About this Issue

ABOUT THIS ISSUE NB: SCROLL TELETEXT ARTICLES WITH UP & DOWN CURSOR KEYS; BREAK TO EXIT. Issue 24, as you've probably noticed already, has retained the Teletext format of Issue 23. Some articles, however, retain 80-column only format for various reasons. The articles available from the disk magazine menu are as follows: 101 - Introduction & News 102 - Questionnaire Results A far more complete set of results than those published in issue 21. 103 - User Response Members' comments and suggestions on programs featured in recent issues. 104 - C Sourcecode Three C programs from the Small-C sourcecode supplied with TBI-03. Members without a compiler may like to look through the sourcecode and run the ready-compiled versions as a demonstration (see below). Instructions for compiling the programs on the 32016 appear in the 32016 section. 105 - About this Issue 106 - Presenting Programs Part 3 of the series of articles by Steven Flintham (15A) explains how to create a 3D-effect in screens. A demonstration program with procedures you can use yourself is supplied (see below). 107 - Freeze your 6502 John Ilsley (27N) explains how to modify your BBC to allow the processor to be frozen by the flick of a switch. 108 - Book Review H.L. Clarke (B27) reviews "The Epson/FX/Kaga Printer Commands for the BBC Micro" from Watford Electronics. Example programs are also supplied (see below). 109 - Messages Section The usual mix of messages, news, suggestions and information. 110 - Program Documentation Instructions for Piotr Pagowski's Bank Manager program and Carl Wheat's Patience game (see below). 111 - Archimedes Debate Steven Flintham's reply to Michael Farnworth's article in issue 22 which compared the BBC and Archimedes from a programming point of view, along with further comment from me and from Gareth Moore (116). 112 - Puzzle Info Information about the charity wordpuzzle featured on this issue. 113 - Christmas Wordpuzzle It's probably easier to print out this article in order to fill in the answers. 114 - 32016 Section Instructions for the 32016-specific and 32016-compatible software on this issue, plus suggestions, questions etc. 115 - TBI pool update A further growth in the software available sees nearly 100 disks featured, and for once I have bothered to provide an explanation of what is on every disk, rather than just referring you to other libraries' catalogues. Option 999 will take you to the Issue 24 software menu. Note that the software menu also has an option to display any messages sent to you personally. The software available is as follows: Games & demos etc. Patience An excellent-quality rendition of the popular game by Carl Wheat (204). Instructions are included, and additional details are in the "Program Documentation" section of the magazine. Intellectual Hangman A challenging version of Hangman for those who know lots of long words, written by James Cavanagh (1V5). Christmas Cracker An amusing program with skilful use of sound and Teletext graphics, written by Roy Dickens (20G). 12 Days of Xmas A rather alcohol-orientated variant on the original, with words and music by James Cavanagh (1V5). Graph14 Miroslaw Bobrowski (L1J) has supplied this impressive 3D graphical program by Piotr Sliwinski, a 14-year-old Polish schoolboy. The program produces 3-dimensional landscape-type graphs of functions such as Z=f(X,Y), and Miroslaw has also added a number of sample functions to produce demonstration landscapes. Despite being written on the Acorn Electron, the program runs on the BBC B and Master, and is also TUBE-compatible, producing a much faster picture with a different background. 3D Screen Demo The demonstration program for Steven Flitham's article on producing a 3D style of screen display. 3D Screen Demo (B) A crunched version of the demo, allowing it to run on BBC 'B's that are short of memory. Towers of Hanoi A ready-compiled version of the Small-C program by A.J. Travis, included to show the flexibility and speed of 8-bit Small C. Note that NONE of the Small-C programs are TUBE compatible. N.B. this program *** only *** appears on the ADFS version of Issue 24 Applications Bank Manager A program written by Piotr Pagowski to handle just about any type of financial problem, and sent in by Miroslaw Bobrowski (L1J). Full instructions appear in the "Program Documentation" article. Disk Envelope Creator An excellent utility by Andrew Snodgrass (YJ2), which prints out disk envelopes onto paper, including flaps to allow you to stick them together. Fahrenheit to Celsius A ready-to-run version of Dr. A.J.Travis' Small-C program. The source code for the program appears in the disk magazine. The program produces a list of temperatures, with Fahrenheit on the left, and Centigrade on the right. Form Master Another copy of the program featured in Issue 22; this time I have remembered to put the instructions in. Sim City Cheat Andrew Snodgrass (YJ2) has supplied this program which allows you to alter saved Sim City files. Picture Gallery V2 An improved version of the program written by Paul Walden (24K) to display screen files. Utilities Econet Tree This program, by J.G. Harston (W79) of Harston PD, is an excellent way of displaying ADFS, HADFS, NFS or ANFS directory stuctures. RAMdisk A useful utility for machines with sideways RAM, contributed by John Ilsley (27N); I don't think I've seen one like it anywhere else. Simply use *RSAVE <filename> to transfer a file from memory to sideways RAM, and *RLOAD <filename> to retrieve it. More than one file can be stored in SRAM at a time. Use *RCAT to list the files stored, and *RDELETE to remove any of them. Multiple Access This program, again sent in by John Ilsley, asks for a list of filenames, terminated by pressing RETURN without entering a filename, and then does *ACCESS WRL commands on all the files named. NB currently ADFS only. Bulk Delete This program is similar to the one above, but accesses and deletes all the named files. It is NOT recommended that you try this out before making a backup of your issue disk. Number Rounding This program, erm, rounds numbers. DFS Recover The last of the programs contributed by John Ilsley, this one can be used to recover data from DFS disks. File Compare Another program written in Small C. It can be used to compare two similar files byte-by-byte, and produces a listing of all the bytes which are different. As well as being run from the 8BS menu, the program can be used as a * command on its own, with the syntax *cmp <file1> <file2>. OTHER SOFTWARE Included in the software section of the disk are the files TINY, TABLE and ITALICS. These are the machine-code printer utilities described in article 115, and should be run by *<filename>. In directory :0.S on the DFS version, and $.ReptnScrns on the ADFS version, there are the four sets of Repton screens for the competition. They should be loaded into Repton in the usual way. ARCHIVED SOFTWARE There is only one archive on this issue,in directory Z on the DFS issue, entitled SrcCode. On the ADFS issue, its contents have been de-archived ready-to-run, and the programs are contained in the directory $.SrcCode. To dearchive the DFS archive, it should be copied onto a blank DFS disk along with the program BDARK, which is in directory $ on side zero of the disk. Then type *BDARK SrcCode or *BDARK Z.SrcCode. The archive contains the sourcecode for the utilities TINY, TABLE and ITALICS. The sourcecode is in BASIC, and can be loaded by LO."<filename>". ARCHIMEDES SOFTWARE In the directory Arch-SW on the ADFS L version there is the application !Crypter, a multitasking file encryption program by Michael Farnworth (16C), with the encryption routines written in assembler. Users sending a disk for the free upgrades mentioned in the !Help may do so via 8BS. There may also be Archimedes versions of the Small-C demonstration programs, compiled using Acorn ANSI C Release 4.