8 BIT SOFTWARE
Constructive comments on programs
published by 8BS are always welcome.
Here are a few:
From: K2F (JOHN DAVIS)
Program: VARIOUS
MINESWEEPER AND PUSH THE BALE ARE
EXTREMELY GOOD STRATEGY GAMES - I'VE
WASTED MANY MORE HOURS OF HAPPY
AGGRAVATION THAN I'D INTENDED TRYING
TO CRACK THESE TO A DECENT LEVEL. IF
ANYONE DID MINESWEEPER IN UNDER 400
SECONDS, WOULD THEY PLEASE BRAG ABOUT IT
ON THE MESSAGE SYSTEM, AS THE BEST I
COULD MANAGE WAS 415. HELPFUL HINT:- IT
PAYS TO KEEP RESTARTING THIS GAME TILL
IT GIVES YOU A GOOD STARTING SEQUENCE,
SINCE GETTING BOXED IN AT THE START IS A
HOPELESS POSITION.
IF ANYONE KNOWS THE CORRECT OPENING
FEW MOVES TO ANY, OR ALL, LEVELS ABOVE
LEVEL 10 OF PUSH THE BALE, IT'D BE NICE
TO HEAR ABOUT IT, AS THAT'S WHERE I GOT
STUCK. HOW ALL THESE LEVELS WERE SO
CLEVERLY DESIGNED IN THE FIRST PLACE IS
A GREAT MYSTERY - THE WORK OF A FIENDISH
GENIUS. THE SCENARIO COULD HAVE BEEN A
BIT MORE EXOTIC THAN BALES OF STRAW IN A
WAREHOUSE - PERHAPS AN OLD MISER PUSHING
CHESTS OF LOLLY INTO STRONGROOMS IN AN
OLD MANSION...
THE CHRISTMAS SNOWMEN WERE CUTE 'N'
FESTIVE, WITH GREAT ARRANGEMENTS OF THE
MUSIC. IF THIS IS REVISED FOR NEXT YEAR,
THE OTHER MUCH BETTER TUNE TO "LITTLE
TOWN OF BETHLEHEM" WOULD BE APPRECIATED
- YOU KNOW THE ONE - B B B A£ B D C E,
BY LEWIS REDNER. ALSO "MIDNIGHT CLEAR"
BY RICHARD WILLIS - F D A C BFLAT G F G
F - WITH SOME NICE HARMONIES, WOULD GO
DOWN A TREAT. THERE'S ALSO AN INFERIOR
TUNE FOR "MIDNIGHT CLEAR" WHICH SEEMS TO
GET USED MORE OFTEN THAN THE GOOD ONE -
CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THIS?
To: CCC
From: 3SQ (Tim Parsons)
Subject: MESSAGING
I find it much easier to transfer the
Relevant files to my next (submission)
Disc, these are SendMes and SendMC,
with a simple Boot file to Boot the
disc, I am sure you will find it easy
to input even more messages and with a
keystrip, I have now progressed to
using colour, next issue, who knows I
shall be doing graphics !!.
I also thoroughly approve of the Menu
printout program.
From: K2H (RON BOYCE)
Program: ISSUE 32
As usual, this Issue was well up to
8BS standard and contained a lot of
very useful material.
The Menu Printer/Reader will be most
useful, and some of the games were
more than a little thought-provoking!
The NOUGHTS and CROSSES game in the
ADFS Extra section provided me with
several hours of programming
experience. Being something of a
perfectionist I amended this Program
to use names instead of 'Player 1' and
'Player 2', a running total of games
played and games won by each player,
a final 'score' table after 9 games
and large type for the X's and O's!
Some might think it a pretty useless
exercise but it certainly passes the
time, keeps the brain fairly active in
retirement, and is better than doing
crosswords!
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Program: MenRead
This seems like a very good idea. I
have only two suggestions. Firstly,
how about providing an option to spool
the list produced to a disc file,
appending the text to the end if the
file already exists. That way the file
could be loaded into a wordprocessor
and tidied up slightly before
printing, or possibly even used a part
of some customised database to search
for items on 8BS discs.
Secondly, the program only gives the
full path when this is included in the
filename. The menu program also has a
separate entry in the DATA lines for a
directory to be selected before
running the program - if this was
appended to the front of the filename
then all files would have their full
path displayed.
EDITOR.... Thanks Steven. No sooner
said than done.
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Program: Shoppin
Brilliant! Possibly the most original
program I've seen in ages. What more
can I say?
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Program: Catalogue printer
Just a small comment for the sake of
being awkward. Why not ask whether you
want a printout BEFORE asking how many
copies, because if you are just
looking on screen you are unlikely to
want more than one copy and the
question could then be avoided.
However, apart from that I am unable
to find any fault with the program at
all and it's certainly much better
than just a plain text file.
EDITOR.... Thanks Steven. No sooner
said than done.
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Program: Noughts and Crosses(ADFS)
Barry Maslin (K2L) shows us another
way to display N & C. As the ED. said
Barry has put a lot of effort into it.
I would like Barry to just study
Steven Flintham's (15A) article on the
same disc 'Presenting Programs'.It is
about using GET$ instead of INPUT. The
use of GET$ for the Y/N may avoid the
problem that I had when I pressed two
Y's then RETURN by mistake and the
program treated it as a NO instead of
a YES. Keep up the good work Barry.
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Program: CATER (L1M)
A jolly good looking caterpillar and
a pretty plant. A change to have a
cater. instead of a snake. I found the
H J U N keys a bit awkward to use and
the cursor keys a little better. I
kept biting myself! I would rather
have A Z * ? keys for the 'this way
and that' input. I did manage to turn
into a butterfly though. Very nice.
To: 999 (all members)+483
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Subject: Our former ED. Daniel
It was nice to see Daniel in full flow
again with lots of feed back helping
other members. Also very good and
detailed article about the Archimedes
and choice of computers. May I also
thank him for his comments about
programs. Its nice to hear from
someone with a comment, because if we
write a program and hear no more about
it does it mean 'no news is good news'
or 'its not worth the effort to put
finger to keyboard'?
Do you remember a few months ago in
an article Daniel said 'Dont buy a
ACORN yet because the price will be
slashed soon'. He was spot on and may
have saved some members a hundred or
so pounds. It pays to be a member.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: 8BS Messaging System
Congratulations to 15A(Steven
Flintham) on his improvement on his
excellent program.I also like the new
fKey strip printer.
The line Provide/Delete facility is a
big step forward as is also the word
wrap. This latter will be appreciated
most of all I think.
I have discovered what I think is a
problem.
If on completion of writing some text
one is browsing through it it is
possible to scroll the text without
the use of the cursor keys by pressing
RETURN. This works fine but with the
disastrous results that all the
various text colours disappear to
become the same colour as this text.
Can this be resolved please?.
EDITOR.. This is caused by the automatic
placing of text colours when pressing
RETURN for a new line. It is probably
simplest just to not press RETURN unless
you want to start a new line.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: 8BS Menu Reader
A great idea Chris.
Saves one having to power up the
computer and sort through discs to
find a particular program.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: VeroBoard Designer.
This is I think a very handy program
for any one into electronics.The big
advantage is the printout available.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: OCTAGRAM
Another superb program.
Could I please have some instructions
on how to solve the problem.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: Caterpillar.
Nice clean Graphics which makes a
pleasant change.I like it very much as
everything moves at a speed I can
control.Also a very nice Butterfly at
the end.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: Counter
This could be adapted for various uses
and is a useful program to have on
Library file.
I like the screen/printer print out.
The only improvement I can suggest is
that only the numbers selected be
displayed.
From: 0E7 (Fred Nevin)
Program: Hints & Tips Reader
Thank you very much indeed Chris for
this excellent piece of coding.
I feel like Aladdin felt when he
rubbed the lamp and the Genie
appeared.Yes it is indeed MAGIC.
From: 4MD (Graham Gallagher)
Program: 8BS MESSAGE KEY STRIP
A useful addition by Steven which
will ensure that full use is made of
his messaging system. The word wrap
improvement is also much appreciated.
Thanks for making things easier.
From: 4MD (Graham Gallagher)
Program:
The games on issue No.28 were each
tried out by my two children who have
since returned to play CATERPILLAR,
OLD DREAMS and have had various
attemps at solving the OCTAGRAM
puzzle. The latter is an excellent
educational game.
From: 4MD (Graham Gallagher)
Program: 8BS Menu Reader
I'll certainly use this utility for
every future issue and the listings
for the issues back to No.28 will be
a good easy reference. Every member
should make use of it.
BLAM!