8-Bit Software Online Conversion

From 0E7 CPR TEST As a training aid, would it not be better if one had to give the correct answer, assuming that there is one, before the program moves on to the next question? As it is, there appears to be more than one answer, or is it safe to assume that the answer given, if not 100% correct, would not harm the patient and it would be safe to carry on in reality? DATABASE I have experienced quite a bit of trouble with this program. If I add a record, then return from Menu to VIEWrecords and attempt to backstep, an error message is received and no Last Record message is added to the record number. If a record is deleted, the next record to be added takes on a totally new number. If the records are accessed the deleted number shows up as Deleted, and it does not appear possible to re-use that number again. If this is correct and I am missing nothing I think I would like to be able to use the deleted record number again. I also find that it is not possible to build this program into a !BOOT file. If this is done the disc will boot up and the first record appears on the VDU but the instructions at the bottom flash and the program hangs up. I have just attempted to place some records of importance in this database and have discovered the following bugs. If I press E to edit a record I get the message "Which field a-n(0=end)". If I attempt to use lower case, which one would from the field letters which are themselves in lower case, the program does not respond. I have to use upper case to progress. I would have expected to use lower case. If I press "A" the Message "Enter new data or (000) to leave" is given, and the record in field "A" can be amended. On completion message "Again(Y/N)" is received. If I press "B" the existing data clears, but there is now no output from the keyboard and the program locks up. When attempting to amend field 'L' the screen clears, except for the message "Enter new data". In view of these difficulties, I have abandoned any further attempts to input any data. I will await a reissue of this promising database. ISSUE 25 I liked your new presentation of issue 25. The program details are easier to follow, making identification on disk for copying etc. much easier. I have tried out your new way of printing out some text and it is quite good. The only problem is that the printout then carries on to the end of the article unless one presses Break etc. after the piece of text required is printed. Is it possible to mark the end of the text required, so that only the piece needed is printed? ELECTRONICS The first screen states "Press Letter Now" to find Ohms from colours. When the letter is pressed the screen then shows values of individual colours. It is assumed that figures should be pressed and not letters. Should not the input from alpha keys be suppressed? Apart from this a very nicely presented and very useful program. JOKER It functions very well, and is nicely presented with some quite amusing jokes. How does one improve it technically, assuming it is possible to do so, as it appears to do everything efficiently as it is. Presentation is the only other possibility for improvement and I do not think much more could be achieved. SHAPES The menu presentation of the programs is a very good idea and works fast and efficiently, far better than having separate programs. DIVING / TEST DATABASES These look nice databases, and should be easily adapted to meet ones own parameters as per the authors instructions. PRESS SPACE A nicely presented informative program which will be hard to improve on. CATALOGUE A useful utility in which the presentation could be improved by colour. A change of mode for a larger display would be an advantage if this is possible. ANIMATION DEMO Very good but on the slow side. Is it possible to speed it up? From: 15A (Steven Flintham) PRESS SPACE I thought this was excellent, but I do have one or two very small suggestions. Firstly, it would probably be a good idea to put *FX21 before each of the REPEAT UNTIL GET=32 or similar lines, because it's quite easy to press SPACE early and then miss something. For instance, during the man walking across the screen, I pressed SPACE to see if it would let me continue without waiting for the whole thing. It didn't, so the SPACE was left in the keyboard buffer. I then tried again, just to be sure that the program hadn't missed the first one, which meant that I also missed the following screen because the second SPACE was still left in the buffer. Secondly, how about modifying the longer routines (such as the animated man) to allow SPACE to interrupt them before they are completed - if the user has to wait each time, he or she could get extremely annoyed with the program - especially if these routines are used in introductory screens which must be read each time a program is run. SHAPES It's such a long time since I came across a simple graphics program of this type that I was very impressed by the images produced. I'd forgotten how a nice simple routine can produce very impressive displays. Has anyone else got anything like this - for some reason, I can never seem to write this sort of thing myself! VERSATILE DATABASE I thought this was quite good, but I do have a couple of suggestions. Firstly, it might not be a bad idea to disable the ESCAPE key within the program - it doesn't seem to be trapped at the moment. Secondly, when editing a field, there is no way to leave it as it is. Perhaps ESCAPE could be used to abort the editing of a field, or maybe a blank entry when editing a field could be regarded as an instruction not to change that field. Of course, if this second method is used, it will be necessary to add a "Blank field" option to the menu, because it won't be possible to edit a field and enter nothing. From 176 ISSUE 25 All in all a very worthwhile disc. I look forward to the text content of the magazine and enjoyed "Please Recycle". I moved from a Spectrum 128 to a Master 128 using ADFS and only changed to DFS because 8BS and others were using DFS only. However, I enjoy 8BS in ADFS but can see that DFS is simpler. ADFS CATALOGUES Brilliant!! What an advance on CATALL. One small suggestion. It would be very convenient to have the disc name at the top of the catalogue. PRESS THE SPACEBAR Excellent. There is very little scope for improvements to be suggested. TAPE BACKUP "Broken Directory at line xx" keeps coming up after "SEARCHING , FILE XXXX now XX". I tried 3 tapes and 2 formatted discs with the same result. ARCHIVED PROGRAMS 44! some of these are over my head but I can see that many are for incorporation in programs. A number reported "Not LOCAL at line XX" which puzzled me, while occasionally "No such variable" appeared. SOUND SAMPLES Interesting GRAPHICS John Ilsley Beautiful TONKINS COMPUTER DICTIONARY I had heard of it but had not seen it before. Enjoyable. CATALOGUES How can this be printed? I have tried several methods and failed. FIREWORKS All I get is FIREYWORKS JOKER Well done. On a Master it seemed to take quite some time to load. From 19F PRESS THE SPACEBAR I liked this one. Very well presented with plenty of good ideas. ANIMATION DEMO This was good once the picture had been drawn. Can't this primary drawing of the main picture be put onto a separate picture file which could load in a matter of seconds, as this would stop people not wanting to bother with it ever again. From 3SQ FIREWORKS DEMO All I got from it was a lot of terrible noises from the speaker. I had great difficulty in getting it to run in the first place, the program correctly spotted that I was using a Master but it didn't say it needed 64k of SWRam to be able to work, could have been more user friendly in this respect. From L1L COMMENTS ON SOFTWARE FROM ISSUES 20,21 & 22 WORDSEARCH GENERATOR Very well put together and fully optioned. PRESENTING POLAND pt.1 Rather well done, having a graphical element certainly maintains one's interest, especially with children who normally steer clear of otherwise large uninterrupted pages of text. The sound effects are good also as they are not too loud, but simply and quietly draw one's attention as needed. I look forward to Part 2. ECG SIMULATION I found this simulation both interesting and educational. I can see a further educational application - if rhythms are displayed on screen and then the user is asked to identify them. This being after becoming familiar with the waveforms and descriptions from the first part of the program. CHAIN LETTERS Well done D. Shepherdson. I found this quite compulsive with the selectable levels resulting in the right mix of knowledge, memory recognition and manipulative skills. It is better than quite a lot of other educational software that has been sold commercially. I notice that this program was written in 1990, if anyone else has any gems like this hiding away send them in to 8BS. FANTASY ADVENTURE CREATOR While adventures are not really my thing, I found this system rather easy to use and understand and should enable someone with few programming skills in this field, to easily create quite challenging games - as all the hard work has been taken care of. I expect quite a few people will take advantage of this system. PUSH THE BALE Very compelling with a good level of problem solving required. An improvement could be the use of sound which I believe would create that extra dimension to the game. Another possible feature that could be included is a timer for each screen. There is often several ways of completing a screen - but which is the quickest? AREA CALCULATOR A good feature of this program is that it actually displays the area formula when performing the calculation for a given shape. Perhaps to make this program a more involved learning aid, the user could be asked for the formula and either be congratulated if right or corrected if wrong. NUMBER CONVERSION Good and well presented. Although obviously aimed at programmers (?) a possible variation could be the conversion between degrees and radians (and dealing with polar coordinates). From 20G PRESENTING PROGRAMS SERIES Steven's series has been of great help. I am a great believer in friendly programs that tell you the next step and are easy to understand. I have used the 'Titltop' and LISTing from a program (Issue 22) in a recent program. I also found the MENU article in the last issue interesting. Will Steven soon show us all how Miroslaw got his rolling bar menu in BIGBEN? It looks good.