8-Bit Software Online Conversion

HOW TO FILL IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE You might want to print this article out so that you can refer to it. Note : all information given will be held in confidence unless you say otherwise (you can opt for either details of your interests and/or your phone number to be included in the database for members' use). As an unincorporated members' club, 8-Bit Software is exempt from registration under the Data Protection Act 1984. The questionnaire is entered by typing 104 <RETURN> from the magazine menu. It is designed to be easily understandable and simple to fill in, and shouldn't take you more than ten minutes or so to complete. There are just over 50 questions, most of which can be answered by a single keypress, and each time you are asked one, its number will be printed beside it. There are a number of ways that you can answer each question, and in each case this will be made clear by the question itself. For example, some questions will want you to simply press Y or N, some will require you to press a number (0-9), some might want you to type in a word or several words (finish with RETURN), and some might want you to type in a number (use RETURN to finish). You will notice, while you are going through the questionnaire, that each question has a "default answer" indicated. If you just press RETURN, then the default answer will be entered for you. This is in case you wish to stop filling in the questionnaire half-way through, and then skip the questions you have already answered when you load up the questionnaire for the second time. To quit the questionnaire, press ESCAPE. The answers you have entered so far will be saved, and these will become the default answers. When you load the questionnaire up again from the magazine menu, all you need to do is to press RETURN for each of the answers you have entered already - you won't need to type them in again. You can also press RETURN if you don't want to answer a question for any reason - I don't insist that you answer all of them - or if you don't know the answer. But please bear in mind that a questionnaire with most questions not answered will mean nothing to me, and this means your views won't be properly represented in deciding how 8BS will be run in the future. If you make a mistake, you can go back and correct it. There are two ways of doing this. If you are answering a question for which the answer does not need to end with RETURN (for example, Y/N or 0-9), simply press DELETE. This will take you BACK to the PREVIOUS question, so that you can enter a different answer from the one you have put in. If you want to go back again, press DELETE again, and so on. When you want to go forward again, simply enter the correct answer in the usual way - or press RETURN if you have already given the correct answer to that question. However, when you are answering a question that requires a string or a number to be typed in (for example, "What is your name?" or "How old are you?"), you CANNOT move back by pressing DELETE. Instead, simply type in a star (*) then press RETURN. This will move you backwards in the same way as DELETE would in any other question. Sometimes the questionnaire will automatically skip several questions when going backwards or forwards - for example, if you had said that you did not want 8-bit Software to know your phone number, it would not ask you for it! If you type in an answer that is too long, or obviously incorrect in some other way, then the program will ask the question again. If you are totally stuck then just press RETURN to move on to the next question. Here are some explanations of some of the more difficult questions: "Is your disk controller chip an 8271 or a 1770?" To find this out, press CONTROL-D-BREAK together. If one of the lines on the screen is "Acorn 1770 DFS" then the answer is 1770. If it is "Acorn 8271 DFS" then it is 8271. If it is just "Acorn DFS" then assume that it is an 8271. How many banks of sideways RAM does your machine have? If your machine is a BBC B and you have never added any sideways RAM, then the answer is zero. If your machine is a Master and you have never disabled any of its RAM banks, then the answer is 4. If the questionnaire asks a question like,"Do you have a 32016 co-processor?" and you don't know what it is, assume that you haven't got one and answer no. For the question,"Which of these computers do you own - BBC B, Master 128, Master Compact, Master 512", if you have more than one of these, give the one which you use most. For example, if you had a BBC B and a Master Compact but used the Compact more, you would answer "C". There is also a section of the questionnaire that asks you for your interests. This is because I am planning to create a database of which members are interested in what. This would mean that members could get in touch with other members who have similar interests. These interests are divided into computer-related (e.g. games, business programming) or general (e.g. PBM gaming, free-fall parachuting). If you do NOT want to be included in either part of the database, then you can opt not to by answering "N" to the appropriate question. There is space for three computing-related interests and three general interests - don't worry if you leave some blank! If your interest won't fit in the 15 characters allowed, then try to abbreviate it somehow. When you get past the last question, the questionnaire will go back to the first one. Keep going round and round (pressing RETURN to go past the answers that are right) until you are sure that all the answers are correct. Then press ESCAPE. Your completed questionnaire will be automatically saved to the disk. All you need to do then is to copy the filled-in questionnaire (the file QUEST) onto the BLANK FORMATTED DISK that you are going to send for one of the next issues, along with any submissions (text, articles, software etc). You can either send the file QUEST to me when you write for Issue 28, or send it to Chris Richardson when you write to him for Issue 27, and he will forward it to me.