed is generated

each time.

Since a program will never

be run at exactly the same time

after the co mp u te r has been

turned on every go, the value of

TIMER will be effectively ran-

dom. S o se e d in g t h e R N D

function w i t h t h e v a lu e o f

TIMER will guarantee a d if -

ferent sequence each time.

A co mmo n suggestion f o r

scrambling the RND function is

based on the 'wait fo r a key'

basis. It becomes obvious that

thismerelyshiftsthesequence

so many places along.

To truly randomise AND the

only s o l u t i o n i s t o u s e

RND(-TI M ER).

Robin J. Telkman

1 Sycamore Street

Sale

Cheshire

Bridging

a gap

I haveaDragon32andaBridge

master. I inserted the cartridge

before switching on the com-

puter, and wiped the contents

of the cartridge off. The shop

which supplied me does not ex-

ist any more. Th e receiver of

Dragon Data Ltd. could not help

me.

Dr David," Unwin

51 Maryville Park

Belfast

BT9 6LP

October 1986 Dragon User 3

News desk

If you have any new products for the Dragon — software or hardware —

ring the News Desk on 01-437 4343

User Group

THE Na tio n a l Dra g o n Use rs

Group tell us that their monthly

newsletter Dragon Update is

up to its 24th issue, and that

their membership is increasing

steadily since they formed in

1984 to combat ru mo u rs that

the Dragon was dead

The NDUG h a s me mb e rs

overseas as well as in the UK,

and encourages other newslet-

ters to reprint their articles and

reveiws. Dragon Update prints

reviews, news, practical infor-

mation a b o u t so ftwa re a n d

hardware, a n d re a d e rs' p ro -

grams. "Anyone in the group is

likely to b e picked o n a t a n y

time to do lust about anything

. w e try to balance things so

that w e c o v e r a l l Dra g o n

related interests, so that there

is something for everyone .

the subscription co ve rs o n ly

essentials su ch a s p rin tin g ,

postage. phone calls etc."

Subscriptions a r e E 8

annually, o v e r s e a s , f ro m

Paul G r a d e (Ch a irma n ), 6

Navarino R o a d , Wo rt h in g ,

Sussex. N D U G i s u s u a lly

represented a t national 6809

shows, so look for them next

time.

Dragon dance

MARIDIAN, t h e s o f t w a r e

house w h i c h p r o d u c e d

Mazerace a n d Sp e llb o x la st

year, have three new packages

on the market.

"Underbeings o f Croth" is an

adventure wh ich b e g in s in a

deep p i t wh e re a h a p le ss

adventurer is imprisoned in an

iron cage. You must rescue him

and guide him to the surface_

The g a me u se s u p p e r a n d

lower ca se text, 8 6 locations

and 165 words. and can be sav-

ed. The price is E3.95.

" De ca th lo n

competition f o r o n e t o ﬁ v e

- i s

players, in clu d in g An a g ra m,

Hangman, -Shootout, Spider,

t e n

etc Th e m

g a games are designed

Disc editing utility

PAMCOM MS have produced a

new utility for editing machine

code programs. Sourcemaker

disassembles m e m o r y t o

DragonDOSdisc in the form of a

DSKDREAM S o u r c e C o d e

Data File, wh ich can then b e

loaded in t o DS K DRE A M f o r

subsequent e d i t i n g a n d

reassembly. It is ideal, says Pam

D'Arcy, for tailoring the likes of

the hex dumps which appear in

DU to one's own system and

personal tastes. It is also helpful

in editing software, particularly

in changing from cassette to a

disc based system, where sup-

port is not available fro m the

Sourcemaker with Use r Guide

and a Master and Work discs is

available at £9.00 inland, £1000

overseas, all inclusive, and as a

cassette based system shortly,

at the same prices. This version

will work in conjunction with all

the D R E A M p a c k a g e s

(ALLDREAM cartridge, ca ss-

ette. DeltaDOS, DRE A M cas-

sette, DRE A M a n d DRE A M

BUG cassette).

Orders and enquiries to Pam-

comms L t d . . 2 1 Wy c o mb e

Lane, Wo o b u rn Green, Hig h

Wycombe. Bucks HP10 OH D.

to s u i t p e o p le o f d iffe re n t

abilities and are good for par-

ties, c la im t h e ma ke rs. T h e

price is again £3.95.

Something a littledifferent for

the m u s i c b u f f : 'a ccu ra te ly

transcribed' four part harmony

renditions of music by Bach and

Scott Jo p lin , wh ic h c a n b e

played through the Dragon us-

ing its own sound capabilities.

and routed through a hiﬁ if the

user wishes. The two Bach and

oneJoplin tapes are £3.Y5each,

E8.95 the set.

Orders and enquiries to Meri-

dian, B i r c h m o r e C o t t a g e .

Nairdwood Lane, Prestwood,

Great Missenden. Bucks HP16

000.

review 'o f D S T so o n , Wh e n

ordering, p le a se state wh ich

version of DragonDOS you are

using. and attach your name

and address separately to both

your o rd e r a n d y o u r p o sta l

order.

Order and enquiries to Bernd

Knechtel, Arnold-Willhelm-Str.

9, 5 6 3 0 Re msch e id , W e s t

Germany.

Show

releases

Radio

Dragon

PEAKSOFT te ll Dragon Use r

that they have assured supplies

of Dragon power supplies and

individual transformers. S a ys

Harry Whitehouse: "There has

been a shortage of the original

product fo r so me time. A s a

result, we commissioned th e

design and manufacture of a

new, heavy duty replacement.

As a service to the Dragon com-

munity, which has supported us

forthe best part of four years, we

sell thematquite a heavy loss, in

order that everyone can keep

their Dragons in action." Th e

complete power supply costs

E16_95, w i t h t w o y e a r s '

guarantee. F o r in f o rma t io n

contact Peaksott at 48 Queen

St., Balderton, Ne wa rk No tts

4 Dragon User October 1986

NG24 3NS. Tel: (0636) 705230.

Peaksoft also have a service

of interest to radio amateurs:

Radio Dragon is an electronic

magazine which is on the air for

30 hours a week. Dragon and

Tandy users with modems can

download the whole magazine

with a 2-3 minute cheap rates

phone call, and then save, print

or just read it through. It's free of

charge, and does not take paid

advertising, b u t will me n tio n

new services.

BLABY CO MP UTE R G a me s

have added a f ru it ma ch in e

game to the three new releases

(TrunBoulderCrash and Temple

of Doom)wh ich they are releas-

ing a t th e Dragon Computer

Show in Cardiff in October (in-

formation about the show from

John Penncomputing on Bordon

(04203) 5970), "And anything

else we have ﬁnished atthetime

says John Bailiss•

Blaby also haveacacheof work-

ing and non-working Dragons to

sell, which they will be bringing to

the shows in London (November)

and Cardiff: they do transformers

as well.

Even

cheaper

PROOFS DI S T RI B UT O RS ,

who last month put a collection

of wo rkin g a n d non-working

Dragon 32s up for sale at their

north L o n d o n wa re h o u s e ,

report that the units have been

selling well, and that they are

slashing the price of the non-

working, spares-only units still

left to E10 each.

The wa re h o u se i s a t t h e

Haybridge Estate, Castle Road,

Camden Town, London NW1:

for in fo rma tio n a n d p h o n e

(credit ca rd ) sales phone (01)

267 6911

Knechtel

Knews

BERND KNECHTEL Software

are introducing a new price(and

method o f payment) fo r th e ir

Disk S u p p o r t T o o l ( D S T )

package on disk. The new price

is E7,00 inc. postage and pack-

ing; payment can now be made

by postal order (Bernd is not en-

tirely c le a r wh e th e r t h is i n -

cludes ch e q u e s a n d mo n e y

orders if sending a Post Ofﬁce

postal order. it should be cross-

ed for security) instead of direct

transfer.

We h o p e t o b e printing a

Not

Washed

PART of a line is missing from

line 890 o f last month's Core

Ware: th e missing characters

are < ot crashed > to complete

the phrase Th e rest have not

crashed.'

Dragon

date

OWING t o t h e c h a n g e i n

distribution. Dragon Use r will

now b e delivered in t h e last

week of the month prior to the

cover date.

News Extra —P a g e

DALLAS. Texas: in the multi-storey ofﬁces

of Ewin g O il, wid e shouldered Personal

Secretaries g lid e sile n tly between wid e ,

gleaming executive desks across wide ex-

panses of whispering carpet. In the panell-

ed su ite occupied b y J. R . E win g , SR_

himself bites down hard upon a wide cigar

as he peruses a ﬁ le deposited b y one of

these creatures.

"Whaddya mean, takeover bid? Who in

hell is this Wintersoft, anyway? Part of ICI?

Goddam nerve!"

Dragon User People's Chart

Results September 1986

1 Juxtaposition ( W i n t e r s o f t )

2 Shock Trooper ( M i c r o d e a l )

3 Total Eclise ( E c l i p s e Fenmar)

4 Moon Cresta ( I n c e n t i v e )

5 Syzygy ( M i c r o d e a l )

'Sir.' breathes th e vision. " Th e latest

report has just arrived. Finance are con-

cerned that Wintersoft may be in a stronger

position than we imagined."

"Like what?"

"Well, sir, Juxtaposition-Barons of Ceti V

has topped the Dragon User People's Chart

for the third month ,.."

At this point J.R. bites his cigar in half.

J.R.'s nerves will be jangled still further by

Mr. Robert Glassman of Dorset, who boldly

states "Save fuel, get a Dragon. it's energy

for life!". Mr. Glassman wins our anagram

contest_

You. too can win E25-worth of software

from Micro d e a l if you ca n devise an in -

timidatingly witty sentence from the letters

(Or so me o f t h e m) i n t h e title s o f yo u r

favourite three Dragon software packages.

To do this, of course, you have to list your

favourites - ﬁve, in fact, on that form to your

right (or copy it) and send them to us. It's a

Chart Eight

Voting for Chart No. 8 closes at ipm on Friday. 17th October 1986. Entries recieved after that time

will not beeligibleforinclusion in that month's voting. The e d i t o r

per individual per month will be allowed.

s d e c i s i o n

Voting

m a l .

My top 5:

i s t

Month

N a m e

O n l y o n e e n t r y

gas!

My phrase is:

Dragonsoft

Fifty

and out...

Pro g ra m: C a s s e t t e 5 0 ,

Supplier: Ca sca d e G a me s,

1-3 Ha y wra Cre sce n t. H a r -

rogate. N. Yorks.

Price: £9.95

WHEN this cassette came out

many eons ago, I re me mb e r

thinking t o myse lf. " i t ca n ' t

be? 5 0 g a m e s o n o n e

cassette? Th e y mu st a ll b e

atrocious!" T h r o u g h t i m e

though, I mellowed and gained

a different view of humanity. I

felt that maybe humanity was

inherently g o o d , ma yb e t h e

cassette has some good stuff

on it.

A few months later saw me

buying t h e ' F a b u l o u s '

Cassette 50.

I rushed home, set up Digby

(my computer) and loaded the

ﬁrst g a me . M a z e e a te r. I t

wasn't very good. In fact it was

written in B A S IC a n d d id n 't

really look very nice, in fact it

was a wf u l. B u t wh a t d i d I

New software for review should be sent to Dragon User,

12-13 Little Newport Street, London M I N 7PP.

care... I still had 49 games to

go.

I loaded the second game,

Galactic Attack. It wasn't really

very good. in fact it was written

in BASIC and didn't really look

very nice. In fact it was awful.

But what did I care... I still had

48 games to go!

Three h o u rs later I loaded

the la st g a me , Exchange. I t

wasn't really very good, etc.

I wa s riot a happy person.

Digby and myse lf had had a

great time loading ﬁfty totally

useless games.

All t h e g a m e s w e r e i n

BASIC, although so me we re

not in Dragon BASIC — one of

the games would not run a s it

was written in ZX-81 BASIC.

No attempt whatsoever was

made at text formatting so the

games looked as bad as they

played!

May I congratulate Cascade

Software on producing not one

or t w o b u t ﬁ f t y u n p la ya b le

games.

Jason Orbaum

Justiﬁed

writer

Program: E le ctro n ic A u t h o r

Supplier: Smithson Co mp u t-

ing P ric e : £ 1 4 .9 5 cassette,

E19.95 disk

THIS re vie w is like no other I

have e ve r written, f o r it wa s

written o n a n e w and better

word-processor than the dated

Telewriter. Y e s , s u re , Te le -

writer is a ﬁne word Processor,

it's just that Smithson•s Elec-

tronic Author is better

The fo rma t is text win d o w

and co mma n d win d o w. T h e

text window is either 51 o r 64

characters wide dependant on

user choice, and twenty lines

deep. Th e co mma n d window

is two lines and allows input of

the abbreviated commands to

control I/O functions and text

manipulation.

The keyboard scan doesn't

appear t o miss letters, ever.

and t h e te xt, e ve n wit h 6 4

characters a line is clear, neat

and pleasant to read.

In theory, the B-side's "Con-

ﬁg" program should allow the

WP to work with any printer, it

works ﬁne with my Seikosha.

but I'm having trouble trying to

get the centring to work!! It's a

tape based WP but a Dragon-

Dos version is available and a

Delta Ve rsio n is cu rre n tly in

production.

All t h e u s u a l f e a t u re s:

Search and replace (selective

and global), block move, copy,

and delete, wo rd count, etc.

are very easy to operate. The

program also has one up on an

un-patched Telewriter in that it

has a right justiﬁcation mode

built into it so that it is possible

to h a ve yo u r te xt printed in

clear blocks without a jagged

right hand margin.

All i n a ll, I like th is wo rd -

processor and will now be us-

ing it instead o f Telewriter. It

would b e n ice t o se e wo rd -

wrap in co rp o ra t e d a s a n

option.

Jason Orbaum

October 1986 Dragon User 5

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