PROGRAM DOCUMENTATION
BANK MANAGER
I hope that some of you like to save
money or do some business and dream
about the big fortune like I do. The
program I send is aimed to help with
solving mathematical problems for all
the dreamers like me who wonder what to
do with their 'fortunes' from summer
jobs.
I typed the prog in following the book
'2^5 Mathematical Programs in Basic' by
two Polish authors. I bought the book a
few years ago and used the simple
programs during my studies.
Unfortunately for you it is written in
Polish so I have prepared the English
versions of some programs.
'Bank Manager' is based on solving an
equation:
P*(1+I)^N+S*(1+I*X)*((1+I)^N-1)/I+F=0
Too long? I hope not. The letters have
the following meaning:
P - start amount to be borrowed or
lent,
S - instalments,
F - final amount to be paid or taken
back,
I - interest rate per year,
N - operation time (years),
X - equals 1 if paying ahead, and 0 if
paying back.
I hope everyone understands how he can
become a millionaire. I wish you that.
Even though I have had this prog for
quite long there has been no miracle so
far, but of course everything is
possible.
The program is written in Basic of
course and is written in a very simple
way so it can be easily used on other
computers. It starts with the menu
where you have to choose the problem
which disturbs you and then put some
data to the machine. It is very simple
so I hope nobody will have any trouble
with it.
To help you in getting started I will
give you a few examples of problems to
be solved.
1. Uncle Max lent to his nephew Jimmy a
small amount, £8.00 for one year. After
this time nephew Jimmy returned £8.96.
Was uncle Max fair? He can add interest
rate only once a year as he has not got
a personal computer. How big is his
interest rate?
Warning: If there are now instalments
put 0 where necessary.
2. Now uncle Max is in poverty and he
borrows £8.00 to buy a pocket
calculator. His nephew Jimmy demands
12% per year. How much money has uncle
Max to pay back every month to return
the whole debt within a year? Jimmy is
a proud owner of a pocket calculator
and he adds interest rate every month.
3. After this operation both our
friends decided to run a real business.
They took an amount of money to the
West Midlands Bank and left it for one
year. They were very lucky as their
interest rate was 12% per year added
every month. After one year they got
£901.46. How much money did they leave
in the bank?
4. Uncle Max wanted to buy a flat for
his nephew Jimmy. He borrowed from the
bank £100,000. He will have it paid
back within 30 years. He is going to
pay £1,125 at the end of every month
(back). After 30 years his nephew Jimmy
will have to pay back another £3,580 of
the debt that he has inherited. What
was the banks interest year per year?
5. The flat is quite far from the
nearest Tube station so nephew Jimmy
decided to buy a bicycle. He is going
to save money in the bank for 3 years
and he will pay £1.00 at the beginning
of every two weeks (ahead). As a well
known customer he will have his
interest rate added every day but his
rate will be 5.5% per year. Will he be
able to buy a bicycle after this time?
I hope that now you will be able to buy
lots of flats and bicycles with only
£1.00 after ... some time.
Piotr Pagowski, Warsaw, Poland
7 COLUMN CARD PATIENCE
This is a computerised version of a
very old card patience game. It takes a
fair amount of skill to complete, but
there is a large element of luck in how
the cards have been dealt.
The cards are dealt face down onto a
table of seven columns, the number of
cards in each column increasing from 1
to 7. The top card in each column is
turned face up. The remaining cards are
kept ready to be laid out.
The game is played by building onto
face up cards in the columns, in
decending value, alternating red and
black. Aces can be moved face up to the
left hand side of the screen, where
cards of the same suit can then be
stacked on top in increasing value. The
remaining cards are turned over 3 cards
at a time onto a pile in the bottom
left corner of the screen. Cards can be
moved from this pile and built up
either on the stacks or on the columns.
A particular column or the pile is
selected by moving the pointer to that
column using the left and right arrow
keys. The following keys can then be
used in conjunction with the arrow
keys.
A - Picks up a single card or run of
cards.
D - Drops the picked up cards at the
column selected.
S - Moves the selected top card to
the stacks.
Pressing Space turns over the next 3
cards onto the pile.
Kings may be moved to empty columns.
The game is completed when all the
cards are stacked face up on top of the
aces.
When the game was originally played
with real cards, some people used to
cheat slightly, but would never admit
to it. For their benefit a small cheat
has been included. Pressing the C key
will alter the order of the cards
turned over on the pile.
If you get really stuck pressing the Q
key will quit the game, and you will be
prompted to start again.
There are three files to the program;
1) PATNCE; this has all the character
control codes for drawing the picture
cards, and these cards are built
straight into memory in the locations
&1100 - &11EE. It also generates the
display for the user instructions when
required.
2) SCREEN; this is a file containing
the title screen which has previously
been drawn and saved. This is loaded
straight into memory with *LOAD SCREEN
3000 from the PATNCE part of the
program, to produce a MODE1 title
screen.
Editor's note - I have altered *LOAD
SCREEN 3000 to *LOAD SCREEN FFFF3000 in
order to make the program
TUBE-compatible.
3) NEWPAT; this is the main part of the
program which is automatically loaded
with PAGE set at &1200. This program is
then able to access the memory between
&1100 - &11EE to print the picture
cards on the screen when required.
The game can be run from the normal
8-Bit menu or from a keyboard command
of CHAIN"PATNCE". Try to complete the
game without using the cheat, but if
you do cheat, never admit to it!!