8 BIT SOFTWARE
To: 999 (all members)
From: K4D (Lorin Knight)
Subject: Recommended PD Software
Since joining 8BS a few months ago
I have been sampling some of the
goodies in the PD library and am
perticularly pleased with the
following:
TBI-49(1) and TBI-49(2). POSTERS.
Useful if you have an Epson (or
compatible) 9-pin dot-matrix printer.
It will produce posters up to A4 size
but I have also found it excellent for
smaller items such as labels, inserts
for blank greeting cards, etc.
TBI-49(1) contains 31 fonts on the
drive-2 side and all the "works" on
the drive-0 side. TBI-49(2) contains
62 more fonts. I found it helpful to
create a single disc with the most
useful fonts all together on drive 2 -
especially as my DFS will accommodate
more than 31 files per side. But any
font files moved to drive 2 need to be
put in directory F - otherwise the
program won't find them.
Each of the fonts can have its
height, width and inter-character
spacing varied. It is easy to move the
text around, and to modify or change
fonts, to get the most pleasing
layout. If required you can surround
your "poster" with one of the standard
borders provided - or design a border
of your own.
TBI-54. MANDELBROT & JULIA.
In my first encounters with
Mandelbrot I used to leave the Beeb
running overnight to produce a single
picture. Now I can produce the basic
"beetle" in 40 seconds, with
explorations into the deeper recesses
taking a little longer. I found the
operating instructions somewhat sketchy
and it took me a little while to
discover how to manipulate fully all
the various options - but it was well
worth it. An amazing program!
BBC-102. SPELLCHECK.
I make considerable use of
WORDWISE+ but have always been to mean
to purchase a SPELLMASTER ROM, in the
hope that one day somebody would give
me a second-hand one. So I decided to
try this SPELLCHECK disc. Although it
lacks the speed of SPELLMASTER, I have
found it adequate for my purpose and
easy to use.
The program runs through the
required text file, ignoring any
embedded commands, and lists the words
which are not in its dictionary. You
can then proceed through the list,
word by word, taking one of the
following actions:
(a) add the word to the dictionary,
(b) correct the spelling,
(c) pass on with out doing either.
Within the dictionary there is a
fixed space allocated for each letter
of the alphabet. As supplied there
are around 5000 words and, on average,
slightly more than 50% of each
allocation is used up. It is easy to
remove unwanted words and so I don't
see myself ever running out of
space. Glancing through the dictionary
I can see many words I am unlikely to
need - and some I don't even know the
meaning of!
The disc can also be used with
VIEW and ASCII files.
From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS)
Program:WORD POWER W/P PROGRAMME
=======================================
What can I say about this programme?.
After a struggle to get it on to a DFS
disc and get it running I wish I had
spent the time and effort painting the
woodwork!. I think that the initial
impression one gets of a program
should be a good one if onlt to get you
interestd and progress and use it
further. I am afraid I switched off
after getting through the information
file and on to the Edit screen. Such a
poor memory as well. Long live
Interword, Wordwise, Wordwise + and
View. I get more pleasure out of using
the Kids excellent FOLIO package.
Sorry, but this one gets 0 out of 10.
=======================================
From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS)
Program: THE COALMAN & THE PIES
=======================================
As usual 3WW Fred Price, keeps us all
amused with the excellent poems he
submits. Please keep them coming in
Fred.
=======================================
From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS)
Program: Dreamscapes by Shawty of DS
=======================================
It is very nice to see a piece of
programming of this quality written for
the BBC, and I hope we see a lot more
of Digital Solutions software in the
near future. I was so impressed that I
went out and bought the disc..........
(I couldn't afford the company!)
=======================================
From: K3B (PAUL MARTIN-MATTHEWS)
Program: EUROPHILE by GFX
=======================================
This is a very interesting idea and
will find a place in the Educational
Section of my collection. The demo is
filled with lots of information, and
the map is nicely detailed. I can't
wait to get TBI57 and have a good
'nosey' around Europe and expand my
knowledge of it. Well done GFX
=======================================
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Program: My Early Days
ROBIN MOROM K4R gave us a good
helping of early computers. Nearly
right back to when counting was one,
two, three, four, thumb. A fellow I
know worked in a bank and bought
himself a calculator,(this was many
years ago and they were expensive
then.) to help him do the sums. The
bank stated that he must not use it
because they did not believe in that
way of reckoning so back to the books
of tables he had to go!
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Program: Aleshuf (Alphabet Shuffle)
Aleshuf by John Davis K2F got me
doing a few anagrams. I changed the
alphabet part to accept my own input
word/letters. So EIGHTBITSOFTWARE then
became We go after this bit, or It's
before what? Git! or as Chris might
say, Fab wee T'shirt I got. I'm now
having a go at putting JOHN'S shuffle
part in a program, (You will be in the
listing credits John). Program will be
named ANASHUF.
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Program: Intro screens
Great! What more can I say, except
that I personally prefer Intro2. I
think the benefits of the animation on
Intro1 are outweighed by the
appearance of the text on Intro1.
To: 999 & 4MD (Graham Gallagher)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: Puzzle solution
Very clever! I got as far as the
factors of 36 bit, but then I gave up.
Any similar puzzles (with solutions to
follow!) would be much appreciated.
To: 999 (all members)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: K4R's "My Early Days" article
I really enjoyed reading this - I hope
we can look forward to at least one
more "installment" about progress with
the UK101.
To: 999 (all members)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: K2O's language article
Very interesting - I didn't actually
know that there were languages
available which could create code to
run in ROM. I would find an article
going into detail on how to do this
with any of the languages mentioned
very interesting - perhaps with an
example ROM image to accompany it.
If I remember the advertisements
correctly, there were some
restrictions on using code produced
with BCPL - are these still in force
and how would they affect public
domain distribution of the code
produced?
To: 999 (all members)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Program: Prime/perfect numbers
A fascinating follow-up to the article
in issue 35. One book I have seen
mentions perfect numbers in passing
and it calls numbers which are smaller
than the sum of their factors
'abundant' rather than 'excessive'. Is
one of these terms more correct that
the other or are they equally
acceptable?
I have read that the Pythagoreans
apparently also considered 10 a
perfect number of a different type
because it was the sum of 1, 2, 3 and
4. Can anyone confirm or deny this,
simply as a matter of interest?
To: CCC (all members)
From: K2B (Colin Culpitt-Smith)
Subject: 'Dreamscape' demo, issue 35
I was most impressed with the
Dreamscape program which can be run
from the Demos menu in Issue 35. The
animated graphics move not only
quickly, but oh, so s-m-o-o-t-h-l-y
too! I also liked the accompanying
music. A superb piece of writing, and
it shows that the Beeb is still able
to hold its own.
From: K2B (Colin Culpitt-Smith)
Program: 'MAGIC3D' in Issue 35
Having used this very clever program,
I must congratulate the programmer on
the fascinating printouts of the
associated files, 'Picture', 'Furrows'
and 'Mex-Hat'. The seemingly pointless
abstract patterns are transformed into
amazing 3D shapes when held at close
range before the eyes. I've shown
the printouts to a number of people,
and they were all totally fascinated
by the hologram-like objects.
Excellent program & highly
recommended. Well done Lorin Knight
(K4D)!
BLAM!