From : K2J (D.Lowless)
To : 999 (All members)
Issue 2 of Destroyed Realities is
now ready... finally. Get in touch
if you are interested in a copy.
80Track, Double sided DFS only
this issue. About 350Ks worth of
PD, articles, software etc...
My address is 82 Main Street,
Pembroke
Dyfed
Wales
SA71 4HH
From : K2J (D.Lowless)
To : 999 (All members)
I have recently obtained a copy of
the Dynamics ROM by Lars
0sterballe. This is an excellent
ROM as it allows us to put all
our favourite routines in SRAM. I
am interested whether it is
legally allowed to put things like
$.Library.Aform in ROM. This is a
very useful way to use the ROM as
it means that on the Master you
don't have to reach for the
Welcome Disc every time you want
to format a disc.
In theory, you could initialise
the ROM when you switch on and
provided you are fairly careful
you could just type *AFORM every
time you wanted to format a disc.
The other option would be to try
and persuade those at Pineapple
Software to put a Rom image of ADU
in PD. And all their other
software for that matter!
Has anyone bought anything from
Computer Concepts recently. I just
bought The Accelerater ROM + disc
for 10 pounds!
From : K2J (David Lowless)
To : 999 (Everyone)
I have a very extensive collection
of Acorn Users and Micro Users and
am willing to lend these to
members if they send return
postage and packaging. Its best to
ring me to see if I've got the mag
you're after first. My Tel. no. is
(0646) 684427. Preferable if you
ring after 6pm. I've also got some
Micro User discs.
From : K2J (David Lowless)
To : 999 (Everyone)
Has anyone had a good look at the
Toplace program on one of Lars
0sterballe's PD discs. Has anyone
put this to good use? It offers a
lot of possibities for
development.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6Q (Leslie Roberts)
Subject: 'RUN' prevention
If you wish to prevent a BASIC program
from being RUN, add the following
temporary line as the FIRST line of
your program.
PRINT'"Bad program":?12=7
The ?12=7 cancels the 'RUN' or 'CHAIN'
command and returns the computer to
the immediate (keyboard) mode. It does
this by directing the computers
Primary Text Pointer to the input
buffer (page 7). This fools the
computer into thinking that it
shouldn't actually be running a
program, but waiting for instructions.
This idea could be used in conjunction
with a fix to prevent your program
being listed, but make certain that
the RUN prevention is the FIRST line
of the program.
If you feel that a hacker could list
your program and realise what you have
done, enter just the second half of
the line - the part after the colon.
Not many people would realise the
significance of the figures. In order
to restore your program to running
condition; let us say that you entered
the line as line number 5, type:
5 and press <RETURN>
This will delete the offending line.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K7H (!Shawty! - DSPD)
Subject: DSPD News
Digital Solutions News
----------------------
Digital Solutions has just released
3 new products into the 8BS Library
and should be available as soon as
they have been vetted.
The New products are :-
Window Kit
----------
A Font and a collection of procedures
for the creation of character based
windows on the Master 128, with an
emphasis on using the font to produce
your own procedures.
Graphics Kit
------------
A Collection of procedures for the
creation of 2D and 3D graphics on all
BBC Computers, including example
programs.
Music Tracker Utilities Disk
----------------------------
A Disc containing various utilities
and text files of information about
music tracker, which is also
available from 8BS, suitable for all
machines.
Digital Solutions may soon be setting
up their own bulletin board, this
depends on the availabilty of
hardware & software for the BBC and
whether or not I can afford a
telephone line to be installed. We
already have our own mini econet
system, and if the BBS gets off the
ground access to our network and
latest versions of our software will
be available.
If for any reason you wish to contact
Digital Solutions then we can be
contacted at the following address..
Digital Solutions PD
co P.J.Shaw
68 Millbank Road
Darlington
Co Durham
DL3 9NH
To: 999 (all members)
From: K4V (Trevor Crapper)
Subject: Help Received
I want to go public and thank both
Colin Culpitt-Smith for his excellent
work in making me up the fittings to
make two single disc drives into a
double. Colin got another single drive
free and this works a treat. Thank you
very much indeed.
Now my old friend Tim Parsons for his
tireless work on my behalf. This man
is regular saint and is willing to
help anybody with anything, assistance
no charge. Many Many thanks Tim and
long may you prosper.
My thanks also to Steve Flitham about
the dual drive conversion.
Regarding playing chess at one move
per issue, well for a 40 move game
that is 80 issues which equates to
around 8 years which is twice as long
as our current matches are running and
some players can knock 'em off in 6
months. It's a wee bit long, good idea
though!! Just imagine a game running
into a hundred moves!!!
To one and all thank you for the
pleasure you are giving me.
Trevor Crapper
To: 999 (all members)
From: K5K (David Robinson)
Subject: HELLO!
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
I am very impressed with my first
issue of the 8-Bit Software magazine
(issue 34). Talk to Charlie is a
super program, which I am sure will go
down well with son Matthew (8). I
also liked Roy Dickens's Wot Next. I
have not tried ARC yet, but it looks
useful. I have thought for some time
that we need something akin to the PC's
PKZIP.
Altogether, interesting and
entertaining, but there is so much in
it that with my limited spare time I
won't have finished it before the next
one is due! I shall probably only
take every 2nd or 3rd issue (though I
suppose this will mean I will miss the
replies to my messages - would a
mailbox facility be possible? Or is
that how the Messages for You section
works?) EDITOR....... YUP
A seasoned BBC user, I started in
1984 with a model B, to which various
accessories were added. The BBC B got
ill a couple of years ago and has now
been retired to the loft, it's place
being taken by a Master 512.
I don't get much time to play with the
computer, due to the usual family &
home committments, as well as a number
of hobbies.
My interests in computing cover most
areas, excepting most games. I have
recently been experimenting with
sampled sounds and have collected lots
of .WAV format sound samples, though I
havn't recorded any of my own yet. I
have managed to play a few back
through the BBC's speaker via a home
written (slow) conversion program.
I like writing BASIC programs and hope
to submit the odd program or two, when
time permits.
Well, that's all for now, you 8BS
members seem a friendly and helpful
bunch - pleased to make your
acquaintances!
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6L (Richard Chamberlain)
Subject: Hybrid Music 5000
Are there any 5000 users out there in
Beeb land? I am also a member of
Solinet, and would like to exchange
ideas etc. with anyone who uses the
above. I am still rather a novice, but
have put one or two pieces into
Solinet. If anyone wishes to contact
me directly my address is on file with
8BS. Otherwise leave a message on the
monthly disk for me.
To : 999 (Everyone)
From : 483 (Daniel Shimmin)
Re : Watford (again)
Once again, I thought it would be wise
for me to mention another interesting
offer from Watford Electronics. They
are selling off BBC-compatible 30Mb
hard disk drives for well under two
hundred pounds (compared with over five
hundred a few years ago). This will
probably be your last chance to buy a
decent hard disk for your Beeb.
They are also selling a variety of
other bits and pieces for the Beeb, far
too much to list here and some of it
quite interesting, so I suggest that
anyone interested in picking up
hardware add-ons has a look at the last
couple of pages of their ad in Acorn
User or Acorn Computing (on display for
flicking through (or even buying) at
many newsagents).
To : 999 + YJ2
From : 483 (Daniel Shimmin)
Re : Soundtracker filetypes
CocoTrak (Coconizer) &365, STmodule
&CB6, Symphony &10B, SoundTracker &001,
TeqMusic &CC5.
To : 999 (Everyone)
From : 483 (Daniel Shimmin)
Re : 8BS Anagrams
The following are anagrams of
"Eight-Bit Software User Group"
It is huge software bug report.
Figure writes huge bootstrap.
Whoops, if brutes regurgitate.
Brutes outweigh profits rage.
Huge twit argues profits bore.
Oops! sure-fire water-tight bug.
Argue if Peterborough twists.
Of brighter gratuitous sweep.
Ugh! brute Tories pig software!
Fire-arrows bug up the egotist.
Repetitious bug growth fears.
Fatuous ghost-writer beer pig.
Fraught power bruise egotist.
Boast huge pigs torturer wife.
Piggish outer software brute.
Software brutes huge pig riot.
Beware tortuous pigs fighter.
Bug-free ghost-writer utopias.
Huge warts of brute pig Tories.
Outweigh first-rate pub-goers.
Frogs outweigh pirate brutes.
It is bugger up other software.
Ugh! tiger tower profits abuse.
Regurgitate posh robust wife.
Profits where bug outrages it.
Pigs forswore huge attribute.
Group outweigh briefest rats.
Tories bug huge software trip.
Ego of treasurership bug twit.
The longest words found using some of
the letters:
SURREPTITIOUS
TREASURERSHIP
Anagrams produced with SuperGram, a
computer program
for the Archimedes/A3000 range of
computers.
To: 999 + K5A (Robin Moffat)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: Messaging system improvements
To reply to each of the suggestions in
issue 37 in turn:
1) Message to ASCII transfer
This could be implemented quite easily
either as part of the messaging
program itself or (probably) by
modifying 7TO3. I have now added
simple printing facilities to the
system - if anyone still wants message
to ASCII transfer facilities I will
implement it but I think the ability
to print messages out will probably be
enough for most people.
2) Viewing messages on a program like
the editor
I'm not quite sure what is wanted
here. Does K5A mean viewing the
messages from an issue while editing
messages (as suggested several times
before) or a facilitiy to take the
messages on an issue and view/print
them individually AS IF they were
messages you had created in the
editor?
The first is a good idea, but I don't
see how I can include it in the
messaging system without producing
major compatibility problems by
storing the message file being viewed
in sideways RAM. The second is also a
good idea and I might write a program
to do something like that, but it
isn't exactly an improvement to the
messaging system. Basically, the
program would have to read the
*RUNnable file from the issue disc,
using the solid line between messages
to detect where they end. The trouble
would be that the 'message terminator'
is not just a single character but a
whole line (actually 39 commas).
3) Automatic insertion of spaces
As I mentioned in issue 37 I can't
implement a full 'wordprocessor style'
continuous insert mode because of the
difficulties with control codes. I
could however provide an insert mode
where every character entered shifted
the current line up (as with CTRL-f6)
before being entered, shifting extra
text off the right of the screen
rather than onto the next line. In
other words, provide a facility for
CTRL-f6 to be pressed 'automatically'
when another key was pressed. I will
do this if anyone thinks it will be
useful but otherwise I will just leave
it as it is, since I suspect K5A was
thinking of a 'proper' insert mode.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K4R (Robin Morom)
Subject: 'Mandlebrots' in Issue 37
Congralulations to Steven Flintham for
tackling a VERY difficult-to-explain
subject. Just a few points if I may.
As it happens it was not my query as
he says. It was from Robin Moffatt
(K5A). It is easy to distinguish us.
Just remember that Robin Moffatt is
taller than I am.
A more important point is that in
trying to simplify the explanation
Steven says "All positive real numbers
have one and only one square root."
Well, actually NO. All positive real
numbers have TWO and only TWO square
roots. E.g. the square roots of +4 are
+2 and -2. As he points out later in
the same paragraph -2 times -2 is +4.
I am sure that this is only a slip but
it might cause confusion to someone
new to all this maths.
Another cause of confusion is that
electrical and electronics engineers
use i to signify intantaneous current
and so they use the letter j for the
square root of -1 and you may see this
in some books. Just remember that in
dealing with complex numbers:
j=i=SQR(-1)
However, a very good article. Thank
you Steven.
PRESS BREAK