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                                                                             To : 999 (All members) From : 2J3 Subject: 5.25" discs for 27.5p each! I have now purchased a large quantity of 5.25 inch discs DS DD with the intention of passing them on to anyone that wants them. Buying them in bulk enabled me to get them quite cheaply. They cost me 27.5p each. If you want some, any quantity from 1 upwards, contact me, you can have them for exactly what it cost me. That's 27.5 pence each plus whatever the postage may be to send them on to you. For instance: Send £1.00p and a first class stamp, I will send you 3 DFS formatted discs. Or send £3.25p and I will send 10 discs to you (this includes postage of 50p). Anyone interested, drop me a line. Write to: C.J.Richardson 17 Lambert Park Road Hedon Hull HU12 8HF  To : 999 (All members) From : 27N (John Ilsley) Subject: For sale Ultra Calc two rom + manual in original box and original rom, needs OS 1.0 or higher for model B or Master Price: £5.00 includes p+p £5.25 recorded delivery. Write to: John Ilsley 61 Kingsley Road Southsea Portsmouth Hampshire PO4 8HL  To : 999 (All members) From : 27N (John Ilsley) Subject: A couple of points There was some comment on which computer, Arch, BBC B, Master or compact.... Well, the BBC B is fine for most stuff, testing robots and external devices, Great for ROM/RAM boards, up to 16 sockets on ATPL boards, that is the only disadvantage on the Master. Otherwise the Master 128 has everything except 128k of memory!. I can get 50k out of mine if I'm in shadow and have the turbo switched on but I can't use the Turbo board if I'm running the BB, so it only gets used to time things. It's amazing how fast some things are, I did a line program, it did 77 lines in 5 seconds without the turbo, and 266 with it on. A big increase, but it didn't make any difference if the cursor was on or off!.... Surprisingly .... Technological Progress. We all know about the PCs and BBCs ... .. How about 3rd and 4th generation computers? What about the new 1Gbyte computers, and the new computers that the AA are coming out with! The 1Gbyte disc drives, Yes, disc drives. If I remember the price was in the region of three grand for one computer.... ... mad to pay that much for a computer that is BOUND to go wrong once a week!.                                                     To : 999 (All Members) From : 2J3 (Chris Richardson) Subject: Software, hardware, books. I have a quantity of software still for sale. Discs go for £3.00p each. Tapes 50p each. Postage extra. I am open to offers. On disc: The Gold Collection. Revs. Cheat it again joe volume 4. On tape: Tablesums. Pole position. Numberfun. Missile control. Graphics package. Getset. Karls Kavern. Hunchback. Lord of the rings. Space Jailer. Vortex Graphic Adventure Creator. Nightshade. 10 computer hits. Hell driver. Hacker. Repton 2. Caveman adventure. Alien 8. Eddie Kidd's jump challenge. I also know of someone wanting to sell a BBC B and single disc drive for £110. Anyone interested, contact me. I also have the BBC advanced user guide for sale. £4.00p My address is: 17 Lambert Park road Hedon Hull HU12 8HF  To : 999 (All members) From : 27N (John Ilsley) Subject: Database in issue 25 .... I tested the program out before I sent it in, and couldn't find that PREVIOUS error. I just tested the program, and yes... there is an error there, and for no aparent reason.... Or if there is a reason, I can't find it! ... and since I can't find the problem, I've decided to re-write a new database. This database will allow any files already created with the database that has the error to be copied.... I'll arrange this later. I also have a few more tricks up my sleeve since this too will be disc based, I can make it do a few extra things. ..... my apologies to 0E7. Also my thanks for finding the problem and explaining it so well.  To : 999 (All) From : 27N (John Ilsley) Subject: Replacement and new equipment If anyone wants stuff like the battery for the Master, I can get most stuff. I can also get printer paper and such delivered and ribbons and inks for nearly every make of printer even the KP810. Here's a few prices.... (Talking about drives in the Mag, here's the cheapest and the most expensive NEW ones.) Prices don't include p+p Cumana 800k dual bridge+PSU 40/80 £227 Cumana 400k single 3.5" drive, no PSU 80tpi £77 Master 128 £366.60 New BBC B with DFS £225 Master Battery nest £5.88 Loads of roms, Books, Games, utilities etc... If you want the address give me a yell, I have several suppliers for different stuff. So if someone wants something, let me know what it is, then I will look through my different catalogues and find the cheapest. Write to: John Ilsley 61 Kingsley Road Southsea Portsmouth Hampshire PO4 8HL  To : 999 (All) From : 27N (John Ilsley) Subject: Wants I am looking for a cassette deck for an ATARI 800XL. I can go to £15.00  To : 999 (All) From : 3MK (Brian Brookes) Subject: For sale and wanted To clear a bit of space in my study, I have to get rid of something! Can I interest anybody in an Acorn Z80 second processor with all the works? Ie Processor; Manuals (User guide, Technical notes, File plan, Z80 Basic user guide, Z80 Professional Basic user guide, Accountant, Memo plan, Graph plan, Cis-Cobol, Cis-Cobol + Animator & Forms 2, CP/M 2.2 with GSX graphics, Nucleus system generator); Books ("Introducing CP/M on the BBC Micro Second processor" by Bruce Smith, & "Wordstar & CP/M made easy" by John Lee); 7 master discs - including one duplicate copy; & a set of function key cards. See the reviews in Beebug vol 3, nos 4 and 5. All this for £55 (or offer) plus postage or collect from Perthshire! Whether or not I succeed in gaining some extra space, I am hoping to install a Watford DDFS system in my ageing Beeb. I presently use Acorn DFS + 8271 controller, so I need a full WE upgrade kit. Is it possible somebody out there can help? Also needed, the "Beebdos" software for PC's enabling MS-Dos machines to read Acorn DFS.  To : 15A (Steven Flintham) + 999 From : 0E7 (Fred Nevin) Subject: MASTER 128 BATTERY. The MASTER SERIES of microcomputers are now fitted with a 4.5V battery unit instead of one 3.0V lithium cell. These battery units are supposed to be available from all ACORN dealers at a price of about 4.50 £4.99. The battery is to provide backup to maintain the contents of CMOS RAM at all times when the computer is disconnected from the mains power supply. The battery life under 'NORMAL' operating conditions is supposed to be approximately one year. As yet I have to replace my battery unit and the computer is now some two years old. I think there is something in what you say about the more you use the computer the longer the battery will last. One can assume that if the computer is run continuously then the battery will only require replacement when it dies of old age due to internal reaction. Incidentally at the front of the WELCOME GUIDE there are details of how to change the battery unit and this supercedes the information given on page 242. It seems quite a job and the best advice I can think of is to keep on using the computer.  To : 999 (All) From : 0E7 (Fred Nevin) Subject: ADFS FILE ATTRIBUTES I believe that everyone has some and I expect you all know better than I that Files on disc have four.(I hope) They are:- (L) to lock files to prevent any writing to the file. (W) to accept writing to the file (R) to accept reading of the file These are or can be used in various combinations to control ACCESS to the files on disc. There remains another attribute which is of very dubious benefit if any at all, that is (E) which allows a file to be executed/read only and this attribute CANNOT be altered by normal *ACCESS. Sorry to be so long in getting to the point but HELP!!!.HELP!!!.HELP!!!. Whilst inputting an M/C programme and getting it to function rather than malfunction I obviously RAN the programme to obtain the code and found there were some typing errors (Well, what else can you expect). These were corrected and it was not till much later I discovered that some other files on the disc (of which unfortunately I have no backup) had had their Attributes changed from LWR to the dreaded E which I ' Attribute' to the faulty M/C. How do I get rid of the E Attribute and get back to LWR. I remember a long time ago about 7-8 years or so a programme was published in the Acorn User to overcome this problem. Does anyone have a copy of the programme that they can let me have please or has anyone written one. Any suggestions apart from the one that you should always input programmes onto blank discs to prevent this happening or keep a backup will be most welcome. Editor... I now realise that the CATALOGUE item in issue 25 had a fragment missing. The E attribute. Well, if you refer back to that article and remember how the filenames and attributes etc are stored, from &C405 in blocks of 26, then it is easy to see the 5th byte of the name marks whether the E attribute is set or not. If this byte is above 128 then the E attribute is set. If this is so, then just remove 128 from it and save the catalogue back to disc. The program Eoff! on this disc will do this for you. If the E attribute is set in a sub-directory, you will have to enter that directory before running the program. Thanks for pointing it out Fred!  To : 999 (All) From : L1L (Jock Smylie) Subject: Clipart/mode conversion Does anyone have a P.D. conversion program to convert between the two desktop publishers, Watford's Wapping Editor and AMX Pagemaker/Stop Press Or, would anyone be prepared to write such a program? I have included copies of both a PD viewer for Wapping Editor clipart anda PD viewer for Pagemaker /Stop Press clipart ('W.VIEWER' and 'P.VIEWER'). I also include a Wapping Editor clipart file, 'G.VISA'. Similarly is there a program or would anyone be prepared to write a program to convert standard MODE 0 screens to Pagemaker/Stop Press clipart format. And/or a utility to convert Fleet Street Editor clipart to Pagemaker/Stop -Press format. Fourthly, the same question as above but regarding a PD utility to convert any graphics mode to any other graphics mode. This last utility would be the most useful to the most people no doubt.  To : 999 (All) From : L1L (Jock Smylie) Subject: File lengths/DFS disk space *INFO eg. $.Comment L 000000 000000 000951 00D Regarding the above example using the *INFO command, can anyone tell me, or write a short line of code or two, to obtain the third piece of file information from within a program. That is, the file length information (000951 in this case). I would like to be able to calculate the amount of space remaining on a disk as a routine within a program. Is this the right approach? Or, is this information already held in the same track on the disk?  To : 999 (All) From : 19F (Theo Gray) Subject: Filename Variables How do you use any variables included after a filename, within the program, in a way such as: *<fsp> <variable> <variable> <variable> I ask, because I would like to write a short program to include on my discs called SRLOAD to act like the Master sideways RAM loading command to load ROM images into the RAM in my Watford Electronics ROM/RAM board which contains sideways RAM, but which is dynamic (whatever this means). To load in a ROM image from disk, I have to use the following commands, which I would need to incorporate in the program: ?&FF3<ram no. IN HEX>=0 (eg ?&FF31=0 clears RAM bank 1) *LOAD <fsp> 8000 followed by a press of <BREAK> (I have only got RAM banks 0 to 3) This would be very helpful, as I could then also use it to load into sideways RAM any commercial games which use this command, although I would have to be able to substitute the third variable ( RAM letter, if I am informed correctly) for a number 0 to 3 within the SRLOAD routine.  To : Silas S. Brown + 999 (All) From : 19F (Theo Gray) Subject: PD music Firstly, to Silas, thank you very much for the envelopes, as they seem to be just about what I wanted. I was wondering recently, when looking through listings of PD music by Silas, and others, how the coding worked, as I can not understand what any of the DATA statements mean, or how they can work with the program as it is. Is this just some sort of fancy protection, or what?           